Hui Tian Ch54

Chapter 54

Cameron’s blood pressure soared to 180.

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“Professor Thorne, it’s an honor to meet you.”

Nielsen strode through the door and shook the hand of the Roundtable bishop sitting in the wheelchair firmly. His demeanor was impeccable, and his manners were refined; one would never guess he had just had a minor confrontation with Cameron outside the venue. “Congratulations on winning this year’s Peace Prize.”

This was a small meeting room outside the awards ceremony venue. The press had not yet been positioned. The Roundtable bishop sat in his wheelchair covered by a blanket, with only Pardes and a few students by his side.

“I am also very honored to meet you, Director General.” The bishop knew full well that Nielsen did not particularly care for him, but he revealed nothing of it, smiling, “I have long looked forward to discussing this peace coexistence proposal with you. I hope it can be implemented during your tenure.”

Nielsen would have to be insane to allow this proposal to be implemented during his tenure, but fortunately, a politician’s promises never need to be kept. “Of course, I hope so too. The International Supervision Office is the legal body overseeing global Evolutionists; maintaining human rights is our—”

He stopped mid-sentence, his gaze sharply darting upward.

“Is something wrong, Director General?”

Perhaps he was being overly sensitive, but there seemed to be an extremely subtle, almost imperceptible energy fluctuation high above his head, which vanished in an instant.

Nielsen’s brow tightened slightly. Was it his imagination?

“…is our top priority,” he said, lowering his head to turn back to the Roundtable bishop, while his other hand made a brief, commanding gesture behind his back.

—Security issue on the roof. Send men to investigate.

His A-level subordinates behind him remained calm, quickly dispersing and retreating from the door.

“Thank you for your hard work traveling all this way,” Nielsen said, his smile unchanged, gesturing with his hand: “Please.”

Meanwhile, on the hotel rooftop.

Rong Qi stood in the biting wind at the height, his eyes cast down toward the red-carpeted venue below, watching until Nielsen’s back disappeared through the doors. He seemed somewhat regretful.

“Since you’ve been unable to make a decision for so many days…”

Rapid footsteps echoed behind him as a group of A-level subordinates rushed up to patrol. But strangely, they all turned a blind eye to Rong Qi’s back, as if they couldn’t perceive his presence at all, nor could they sense the powerful energy signature he emitted.

“Clear!” “Clear!”

“All Clear!”

The well-trained security personnel searched every corner, clearly puzzled but helpless, and could only report the results via their walkie-talkies before quickly retreating to search the rest of the building.

Rong Qi stood on the edge of the rooftop, rolling his shoulders, his expression leisurely and sighs of emotion.

“Then I’ll just have to give you a push, Director General.”

Nielsen was able to be elected as the first Director General and remain steadfast for five years in the face of countless impeachments not only because before the bug of “Causality” appeared, the “Tyrant” was globally recognized as the S-level ability with the most terrifying offensive power.

The most important point was that he had family background even before his evolution; he was a sufficiently seasoned and adept politician.

Even though he had completely rejected every clause of the peace coexistence proposal in his heart, Nielsen still listened very politely and patiently to every suggestion the Roundtable bishop had for the proposal. The two talked in a cordial and friendly atmosphere until noon, and he personally led the bishop’s party to the pre-arranged dining room.

“Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our suggestions, Director General.”

The bishop looked up at Nielsen from his wheelchair. Although the other man was 1.9 meters tall, the old man had no sense of inferiority, only sincerity and hope in his eyes. “The thing Evolutionists can least afford is to go to war with humanity. We have over 80,000 C-level and D-level Evolutionists; we definitely cannot withstand human precision nuclear strikes. Once war starts, we will fall rapidly. Only through peaceful coexistence can we ensure that we and humanity can coexist on this beautiful Earth.”

The Roundtable’s young students all wore expressions of agreement; only Pardes showed no reaction.

“…”

Nielsen looked down at the faces around him, a sudden impulse rising in his throat. He couldn’t help but blurt out: “Then what if, after a few generations of peaceful coexistence, the number of Evolutionists suddenly decreases drastically?”

The bishop was stunned. “Do you mean entering a population bottleneck?”

Nielsen realized he had made a slip of the tongue and did not answer.

