The tall steel city gate slowly opened. Huo Jiangmin stood in the center, solemn in military uniform, with his adjutant holding an umbrella beside him. His forces clearly hadn’t all returned—he only brought two squad teams, with several hundred previously missing residents in the armored vehicles behind.
Huo Yanji didn’t have the habit of having others hold umbrellas for him. He adjusted the glove gripping the umbrella handle and went straight to the point: “How did these people end up in the General’s hands?”
Huo Jiangmin didn’t speak.
The main city had seven gates, with the main gate having the most traffic and basically never closing. But at this moment, apart from soldiers, there wasn’t a single resident at the gate, not a sound of human voices—eerily quiet, like an empty city just discovered.
“Why don’t you first tell me what happened?”
Ling Gen narrowed his eyes: “The General doesn’t know?”
The rain pounded overhead as soldiers faced each other in confrontation, separated by the curtain of rain into two worlds.
Seeing the tense atmosphere, Fu Xi quickly explained what had happened in the city: “General Huo was framed some days ago—”
Huo Jiangmin nodded slightly: “I know about that.”
Fu Xi breathed a sigh of relief: “The ‘Dawn’ and ‘Dawn No. 2’ plans have both been exposed.”
“If they’re exposed, so be it. Lies are lies after all, and would be exposed sooner or later…” Huo Jiangmin said casually, “But ‘Dawn No. 2’? What’s that about?”
Ling Gen’s eyes sharpened: “The General doesn’t know about ‘Dawn No. 2’?”
Huo Jiangmin paused: “Should I know?”
Just now Fu Xi had explained that “both ‘Dawn’ and ‘Dawn No. 2’ were exposed,” as if assuming Huo Jiangmin knew about “Dawn No. 2.”
Huo Yanji’s tone was flat, without inflection: “Weren’t these residents brought back by the General from Rift No. 2?”
Huo Jiangmin answered calmly: “Yes, they were suddenly sent to the underground base by Court soldiers. I didn’t know their purpose, and couldn’t contact the city. They couldn’t explain clearly either, so I came back to see what was happening.”
The other two remained silent, their eyes carrying traces of suspicion, unsure whether to believe Huo Jiangmin’s explanation.
Logically, Huo Jiangmin couldn’t possibly be unaware of the “Dawn No. 2” plan. His sudden stationing at Rift No. 2 was very likely part of executing “Dawn No. 2.”
His sudden return to the city was also probably because he learned the plan was exposed, so he brought the people back and pretended to be innocent, knowing nothing.
This was a more reasonable speculation.
But Huo Jiangmin always had that smiling expression, making it hard to distinguish truth from falsehood in his words.
Fu Xi asked cautiously: “What mission did the General receive to suddenly guard Rift No. 2?”
Huo Jiangmin uttered two words: “Classified.”
“…” This made it very difficult to tell whether Huo Jiangmin truly didn’t know or was just cutting losses to avoid responsibility.
Huo Yanji said without expression: “As a knowing maintainer of the ‘Dawn’ plan, the General needs to remain in the city for investigation. I’m afraid you can’t return to the rift to execute that classified mission for some time.”
“Fine by me.” Huo Jiangmin looked up at the sky. Even with the rain, it was much more comfortable than the pitch-black rift. “Staying underground any longer would make anyone moldy—you don’t mind if I go home for a bath, do you?”
Huo Yanji: “Please, go ahead.”
“Then I’ll leave those people outside to you.” Before leaving, Huo Jiangmin looked Huo Yanji up and down and raised an eyebrow: “Did they interrogate you and use finger torture these past days?”
Fu Xi’s face darkened: “You’re exaggerating, that didn’t happen.”
Huo Jiangmin clicked his tongue: “Since your hands aren’t disabled, why are our General Huo’s shoelaces tied like ghost scribbles?”
“…”
Ling Gen finally found a kindred spirit—these shoelaces could really drive someone with OCD crazy. He couldn’t help but add: “Like little Wendy’s tentacles from the research institute.”
Little Wendy was the name of a jellyfish, a light blue deviant jellyfish that was particularly beautiful and famous, appearing on TV several times. Its tentacles were several times the length of its body and always tangled into a mess.
“That’s not like a little jellyfish, clearly like a little lover.” Huo Jiangmin casually dropped this comment and left.
