A few minutes later, Huo Yanji had returned to his usual impeccably dressed solemn appearance. His tie, messed up by Sang Jue, was meticulously fastened back in place, and his rolled-up sleeves had also returned to being neat.
He opened the window to let cold wind in, saying flatly: “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
“…”
Sang Jue stared straight at Huo Yanji.
Humans were really fickle. Just moments ago he’d been so wicked, pinching him and not letting him release, playing with his lips. If not for Adjutant Zhang Min’s footsteps outside the door, his fingers would have almost entered his mouth.
The little evil dragon, having just successfully courted, was somewhat clingy: “You said before that my punishment was to follow you inseparably.”
General Huo Yanji glanced over: “But you didn’t behave just now. Your clothes are dirty, you can’t go out.”
Sang Jue accused: “I tried hard to endure it, but you suddenly pressed harder.”
“You need to learn to handle various unexpected situations.” General Huo Yanji imperceptibly curved his lips slightly, saying flatly, “Dinner and clothes will be sent soon. As long as you don’t leave this building, no one can take you away.”
“Got it.” Sang Jue asked, “But didn’t Adjutant Zhang Min say that woman wants to see both you and me?”
General Huo Yanji said: “If we meet whoever wants to meet us, wouldn’t everything be in chaos?”
Sang Jue blinked: “Then come back early, I’ll wait for you to sleep.”
General Huo Yanji agreed: “Alright.”
When passing by Sang Jue, his leg was hooked by the tail again. The little evil dragon sneakily looked at a certain area: “But… are you going out like this?”
“…” General Huo Yanji’s eyes darkened slightly, “It’ll be fine in a moment—pull your waistband higher.”
Sang Jue made a sound and perfunctorily pulled up his waistband.
Like last time, General Huo Yanji had to leave before he could resolve things.
But on a rainy day, with the military coat covering outside, it wouldn’t show.
General Huo Yanji stroked Sang Jue’s tail twice and walked toward the door, only opening a gap wide enough for himself to exit.
Even if someone outside glimpsed inside, at most they could hastily see a disheveled youth sitting on the sofa, lips obviously ravaged and overly red, tail coiled by his legs.
General Huo Yanji walked quickly, putting on gloves while asking: “What’s the situation in the city now?”
Zhang Min didn’t deliberately look, but his peripheral vision still caught the bite marks on those slender fingers, quickly covered by gloves.
He kept up with General Huo Yanji’s pace: “The fact that Sang Jue is a deviant is now known throughout the city. Someone must have deliberately exposed it to manipulate public emotions against you.”
General Huo Yanji hummed, asking: “What do you think?”
Zhang Min frowned, hesitating: “It might be related to the woman outside the south gate who wants to see you. They’re very likely the rebels who previously cooperated with the Supreme Court to receive and house experimental residents.”
Old Herman was dead, the Court was still under control, and no other high-ranking officials in the city showed any intention of bringing down General Huo Yanji. The ordinary deviant residents below didn’t understand, but the high-ranking officials were very clear that General Huo Yanji’s downfall would benefit no one.
Especially the generals in the army—the peace and resources they’d fought for with their lives over the years weren’t meant for internal strife. They hoped for harmony more than anyone.
In this era of resource scarcity where everyone lived in danger, power and status really weren’t that important to them.
For ninety years, the military had always stabilized the exterior while supervisors stabilized the interior, achieving an unwritten understanding. Rashly changing the status quo—they really couldn’t imagine what kind of upheaval would follow internally.
So General Huo Yanji’s proposal to dissolve the supervisor organization had never passed. More than half of the safe zone high-ranking officials voted against it, worriedly asking General Huo Yanji to reconsider—perhaps there were better ways to resolve internal division.
Even the former Court’s central purpose in manipulating public opinion was to stabilize and continue the “Dawn” plan, eliminate all unstable factors, and didn’t want internal strife in already resource-scarce times.