“A population bottleneck would require a drastic reduction in the number of Evolutionists in a very short time, which doesn’t seem possible at the moment.” The bishop laughed suddenly, saying, “Over the past five years, when Evolutionists and humans intermarry, there is about a 30% chance of producing Evolutionist offspring. Our total population is steadily increasing. Unless a terrible genetic mutation occurs in the future…”

“What if a genetic mutation leads to reproductive isolation?”

The bishop was stunned.

“What if our offspring become reproductively isolated from humans?” Nielsen stared fixedly into the old man’s cloudy eyes, wanting to pretend he was joking, but his slightly trembling gray-blue pupils exposed his true emotions. “If reproductive isolation were to happen soon, what would happen to the Earth?”

“…” The bishop was speechless. After a moment, he gave a short laugh, appearing to find it completely absurd.

“Forgive my bluntness, Director General. There is no evidence whatsoever that Evolutionists will become reproductively isolated from humans. That is just too ridiculous—”

The bishop’s voice stopped abruptly.

Nielsen was startled, and then he discovered that it wasn’t just the bishop; everyone in the room, including his A-level Evolutionist subordinates, had fallen into a state of puppet-like, frozen stagnation.

What was going on?

Nielsen’s internal alarm bells rang deafeningly. He lunged, moving to sprint out of the room, but at that critical moment—

A gentle, melodic voice came from behind him: “Do you remember what I said?”

“!”

Nielsen turned his head abruptly, his pupils constricting—it was Rong Qi at the door!

“How did you get in?!”

Nielsen subconsciously retreated half a step, but immediately after, Rong Qi vanished into thin air. At the same time, that devilishly gentle voice sounded again from behind him:

“I said if you didn’t want to repeat the tragedy, you should stand on my side. Remember?”

“What are you here for!”

A dagger made of solid ice appeared in Nielsen’s palm. He turned and stabbed it directly into Rong Qi’s throat, but it was like passing through a formless phantom. Almost instantly, as Nielsen pressed forward, Rong Qi flashed backward. The latter suddenly turned into several afterimages, each simultaneously emitting a condescendingly pitying voice:

“—You’re welcome, Director General. I’m here to help you make your final decision.”

Before the voice could finish, squelch!

Nielsen plunged his blade into Rong Qi’s chest, blood spraying wildly!

In an instant, Nielsen realized something, and his whole body felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

He saw Rong Qi’s blood-filled body turn into some kind of fluid, dripping away layer by layer until it vanished, as if it had never appeared at all.

And the object Nielsen had stabbed was not Rong Qi at all, but the bishop’s throat in the wheelchair!

As if some eerie illusion had been broken, everyone around awoke from a dream, witnessing this horrific scene in shock:

“B-Bishop?!”

Nielsen’s pupils dilated rapidly. He saw the bishop’s expression filled with disbelief, large amounts of blood gushing from his wrinkled mouth, and then his head slumped powerlessly, his eyes open, devoid of breath.

He was dead.

Dead under Nielsen’s blade in front of everyone.

Pardes turned toward Nielsen, unable to believe what he was seeing, and trembled as he spat out three words: “…Director General?!”

Clang!

The psychic dagger slid to the floor and vanished. Nielsen staggered back half a step.

His head was roaring. His first reaction was to say “It wasn’t me,” to say that the person standing there had clearly been Rong Qi and he had just been set up; but the powerful, deep-seated instincts cultivated from years of political maneuvering played a key role at this moment.

It was useless to say anything now. He had been emotionally chaotic recently, and now he had completely fallen into Rong Qi’s trap.

The most urgent task was not to stand here and argue in vain—that would only lead to him being dragged away like a scapegoat, his entire network of connections severed by political rivals, losing all chances of self-rescue, and falling into an abyss of no return.

“C-come…” Pardes finally squeezed out a trembling voice, staggering toward the door amidst the screams of the young students, shouting desperately: “Help! Help! Save us—”

Snap!

Nielsen’s face was as cold as iron. With a snap of his fingers, his psychic ability was triggered instantly. Everyone in the room simultaneously went black in their vision, losing consciousness.

Thump, thump, thump—one after another, people collapsed to the floor.

“D-Director General?” Only the confidant secretary remained standing. Although he was so terrified he had to lean on the table to stay upright, he looked at the tragically dead Roundtable bishop, speaking incoherently: “This… why…”

Nielsen spoke sharply: “I was set up by that man surnamed Rong. Now is not the time to talk about this.”

He decisively waved his hand, his psychic ability forming a barrier that pushed rapidly in all directions until it sealed the room like a protective cover.

