"I don't think the questioning was supposed to include questions like that, was it?" Sun Hang said quietly, breaking the silence first. "This wasn't an oversight. It was because the answers were too obvious... It's like when a Peacekeeper takes your statement—they'll ask your name and gender, but they won't ask whether you're dead or alive."
"But... it's too late." Yang Lian murmured. "The others are manageable... but the Federation Council representatives have already left Tianfu City on their special plane... It took off half an hour ago. It should have already left Shu Province by now."
"Make the special plane turn back immediately! And gather all the missing people together... Make those officials understand how serious this is. Tell them that if they don't want Blood Moon appearing on every corner of Tianfu City, they'd better do as we say!"
Ten minutes later.
Yang Lian put down the phone with a complicated expression and shook her head at Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi. "It's no use... The Management Committee refused our request. They believe the most urgent matter is restoring normal operations to every department... As for the 'visions' seen by the missing people, they insist they were hallucinations caused by the missing people being affected by anomalous entities during the Spacetime Displacement. They'll recover on their own after a while."
"Idiots." Wang Xiyi's assessment was succinct.
"Can't we have the Public Security Bureau send people to forcibly drag these bastards over here?" Sun Hang asked.
"The Management Committee said... we have no authority to restrict their personal freedom. If we use force, our actions could very well be defined as mutiny or rebellion." Yang Lian sounded helpless.
"I'm seriously speechless... If this plot happened in some novel, readers would've torn the comment section apart by now, right? The Management Committee people are this stupid, yet humanity hasn't gone extinct? That's fucking ridiculous, isn't it?" Sun Hang grumbled.
"Novels need to consider logic and plausibility. The real world doesn't." Wang Xiyi said with a faintly mocking smile. "Someone once said that the world is one giant ramshackle troupe. Don't assume those elite classes sitting high above everyone else are all that smart. Plenty of them got there through their background, luck, or even the benefits of their era. Out of ten people, you might not find even one who's genuinely capable."
"But the funny thing is, more than ninety percent of those useless fools firmly believe they're important and irreplaceable." Sun Hang sat down and sighed. "I'm tired. All of a sudden, I don't feel like dealing with this anymore. Let them do whatever the hell they want... Let everything be destroyed already."
"Are you really planning to give up?" Wang Xiyi asked.
"What else can we do? Actually go out and round up all the missing people?" Sun Hang glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "You look like you can fight, but can you take on hundreds, even thousands, of fully armed bodyguards, Peacekeepers, and regular army soldiers by yourself?"
Just then, an operative from the Field Operations Department suddenly rushed into the combat conference room, gasping for breath. "J-just now, just now, two high-speed fighter jets took off from Longquanyi Air Force Base. According to our information, their mission is to intercept the Council representatives' special plane that just left Shu Province."
"Huh?" Sun Hang froze for a moment and looked at Wang Xiyi, who immediately shook her head.
"Don't look at me. I'm just a hunter. I don't have enough pull to casually mobilize the air force."
Although the Investigation Bureau and the research institute had extensive authority and could freely mobilize the military, the military itself was divided into different levels... Only the Tianfu City Guard soldiers could be deployed directly by them. Above that were the Federation regular forces, and every deployment required an application that followed proper procedures. The number of personnel, the rank of the officers, firearms and ammunition, even vehicles and heavy equipment—all were subject to extremely strict restrictions... And among them, the hardest to deploy was the regular army's air force.
The so-called "air support" that the Investigation Bureau usually requested was either drones or helicopters belonging to the Guard. As for the regular army's air force, even if the research institute's director personally stepped in, there was no way he could persuade the air base commander to send two regular military fighter jets into the air for such an exceptionally sensitive "dangerous mission" in so short a time.
Intercepting the Council representatives' special plane... If anything went wrong on a mission like this, the responsibility that came crashing down would be too much to bear even if every one of those useless fools from the Tianfu City Management Committee were tied together.
"Was it the Federation Council's decision?" Sun Hang asked.
"We only spread the news ten minutes ago. The Council couldn't have reacted that quickly." Yang Lian shook her head. "Even if some of the councilors realized the seriousness of the problem, their procedures would require a teleconference first. By the time they reached a decision, the representatives' plane would probably be close to landing."
"It... it was an order from the Special Operations Team Leader." The operative who had delivered the news finally caught his breath after gulping down over half a cup of water. "After he learned about it, he... he drove like mad to Longquan Post, pointed a gun at the air base commander, and forced him to send fighters to intercept the representatives' plane... R-right now, the entire air base has been placed under Level One alert. Guard troops have surrounded the Command Tower three layers deep inside and out..."
"Tch, looks like there are still people who get it... I like that kind of nerve." Sun Hang's eyes lit up, and he dashed to the doorway in a single stride. "By the way, is that guy still pointing a gun at the air base commander?"
"If he put down the gun, he'd probably already have been arrested... Holding the commanding officer of a local air base hostage is a serious crime." Yang Lian said.
"Yang Lian, Night Fiend, we're going to Longquan Post too!" Sun Hang called to the two of them. "As the old saying goes, the more lice you have, the less you itch; the more debts you owe, the less you worry—since that guy has already taken the commander hostage, how could merely intercepting one special plane be enough? Tell the Tianfu City Management Committee that unless they gather those missing people together, we'll blow the air force commander's brains out for them to see!"
"Y-you... this is rebellion!" Yang Lian said, but she immediately packed up her things and slung her backpack over her shoulders.
Wang Xiyi snapped her fingers. Flames that vanished in an instant burned away the bandages covering her body, and she casually grabbed the coat draped over the back of a chair, wrapping it around her naked body.
"Yang Lian, go help Night Fiend find something to wear first. I'll get the car—we'll meet at the north gate!"
Before you continue