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Chapter 53
He has not been as wise as his mother in this life.
Shen Zhuo remained silent for a long time, his cold, pale cheek hidden in the shadows.
This question was actually quite easy to answer.
An ambiguous relationship, a romantic relationship, or the special bond of trust formed through shared life and death experiences. Shen Zhuo has always been adept at handling the admiration of others because he possessed precise and unshakable rationality and was accustomed to all forms of sincere, passionate, and twisted adoration that followed in his wake.
Even though this person named Bai Sheng was different, the current situation before Shen Zhuo was actually easier to handle. A hug, a kiss, soothing ambiguities, and just the right amount of intimacy could maintain the enchanting status quo.
But at this moment, with the distant sound of rising tides facing the clear and fiery gaze above him, he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“…I don’t want to deceive you,” Shen Zhuo said calmly after a pause.
“For many years now, I’ve been accustomed to facing the worst-case scenario at any time, prepared to be betrayed by anyone around me, including you.”
“I don’t know what kind of relationship you hope to have with me, but there’s a certain possibility that I will never be able to achieve such a relationship with anyone in my lifetime.”
Bai Sheng stared at him, as if even his breath had ceased.
“If you must seek some form of public commitment in this lifetime, you can still step back now.” Shen Zhuo looked up at him, calmly saying, “I’m sorry.”
Bai Sheng’s eyes were deep and cold, showing no emotion, just staring fixedly at Shen Zhuo’s pupils.
Time slowly settled; every encounter from the moment they met to now, every confrontation on the brink of life and death, every passionate entanglement of warmth, all turned into fine sand in the void, slipping away silently through their fingers.
After who knows how long, Bai Sheng’s low, hoarse voice finally sounded, unexpectedly calm, “It’s late. Perhaps we both need some time apart to think.”
“…”
“Rest well.”
Bai Sheng turned and walked toward the door. His back was straight, calm, and dignified, his movements as decisive as ever, as if in an instant he had taken away all the familiar warmth. He reached out to open the door and stepped out.
At the moment he turned to close the door, Shen Zhuo quickly averted his gaze, his fingertips deeply embedded in his thigh muscle, his eyelashes falling to block any expression.
But the sound of the door closing did not come as expected.
“…Shen Zhuo.” Bai Sheng stood in the corridor outside the door, one hand gripping the handle. He seemed to hesitate for several seconds before slowly saying, “There’s something I’ve never directly told you before. I like you.”
Shen Zhuo remained motionless, like a cold statue amidst the interplay of light and shadow.
“Maybe you find it hard to see me as a lover, but you’ve always been my lover, now and forever.”
Then the door was closed gently.
The distant tide seemed to surge from all directions, squeezing out every bit of oxygen from the lungs to the bloodstream. A sharp, suffocating pain spread from his fingertips to his throat.
Shen Zhuo closed his eyes tightly, bending down deeply. Countless scenes, like swirling sands at the bottom of the sea, overwhelmed him—
“Come and make a deal with me, Shenhai City Supervisor.”
“Come over and help me fasten the buttons, and I’ll leave these three hijackers to the Shenhai City Supervision Office, deal?”
“Your Supervisor Shen, he has me in his heart!”
“I said I can’t bear to watch you die with my own eyes; I can’t do it!!”
“When the storm hits the dam and the crowd surges back after the waves, only he, holding a sword, goes against the tide. I am willing to be the shield in front of him.”
“You’re not the alone and helpless person you once were, Shen Zhuo. You have me now.”
…
Shen Zhuo gritted his teeth tightly, not making a sound.
He bent inward so forcefully that even the muscles in his back and neck tightened to the limit, as if this action could alleviate the sharp pain in his lungs. It took a long time for him to stand up straight, take a deep breath, and forcibly swallow the sour heat in his throat.
It was as if some unknown force had split him in half; one half was weak and fearful, tightly curled up, exposing his ugliness as he futilely tried to grasp the sand between his fingers; the other half was supported by strong habits, calm and composed, without any flaws, like a steel armor forcibly propping up his spine and knees.
