At the bottom-layer blockade border—Canaan's entrance, within a bleak, frigid hall.
It was utterly unlike the city of criminals he had imagined. There was not the slightest trace of filth or disorder, nor were there any hasty graffiti or slogans on the walls.
If there was anything, it was only a prison-like chill.
It felt as though he had entered not a city of freedom, but a dark cage.
The enormous hall had once accommodated hundreds lining up for inspection and entry or exit, but now it stood completely empty.
At the sole open entrance stood only a lonely desk.
"Sure is quiet."
Lin Zhongxiaowu sat before the desk, exhaling a puff of warm breath. His smile blurred amid the rising vapor. "It wasn't easy finding your place. Why shut yourselves off so completely?"
Behind the desk, a somewhat aged, obese man sat beneath a spotlight. He glanced at the visitor before him without the slightest courtesy. "What are you here for?"
"An envoy, a representative, or perhaps a debt collector... call me whatever you like."
Lin Zhongxiaowu looked back at the several cameras that had remained trained on him ever since he entered the hall, as though he could see the faces watching him from behind their screens. Then he suddenly smiled. "Leaving aside the connection between the Lin family and Canaan, I recall that my Ninth Brother hid out on your turf for quite a while, didn't he?
"You can't possibly not know who I am."
The inspector remained expressionless, as though he had heard nothing, merely extending his hand. "Your credentials?"
Smack.
A metal plate was tossed onto the desk, looking like some kind of machine part.
It was shaped like a dial.
As an exception hidden among countless borderlands, Canaan's very existence was a variable independent