Chapter 295
"Is there?"
No?
"There seems to be a slight bloody smell. Who ate a rare steak without rinsing their mouth?"
"Damn, what planet and base are you from? Don't you care about hygiene? You're a disgrace to Qin Su."
"It wasn't me, I rinsed my mouth."
"It wasn't me, I always eat it well-done! But on our way here, just like when we came, we haven't seen a single person. She looked around and didn't see any blood anywhere, so there's no need to worry too much."
"That's true."
Li Zi immediately understood what everyone meant. They clearly guessed that the bloody smell she detected was most likely from the hostages they had brought back. The hostages were all political figures from various planets, and they had a lot of pride. They would only cooperate with Qin Su after being subjected to severe torture. It was normal for them to be injured or killed during the journey. These were not things they could interfere with. Like the others, they moved on from the topic and pretended not to smell anything. When they arrived at the Spaceship's docking place, they waved goodbye and boarded different Spaceships.
The Spaceship's hatch closed automatically, then it started moving. Li Zi slowed down and lagged behind the group, then turned on his Optical Brain.
Apart from the pre-saved and downloaded data, the Optical Brain, as before, did not send any signals that could communicate with the outside world.
"What are you looking at?" The person in front of Li Zi stopped and turned around.
"It's nothing." Li Zi shut down his Optical Brain and joined his partner's chat. "Where were we?"
Fang Rui compiled statistics on the planets they mentioned.
Hearing someone mention him, Fang Rui raised his voice and complained, "Everyone's so tight-lipped! They only reveal which planet they're on, but they don't even have a specific location."
"Well," Li Zi reminded him, "We didn't seem to say that either. The reason we didn't say it wasn't because we didn't want to, but because we ourselves weren't really sure where we were on the planet. They might be like us, their location is constantly shifting, they've even passed by the Atopulai Palace, like they've eaten poisonous mushrooms, they can never be sure."
To put it bluntly, Qin Su is still wary of us.
"So what? It must be that we didn't do well enough to earn Qin Su's trust. To be honest, we joined halfway through, not Qin Su personally trained Class 6. Isn't it normal for him not to trust us? Besides, even if he doesn't trust us, he still gives us such good benefits. It's much better than the Military District that only makes empty promises and demands our absolute obedience. Many things aren't about words, but about actions. Is trust more important than tangible benefits? Most importantly, other Military District receive the same treatment from Qin Su as we do. It's not just our base that's not trusted. We're all equal. In Qin Su's eyes, no one is more noble than anyone else. In fact, we're all equals in Qin Su eyes. We don't need to distinguish between second-class and third-class."
Fang Rui was speechless for a few seconds, then a gleam flashed in his eyes. "Thinking about it this way... brilliant! I feel so much better now!"
Qin Su secretly monitored everyone while amassing a room full of rare treasures. "..."
Forcing yourself to eat sugar when there's none?
--
After several hours of Hyperspace Jump, Li Zi woke up to find the Spaceship had entered the base and landed.
Li Zi emerged from the Spaceship, which had been out of control. He looked up at the sky and saw that the defense layer above the city where the Spaceship had just entered had closed. He glanced around and saw that his companions, who had also emerged from the Spaceship, had already quickly activated their personal Optical Brain. Li Zi looked away and saw that the display on the Optical Brain in front of him showed content that had not appeared during the mission.
Sure enough, as soon as they returned to the base, this secluded place Qin Su had provided for them, the signals of all their personal Optical Brain returned to their previous state.
As before, their Optical Brain IDs were collectively locked, allowing them to view only content Qin Su permitted. They still didn't understand what they could and couldn't see, and had to figure it out themselves step by step. They were also unable to freely post comments about their location; triggering keywords would result in automatic debunking.
However, for their own safety and the safety of the other Modified Humans and their families in the base, they would not proactively mention anything about Qin Su or anything here to the outside world.
"Holy crap, is this something we can actually see?!" Fang Rui's suddenly raised voice immediately attracted a lot of attention.
"Look, these are the sources of the bloody smell that Li Zi detected back at the Setini Palace." Fang Rui immediately shared the video with his companions.
The live stream lasted only sixteen minutes. Apart from the people Qin Su used to help Viewers distinguish himself from Kanasen and to draw suspicion to him even when he wasn't on screen, the Viewers who died in the live stream were just tools to reinforce the stereotype of him killing at will.
The total number of people shot and killed during the entire live broadcast was not large.
After several hours of fermentation and dissemination, numerous simplified versions and illustrated analytical videos and articles have emerged.
This allowed Li Zi and others, who hadn't watched the entire live stream, to grasp the basic picture of the situation in less than three minutes.
It turned out that not many people died, and the place where they were found was quite far from where the incident occurred. Looking at the information about the deceased that had been unearthed, Li Zi muttered to himself, "No wonder you couldn't smell it; even I only smelled a faint trace of blood..."
