Perhaps a minute had passed, perhaps ten seconds.
In the silence, He Zheng could not help letting out a breath. The others raised their heads, their expressions grim, and exchanged looks.
"Fuck? There really is a Third Party?"
"A perfected one? They want to create that thing?"
"Looks like... even if those idiots hadn't sent the message, the people in the recording would have stirred things up themselves? No matter what, the meme would have broken out?"
The recording contained only dialogue, and some of it confused him. But when he heard the word "Minister," He Zheng could guess that the speaker had to be a high-ranking government official.
"No, it could still have been stopped."
"Not all the higher-ups were involved. Only some of them."
"Working backward, that should have been the challenge for Kelin's team."
"If they knew about the meme, they should have realized what the things mentioned in the recording actually meant."
An Ke looked at He Zheng with a bitter smile. After listening, she finally understood what made option one difficult, and why the two sides needed to cooperate.
"This recording also explains why Frank gained the trust of so many countries so quickly."
"I was wondering about that before. Even with privileges granted by the system, they should only have been able to win the trust of one faction at most."
"Just like us. We only made the professor remember Ye Lin. If option one could make the world's leaders trust them unconditionally and cooperate with them, that would be far too much."
He Zheng nodded thoughtfully. That had not occurred to him, but An Ke's explanation made sense.
"Then we..."
He instinctively looked toward Ye Lin, only to find him frowning deeply, apparently thinking something over.
An Ke hesitated for a moment, studying