Sheng Lan's List

"The ground forces' request for eight units will be on your desk tomorrow."

Three days after Ma Chongshan left, the request had yet to arrive.

What arrived instead was an unbelievably thick personnel restructuring proposal from Sheng Lan.

April 29, C.E. 71. Director's Office, 811 Institute.

Lin Yuan paused when he reached the fourth page, his finger resting on a red annotation beside a name.

"Qian Yongchang, deputy head of Materials Group Two. Recommended for dismissal. Why?"

Sheng Lan stood across from the desk. Without opening her memo, she recited the entire proposal from memory.

"Twice within three months, he failed to handle experimental waste according to confidentiality procedures. Once, he saved spectral data that had not been declassified to his personal terminal. He signed a pledge after being interviewed by Security, then did it again the following week."

"What did Xu Yanqiu say?"

"Professor Xu said Qian Yongchang was competent at his work, but scored zero on discipline. His exact words were: someone like that is fine in a university lab, but at 811 Institute, he's a ticking bomb."

Lin Yuan flipped to the seventh page, where the red annotations were even denser.

"All four people in the Power Group are marked in red?"

"When they transferred from the United Army communications upgrade project, they brought along copies of two agreements under the Atlantic Federation Technology Cooperation Framework. One supplementary clause requires participants to report to the United Army Technical Committee before applying technological results."

Lin Yuan looked up.

"They signed them?"

"They did. Before they transferred to 811 Institute, those agreements remained valid. Legal reviewed them. The wording is vague and doesn't constitute an explicit intelligence obligation, but it leaves a gray area."

Sheng Lan's voice remained at the same volume throughout.

"Director, those four may not necessarily be a problem, but the agreements tied to them are a breach. If we leave that breach open, then the day the Atlantic Federation decides to invoke the clause and demand access to 811 Institute's technical archives, they'll have a plausible point of entry."

"How will we fill the Power Group after replacing them?"

"Zhou Boyuan recommended two young engineers from the Electronics Research Institute. Their field is plasma physics, and they have no United Army cooperation background. The other two will be transferred from the Space Force's ship maintenance department. They have practical reactor operation experience."

Lin Yuan flipped back to the first page. Sheng Lan had handwritten a line on the cover.

Second-round personnel restructuring proposal for 811 Institute: thirty-seven personnel to be reassigned, eleven dismissed, and twenty-three added.

"Thirty-seven people." Lin Yuan closed the proposal.

"Do you think that's too many, Director?"

"I think it's exactly right."

He pushed the proposal back to her.

"But people are going to curse you for it."

Sheng Lan put the proposal into a folder and pulled the zipper all the way closed.

"They already are."

Before she could finish, the meeting room door opened a crack. Xu Yanqiu squeezed in sideways from outside, clutching a crumpled notice in his hand.

"Adjutant Sheng, you put Zhao Zhengqing from my Materials Group on the reassignment list too?"

Sheng Lan turned around. She faced Xu Yanqiu exactly as she had faced Lin Yuan, without changing her stance.

"Zhao Zhengqing's experiment logs have lacked original data backups for two consecutive months, and his project progress reports were submitted late three times."

"He's running new formula tests for Furnace No. 5. He's been working nonstop for nineteen days, and you expect him to make time to write reports?"

"Professor Xu, reporting procedures are part of the project's red line. Missing original data backups mean the experimental results cannot be traced. If any dispute arises, the entire formula validation chain will be called into question."

Xu Yanqiu slapped the notice onto the desk.

"Sheng Lan, you're not a technician. You don't know how tight Furnace No. 5's testing window is. If Zhao Zhengqing stops to catch up on paperwork, the next batch of samples will be delayed by four days."

Sheng Lan did not back down.

"I'm not asking him to stop. I'm requiring him to complete backup archiving within twenty-four hours after an experiment ends. This requirement applies to every project group at 811 Institute. There are no exceptions."

Xu Yanqiu's expression darkened as he turned to look at Lin Yuan.

Lin Yuan leaned back in his chair, his fingers resting on the edge of the desk.

"Yanqiu, tell me the truth. How many missing backups does Zhao Zhengqing have in total?"

Xu Yanqiu's lips moved. He hesitated for less than a second.

"Seven."

"Seven. If Grove's people hadn't swallowed those three batches of fake Ceramic Steel, but had actually obtained usable intelligence, how many of our experiment logs would they need to reconstruct the formula?"

Xu Yanqiu did not answer.

"One would be enough." Lin Yuan's voice neither rose nor fell. "Zhao Zhengqing won't be dismissed, but the backup system takes effect today. He gets forty-eight hours to complete the missing files, not twenty-four. That gives him enough time to keep the furnace running. Sheng Lan, add it to the policy text."

Sheng Lan wrote it down in her memo.

Xu Yanqiu remained standing there.

"Anything else?"

Xu Yanqiu picked up the notice he had slapped onto the desk, folded it twice, and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Adjutant Sheng."

Sheng Lan looked up.

"I have no objections to your red-line rules for dismissal over leaks. I reserve judgment on dismissal over delays."

He walked to the door, pulled it open, then looked back and added one more thing.

"But I wholeheartedly support dismissal for falsification. If anyone in my group falsifies data to me, you won't need to lift a finger. I'll throw him out of 811 Institute myself."

The door closed.

Sheng Lan shut her memo, her voice dropping half an octave.

"Does Professor Xu support this now, or oppose it?"

"He supports the system. He just thinks you're micromanaging. Those aren't mutually exclusive."

Lin Yuan rose and walked to the window.

"When can the formal text for the three red lines be issued?"

"Tomorrow morning. Leaks mean immediate dismissal and transfer to Security. Three accumulated delays trigger a review process, and failure of the review means dismissal. Any falsification, once confirmed, means immediate dismissal and a three-year ban from all affiliated units in East Asia's military-industrial system."

"Before issuing it, have Legal and Security jointly review the wording. We can't leave any loopholes."

Sheng Lan slipped her pen back into her pocket.

The door opened again. This time, no one squeezed in sideways. Instead, the duty officer handed Sheng Lan a classified document.

Sheng Lan broke the seal, skimmed the contents, and strode toward Lin Yuan.

"Director, Ye Qingluan's people have just updated their tracking report on the Archangel."

"Go on."

"After its fourth engagement with the Rau Le Creuset Team south of the L3 Corridor, the Archangel changed course toward an Earth descent window. Qingluan's buoys intercepted internal ZAFT communications. Athrun Zala's call-sign activity is three times higher than during the last report. He requested heat-shield equipment from headquarters for high-altitude atmospheric pursuit."

Lin Yuan tapped the window frame once.

"He's going to chase it into the atmosphere."

Sheng Lan handed him the classified document.

"The Archangel's descent window is expected to open within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Its descent vector points toward the North African theater."

Lin Yuan accepted the document without opening it.

"Athrun Zala intends to fall in after it."