In the Name of Divine Ability, Part 25

Everyone exchanged glances. Then, as one, they snapped to attention and raised their hands in salute.

No one said much, but it was as though everything had changed.

Yulin Public Security General Directorate.

The moment Lu Zhao engaged the safety on his sniper rifle, word reached the county.

"Report! The Fangcheng Special Investigation Team's joint clearance mission is complete! Lu Zhao, an officer from the border station, successfully rescued the frontline combat personnel and wiped out the enemy forces. The high-risk target has been confirmed eliminated!"

The liaison officer's voice rang with barely concealed excitement.

With emergencies erupting at multiple points along the entire South Sea West Circuit border that night and victories few and far between, the Fangcheng Special Investigation Team had been the last to run into trouble, yet the first to send back good news.

Commander Liang Chengyun looked surprised. "That fast?"

He glanced at his watch. Only thirty minutes had passed between issuing the emergency deployment order and the mission's completion, including the time it took to relay the order and reach the battlefield.

Even if Ant Ridge Border Station had responded extremely quickly, it would have taken around half an hour to reach the battlefield.

That meant Lu Zhao had settled the fight in just a few minutes after arriving.

Both his response speed and his combat ability marked him as an excellent soldier.

"This young man is an excellent soldier. It's a waste of his talent to keep him tucked away as a platoon leader at Ant Ridge."

Liang Chengyun stroked his chin, appreciating his talent.

He looked at his staff officer and asked, "Can we find a way to transfer him to the main force here?"

He had just found a moment to look over Lu Zhao's file. There were two reasons Lu Zhao had been held down at the border station: the Chen Family and his status as a locally sponsored student.

The latter was actually the main reason. As a locally sponsored student, Lu Zhao had chosen to return to his relatively underdeveloped hometown and start at the grassroots level.

That was how he had fallen into the Chen Family's hands. His conscience had become a gun pointed at him.

His work record over the past four years was exceptionally impressive, showing that he was highly capable-so capable that he had earned promotions despite pressure from all sides.

Liang Chengyun's foothold in South Sea West Circuit was still unsteady, and he needed to promote talented people. Exceptional people were also easier for him to work with.

The chief of staff reminded him quietly, "The Chen Family singled him out."

Liang Chengyun said, "Would Marquis Chen really keep an eye on a junior officer? I'm only bringing him in to work under me. He might be sent elsewhere later."

"The Martial Marquis naturally wouldn't keep an eye on him, but if you do this, you'll offend the people who got involved back then."

The chief of staff spoke pointedly. "If you try to promote him now, you'll be slapping them in the face. Do you think they'd admit they were wrong for the sake of a junior officer?"

Liang Chengyun's appreciation for Lu Zhao's talent was instantly extinguished.

It was easy to suppress a nobody. As long as they stayed within their authority, Lu Zhao's reputation as an outstanding Imperial Capital graduate was no use.

Marquis Chen knew nothing about this, and neither did the major figures in the South Sea Circuit Government Bureau. The leaders of the county's various departments knew, but they wouldn't concern themselves with it at every moment.

Perhaps someone had simply made a phone call and given verbal notice at the start. Perhaps they had only nodded their approval.

They were all trivial matters.

But the moment anyone tried to help Lu Zhao turn things around, they would have to face a whole group of people, perhaps even an entire faction.

Liang Chengyun didn't dare take that gamble. Before the Martial Marquis, he too was a nobody.

Chapter 30: Grassroots Officers

Ant Ridge Border Station, the station chief's office.

Lü Jinshan paced back and forth in his office, his slightly puffy face covered in cold sweat. His eyes kept drifting to the internal phone, and he had begun hearing things.

It was as though the phone had never stopped ringing, and yet also as though the deadly silence had never been broken.

Imagined consequences kept surfacing in his mind, including news that the frontline forces had been wiped out.

"...Nothing can go wrong..."

Lü Jinshan prayed under his breath.

Before this, he had wanted nothing more than to stick Lu Zhao on gate duty, afraid that Lu Zhao would keep earning merit until he could no longer suppress him.

There were rules to follow within the system. No matter how impressive Lu Zhao was as an Imperial Capital graduate, Lü Jinshan could still keep him under his thumb. Conversely, he had no authority to erase Lu Zhao's accomplishments.

So Lü Jinshan had only delayed things under various pretexts. In the end, he still gave Lu Zhao the commendations he deserved.

That was his greatest skill after years in officialdom: "breaking" the rules as much as possible while staying within them.

But today's situation was completely different!

If he had indirectly caused this mission to fail, or worse, caused the frontline forces to be wiped out, then the consequences...

Lü Jinshan shuddered, and the cold sweat poured down even faster.

Rules and regulations could only keep him out of prison; they couldn't save his official post.

With a disaster this big, he might actually go to prison.