Shshsh—
The bathroom faucet was turned on to the maximum, and Shen Zhuo washed his face. In the mirror, a wet face reflected back at him, eyes filled with fine blood vessels.
The little boy who used to sneak away to cry when he was young no longer existed. The HRG leader in adulthood had a body wrapped in flesh and blood, reinforced with steel and iron. He lowered his head, looking at the water flowing down his calloused palms, the crisscrossing watermarks seeming to once again turn into blood.
It can never be washed clean. Never.
Just like the first time he pulled the trigger and killed.
No matter how icy cold the water was, no matter how many times he scrubbed compulsively, the sticky bloodiness clung like a festering wound, refusing to be washed away. At that time, he had just realized that this path had no return and no end. Amidst the rushing water, he heard the weak yet firm voice of the old dean comforting him repeatedly: “It’s okay. That researcher deserved to die. He betrayed HRG and… wanted to smuggle that secret overseas. If you didn’t kill him, more people would die in the future. You had no other choice…”
There was no other choice at all.
“—Sinners! You’re all sinners!!” Before the smuggling ship at the dock, the researcher’s face contorted intensely under the barrel of the gun, his hysterical screams tearing through eardrums: “All of you know that secret. The future belongs only to the evolutionists. Humanity is destined to be eliminated! History will remember the names of you clowns, especially you, Shen; you’re doomed to die a gruesome death!!…”
A gunshot echoed, and his head exploded into a shower of blood, reflected in Shen Zhuo’s deep eyes.
Torrential rain poured down, and the headless body slumped to the ground, blood flowing along the pier toward the sea.
Shen Zhuo slowly lowered his gun, and dozens of researchers stood silently behind him. They were like pale ghosts in turbulent times. After a while, amidst the pouring rain, Shen Zhuo’s weary voice rang out: “…All of you are the backbone of the Human Regeneration Project. Since the day you joined, the lives of your parents, children, and loved ones have all been in my hands. Some people’s human nature cannot withstand the test. If anyone dares to betray that secret in the future, they should think about the lives of their families first…”
No one spoke; only raindrops traced down each person’s cheeks and fingertips, dripping into the puddle of blood beneath their feet.
“All of us, including me, have no way back. Only by facing death can we find release.”
“A hundred years from now, history will judge our actions today.”
The raging sea swallowed the headless body, and no one knew what had happened at the dock that night.
Six months later, the first phase of the Human Regeneration Project’s theoretical simulation was declared a success.
The HRG laboratory had obtained the evolutionary gene interferon, offering hope that humanity would soon gain superpowers through medication. Although this news was not publicly disclosed to the masses, high-ranking officials of various countries, the International Supervision General Administration, and radical organizations unexpectedly received intelligence.
The imminent war was forcefully extinguished, and the eager factions were forced to retreat back into the shadows.
Thus, the era of nuclear deterrence officially began.
But only a few knew that it wasn’t the dawn of a new era, but the start of a long journey of no return.
…
That night, when the rescue machines had been withdrawn in the ICU ward, the old dean lay quietly on the snow-white hospital bed. Several senior HRG researchers solemnly accompanied him, and Shen Zhuo sat by the bedside, tightly holding the old dean’s icy hand, until the old man mustered the last of his strength to smile at everyone:
“Gentlemen… may our names… be remembered… through the ages…”
“We will meet again…”
“We will meet again one day,” Shen Zhuo replied softly.
The old dean looked at him with contentment and passed away.
Outside the ICU, there were many hurried footsteps. The funeral attendants were recording the time of death and preparing the burial process.
The old dean had helped establish two generations of HRG, dedicating his entire life to the Central Research Institute, leaving behind countless disciples and numerous research achievements. The funeral office had already agreed to hold a grand funeral to be broadcast live on television with many dignitaries attending, combining mourning and glory in a solemn ceremony.
