“What are you laughing at?” Hearing the sudden laugh, Ying Changtian asked Jiang Fu in confusion.
Jiang Fu had only let out a brief laugh before stopping. There was no point in harping on these things now. A win was a win; a loss was a loss. She hadn’t been the one to laugh last—at the end of the day, it simply meant her skills had been inferior.
Besides, not everyone in this world had abandoned her.
There was no need to complain over and over again about a mob of rabble who, out of self-interest or herd mentality, had made their choices.
Once she thought it through, her state of mind settled. She only felt a faint sense of boredom.
Hearing Ying Changtian’s question, she replied casually, “I just find it a bit ridiculous. Look—those shouting the loudest down there mostly have blank, ignorant faces. They probably don’t even understand what they’re doing, nor the consequences of their actions. They just follow whoever leads them. However the crowd heats up, that’s how they join in.”
Ying Changtian looked down. Under the glow of streetlights and torches, it was indeed the least shrewd-looking people who were the most worked up. The truly sharp ones were shrinking toward the back of the crowd, their eyes flickering—clearly aware that something about the situation wasn’t right.
Jiang Fu continued, “This group below may look large, but most of them were incited to come. They’ve been pushed forward by people with ulterior motives, using them as ammunition against the base leadership.”
“They have no thoughts or principles of their own. They sway whichever way the wind blows. If you win in the end, they’ll immediately fall in line and submit obediently. If you lose, they’ll just go be someone else’s dogs.”
“People like that are the least important.”
“Your real enemy—and the management’s—is the people behind them.”
So what was the point of merely cracking down on these individuals? The key was to follow the clues and find out who had been coordinating and organizing things behind the scenes.
Ying Changtian froze—pondered, frowned, then suddenly understood. When he looked at Jiang Fu again, it was with entirely new eyes.
“You hold a position in Fu’an Base, don’t you? Do they also have a lot of this kind of incitement and unrest?”
Not really. Aside from a small disturbance when she first took over, things had been relatively calm for years. After all, her fists were big enough—anyone who tried to stir trouble was directly suppressed by force.
A group of people gathering in the middle of the night, shouting at the management in the streets?
Take them down in minutes, give them a beating, and send them off to labor reform.
Afterward, there would be a thorough investigation—what started it, how it developed, whether there were hidden motives, who led it, who participated, who was directing from behind the scenes—every detail would be dug out. The departments responsible for that district would inevitably be penalized as well.
So who would dare stir trouble lightly?
Of course, Jiang Fu thought, her firm control was one factor. But another was that the people of Fu’an Base had no need to go that far. The living conditions there weren’t so harsh as to force them down this road.
That was why, when she saw this farce here, her first thought was: how incompetent must Hongri Base’s management be, to leave people both dissatisfied and unafraid?
She didn’t answer Ying Changtian directly. “This sort of thing isn’t rare. Chief Ying, first Zhou Liangji’s mysterious illness, and now certain people hiding behind the scenes, using Zhou Liangji’s case as a pretext to cause trouble—if you say it wasn’t coordinated, who would believe that? Hongri’s crisis is right in front of you.”
The more she spoke, the tenser Ying Changtian became. When he looked at Zhou Liangji in the crowd, his gaze was filled with killing intent.
Zhou Liangji wasn’t a fool. He quickly sensed something and looked precisely in their direction.
Ying Changtian instinctively retreated into the shadows. Jiang Fu, however, didn’t move. She folded her arms, leaned against the window frame, tilted her head slightly, and met Zhou Liangji’s gaze in midair.
Zhou Liangji paused.
He couldn’t see clearly who stood on the upper floor—only that it was a woman by her silhouette. But from the way she looked at him, he felt coldness, sharpness, mockery, disdain.
As if a hunter were looking at prey already caught in a net. As if a lofty ruler were watching a clown struggle at her feet.
His irritation flared instantly. He had never felt such an attitude from anyone—let alone from a woman.
A woman!
The mysterious person the Wen family had encountered in West Town had also been a woman!
He immediately tried to move toward Jiang Fu.
But there were too many people. They surrounded him, clustering around him like fans chasing a celebrity, thrilled to even brush a corner of his clothing. It was nearly impossible for him to break free.
Then he shot out a silver thread toward an iron decoration by the window.
He meant to use it as leverage to pull himself over.
Jiang Fu did not move. But an invisible current of resentment radiated outward from her.
The silver thread halted several meters from the window, unable to advance.
“Hm?” Zhou Liangji stiffened and was just about to increase his output when, in the next instant, the silver thread behaved as if an electric current had entered some conductive medium—it split from one into two, two into four, four into eight…
A massive and dazzling silver “firework” exploded in the air. Its expanse covered half the street, illuminating it in brilliant splendor.
Zhou Liangji was stunned.
The crowd in the street was stunned as well.
They watched the firework blossom like a spiderweb, each filament exquisitely beautiful. It hung in the air for several seconds before shattering like drifting fireflies, specks of light scattering downward like a flurry of snow, settling upon people’s shoulders.
“Wow! What is that? It’s so beautiful!”
“Mr. Zhou used his ability to set off fireworks for us!”
