Free Web NovelChapter 126: Chapter 120: A Thorny Problem
Late at night, in Yunhua City’s Shelter No. 915.
A man opened his eyes. He checked the mask on his mouth, then got out of bed to use the restroom.
He pushed the door and found it wouldn’t open, as if blocked by something hard from the other side.
’What’s going on?’
He frowned and pressed both hands against the door, pushing with all his might!
THUD!
As the door flew open, a body toppled over, its pale face falling right into the man’s line of sight.
The man instinctively cried out in alarm, but the Anti-Speech Mask he was wearing immediately stopped him, preventing any sound from escaping.
His chest heaved violently with belated fear. He took a closer look at the body on the ground and saw that it was one of his three roommates, Wu Yun!
He instantly lost any urge to use the restroom. He went back to wake his other two roommates and immediately went to report the incident to the shelter’s administrator.
Before long, the administrator arrived with two staff members and carefully examined Wu Yun’s body.
Judging from the rope tied to the sink and the ligature marks on Wu Yun’s neck, the answer was obvious.
The administrator quickly made his determination: Wu Yun had committed suicide.
The three roommates were immediately taken to a conference room for questioning via text.
All three clearly stated that they had no conflicts with Wu Yun, let alone any bullying. They couldn’t understand why he would commit suicide.
After the questioning, the administrator had the three men return to their room, instructing them to keep Wu Yun’s death a secret and not spread the news within the shelter.
Afterward, the administrator and other staff members pulled up the surveillance footage, looking for clips that included Wu Yun.
The footage showed that Wu Yun’s condition had been off for a few days. He was often seen staring into space for long periods or simply lying in bed all day.
Furthermore, reviewing older footage from before the seventh rule was announced, they could see that Wu Yun had been a very talkative person, frequently visiting other dorms to chat with people.
After reviewing the footage for two or three hours, the administrator came to a preliminary conclusion.
Due to his personality, Wu Yun had fallen into a deep depression from being unable to speak and communicate during the period of the seventh rule, which led him to end his own life in the restroom.
The government had gone to great lengths to build the shelters to protect its citizens. Therefore, any death that occurred inside was a major incident that needed to be thoroughly investigated and reported in detail.
Not daring to be negligent, the administrator wrote up an electronic report that very night and sent it to the appropriate department’s email address.
What he didn’t know was that this inbox was already flooded with similar reports from shelters in various cities...
...
「That same night.」
A hair-thin Shadow Line slithered across the ground, approaching a seemingly ordinary city.
This city was Lipu City, the one where "Wind-like Sky" was located.
A Shadow Line, as thin as a strand of hair, was extremely inconspicuous even in broad daylight and very difficult to notice—if you weren’t looking closely, would you even spot a single hair on the ground?
At night, it was even more stealthy. Not only was it invisible to the naked eye, but even patrol cars and drones couldn’t easily detect it. free𝑤ebnovel.com
Guan Tong took advantage of this stealth, quickly maneuvering it to the target location: the hospital Gathering Point.
He had the Shadow Line crawl up the exterior wall to the tenth floor, just as Wind-like Sky had said. He checked the windows one by one, spotting a small cardboard box on the sill of the third one.
He used it to flick open the box’s lid and saw several masks stacked inside—the very goods awaiting transport.
From an incredible distance, Guan Tong manipulated the Shadow Line to wrap around the cardboard box several times. He then gently dragged it down to the ground and began to retreat along the same route it had taken to get there.
To prevent the tan cardboard box from standing out in the dark, Guan Tong had the Shadow Line wrap around it multiple times, completely cocooning it in black, which greatly increased its stealth.
Next was getting the cargo out of the city.
Guan Tong followed the pre-planned route, pulling the cargo through an urban village. According to the satellite map, this village had long been abandoned and was in the process of being demolished, so there would be almost no one there at night.
The Shadow Line dragged the box along, quickly reaching the edge of the city. Just then, an official transport vehicle drove by on the highway, its headlights blazing. Guan Tong immediately made the Shadow Line stop.
The driver spotted a black box on the side of the road in his headlights, but he only glanced at it before looking away, assuming it was just some piece of trash.
After the vehicle passed, the "black box" immediately started moving again, speeding away out of the city at an incredible pace.
’Went smoothly enough...’
Guan Tong, back on Mingdao Mountain, kept his eyes closed, manipulating the Shadow based on the visual information it transmitted back to him from so far away.
’It went smoothly because the Shadow is almost impossible to detect at night,’ Guan Tong thought.
Moreover, as the wartime administration became stricter, people in the cities now almost always stayed in Gathering Points or shelters at night, not going out unless absolutely necessary.
As a result, some of the streetlights were no longer turned on, making the Shadow’s movements even more concealed.
Once it had retrieved the cargo and left the city, the Shadow could move at full speed without any further worries.
Guan Tong directed it to head straight for the coordinates sent by "Black Stone," aiming to arrive in the vicinity before dawn.
