"What do you mean, 'just as expected'?"
"You guessed it long ago?"
"Could it be that everything you did just now was testing Tianluo?"
"You... you fool!"
Old Six was so furious he wanted to slam the table. "Since you already had your suspicions, why didn't you eliminate the risks beforehand? Why didn't you find the problem in advance? Why did you have to test it like this? No matter how great the suspicion, you can't use human lives as bait! Even if you had calculated Tianluo's backup plan, you still couldn't just sit by and watch Hongliu be destroyed in one fell swoop!"
"Even if you couldn't eliminate the problem, you could at least have tricked these people into relocating first!"
Shi Tiexin looked at Old Six, his voice heavy and his gaze profound. "Even now, you still don't understand? Even now, you still don't understand? This wasn't Tianluo laying a trap within Hongliu. If it had been, that would have been simple enough."
"The truly cruel and terrifying truth was this: Hongliu itself was the trap."
Old Six froze instantly, disbelief written all over his face. "What? You... what do you mean? What do you mean, Hongliu itself was the trap?"
"You kept falling for the same trick, again and again. It wasn't your fault, because you were a kind person. Deep down, you were more willing to believe in beautiful things. And what they showed you happened to be the most beautiful thing of all."
Shi Tiexin's gaze stretched far into the distance, but his voice was cold. "A steadfast leader, an amiable political commissar, flourishing technology, brave soldiers, an optimistic revolutionary spirit, and Fang Qingjue, saintlike in his capacity for self-sacrifice. Not only were you moved—I was moved too."
"In such a smoke-choked, miasma-filled world, there