“Is Mr. Zhou responding to us?”
“Mr. Zhou, we’ll follow and support you forever!”
Zhou Liangji’s expression changed drastically. No. I didn’t. Don’t talk nonsense. I didn’t do that!
It had to be that woman.
But when he looked back toward the third-floor window, no one was there.
…
That night, Hongri Base was extraordinarily lively.
First, people across the base gathered to protest the arrest of Zhou Liangji. Then, under pressure, the base released him. At the release site, Zhou Liangji—moved by what everyone had done for him—set off fireworks on the spot to respond to their goodwill.
At dawn, when people heard the news—
Wait. If Zhou Liangji set off those fireworks, was he really planning to turn against the base?
After all, before the fireworks, the crowd had been just short of openly calling to overthrow the base leadership and install Zhou Liangji in power!
Was he really that bold? Was it true?
Some spoke up in his defense: “The base suspected Mr. Zhou of causing that strange illness without proper investigation. It’s only natural he’d be dissatisfied. Even a clay figurine has its temper.”
“Exactly, exactly. Mr. Zhou is such a good man. If he really rises to power, our lives will definitely get a lot better. I support him!”
There were still many people who thought highly of Zhou Liangji.
But before those words had even faded, another explosive piece of news spread: the more than ten thousand people who had gone to welcome Zhou Liangji out last night had all, without exception, come down with a strange illness.
They were vomiting and having severe diarrhea. What they threw up contained those bizarre noodle-like strands. Not only that, strange silver, mushroom-like growths had sprouted on their bodies. When their skin was cut open, their flesh was filled with spiderweb-like silver mycelium. It was terrifying.
It looked exactly like the fireworks Zhou Liangji had set off.
The news detonated like a bomb throughout the base. Those who had been speaking up for Zhou Liangji were all stunned. What was going on?
…
Zhou Liangji wanted to know too—what exactly was going on?
Out of nowhere, he had set off a firework. No matter how he tried to explain that there had been some mysterious woman involved, no one believed him. Everyone thought he had openly provoked the base and now didn’t dare admit it.
Before that matter had even settled, he heard that the crowd who had been at the scene last night had all fallen ill—and that this illness was even more severe than the one Yan Mi’s group had suffered.
“The fluctuation frequency of this ability… the color of this ‘mycelium’…”
In the hospital ward, ability users wearing the highest-level protective suits—designed to prevent ability intrusion—studied the patients on the beds. Several specialized instruments were running beside them. Looking at the data the machines analyzed, if this had nothing to do with Zhou Liangji’s ability, they would eat the machines on the spot.
Urgent footsteps sounded outside the ward. Zhou Liangji entered, surrounded—or rather, escorted—by a group of people.
On one of the beds lay a man who had stood near the front of the crowd welcoming him last night. The man had completely lost his spirited vigor. He now looked terminally ill, barely clinging to life. Silver mushrooms had sprouted on his face, arms, and chest.
The internal suffering of the body was impossible for others to truly feel. The overnight collapse of vitality was hard to grasp in its severity. But mushrooms growing out of someone’s body—an obvious, jarring visual horror that even a three-year-old would know was abnormal—was enough to fill anyone with fear.
When he saw Zhou Liangji come in, the man no longer showed last night’s excitement and reverence. Instead, he looked at him as if at a monster.
“It was you! You’re the one who did this to me! Zhou Liangji, I admired you so much—how could you harm me like this!”
Zhou Liangji halted mid-step. He could sense the fluctuations of his own ability within the man. His heart tightened.
“What’s going on?” he asked the people beside the bed.
Standing there was Zhao Chi, the base’s second-in-command, also dressed in a protective suit. He looked at Zhou Liangji with a complicated expression.
“This strange illness… I’m afraid it really is connected to your ability. When your ability-firework dissipated last night, it merged into the bodies of those present. Not long after, they all fell sick. Our preliminary judgment is that your ability may have mutated.”
As if reluctant, or perhaps helpless, he patted Zhou Liangji’s shoulder.
“We’re good brothers. Of course I believe you had no ill intentions. But the fact remains—more than ten thousand people fell ill because of you.”
Zhou Liangji opened his mouth, wanting to say that he hadn’t meant to set off that firework at all. Ever since he helped the Wen family set up that trap, it felt as though he himself had fallen into a massive trap instead. That mysterious woman must harbor ill will toward him. This was all a conspiracy.
But the residual force of his ability falling into the crowd had been witnessed by everyone.
He looked at the weak and suffering man on the bed. The man’s eyes were filled with resentment and fear—so unfamiliar, so completely different from last night.
Doubt crept into his heart. Had his ability really mutated?
He looked at his own hands. “Ability mutation? Are you saying… my ability might have turned into some kind of bizarre source of infection?”
Zhao Chi reassured him, “We’re not certain yet. That’s why we called you here—to cooperate with the hospital’s treatment plan and actively help treat the patients. Through continuous trials, we can determine exactly what’s wrong with your ability.”
As he spoke, he stared intently at Zhou Liangji. If Zhou showed the slightest unusual movement—or decided to stop pretending and tear off the mask—everyone present would immediately move to restrain him.