Upon seeing Black Stone’s camp, Guan Tong certainly wasn’t going to have the Shadow Line bring the cargo directly inside.
He maneuvered the Shadow Line to drop the cargo about five hundred meters from the camp, then notified "Black Stone" through the website to pick it up at the target location.
Black Stone had been waiting for the message. As soon as he saw it, he rode a motorcycle out of the camp and went to the location Guan Tong had sent. There on the ground was a cardboard box. He opened it and found the ten official-issue Anti-Speech Masks that were distributed in the city.
"You really delivered!"
Black Stone was both surprised and delighted.
Until he had the goods in his hands, he had been skeptical about the whole thing.
After all, retrieving goods from a city under wartime administration and getting them out was no easy feat.
The only reason he had been willing to try was that the site administrator hadn’t asked for a deposit. Otherwise, he most likely wouldn’t have agreed to pay, thinking the whole affair was too unreliable.
But now, seeing these ten masks with his own eyes, Black Stone was finally convinced. That site administrator was truly resourceful, far beyond what any ordinary person could accomplish!
With the first commissioned transaction complete, Black Stone received 10 Anti-Speech Masks, Wind-like Sky received 950 Sublimation Coins, and Guan Tong received 100 Sublimation Coins. Everyone was happy.
Ironically, the happiest of them all was Guan Tong, who had earned the least. This was because he had just successfully verified that his Shadow Logistics concept was viable. Although many of the details were still imperfect, he could continue to optimize the process as his Shadow’s abilities grew stronger.
After the commission was completed, both Wind-like Sky and Black Stone posted in the commission thread on the website, confirming the transaction was finished and thanking the site administrator for his help.
As soon as the news broke, a number of related threads popped up on the site.
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If many people had previously suspected the site administrator was Shadow, now many were guessing he might have connections to official channels.
Guan Tong then posted in both the commission and trading sections, explaining that he would decide whether or not to assist on a case-by-case basis, after understanding the situation of both parties and the details of the items being traded.
If he agreed to help, and both parties in the transaction agreed to pay 10% of the transaction value as his fee, then the collaboration could proceed.
As soon as his post went up, the comments section was flooded with replies.
"A 10% fee... For a 10,000 Sublimation Coin transaction, you’d have to fork over a thousand. That’s not cheap..."
"If the admin can really provide services over long distances, then it’s only natural for him to charge a fee."
"I’m getting more and more curious about the admin’s identity. He can set up a secure website and also deliver goods in and out of cities under wartime administration. Don’t tell me he’s an official government employee?"
"Actually, I also think the admin might have government connections..."
No matter what everyone guessed, they couldn’t be certain without any evidence.
Meanwhile, the official government cybersecurity department, which had been continuously monitoring the website, realized the severity of this latest development and immediately reported it up the chain of command.
...
Gao Liangwei woke up in the middle of the night and went to his office.
As soon as he turned on his computer, he saw numerous urgent reports from various departments.
He gave a silent, bitter smile. It was like this during every period of the Apocalypse Rules, with countless reports snowing down on him every day.
He rubbed his coarse hands over his face to wake himself up and focus, then began to review the reports.
The most severe reports concerned non-external casualties in the various shelters.
Due to the sealed-off management style, combined with the current "no speaking" rule, the atmosphere inside the shelters had become extremely tense and oppressive.
Although most residents could alleviate the stress through various forms of entertainment like reading, video games, or watching videos, a significant number of people were developing mental disorders, with external symptoms like mania, lethargy, and even suicide.
In the less than twenty days since the rule began, a total of over several thousand people in the major shelters had engaged in self-harm or committed suicide. This had undoubtedly reached a point where widespread psychological intervention was necessary.
Aside from this matter, two other pieces of news particularly caught Gao Liangwei’s attention.
The first was related to the website "Ascender’s Home." The cybersecurity department reported that the site was no longer limited to online communication; the first suspected case of a successful offline transaction had occurred, and the traded item involved officially manufactured supplies.
Gao Liangwei’s brow furrowed as he read this report. Officially manufactured supplies were all allocated on a quota basis. How could they have been traded and transported out of the city? ’Could there be an insider?’
This kind of thing undoubtedly had to be investigated thoroughly. Otherwise, once a breach was opened, it would only grow wider.
The other matter was a report from the two Official Squads that had been dispatched outside the city, a deployment suggested by Dr. Zhang.
Their report stated that numerous camps had already been established outside the city. Moreover, organized gangs of thugs had appeared and were constantly raiding other camps.
The two Official Squads were asking if the high command could authorize them to eliminate these gangs of thugs during their external investigations.
Gao Liangwei fell into thought.
Authorizing the two squads would be tantamount to giving them the legal right to kill. ’When you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ Without a proper oversight system in place, how could they ensure that the squads were only eliminating actual gangs of thugs? This was a problem that required careful consideration.