Huo Yanji remained unmoved by their teasing, looking up at the residents who were getting off vehicles one by one outside the city. Saiya was among them, uninjured but looking terrible.
Seeing Huo Yanji approach, he immediately came forward: “Sir, I failed in my duty.”
Huo Yanji said: “Don’t leave out any details. Tell me everything that happened.”
Saiya: “Yes.”
It had been nearly twenty days since the hostage convoy disappeared.
At the time on the road, those who stopped them wore Supreme Court soldier uniforms, so they didn’t become suspicious and were controlled immediately, with no time to call for backup.
“I’m sorry, sir. My vigilance was too poor.” Saiya looked terrible. “After drugging us unconscious, they took the water route. I woke up groggily several times during the journey and heard some of them mention ‘brain surgery.'”
Huo Yanji’s expression turned cold: “And then?”
Saiya said: “But these soldiers didn’t take us back to the underground city. Instead, they sent us to a closed rebel camp for housing. They never did anything to us though, until two days ago when they drugged us unconscious again for transport. When I woke up, I found myself at Rift No. 2 and saw General Huo.”
He knew nothing about the major events of these twenty days—Huo Yanji’s explosion attack, nearly dying at Rift No. 2, the human base two thousand meters down the rift, Huo Yanji being framed, the revelation of both “Dawn” plans…
He was completely clueless, full of questions.
In the distance, the rumbling sound of armored vehicles approached. Huo Yanji stepped past Saiya: “Colonel Wei Lan will explain everything to you. Rest well for two days after settling in.”
“Yes…”
A convoy slowly stopped at the city gate, with numbers indicating vehicles from District 7.
An assistant holding an umbrella got out first, bending to wait by the car door, his back quickly soaked by rain.
Gode stepped out of the car. Seeing Huo Yanji leading a team to greet him, his eyes flashed with satisfaction: “General Huo’s courtesy is quite good this time.”
Huo Yanji raised his hand slightly.
The soldiers behind him received the signal and immediately stepped forward to restrain Gode and control the convoy.
Huo Yanji showed full courtesy: “Vice Speaker, you are suspected of endangering civilian lives and must remain in the main city for investigation. During this period, you may not contact anyone.”
“What!?” Gode was stunned. Even being restrained couldn’t hide his arrogant attitude. “Do you know what you’re doing?? Accusing a council member without cause—can you bear the consequences!?”
Norman, who got out of the car with him, looked unsurprised. He had already received the main city’s request to discuss revealing the “Dawn” plan. He sighed silently, looking at the completely quiet city gate, and asked: “How is the situation in the city?”
Huo Yanji said: “Still under control.”
Gode had no idea what was happening. Listening to their conversation, he was both shocked and furious: “Huo Yanji, are you really trying to rebel?!”
Huo Yanji glanced at him: “What, you didn’t participate in the ‘Dawn No. 2’ plan? Didn’t think about implanting micro-chips in the people on the list, turning those successfully contaminated by the rift into the Supreme Court’s private soldiers?”
Gode’s face changed drastically: “How could you…”
He stopped himself in time, falling silent.
Even if the “Dawn No. 2” plan was discovered, the documents didn’t mention the brain chip implantation plan. How did Huo Yanji know about it?
When Saiya mentioned hearing about “brain surgery,” Huo Yanji had guessed most of it.
Assuming the “Dawn No. 2” plan succeeded and several Huo Fengs did emerge from those tens of thousands of “failed genetic test” subjects, crawling up from the depths, how would the Court ensure they wouldn’t harbor resentment and turn against the safe zones or the Court?
The answer was simple: just implant explosive chips in these still defenseless people before entering the rift, with life and death switches controlled by the Court. Disobedience meant death.
No matter how powerful these “Huo Fengs” became, they were still human. If their heads exploded, they’d still die.
Huo Yanji said coldly: “Seems it’s not me wanting to rebel, but the Court wanting to become kings in the apocalypse.”
“What nonsense are you spouting?!”
Gode’s rebuttal carried no intimidation. Huo Yanji directly had him taken to detention.
He ignored Gode’s roars, turning to look at District 7 Administrator Norman: “What brings you to the main city?”
Norman said: “I need to see General Huo Jiangmin.”
Huo Yanji’s eyes flickered: “About what?”