But everything happening recently was completely different—all the chaos seemed aimed at division and civil war, with a momentum that seemed determined to make humanity destroy itself.
Zhang Min said: “I investigated the identities of six leaders encouraging deviants to leave the main city. Three of them were former ‘wanderers’ from the southeastern ruins. Executive Officer Herman Lange worked in residential personnel affairs for a period after retiring, and approved these three people’s city entry applications at different times.”
General Huo Yanji’s face turned cold: “Seems Old He had been cooperating with her all along.”
The southeastern ruins were thousands of kilometers from the main city. Wanderers had no need to abandon nearby safe zones and risk their lives on a long journey to live in the main city, unless they had ulterior motives.
Zhang Min had been General Huo Yanji’s adjutant for ten years, just missing the period of the public trial, so naturally didn’t know who ‘she’ was.
But from the general’s tone, it should be an old acquaintance.
Zhang Min continued: “There’s one more thing. District 32 sent word that District 19 has completely fallen due to mutant multi-headed velvet bubble green fungus.”
General Huo Yanji’s eyes immediately became shrouded in coldness.
Previously, District 19 couldn’t be contacted, so they had nearby District 32 send people to check the situation. The first team disappeared, and District 32, sensing something wrong, immediately increased manpower and went to District 19 again.
They found the entire city in deathly silence, all city gates deliberately sealed. Residents couldn’t climb over the tall, solid city walls. Three hundred thousand people in the city were completely devoured by mutant multi-headed velvet bubble green fungus.
District 19’s location was already remote with poor geography, but they had mineral resources essential to humanity, and the weather environment was decent, so a medium-sized safe zone was established there.
For a long time, District 19 had been very wealthy, rarely engaging in agriculture, relying solely on mineral resources to trade with other districts for abundant supplies.
But over ten years ago, the snake swarm at Rift No. 11 went berserk. Despite the main city providing as much support as possible, most still died.
District 19 withered from over a million people to hundreds of thousands, with the population continuing to decrease. The population supplied by the underground city was completely insufficient to fill their casualty gaps.
Population resources were also limited, and unlike other renewable resources, other renewable resources from nature weren’t lacking—rather, no one was extracting them—while population was completely supply-short of demand.
Except for the main city, no safe zone wasn’t short of population.
When population declined, management and order became chaotic, sanitary conditions weren’t handled properly, and many small safe zones’ contamination cleaning didn’t meet the standards General Huo Yanji had established, so that green fungus could separate and reproduce in the city without being discovered.
Zhang Min: “District 32 says from the aerial view of the city situation, the green fungus has been reproducing and feeding for at least a month. They’re asking whether to directly burn the city or first try to search and rescue survivors.”
“A futile effort.” Military boots stepped down the wet steps, Huo Yanji’s cold, ruthless voice mixing with the frigid wind.
Zhang Min remained silent: “Understood.”
Actually, District 32 hadn’t thought otherwise, but officially they still had to request instructions. It would be even better if the main city was willing to bear the bad reputation of ‘not conducting search and rescue.’
Even if the main city stood and talked without back pain, demanding they go for search and rescue, they would at most put on a show.
After all, with mountains high and waters far, how they specifically acted couldn’t be supervised by the main city.
Currently, it was 7:32 PM.
Countless residents gathered outside the isolation zone of the Supervision Center, holding up signs demanding the dissolution of the Supervision Center, saying the existence of supervisors was mentally torturing deviants.
Normally they wouldn’t dare dance in front of Huo Yanji, but now with their victim status, they were justified and confident.
There were also those demanding the execution of Huo Jiangmin, wanting Huo Yanji to explain about his companion being a deviant—in short, a complete mess.
The crowd twenty meters away stirred: “The Highest Executive Officer has come out!”
“Dissolve the supervisor organization!!”
“Hand over the Court and Huo Jiangmin!!”
“A person who hates humanity to the bone can actually sit in a general’s position, it’s because of the Huo surname, right!?” Someone started mocking, “Huo Feng’s image has collapsed, you two brothers should step down too!!”