But in the quiet ICU of this late night, everyone felt like they were submerged in boundless, icy seawater, unable to make a sound.
“…Perhaps they are the ones who are right, and we are wrong.” After an unknown period of time, Shen Zhuo gazed into the deep void and said softly, “The Earth will eventually belong to the evolutionists, and a hundred years from now, history will remember us all as villains, clowns who went against the tide…”
“Survival is not wrong, Director Shen,” a senior researcher behind him said solemnly, “Regardless of which race writes the future history, we have only chosen the only path available to us. We… we have only been forcibly pushed onto the fork of evolution…”
“We have no other choice.”
The doctor pushed open the door and entered, respectfully offering condolences as they covered the old dean’s serene face with a white cloth. With the sound of clinking metal wheels, the body was wheeled away from the corridor, gradually fading into the distance.
Thirty years ago, the last witness of the first generation HRG, the last family member who took young Shen Zhuo out of the hospital and raised him, left this world forever in the glaring white light of the late-night hospital.
Perhaps there was indeed some kind of fate at play. As the first generation HRG came to an end, Shen Zhuo’s parents and all the researchers joined the departed, and when the second generation HRG faltered, it coincided with the passing of the old dean. At every pivotal moment in Shen Zhuo’s destiny, there was always departure and death, foreshadowing the inevitable conclusion of a journey that defied evolution.
The path of going against evolution was destined to be marked by sins for generations, and once someone stepped onto it, there was no turning back.
He would have to walk this path alone.
***
In the dim light of early morning, the greyish daylight seeped through the cracks in the curtains, casting shadows in the messy hotel room.
Buzz—
The sudden ringing of the phone jolted Shen Zhuo awake. He frowned, sat up, and glanced around the room, unsure of when he had fallen asleep.
The white shirt he had worn all night was wrinkled, the black tie was loosely undone, and the ashtray on the bedside table was filled with stubs. Shen Zhuo coughed twice, irritated by the heavy scent of smoke that had permeated the room all night. He picked up his phone and saw that the caller was Nielsen.
He answered the call, his voice still husky with fatigue. “Hello?”
“Just woke up?” Nielsen’s voice came from the other end of the line.
Shen Zhuo grunted in response, feeling a throbbing pain in his temples. He reached for the half-empty glass of whiskey on the bedside table.
The ice had completely melted into the whiskey, but he didn’t mind. Tilting his head back, he downed the rest of the drink in one gulp, the sharp liquid finally soothing the burning sensation in his throat.
“About the transportation of the Evolution Source meteorite, there might be a matter I need to trouble you to look into,” Nielsen paused but didn’t immediately disclose the issue. Instead, he changed his tone:
“I heard there was some disagreement between you and Antonio at the hotel where you were staying last night?”
With Nielsen’s astuteness, he must have already figured out the ins and outs of the situation. After all, it involved Antonio losing his veto power over any proposals regarding Shenhai. Details of Antonio showing up at the hotel with the rose last night would have definitely landed on Nielsen’s desk.
Shen Zhuo felt a hint of annoyance, but his voice betrayed no hint of it:
“It’s nothing, just a misunderstanding. Fortunately, it’s all in the past now.”
“Antonio’s behavior towards you was indeed very rude,” Nielsen paused, his tone comforting: “Don’t worry, Shen Zhuo. I’ll make sure to teach him a lesson.”
The act of “teaching a lesson” carried with it an implicit undertone of asserting dominance, a subtle display of male territoriality. It’s something understood without needing to be spelled out—a silent agreement among men.
Shen Zhuo knew exactly how to respond perfectly to Nielsen in this situation. He didn’t even need to give a direct answer; just a smile with ambiguous meaning would have sufficed. The rest of the political trouble could be left unsaid but understood.
However, for some reason, at this moment, in this hotel room, on such a lonely and disheveled morning, he suddenly felt a deep and genuine self-loathing.