"Lu Zhao, oh, Lu Zhao, you absolutely must earn a great merit this time!"

Ring-

The desk phone rang. Within a second, as soon as the sound began, he snatched it up.

He was practically sprawled halfway across the desk as he picked up the receiver and said:

"Hello, this is Lü Jinshan. The mission at the front... is the mission complete?"

Every word seemed to have been forced out of his throat.

"...It worked?!... Good, good, good! Lu Zhao really is the finest soldier at our station. I'll make sure to recommend him for a commendation when he gets back!"

After hanging up, Lü Jinshan collapsed into his chair, clutching the receiver, looking like a man who had narrowly survived a disaster.

After quite a while, he calmed down a little, and Lü Jinshan's usual shrewd look returned.

He looked thoughtful as he said, "There were a few setbacks in this operation, but it also fully demonstrated that our border station's emergency response capabilities and command decisions can stand up to the test!"

"Of course, the courageous fighting of our frontline officers and soldiers was indispensable."

He quickly worked out the wording of his report in his head.

No matter how perilous the process had been or how crucial Lu Zhao's role had been, neither prevented Lü Jinshan from having commanded the operation properly.

It wasn't as though he wanted to steal credit. That would be a crime, and he would face a court-martial.

Lü Jinshan would be satisfied as long as he could add this to his record.

Everyone could cooperate for a win-win outcome now.

Lü Jinshan stood and strolled to the window with a pleased spring in his step.

Outside, Ant Ridge lay beneath the night sky. Several searchlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the rolling mountain ranges in the distance.

He gazed over the territory at his feet that he had managed for so long, his face glowing with a winner's satisfaction, as though the terror and loss of composure from a few minutes ago had nothing to do with him.

Just as Lu Zhao's apt metaphor had described him, he was a fat rat of power, shortsighted and muddleheaded, yet digging into power was instinctive to him.

On the road back to the border station.

Lu Zhao and Zhang Like rode in the same vehicle. The dim yellow light of the streetlamps flickered across their faces through the window.

"You really offended Special Response today."

Zhang Like turned and glanced at Lu Zhao.

Lu Zhao remained leaning against the window, looking out at the mountain forest racing past. The flickering light picked out the sharp contours of his profile.

"We don't eat from the same pot. He can't touch me," he replied calmly.

"Better to use him to make trouble for Lü Jinshan, so he won't start scheming about how to make himself look good again."

He knew Lü Jinshan's ways all too well.

If no one exposed him, Lü Jinshan would surely make himself look good in the report to cover up his own dereliction of duty.

The Special Response unit had no dealings with him and no shared interests, so there was naturally no need to maintain a relationship with them.

Hearing this, Zhang Like looked surprised.

"Old Lu, I see you're not that stubborn after all. You can be pretty ruthless when you play games."

Lu Zhao looked innocent as he asked in return, "Did I do anything? I was only protecting Station Chief Lü's reputation and keeping Team Leader Lin from being disturbed."

"Now you're calling him by his proper title? A weasel paying a New Year's visit to a chicken."

Zhang Like couldn't help laughing. Then he got down to business. "Turn down that position at the retired officers' home. Before, there really wasn't any other way. Lü Jinshan had you stuck at the junior officer level, and even as a company commander, there was nothing I could do."

"I figured I could at least get you a quiet place to retire to. Better benefits would have been some compensation too. But today you saved all the frontline backbone personnel at the border station. From now on, as long as you stay on the front line, there's nothing he can do to you."

Lu Zhao asked, puzzled, "They're all grassroots officers. How can they help me?"

"The point isn't what they can do to help you. It's what they won't do to help Lü Jinshan."

"Take what happened yesterday, for example. If they're willing to cooperate..."

Zhang Like gave an example. "If I led a group over to protest, do you think Lü Jinshan could withstand the pressure?"

A leader had the power to make major decisions, and almost no one at the border station could stand up to Lü Jinshan alone. But power was subject to checks and balances; the station chief was no dictator.

He needed the grassroots backbone personnel to exercise his authority-that was everyone who had been present today.

Most of the border station's grassroots officers had been promoted by Zhang Like. Since that fell within his authority, he naturally cultivated a power base of his own.

But he had no reason to rally these people against Lü Jinshan. Today, he could use the opportunity to bring them all over to his side.

"The station chief isn't a local emperor. Without the support of the grassroots backbone personnel, he can't get anything done, and Lü Jinshan's reputation is terrible."

Lü Jinshan's record was equally poor. Normally, a person needed at least thirty vitality points to serve as the chief of a battalion-level border station.

Organizations empowered to use force all valued Life Development. The amount of vitality one had directly affected how much authority came with one's position.

No one would have said anything if Lü Jinshan had held a technical post, but he couldn't be a commander-in-chief like the station chief.

"I've learned something."