“The Highest Executive Officer openly violates the ‘Supervisory Code,’ sleeping with a deviant, it’s fucking ridiculous!”
…
Huo Yanji remained unmoved, walking toward the armored vehicle.
But a piece of information amplified by loudspeaker precisely reached his ears: “Please wait, Executive Officer! It’s said that residents previously captured by the Court for ‘Dawn No. 2’ are now in rebel hands! The other side has come to the south gate, saying they’ll return all residents if you hand over your lover. Is this true!?”
Huo Yanji instantly shot a sharp glance. The questioner was a thin man with an extremely unremarkable appearance and personality in the crowd.
He wore a checkered shirt with a vest over it, his hair dampened by light rain, with a reporter’s badge hanging on his chest.
Meeting Huo Yanji’s gaze, his eyes showed a second of cowering, then he shouted even louder: “May I ask how you plan to handle this matter? Will you hand over your lover named Sang Jue to save thousands of residents from dire straits!?”
The crowd erupted in uproar. Regardless of their purpose for being there, they all fell into whispered discussions.
Zhang Min was greatly shocked: “Sir, we didn’t receive this news!”
Huo Yanji got into the car, only to find Huo Jiangmin also in the back seat.
He ignored this, ordering Zhang Min: “Control that reporter, investigate his identity and purpose!”
“Yes!”
If the woman demanding to see Huo Yanji had really made this demand, the military guarding the city gates should have been the first to know and quickly notify Huo Yanji to respond. How could they learn of it from city residents?
Unless this reporter was premeditated, deliberately releasing the news early in such a crowd-gathering place so Huo Yanji had no room to suppress it.
Huo Yanji glanced behind: “What are you doing here?”
Huo Jiangmin smiled: “It’s rather boring during suspension, so I’ll go meet an old friend with you.”
Huo Yanji signaled the driver to start, taking one last look at the top floor office of the Supervision Center. Even from far away, he could see clearly—a head poking out by the window, waving at him.
He couldn’t see details, but could imagine that Sang Jue, who didn’t laugh much, must be slightly curving his lips, not caring at all about the harsh words city residents said, tail happily swaying behind him, just waiting for him to return to sleep.
Huo Jiangmin looked through the rearview mirror at the group surrounding the Supervision Center, saying flatly: “Though I rationally understand they’re also innocent, just numbed by the era too long, losing personality and thought, completely reduced to chess pieces… I still find them extremely disgusting and can’t like them.”
Huo Yanji said nothing.
Huo Jiangmin curved his lips: “But I really didn’t expect that you, who’s always followed rules, would be with a deviant.”
Huo Yanji said coldly: “Not before.”
Huo Jiangmin said: “Even if not before, you didn’t plan to abandon him, right? Otherwise why keep him by your side eating and sleeping together, digging your own grave?”
Initially keeping him nearby wasn’t for this reason, but due to suspicious identity, though Huo Yanji had no interest in explaining, asking: “You came to lecture?”
“How could that be? Who you’re with is your own business. I rather hope you’d be more willful, acting on preferences. To put it harshly, even if you don’t take responsibility for those people’s lives, it’s just a worse reputation in posterity, but you don’t want eternal glory anyway.”
Huo Jiangmin leaned against his seat, half-closing his eyes: “I just want to see her together with you… We haven’t gathered together in a long time.”
…
Before reaching the south gate, Zhang Min called: “The reporter is named Luke. We’ve caught him. He’s been law-abiding in the city with no criminal history, even recording many precious images and highlight moments related to humanity… But careful examination of records shows Luke applied to transfer from District 19 to the main city seven years ago.”
Huo Yanji ended the call. After a long while: “She’s been planning for many years.”
Huo Jiangmin wasn’t surprised either: “Her original plan should have been to make me universally condemned, completely disappointed in humanity and join hands with her, which is why she pinned so many charges on me.”
