Player-Autonomous Cities
The two injured players started to argue, but when they saw the man sitting across from them, they swallowed their words and changed their tune. "We were only responsible for meeting them. The ones who went inside were the real pros."
A mocking chuckle came from the other side of the table.
"Looks like you still don't want to live," Xu Huo said.
"Wait!" said the player who had spoken first. "Everything we said was true! Our lives are in your hands. How could we lie?"
"If you don't believe us, check the news on the Vanguard Player Forum. There are plenty of rumors about Bian Ling. They were leaked by people inside the Special Defense Department; they just redacted the names!"
Xu Huo's phone had run out of battery, so he used theirs. Sure enough, he found some posts that had been buried.
"When they first came out, they blew up, but in the end they were suppressed. The claims about murder and robbery weren't ever proven... Maybe they were proven, but it wasn't made public. Either way, people kept talking about it, but Bian Ling wasn't punished. She holds positions in both the Special Defense Department and the Capital City Independent Defense Department, and she's a genius player. How could something this minor implicate her?"
"Country X isn't what it used to be. Back then, the powerful still knew to cover up their misdeeds a little, to keep public opinion from boiling over. Now a player's level is everything, and the old government institutions don't carry as much weight as they used to."
That was true enough. Compared with other new Sub-districts, District 014 was actually doing fairly well. Just look at District 009, which had only recently fully merged with the game world. Once government