Norman hesitated for a few seconds: “You asked me earlier for the list of residents transferred from the main city to District 7 in recent years. Did you look at it?”
Huo Yanji didn’t speak.
Norman held his umbrella, standing in the rain. After more than twenty days, he seemed older, his hair even whiter.
“You must have suspected long ago, right?” Norman said with certainty, “Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me for that list.”
Lightning split the dark sky, as if tearing a hole in it, and the rain fell even harder.
Rainwater pounded the ground, soaking the messy shoelaces, seemingly foreshadowing the current complex and chaotic situation.
When crisis truly arrived, troubles wouldn’t line up one by one like the Calabash Brothers rescuing grandpa, waiting for you to solve one before the next appeared.
All troubles erupted together—impossible to cut through, impossible to sort out.
…
Huo Jiangmin said to his adjutant behind him: “Go back, you’ve worked hard.”
“Yes.”
He entered his door code, his wrist trembling slightly.
A voice suddenly came from behind: “Are you injured?”
Huo Jiangmin almost released his tentacles before barely recognizing the voice, turning back: “Sang Jue?”
Sang Jue nodded: “So you and the General are neighbors.”
Huo Jiangmin turned to face Sang Jue, smiling: “When these two apartments were assigned, we were still young, and Yanji didn’t hate me as much as he does now.”
He squinted slightly, smiling on the surface but actually sizing up this seemingly harmless young man.
When had Sang Jue appeared behind him? He hadn’t heard a sound.
“Ji… the General doesn’t hate you.” Sang Jue added, “I think.”
“Really?” Huo Jiangmin laughed ambiguously, “I thought he’d been holding a grudge against me all these years for what I did back then.”
Sang Jue asked: “You mean becoming a deviant first?”
Huo Jiangmin raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised: “He even told you about that?”
Sang Jue nodded: “He told me everything.”
Huo Jiangmin’s smile faded somewhat: “Seems he really likes you.”
Sang Jue’s lips curved slightly: “He said he likes me first.”
First best friend equals first like—no problem.
Huo Jiangmin’s arms hung straight at his sides, probably guessing that Sang Jue had tied Huo Yanji’s shoelaces.
He used to think Huo Yanji would be like Old Herman—lonely for life, solitary until death, possessing nothing but infamy.
Huo Jiangmin walked toward the exterior wall, looking at the storm, speaking words he’d never said to Huo Yanji: “I really wronged him back then.”
“On one hand, learning about the ‘Dawn’ plan made me very painful when I was young. Becoming a sacrifice myself could reduce that guilt…”
“On the other hand, my lover wanted to become a deviant. I couldn’t stop him from pursuing his ideals, but I also couldn’t live the next thirty years in constant anxiety, fearing he might lose his mind and become a monster any day.”
So he chose ‘evolution’ first, cutting off Huo Yanji’s path.
Sang Jue looked puzzled: “I thought you didn’t want the General to become a sacrifice.”
Huo Jiangmin paused for a long while, showing a slight smile, turning his back to the rain curtain: “Those who bear secrets are the loneliest. I made him live so uncomfortably all these years—it’s natural for him to dislike me.”
Initially they were family who understood each other best, but in the end they watched each other become incomprehensible.
Sang Jue thought for a moment: “He really doesn’t hate you, he just doesn’t like you as much as he likes me.”
Huo Jiangmin: “…”
Having weathered battlefields for over a decade, Huo Jiangmin had seen all kinds of people and situations. Whether facing sarcasm, probing, flattery, or confrontation, he could always respond appropriately. But now he was left speechless by Sang Jue for a long time.
A little devil who didn’t play by the rules.
In his peripheral vision, a car appeared on the street below, and a long-unseen figure emerged. Huo Jiangmin watched for a while, then withdrew his gaze and said to Sang Jue: “I was going to invite you in to sit, but an uninvited guest has arrived. After they leave, I’ll host you properly.”
“Okay.” Sang Jue didn’t mind getting to know Huo Jiangmin better, since 007 had said his mission was to interact more with high-level personnel for observation.
Sang Jue returned home and secretly peered out through the peephole, seeing a visitor with graying temples standing at Huo Jiangmin’s door, building up psychological preparation for a long time before knocking.
Huo Jiangmin opened the door, acting as if he didn’t know about the visit, pretending surprise as he welcomed: “How do you have time to come to the main city?”