“No need,” he almost indulged himself with a sense of retaliation, smiling as he spoke each word clearly:
“Mr. Bai has already ‘taught him a lesson,’ quite harshly.”
There was a sudden silence on the other end of the call.
Shen Zhuo waited with malice for Nielsen’s reaction. He even anticipated that Nielsen couldn’t help but blurt out the question, ‘So what exactly is your relationship with Mr. Bai now?’
But after what felt like an eternity, Nielsen’s clearly controlled voice finally came through the phone:
“Is that so? Well, that’s good. I appreciate Mr. Bai’s correct approach.”
The night of depression had finally yielded a negligible release, but Shen Zhuo found himself somewhat disinterested now.
Casually shifting the topic, Shen Zhuo asked, “Is there anything else?”
“The newly constructed high-pressure containment chamber for storing the Evolution Source meteorite needs a final inspection. I thought we could take care of it while you’re here.” Nielsen, adept at wielding political maneuvers, remained composed despite the emotional turmoil. There was hardly a hint of anything unusual in his voice. “It’s located at St. Carter’s Fort, sixty nautical miles away. If possible, I’ll send a speedboat to pick you up at the hotel dock later. After the inspection, you’ll still have time to make it back for tonight’s dinner at nine.”
“I understand,” Shen Zhuo replied calmly before ending the call.
He freshened up a bit, changed into a neat suit, and looked at his reflection in the mirror. His face was calm as still water, with only a hint of paleness, giving nothing away.
Standing before the dressing mirror, Shen Zhuo locked eyes with his own reflection.
He had always borne a striking resemblance to Shen Ruzhen.
For Shen Zhuo, he actually had no memories of his mother anymore, but occasionally he could sense her presence from the fleeting remarks of others. They would nostalgically recall her grace and wit during her teaching days at a foreign university, where she was known for her sharp tongue and merciless critiques that reduced even twenty-year-old male students to tears, yet her lecture halls were always packed. They would talk about how, at forty and pregnant with a child, she would stride confidently through the school grounds carrying heavy academic materials, with onlookers peeking at her from behind windows. They would recount the story of how, at a celebratory banquet, she got drunk and impulsively promised a doctoral student that if he could publish a paper in a prestigious scientific journal, she would allow him to touch her fingers. The student, fueled by determination, managed to accomplish the task, but tragically, Shen Ruzhen passed away unexpectedly, leaving him grief-stricken at her funeral.
She never looked back at the mundane world.
Throughout her life, she never spared a single glance downward.
Shen Zhuo rarely visited his parents’ graves. After all, it was just a piece of marble and two urns of ashes; their spirits had long since dissipated along with their material forms. The only time he went was during the HRG crisis, when he felt overwhelmed and drove to the cemetery alone. There, he unexpectedly encountered the foreign man who was said to appear at the grave every year.
After standing quietly without disturbing each other for a while, the man spoke on his own initiative and said in English:
“This is my last time coming here. I won’t be able to come again.”
Shen Zhuo politely inquired, “Are you marrying again?”
The man seemed to chuckle briefly before replying, “I have cancer. I’m dying.”
“… “
“I’ve always missed her. Do you know what her greatest wisdom in life was?” The man’s gray-green eyes gazed at the tombstone as he spoke slowly, “She never showed affection to anyone in this world, so she was able to enjoy herself freely, never knowing an ounce of pain.”
Shen Zhuo remained silent, standing quietly in the cemetery’s breeze.
“You look a lot like her, child.” The man turned around, slightly hunched due to age and illness, and patted Shen Zhuo’s shoulder. “I wish you well. I hope you can also have such wisdom.”
Under the faint blue sky, a cool breeze blew over the sea, gently rustling the curtains in the room.
Shen Zhuo sighed silently, then turned away from the standing mirror.
He straightened his tie, put on his coat, and stepped out of the door.