Huo Yanji asked: “Why did you go to Rift No. 2?”
Huo Jiangmin: “Military order from the Court. It only had one sentence telling me to go to Rift No. 2 and await orders. Everything after was blank, just a red seal.”
“They wanted to forcibly drag you into the ‘Dawn No. 2′ plan.”
“Mm—I realized it when I received news of your arrest, but it was too late.” Huo Jiangmin scoffed: “After all, who could have thought this generation of councilors would be bold enough to gamble tens of thousands of lives on an unknown possibility?”
Although the lockdown has been lifted, the gates aren’t fully open yet because the deviants were stirred up emotionally and want to leave the main city. Like at the main gate, many people are gathered here protesting.
“We are free! What right do you have to restrict our coming and going?!”
“We’ve traded deviants’ lives for resources and peace for so long – now ordinary people should taste the danger and contamination too!”
“The best compensation is to give us freedom!”
…
The armored vehicle slowly stopped at the gate checkpoint. Huo Yanji stepped out and took the black umbrella handed to him by the driver.
The gate was already open. Several dozen meters away, a buzz-cut man held the same kind of umbrella, with a short-haired woman standing beneath it.
She was dressed sharply and efficiently, no longer carrying youthful innocence, but mature and indifferent.
Due to Huo Jiangmian’s special circumstances, it was inconvenient for him to appear before the public. He sat in the car and said: “She’s changed a lot, hasn’t she? If Ah Qing were here, he’d be heartbroken.”
Huo Yanji replied: “We’ve all changed.”
Huo Jiangmian laughed softly: “Thinking about it this way, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing that Bo Qing stayed forever in those days – at least he doesn’t have to witness today’s filth or see these residents’ ugly faces.”
Huo Yanji said nothing more, striding out of the gate with ice-cold soldiers following behind, facing off against the rebels led by Ji Zhen outside the city.
“Long time no see.” Ji Zhen’s lips curved slightly, but her eyes were like thick ink, impossible to read.
Only when he got closer could he see Ji Zhen’s current appearance clearly. Her features were sharper and more angular than before, her jawline lean, making her look more cold and distant. Her skin was also darker than in the past, likely from the strong radiation in the ruins where the rebels gathered.
Huo Yanji held his umbrella, standing ten meters away, responding: “Long time no see.”
Ji Zhen was the only one among them who had ever fulfilled her dream.
She had indeed become a doctor – a military doctor – but was declared dead after following the army to support District 19 eleven years ago, disappearing without a trace.
Unlike Bo Qing, whom everyone kept silent about, Ji Zhen had been completely forgotten by everyone except Huo Yanji and Huo Jiangmian. No one remembered her.
She had become a dead person without a name.
Now they were all in their thirties, in completely opposing positions.
Indeed, it had been a long time – everything had changed.
Yet they should have stood on the same side, fighting for humanity’s dawn.
Ji Zhen said: “Congratulations.”
The pattering rain curtain separated the two. Huo Yanji asked calmly: “Congratulations for what?”
Ji Zhen’s tone was completely flat: “Congratulations on finding love, so you won’t die alone.”
Reminiscing held no meaning for them now.
Huo Yanji glanced at the vehicles behind Ji Zhen and cut straight to the point: “How many people do you have?”
“The Supreme Council planned to send 7,352 people down the fissure in the first batch – they’re all in my hands.” Ji Zhen was equally direct. “I only want one Sang Jue. Hand him over to me, and for your sake, I’ll take good care of him. I absolutely won’t let him end up like my brother.”
She made this promise lightly.
Huo Yanji said indifferently: “Do you think that’s possible?”
“I understand you well enough to know you’d never agree – but what about the residents in the city?”
Ji Zhen’s thin lips parted in a slight smile, showing traces of her former self: “In just one night, news that the Supreme Executive’s deviant lover can be exchanged for over seven thousand lives will spread throughout the city. What do you think these selfish, ignorant masses will do?”
“What do you want?”