007 said: [The visitor is District 7 Administrator Norman.]
Separated by two doors, Sang Jue thought he wouldn’t hear clearly, but unexpectedly, just as Norman entered, he heard a thud.
…
Huo Jiangmin looked at the old man kneeling before him, not helping him up, even imperceptibly stepping back two paces: “What are you doing?”
Norman took a deep breath, and when he raised his head again, his eyes were red: “I know that back then, all of us wronged you.”
The atmosphere froze for a moment.
Huo Jiangmin pulled over a distant chair and sat down, only speaking quietly after a long while: “You wronged a soul devoted to the people, not me.”
Norman deeply bowed his head to the ground: “That year, those who believed in General Huo Feng still made up the majority. You being General Huo Feng’s descendant, naturally they couldn’t tolerate any stain on you.”
Huo Jiangmin slowly put away his trademark smile.
“Bo Qing was innocent, but those people were also innocent. You know this very well, don’t you?”
Norman said slowly: “They were all just puppets with manipulated thoughts, probably never knowing what they were doing or what they were angry about until the end. The truly guilty ones are this era, and us high-level officials who manipulate people’s thoughts…”
Huo Jiangmin propped up his chin and asked: “So you made a special trip to bring up the past, are you prepared to atone with death?”
Norman said: “If this could relieve your hatred, taking this old life of mine wouldn’t matter… but please spare those people.”
Huo Jiangmin scoffed: “What have I done that you’re asking me to spare those people?”
“In recent years, you first transferred me to District 7, then over these years sent tens of thousands of residents who participated in the public trial there under the pretext of population relocation. Wasn’t this for revenge?”
Huo Jiangmin asked back: “Really? I didn’t even know this was for revenge.”
Norman forced an aged, ugly smile: “These days, I’ve been thinking over the population relocation lists. Apart from you, I can’t find a second deviant with the strength to single-handedly break into the wastewater experimental center—
“Wasn’t the parent strain of the deviant multi-headed fluffy bubble green fungus planted by you in District 7’s sewers?”
Huo Jiangmin narrowed his eyes: “District 7 indeed has a group of people I detest extremely, but do I need to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of other original residents just to kill them?”
Norman shook his head and sighed: “I came here to ask you to stop. Those people back then were indeed detestable, but people born in our era have never lived for themselves their entire lives, they…”
Huo Jiangmin interrupted him, saying flatly: “Do you know what I thought when I returned from the Blissful Eye after a narrow escape from death and learned of Bo Qing’s exile?”
That period of madness was recorded by reporters.
Huo Jiangmin had only found one of the recordings.
On the day Bo Qing was exiled, he was pressed onto the high platform of Huo Feng Statue Square, like an ancient execution platform, with crowds swarming around, dense and packed, blocking the streets completely.
They seemed to be holding some ancient sacrificial ritual, each more passionate than the last, each more frenzied than the last.
These people went mad, wanting to execute someone they didn’t understand at all, someone who was even wholeheartedly protecting the main city.
They were like possessed by demons, their brains completely controlled by anger.
Just because this person was a supervisor.
Just because this person was the lover of a deviant.
This seemed to constitute some unforgivable sin that couldn’t be pardoned, requiring everyone to stab once before the evil could be settled.
They had no knives in their hands, but every “exile” they shouted was a sharp blade.
Bo Qing knelt on the high platform, hands bound, head always lowered, expression unclear.
Was the cause of this demon-like carnival really just the public opinion rhythm stirred up by the Supreme Court?
Or was it because these foolish people had resented supervisors for too many years, with too many friends around them shot for infection or disorder, so they suddenly found an outlet and poured all their pain and anger onto Bo Qing?
“Watching the video, my fingers went numb and I couldn’t move. My mind was filled with one question—were those celebrating under the high platform humans, or monsters on another level?”
Norman opened his mouth, stammering for a long time without effective rebuttal.
After a long while, Huo Jiangmin’s face showed a cold smile: “What you exiled back then wasn’t a human life, but two hearts full of sincere devotion.”
Norman suddenly couldn’t speak, his throat as if gripped by something. Two lines of old tears slid down his aged skin, falling to the ground and dissolving the faint dust.
“Even if I did something, that’s what you deserved, the evil consequences of your stupidity and malice.”
**
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