What Hashimoto had given him wasn't a list of medicine, but a test.
He had asked only one question:
In Class D now, who could make people move, and who could make them stop?
Gu Heng gave no answer.
When he brought the chat log back to their base, Horikita reached a conclusion after one glance.
"He wasn't here to sell information. He was probing Class D's current axis."
Hirata nodded.
"The medicine was just bait."
Gu Heng turned off his terminal.
"Don't reply yet. If we give him names, he'll use them to test people tomorrow."
The moment he finished speaking, screenshots from the forum were dropped into the Class D group chat.
`Gu Heng publicly apologizes`
`Horikita forcibly suppresses objections`
`A Class D student fell ill but was still forced to relocate, then lost points buying medicine`
The third one was the cruelest:
`Ryuuen says no one's word counts in Class D now. The people who agree to trade today might change their minds tomorrow.`
The base immediately fell into chaos.
Ike Kanji cursed first, while Sudo squeezed his terminal until it creaked. Karuizawa folded her arms, her expression darkening.
"They're not trying to cancel one or two deals. They want every class too scared to touch us."
Hirata had already spread out the trade sheet, pressing its curled edges flat.
The fringe groups from Class C canceled first. The outer circle of Class A changed "goods first, inspection later" to "inspection first, goods afterward." Class B also sent confirmation: if they still traded as planned tomorrow morning, they wanted Class D to explain the state of their supplies first.
Yukimura crossed out the two canceled items, then added a question mark beside the Class B entry.
The trade sequence that had originally connected across the page was