"...That's how it went."
Silver Fox stood in the large meeting room, facing Gao Liangwei, Zhang Minglu, Li Meng, and other department heads, explaining the matter of investigating the traitor at the academy.
Everyone listened with varied expressions, some in disbelief, others burning with indignation.
"Bang!"
After Silver Fox finished her report and left, someone slammed the table hard.
"This Guan Tong has no regard for law or order! He kills at the slightest provocation, and the person he killed was an important figure like Zhou Qinfeng. Even if the latter was a traitor, he should have been arrested, interrogated, convicted, and then dealt with!"
"This kid clearly doesn't give a damn about official rules and regulations. If he just acts on his own code based on sheer strength, what's next? And what did he mean by that last remark, that he'd storm the Countermeasures Research Office base to take someone out?"
What angered the department heads the most wasn't that Guan Tong killed Zhou Qinfeng, but that he had demanded the government execute Duanmu Feng, threatening to do it himself otherwise.
That was the real source of their frustration. Because Guan Tong uttering those words meant that forcibly breaking into the Countermeasures Research Office base was a potential option for him.
And his potential option had become a potential risk for everyone in the base.
Because all along, the people in the research office had assumed the base was an absolutely safe place.
Now Guan Tong had shattered that consensus, and whether or not he actually could or would do it, it undoubtedly bred a sense of insecurity among the base personnel.
"We must make preparations against this madman," someone proposed. "We should immediately devise a combat plan specifically targeting him."
Zhang Minglu, however, spoke up seriously in opposition: "Director, everyone, is it really necessary for us to go to such lengths and form an adversarial posture?
I think this young man Guan Tong's mindset isn't hard to read. Just as Zhao Ming said, Guan Tong spent so long in a jungle society that he developed a habit of tit-for-tat retaliation, an eye for an eye.
The reason he wants to kill Dean Zhou and Duanmu Feng is that they tried to kill Shi Jingyi. Although there's no solid evidence yet, I suspect Guan Tong's relationship with Shi Jingyi goes beyond ordinary friendship. They're likely close confidants or even lovers, which is why his reaction is so intense."
"I agree with Dr. Zhang's view," Li Meng seconded. "Not to mention that Guan Tong has assisted the government multiple times in the past, saving countless citizens' lives through the rules. Just look at his targets of killing, they're basically all for revenge, nothing else."
The man who had slammed the table earlier stared at Li Meng in utter disbelief.
"Li Meng, you used to be the Director of the Police Department, and you're actually endorsing retaliatory vengeance? If every victim's family took the same approach to exact revenge on criminals, then what's the point of your Police Department? What's the point of the courts?"
Li Meng frowned and shook his head: "Please don't twist my words. I never said I support retaliatory vengeance.
It's just that the times have changed. Without the stable environment of peacetime, many rules and laws have become rigid and simply cannot adapt to this era."
"The world is unstable, but at least Beixing is still stable for now. Allowing Guan Tong's behavior to go unchecked is essentially allowing Beixing to become unstable too, isn't that the logic?"
"I think..."
Inside the large meeting room, everyone fell into a heated debate, neither side able to convince the other.
Gao Liangwei listened for a while, then tapped the table and said, "Everyone, stop."
The room fell silent, all eyes turning to him.
Gao Liangwei said, "After listening for this long, the only thing both sides of the dispute agree on is that Guan Tong's actions were wrong.
The point of divergence in their argument is whether to respond to, handle, or even prepare hostile measures against Guan Tong's wrongdoings."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Li Meng and Zhang Minglu didn't think Guan Tong was right either, but they firmly opposed harsh accountability on this matter.
They believed that doing so would escalate Guan Tong's conflict with Zhou Qinfeng and Duanmu Feng into a conflict with the entire Countermeasures Research Office.
In Zhang Minglu's and others' view, that was a complete lose-lose situation.
The other faction not only believed Guan Tong was wrong, but also believed he should pay a price for that mistake.
That is, measures must be taken to curb Guan Tong's behavior, otherwise, today he only takes revenge on his enemies, but in the future, his killing spree might grow more and more severe, eventually threatening all citizens.
"Let's compromise. For now, we won't hold Guan Tong accountable, but it is necessary to formulate a tactical plan against him." Gao Liangwei, as the base director, gave a brief answer.
That was acceptable to both sides.
"Besides, this isn't a good time. Even if Guan Tong is a threat, he's only a potential threat. Right now, a much greater threat is staring us right in the face, one we cannot afford to ignore."
Everyone understood the implication, knowing Gao Liangwei was referring to the Suroma problem.
The civil war erupting in Suroma was by no means just an internal issue of that nation. It was a problem the whole world was watching and would be affected by.
Previously, Bruce's control over Suroma only completed control at the upper levels. That is, after purging the Senate, no one could interfere with him from the highest decision-making level anymore.
If Bruce were allowed to suppress the ordinary populace unchecked, then before long, no one at the lower levels of Suroma would dare oppose his actions either.
Once Bruce had unified the domestic ideology like this, his next step would inevitably be exporting war abroad, dragging other nations into the flames of conflict.
"According to intelligence, the buyer currently acquiring 'Coordinate Resonance Anchors' at several times the market price is none other than an official Suroma government department.
Moreover, word from Manchidon is that the Suroma government has already extended immigration invitations to them, and accepting would come with hefty Ascension Coin subsidies."
Gao Liangwei's words shifted everyone's attention away from Guan Tong for the moment.
The head of the Market department said, "That's right. Right now, the price of an anchor item on the market has soared to tens of millions of Ascension Coins. This is simply outrageous."
"At such sky-high prices... those who had already settled down might start getting restless and take desperate risks again."
"Director, it seems Suroma has gotten hold of some important information about anchor items," Zhang Minglu speculated. "The purpose of sending immigration invitations to smaller nations should be to use other countries' citizens to continue the door-opening experiments."
"That should be it. If it were only to fix a stable space, how could its value possibly compare to tens of millions of Ascension Coins."
"They even offer Ascension Coin subsidies for immigration? Isn't that basically buying people from other countries to use as test subjects? This is..."
More than absurd, everyone felt a chill run down their spines.
Suroma, or rather Bruce's approach, had already begun to strip away the "purpose" attribute of humanity, leaving only the "means" attribute.
In this way, ordinary people in Bruce's eyes were merely a resource, a kind of human-shaped ore.
Such situations weren't uncommon. Not to mention various instances throughout history, even just two years ago, during the early days of the Doomsday Rules, large numbers of humans were treated this way.
Beixing was no exception. Back then, "provider bases" were everywhere across the nation, and the government had to use iron-fisted measures, expending considerable effort, to clean them all up.
Now Bruce was replaying the same old tune. The Beixing decision-making layer judged that if the world turned a blind eye to his actions, the fall or regression of civilization would not be far off.
"The highest decision-making layer issued me two new missions earlier today," Gao Liangwei said.
"First, the research department must urgently uncover the hidden value of anchor items and figure out the reason behind Suroma's sky-high purchases.
Second, all departments will work jointly starting today, treating the armed forces led by Bruce of Suroma as the hypothetical enemy, and collaboratively develop a detailed combat plan."