Every door along the corridor was tightly shut, enveloping the entire hotel in silence. The speedboat sent to pick him up hadn’t arrived yet. The faint daylight filtered through the windows like a thin veil of gray, casting ambiguous shadows on the wooden floor. As Shen Zhuo passed by the door of the adjacent room, he halted his steps silently.
That door was tightly closed, without a single gap.
From afar came the muffled sound of the tide, while all the sounds and colors of the world faded into a distant background. Only the heartbeat in his chest reverberated louder and louder.
As if compelled by some unseen force, he turned around, his knuckles clad in black leather gloves hovering in the air, just inches away from the door panel.
Just a gentle knock.
Dust particles floated quietly in the air, as if time itself had turned into a thick, viscous fluid, coalescing into icy stalactites at his fingertips, suffocating him with a dull ache creeping up his throat.
After what seemed like an eternity, Shen Zhuo slowly lowered his hand.
In this foreign land, at an ordinary hotel, on this unremarkable morning in his life, he finally had a clear and profound realization, like an epiphany flooding his senses, resonating through every fiber of his being, causing even his soul to tremble in its intensity—
It dawned on him that he had not been as wise as his mother in this life.
Footsteps echoed from nearby, quickly approaching from behind. They were the inspectors from the General Administration who had been sent to fetch him. Two evolutionists respectfully bowed as they reached him.
“Supervisor Shen, the boat is waiting for you at the dock.”
“…”
The legendary Supervisor Shen, known for his unparalleled beauty and icy silence, stood in the play of light and shadow as if frozen in time for a long while before finally turning to walk toward the hotel staircase.
The two inspectors couldn’t help but steal glances at his expression, only to see that his face was cold and impassive as he said, “Let’s go.”
Meanwhile, just behind the door in the adjacent room, Bai Sheng stood facing the door, his right hand tightly gripping the doorknob.
Every nerve and every ounce of willpower screamed to burst out, yet he could only suppress the urge with all his might, so much so that his knuckles turned white from the effort.
Until the familiar footsteps outside gradually faded away, disappearing into the distance of the corridor.
“…”
Bai Sheng slowly and painstakingly loosened his grip bit by bit, as if all his strength had been drained from his body. He felt engulfed by a vast emptiness, and it took him a long while to slowly step back a few paces and sit on the edge of the bed.
He buried his face deeply in his palms, fingers tightly gripping his forehead, and let out a hoarse breath of burning anguish.
***
—Bang!
A loud crash echoed from behind the door, as if something had been smashed to pieces.
In the hotel corridor, the secretary paused, exchanging a glance with the on-duty guard, who gave a helpless gesture, mouthing “Supervisor Shen.”
“…” Understanding the situation, the secretary’s took a couple of steps back in fear, unwilling to get involved in the wrath of the Wolf of Odin at this moment.
Inside the presidential suite, the phone lay shattered on the ground as Nielsen stood behind the desk, his hands gripping the edge tightly, veins bulging.
He buried his head, breathing heavily, his expression shrouded in shadow. It took a full ten minutes for his raging anger to subside, barely suppressed. Nielsen lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes still brimming with the remnants of his fury.
Knock, knock.
The secretary tapped on the door cautiously and said softly, “Director-General, you have a meeting with Professor Brice Thorne, the ‘Bishop’ of the Round Table, at noon. The special car is waiting outside the hotel.”
“I understand,” Nielsen said hoarsely.
The scenery outside rushed past the bulletproof car windows, and inside, no one dared to make a sound. Nielsen leaned back in the back seat, his face as calm as water, but his mind kept echoing that sentence over and over again—
“Mr. Bai has already ‘taught him a lesson,’ quite harshly.”
In fact, he shouldn’t have gone to meet that Round Table Bishop or even attended tonight’s award ceremony. The only thing he should do now was to accompany Shen Zhuo to fly to St. Carter’s Fort. By any means necessary, whether soft or hard, he should keep that beauty firmly in his grasp and not allow any S-class attempts to snatch him away.
