After leaving the Twin Stars Bar, the agent crossed the long street and arrived at a secluded, empty alley entrance.
He pulled out his phone and made a call.
"Hey, Brother Tianci, the matter has been handled."
"Understood. Once the task is complete, you can return to the branch. Your reward will be distributed later."
"Good, thank you, Brother Tianci. Also, please give my regards to the Chairman!"
The man hung up after speaking, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.
He didn't notice at all that a wisp of shadow was lurking behind his shoulder.
Guan Tong stood not far away, eavesdropping on the man's conversation through Shadow's shared five senses.
He noted down the two titles, "Tianci" and "Chairman," then continued manipulating Shadow to trail the man, watching where he would settle down and where the "branch" that Tianci mentioned on the phone was located.
The man mounted a motorcycle that had been parked in the alley in advance and sped off along the road, finally stopping in front of a dilapidated building at the city's edge.
Guan Tong discovered that quite a few people lived near this abandoned building, with various daily necessities like pots, bowls, and utensils scattered around. It looked rather like a refugee camp.
This kind of camp wasn't exclusive to Xisiya; they existed in Beixing as well.
Especially in the early days of the Doomsday Rules, many organizations and groups had claimed abandoned counties, villages, or even tourist attractions as their own.
But as time passed, the outdoor environment became increasingly uninhabitable.
Rules like the Nightmare Beasts and the Green Hell posed a danger level several grades higher for outdoor settlement groups compared to those living in shelters. The two weren't even on the same level.
Combined with the government's deliberate guidance, there weren't many outdoor groups left in Beixing now. The vast majority of people lived in official shelters.
Although Xisiya had studied and imported Beixing's shelter designs, they couldn't cover the entire population in a short time. Thus, it was unavoidable that some people still lived on city streets or in outdoor environments.
As for these people, as long as they didn't commit crimes or cause trouble, Yelanka wouldn't intervene for the time being. She had too many matters to handle and still needed to prioritize what was urgent versus what could wait.
The agent Guan Tong was trailing entered the camp and chatted and laughed with the others, never mentioning the commission or what he had been doing.
But to Guan Tong's surprise, he quickly discovered that the people living in this camp weren't ordinary.
He saw several people chatting and laughing while stuffing plastic bottles into their mouths, chewing away happily.
...They were genetic mutants created by the high concentrations of microplastics injected during the Microplastic Infestation rule.
Or as the internet commonly called them, "Plastic People."
After that rule ended, aside from the initial burst of discussion, these people were quickly forgotten.
Not only that, society highly discriminated against them, refusing to consider them normal.
Even in Beixing, a large number of "Plastic People" were ostracized by normal people at the time, and the authorities ultimately had to centrally house them in shelters of their own kind.
Guan Tong quickly noticed that besides the many "Plastic People" in this camp, there were also some people with obvious disabilities, and ordinary people made up the overwhelming majority. He could barely see any Ascendants.
These discoveries made him realize that this camp seemed to be composed of "rule victims" and "the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled."
Could it be...
Guan Tong thought about how he himself had grown up in an orphanage in Beixing. Surely that camp had nothing to do with Jiang Chen? Surely that guy couldn't possibly have even a shred of kindness, willing to help those vulnerable groups?
As he pondered, he released more shadow lines to monitor the entire camp, hoping to gather some intelligence.
After a full two hours of surveillance, he decided it wasn't working.
These camp members only engaged in idle chatter. Not only did they never mention Han Qiu, they didn't even bring up the name "Tianci."
This made Guan Tong think that he should find a breakthrough from the agent himself.
So he waited another half hour. When the man who had made the call went behind a wall outside the camp to urinate, before he could even undo his belt, his vision suddenly went black.
He barely opened his mouth, but before he could cry out, he felt his mouth stuffed and his limbs bound, with no room to struggle at all.
When his vision returned, he found himself on the rooftop of some building. Aside from the person standing before him, there was nothing else around.
"Who is this Tianci you've been in contact with, and who is the Chairman you asked him to thank?"
The person didn't waste words and asked the questions directly.
The man froze for a few seconds. Realizing his situation, he immediately clamped his mouth shut and said nothing.
"If you don't talk, I'll kill you right now."
A shadow condensed into a blade, pressing against the man's throat.
The man stared at the shifting shadow, his pupils suddenly contracting. "You're... Shadow?!"
Guan Tong: "I'm the one asking the questions now."
The shock on the man's face took seven or eight seconds to subside. "Kill me if you want. I would never betray Brother Tianci, never betray the Chairman."
"What have they done for you to deserve such loyalty?"