Before Li Zi could finish his mutterings, he saw the real-time trending topics pop up in the upper right corner of his Optical Brain interface. He clicked on it instinctively, saw the live stream, and forgot what he had initially intended to say. His words abruptly changed to, "Holy crap!"
"What?"
In less than two seconds, the puzzled crowd saw the content shared by Li Zi on the Optical Brain. They quickly clicked on the real-time recommended trending live streams that they hadn't paid attention to during the previous live stream and had subconsciously ignored, assuming it was some internet celebrity starting another live stream.
Seeing the ground covered in blood that was so red it was almost black, and the corpses soaking in the blood, his eyes revealed the same look of horror as Li Zi's.
"I... I knew it! How could he stop after just that? This is nothing like the Qin Su I know! But compared to McCarthy's group, their deaths were far too easy."
"It's definitely because it's going to be broadcast live for everyone to see. Qin Su considered that ordinary people wouldn't be able to accept such a horrific way of dying, so he made his methods milder."
"Um... we're used to it, so we don't find these gory scenes a big deal. Are you sure the general public, who don't usually encounter these kinds of situations, will find it mild? This is sure to scare them so much they won't dare leave their blankets at night!"
"Well," Fang Rui switched to another page showing the edited version that ordinary people were watching online in real time, "They were watching the censored version."
If it weren't for the fact that less than a minute into the live stream, 99% of the viewers were staring at the Mosaic below-the-knee area, full of questions, and tagging the StarNet administrators and the Moderation Bots everywhere with screenshots and recordings, he wouldn't have noticed so quickly.
"The permissions our base can obtain through the network are the same as those of the behind-the-scenes auditing machines in this regard," Li Zi immediately realized.
"Be more precise," Fang Rui said confidently. "What we see is the same as what people with intranet access see—it's all high-definition and uncensored. So why can't we assume that in Qin Su's mind, we are treated the same as those people in the Federation... no, to put it more bluntly, as well as Class 6 can also see the same version? At least in this respect, how can we not consider that we've taken another step closer to Qin Su!"
Seeing comments all over the StarNet like "Looking down on me? If you're so capable, go live without blurring it out," "What is it that we can't see? Who are you looking down on?", "Requesting a high-definition version," "This is pointless," "This blurring is giving me trypophobia," and "Although I haven't seen the whole thing, the level of blurring makes you imagine how terrifying the scene must have been. If you don't want to have nightmares, you'd better not go looking for an uncensored version and hurt yourself," Fang Rui and the others, who had been placed in a higher-level access category by Qin Su, felt even more smug.
"Yes! This absolutely must be calculated!"
"No problem, I wholeheartedly support this!"
[It's a misunderstanding! This wasn't our doing, it was that old man Kanasen!]
[Living long enough means you see all sorts of things. I never thought even God Su would have to take the blame for someone else. But why doesn't the God Su clarify things? Is it because he has too many debts to bear? Isn't he afraid that the people in the Comic World will think he's bloodthirsty? That they'll be afraid of him and stay away from him? His reputation will be tarnished.]
[These people are truly birds of a feather; one dares to say it, and the rest of them believe it.]
[No matter how much you explain, the characters in the comics won't know either; they don't have a God perspective like us.]
[What else could it be? Of course, it's because our Su is as indifferent as a chrysanthemum, he doesn't care at all what others think of him. What reputation? How could a god care? Besides, isn't someone who kills a group of man-eating demons a hero praised by everyone? Who would be afraid of him? They'd be grateful to him.]
[Fortune's wheel turns; beware, the dragon slayer may become the dragon himself! (Loud cricket chirping)]
Qin Su: "..."
There's no need to worry. That's just how he is. It's impossible for him to be as indifferent as a chrysanthemum, and it's impossible for him to remain detached until the seas dry up and the rocks crumble.
Silently turning his gaze away from the barrage of comments, Qin Su glanced briefly at the unattended mixture of blood, flesh, and water on the ground.
Although only a little over a day has passed and the body is not deeply decomposed, the smell wouldn't be pleasant in the hot and humid environment.
Before the live stream started, Qin Su reappeared, his black training boots treading through the blood as he approached them step by step. Greyliff and the others immediately sensed a familiar, bone-chilling coldness accompanying Qin Su. After recovering from the fear of being dominated by Qin Su, they found themselves restrained by an invisible pressure. Forget about risking speaking up and exposing Qin Su in front of the live stream audience; they were powerless to do anything and were forced to remain silent. Then they saw Kanasen's live stream camera pointed at them again.
Qin Su didn't want to stay in this environment any longer, much less inhale the pervasive stench of decay. Under the watchful eyes of the survivors, whose eyes were red with resentment or bloodlust, he said nothing. He glanced at Kanasen, who had clearly not dared to close his eyes for dozens of hours, whose dark circles under his eyes had deepened, making him look increasingly old. Out of sight of the live broadcast camera, Kanasen's lines were displayed.
Kanasen hadn't expected to speak, and when Qin Su's cold gaze swept over him, he was a beat slow to react. "No, don't worry, you'll soon be... soon you'll be free."