Ji Zhen said: “I want you and Huo Jiangmian to see this world clearly, to really look at whether everything you’ve worked for all these years is worth it.”
Huo Yanji asked: “For Bo Qing?”
Ji Zhen smiled faintly and said slowly: “I just want to see with my own eyes before I die how these people behind you destroy themselves in ignorance and madness.”
The current Ji Zhen carried a thick sense of contempt, as if she had detached herself from everyone and was watching coldly from the sidelines.
She seemed like a completely different person from the Fu Ji Zhen who once only wanted to save people – only her facial features still bore a faint resemblance to those days.
Every instinct honed by years of living on the knife’s edge warned Huo Yanji of how dangerous Ji Zhen had become. She had indeed become a deviant – perhaps that’s why her height and appearance had changed so dramatically.
Huo Yanji suddenly brought up another matter: “Were you the one who went to the waste water experimental sample area and brought back the green fungus mother strain?”
Ji Zhen admitted: “I first brought it back to propagate in District 19, then finally separated the mother strain and released it again in District 7. Too bad they got lucky.”
When deviant birds from Fissure 9 attacked, Huo Yanji went to rescue and discovered the green fungus, eliminating it in time. Otherwise, District 7’s casualties would have been far greater.
“The snipers on the tower don’t need to aim at me. If I die, all the remaining hostages will be buried with me.” Ji Zhen didn’t even look up as she turned around, then looked back and said: “These hundred-plus people are a greeting gift – I specially selected the most detestable ones from those seven thousand.
“Please accept them graciously.”
She turned and left, taking a chill with her.
That vehicle gradually disappeared, leaving only five cars filled with victims of “Dawn No. 2.”
A soldier behind asked: “Sir, should we intercept?”
“No need.” Huo Yanji also turned around, going in the opposite direction from Ji Zhen.
Whether they caught Ji Zhen or not didn’t matter – the result would be the same.
Huo Yanji walked to the car and sat in the back seat, next to Huo Jiangmian, who had removed his military uniform and whose eyes were dark and profound.
Huo Jiangmian asked: “What do you think her purpose is?”
“She didn’t come to avenge Bo Qing.” After a long pause, Huo Yanji looked out the window and said: “She wants to destroy everyone equally.”
Huo Jiangmian said: “Then I hope she succeeds.”
Huo Yanji glanced at him coldly.
“But she wants to use public pressure to force you to hand over Sang Jue? That’s ruthless…” Huo Jiangmian chuckled lowly: “Regardless of whether you hand him over in the end, you’ll be utterly disgusted with these people in the city – just like I was back then.”
Without even thinking, everyone knew what decision the people in the city would make. One life versus over seven thousand lives – which was more important?
If Ji Zhen had only wanted an ordinary resident, perhaps they might have hesitated.
But this person happened to be Sang Jue, who was at the center of the storm – the Supreme Executive Huo Yanji’s little lover.
From beginning to end, no one would ever see Sang Jue as an individual. They would only think: it’s perfectly reasonable for the Supreme Executive to sacrifice one little lover for the sake of countless citizens, right?
Human nature is inherently evil. In such chaotic times, without discipline and education, only the ugliest side would be fully exposed.
Huo Jiangmian casually joked: “If you really agreed to this trade, you’d definitely gain more support.”
Huo Yanji said indifferently: “What do I need their support for?”
Huo Jiangmian hummed: “True. So how do you plan to handle this?”
Huo Yanji said abruptly: “Get out of the car.”
Huo Jiangmian: “?”
“Get out and have your people pick you up.” Huo Yanji said flatly. “It’s already late, and he’s still waiting for me to come home and sleep. I don’t have time to drop you off.”
Huo Jiangmian: “…”
**
![You’re Causing Chaos Again [e-sports]](https://www.freenovels.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/1sMqC2JNjIep8Ov.jpg "You’re Causing Chaos Again [e-sports]")
I like how you presented both sides of the argument fairly.