"Heh... Nothing much, really. They just treated me, treated all of us outcasts, as normal people."
The man looked at Guan Tong, his eyes filled with intense envy and resentment.
"You wouldn't understand anyway. After all, who are you? The lofty 'Shadow'! The World's Number One Ascendant! What do you know about the plight of us little people?"
Guan Tong more or less understood now.
"The Chairman, and that Brother Tianci, they specifically take in people who have been rejected by mainstream society. Then they use your gratitude to make you work for them, right?"
"Nonsense! What use?! We're all volunteers!"
Guan Tong's single word, "use," instantly enraged the man. Spittle flew everywhere as he became extremely agitated.
"We Truth-Bound, we microplastic mutants, and disabled ordinary people without Mind Power, nobody wants anything to do with us! Who else would care whether we live or die besides the Chairman? Who would provide us with survival supplies?!"
"..."
Guan Tong thought to himself that he really hadn't guessed wrong.
This camp... no, since that Tianci said "return to the branch," it meant there were many such collection points. Perhaps they were spread across countries all over the world.
If that were the case, the "Chairman" undoubtedly held control over an extremely massive organization.
Even more terrifying was that since all the members of this organization were people rejected by mainstream society, they would be inadvertently ignored by society as a whole...
This was very likely an organization that was both enormous and "invisible."
"If I'm not mistaken, your Chairman is Han Qiu," Guan Tong said.
If before he had thought the probability of the mysterious client being Han Qiu was only fifty percent, now it had risen to ninety percent.
Using these socially neglected people, granting them favors to make them risk their lives for him, this was absolutely Han Qiu's style.
Why? Because Jiang Lanying, who had once mass-adopted orphans and cultivated them into her own trusted subordinates and suicide squad, had the exact same style!
As someone with countless connections to Jiang Lanying, Han Qiu's method of winning people over might well have been learned from her.
But while Jiang Lanying's target was orphans, Han Qiu's target was rule victims. One had to admit this was improvement upon the teacher.
When the man heard the name "Han Qiu" from Guan Tong's mouth, a flicker of confusion passed through his eyes, but his mouth said, "I can't tell you that!"
His expression was laid completely bare before Guan Tong.
"You really can't tell me, because you don't even know who the Chairman is. You can only contact him through that intermediary called Tianci. Am I right?"
"..."
"You describe this Chairman as if he were a saint. But if he's such a good person, why doesn't he even dare to reveal his identity to you? Don't you think that's contradictory in itself? What reason would someone who does good deeds have to hide who he is?"
"You..."
The man was momentarily at a loss for words, but quickly argued, "No! The Chairman has his reasons for doing this! There are too many evil people in this world who can't stand to see good people do good deeds. If the Chairman's identity were exposed, those evil people would target him and kill him!"
Guan Tong didn't mock the man for being unreasonable. Instead, he nodded.
"What you said isn't entirely wrong, but it doesn't apply in this situation. I've never heard of a truly good person who, after doing a favor, would have the recipient work for them. That's textbook favor-mongering."
The man was silent for a long time, then shook his head.
"You're wrong. We're not working for the Chairman; we're working for ourselves. Only in the world where the Chairman succeeds will there be a place for people like us. But you, Shadow, in the world where people like you succeed, only yourselves will remain!"
Guan Tong looked at the man's hateful gaze without any anger in his heart.
He just hadn't expected that so many people resented him, when he had saved so many people across many rules.
Was it because of the Dialoguer's quota theory influence? So every powerful Ascendant would be viewed by others as a thorn in their side?
And the reason he wasn't angry was also because he found the man before him pitiable.
Of all the visions to believe in, he chose to believe in a false saint like Han Qiu.
Han Qiu, who treated everything like a game, would he be willing to lead these people through a "game clear"? That kind of thing probably only existed in dreams.
"What? Nothing to say?"
"...I just don't understand. Both Beixing and Xisiya provide shelter and food for rule victims. Why would you rather trust a liar than believe in official institutions?" Guan Tong said.
The man burst into laughter as if he'd heard a joke.
"The supplies the government provides are only meant to keep us penned up like livestock! Only the Chairman genuinely considers our future!"
"..."
Guan Tong truly had nothing left to say. He wasn't a debater, and he didn't feel it was necessary to convince the man before him.
He manipulated Shadow to search the man's body and retrieve the phone used to contact Tianci. The man struggled and cursed, "It's useless! We use encrypted communications! Even if you kill me, I won't leak a single thing!"
"Then go die."
After saying this, Guan Tong manipulated the Shadow Blade to pierce through the man's heart, then activated Body Swap and vanished without a trace.