But that young wolf with the surname Bai was on the island.
With the global media gathering, and Cameron representing the Security Council at the ceremony, the timing and location were just all wrong.
Nielsen closed his eyes, knowing full well that he had missed the perfect opportunity to gain Shen Zhuo’s trust during the “Daydream” incident. And in the time after the incident, his own condition was also off, too preoccupied to care about the distant Shenhai, which gave Bai Sheng the chance to take advantage of the situation.
His internal organs seemed to tighten slightly with the slight bumps of the vehicle, still not fully recovered from the battle with Rong Qi.
After that battle, Nielsen often found himself in a state of mental haze and self-doubt. People thought he was still recovering from his injuries, but no one knew that at the end of the decisive battle in the valley, the evolutionist named Rong Qi, before stepping into the spatial tunnel, had smiled amidst his bloodied breaths:
“—Do you know that the existence of evolutionists on this Earth is actually limited in time? You wasted five whole years just to preserve the Director-General’s position.”
At that time, Nielsen was barely able to stand, his body covered in blood, thinking he was hallucinating: “…What did you say?”
“The esteemed Director-General of the International Supervision General Administration, the top-ranked evolutionist, understands his own race even less than a human.” Rong Qi shook his head slowly, his eyes shimmering with condescending pity. “You fools, you still haven’t realized that the descendants of evolutionists will undergo gene substitution with different alleles as they reproduce, leading to reproductive isolation from humans after several generations.”
At first, Nielsen didn’t grasp his meaning, but then the phrase “reproductive isolation” hit him like a bolt of horror, instantly piercing his mind:
“What… what do you mean?!”
“Five years ago, when the evolutionary source first arrived on Earth, Shen Zhuo immediately notified governments worldwide to collect meteorites comprehensively and proposed a series of lead-lined high-pressure containment measures, effectively curbing the increase in the number of evolutionists. In the past five years, the evolutionary source has almost disappeared from the public, making it difficult for the global population of evolutionists to increase. Even though the number of newborn evolutionist infants exceeds the number of deceased members, it is barely over 110,000.”
“The scientists at HRG have been painstakingly waiting for the occurrence of reproductive isolation.”
Rong Qi looked down at Nielsen in the pool of blood from above, as if gazing at primitive creatures on a primordial planet. “The total number of S and A-class individuals in our entire population is only over two thousand. Once reproductive isolation begins, high-level evolutionists are easily pushed towards extinction due to the lack of offspring, and the remaining low-level evolutionists will enter a population bottleneck. With a sparse gene pool, genetic drift intensifies, diseases spread, making reproduction difficult, and we will enter a negative population growth phase without any buffer.”
“The core idea of the HRG plan is to use supernatural agents as a new form of nuclear deterrence in this era, maintaining the status quo as much as possible and delaying time until the extinction of evolutionists on this Earth.”
“…It’s impossible. Not even the elites under the United Nations Security Council have discovered the issue of reproductive isolation.” Nielsen asked with a trembling voice, “How did the HRG people know about it?! And who are you?!”
The mountain wind carried a chilling scent of blood as it swept past Rong Qi’s eyes.
“In my distant homeland, I’m pretty much like you,” he said calmly.
“I’m in the same position as you, but I made a very wrong choice. If you don’t want to repeat the tragedy, then come to my side.”
“Within a hundred years, humans and evolutionists will be completely divided into two separate populations, and it’s absolutely impossible for two intelligent species to coexist on the same planet.”
The specialized car came to a silent stop at the entrance to the award ceremony venue.
“…Director-General,” the secretary reminded in a low voice.
Nielsen suddenly opened his eyes, forcing himself to gather his scattered thoughts.
Outside the car window was the splendid main entrance of the ceremony venue. Some media personnel who arrived early had already taken their positions, and the staff were nervously making final arrangements. Guards stood respectfully at the car door, waiting for him.
Nielsen exhaled a murky breath, forcing himself to regain his composure. He lowered his head to exit the car door, adjusting his silver-gray suit, and strode up the red-carpeted steps.
***
According to the ceremony schedule, he was supposed to meet with Bishop Brice Thorne, a member of the Round Table, here before the ceremony, have lunch together, and discuss the progress and details of the “Proposal for Peaceful Coexistence between Evolutionists and Humans.”
In fact, Nielsen had been holding onto this proposal for two years now because its main and core purpose was to take back the benefits given to evolutionists by humans and return them to humans. Once this proposal was passed, all the preferential policies he had implemented for the evolutionists during his term would be revoked, which would be quite detrimental to his upcoming reelection.
Among the upper echelons of the General Administration, this was an open secret, but no one dared to openly acknowledge it. Almost everyone could feel the low pressure surrounding Nielsen.
“—Mr. Director-General!” A familiar voice came from behind, accompanied by a smile.
Nielsen halted his steps, a hint of cold sarcasm flickering in his eyes: “Cameron.”
Cameron, clad in a royal blue suit with a turquoise pocket square complementing his gray-green irises, wore his usual facade of an insincere smile. He strode confidently towards Nielsen from the United Nations convoy, and the two political adversaries shook hands on the red-carpeted steps.
“I heard you’re going to discuss the proposal for peaceful coexistence between evolutionists and humans with that bishop. I’m really looking forward to it.” Cameron’s diplomat-like smile remained flawless under the scrutiny of the cameras, but only up close could one see the mockery in his eyes. “Isn’t peace something you’ve always advocated for?”
Nielsen didn’t bother to conceal his contempt as he let out a cold chuckle. “A warmonger like you, who is so eager to exterminate evolutionists, wouldn’t understand our hope and longing for peace.”
“Oh, no no, I really hope this proposal can be passed during your tenure,” Cameron squeezed Nielsen’s hand, wearing a warm smile. “I can’t wait to see the results of the upcoming election. I believe your evolutionist constituents will warmly embrace this proposal, won’t they?”
“…”
The two men shook hands and locked eyes, with the flashing lights of the media cameras in the distance. However, they couldn’t capture the explosive tit-for-tat in their eyes.
“I’m very confident in my votes, just as I am confident in Supervisor Shen’s stance,” Nielsen leaned in slightly and spoke in a low voice. “Thanks for your concern, my old friend.”
Cameron raised an eyebrow with a smirk: “You mean Shen Zhuo?”
He slightly turned his head to avoid the cameras, making it difficult for lip-reading experts to catch his sarcasm. “Shen Zhuo has always been a love-deprived little lamb since childhood, bleating equally to anyone. Are you sure you’re the only player in this game?”
“…”
“Are you so confident that his stance will remain firm?”
Nielsen narrowed his eyes, his pupils turning a dangerous gray-blue.
Cameron pretended not to notice, finally standing up straight with a smile on his face.
Their hands still clasped in false camaraderie, Cameron patted Nielsen on the shoulder with his other hand. No matter how high-definition the cameras were, they couldn’t capture the sinister undercurrents of this moment:
“Best wishes to you, old friend,” he smiled. “I look forward to it.”
Nielsen narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. Then he turned to ascend the steps, entering the doorway without looking back.
The terrifying low pressure from the Director-General was enough to make anyone shiver. The secretary, aides, and others quickly followed suit, bowing their heads. However, Cameron paid no heed. Standing on the red carpet steps, he waved to the media while gesturing for his confidant to come closer. In a hushed tone, he instructed:
“Nielsen has been triggered, keep an eye on him.”
“Do we need to assign extra protection for Supervisor Shen?” the confidant asked quietly.
“He’s always sticking to that S-class named Bai, you could shoot a nuclear missile at the island and blow it up, but it still wouldn’t knock off a hair on his head,” Cameron chuckled sarcastically. “I never worry about his abilities in this regard. Go ahead.”
The confidant nodded in understanding and swiftly stepped away.
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