A-level ability: Cage of Logic.

A cross-type ability of physical barriers and logic. Outsiders could not enter the small, locked space, and the ability would simulate scenes based on causal logic to display to the outside world, lasting up to three hours.

“Call someone to watch Cameron. Don’t miss a single move. Notify me as soon as he notices this room.” Nielsen straightened his collar and walked out, cold-eyed: “Tell the pier to prepare a boat. We depart for St. Carter’s Forte immediately.”

The secretary chased after him, flustered but with his mind clearing up, realizing something: “A-are you planning to—”

“Go and seize the winning card.”

Nielsen’s voice was calm and low, but his pupils were like a sky heavy with dark clouds, the storm beneath the clouds finally showing its hideous true face.

Outside the hall, the smell of perfume and the rustle of clothes filled the air; the noon cold-buffet reception was about to begin.

Cameron was shaking hands and talking cordially with an ambassador rushing toward him, laughing and patting the other’s arm in a witty and friendly atmosphere. When he turned away after taking a photo with a smiling face, that pair of grayish-green pupils held no emotion at all.

Ants, he thought.

Evolutionists view humans as ants; the so-called Evolutionists themselves, whose social behavior regresses toward genetic instinct, are also ants. The vast majority of people in this world are a mob—blind, ignorant, emotionally agitated, and self-righteous. Cameron had known for a long time that as long as you have a way to make them feel the illusion of “everyone is drunk while I am sober,” they will mistakenly believe they have grasped truths that only a few can see. If you have a way to make them believe they are thinking independently, they will be as obedient and well-trained as army ants, screaming out any sounds you want them to make toward the outside world.

But there was no other way.

Cameron navigated through the celebrities with a glass of champagne, raising it in greeting along the way, stopping from time to time to smile and take photos with old friends from all walks of life.

Since you can’t build a rocket and launch yourself into outer space to enjoy the tranquility of emptiness like you dreamed of as a child, you can only live on this noisy Earth, making a choice between two groups of ants—let one group live or die.

“Mr. Cameron,” at this moment, a confidant follower hurried through the crowd and stopped behind him, his voice a little strained: “The situation on Nielsen’s side is not quite right.”

Cameron tilted his head back slightly.

“The peripheral personnel assigned to keep an eye on him reported that Nielsen just left through the back door and took a car, but Nielsen is still entertaining the bishop’s party in the dining room. We suspect it is some kind of ability.”

Cameron’s eyebrows twitched. Without a second thought, he immediately crossed the crowd toward the banquet hall’s side door.

The confidant gestured to the surrounding area. Security guards from the Security Council waiting in corners immediately followed, trailing Cameron out of the banquet hall and heading straight to the dining room on the upper floor where the Roundtable bishop was being entertained.

However, at the end of the corridor, a group of Supervision Office agents from the General Headquarters rushed toward them. Almost the moment they saw Cameron, they shouted:

“—What are you doing?” “Stop!” “Don’t move!”

An average person wouldn’t react that quickly, but given Cameron’s intelligence, he processed the identity, equipment, and every detail from head to toe of these people in his brain in the same instant he encountered them. His heart jumped, and his expression shifted. The moment the security guards rushed up, he agilely darted through the gaps, waiting for a chance to look into the floor-to-ceiling windows of the dining room.

Through a gap in the curtains, Nielsen was sitting at the long table, a group of people laughing and talking, sitting together eating.

Every detail was perfect; there was not a single flaw in the scene.

“Mr. Cameron! You cannot barge into the International Supervision Office’s luncheon reception!” Several Evolutionists dragged him backward, shouting sharply: “Someone! Take these people out!”

In the chaos, Cameron almost tripped, but he had no time to care. His gaze swept over every corner of the dining room, landing on the bishop’s wrinkled lips, then shifting to the lips of Pardes and the young students.

In an instant, Cameron’s pupils constricted as he finally discovered a flaw through lip-reading—

These people were speaking German.

German was Nielsen’s mother tongue; how could everyone in the room suddenly be so proficient in conversing in German?

The conflict between the two groups escalated rapidly: “Get out!” “Someone!” “Get out immediately!”

Cameron ignored the pushing and shoving. He snatched a special-issue handgun from an Evolutionist’s waist and aimed it at the floor-to-ceiling glass without hesitation—

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The glass shattered into pieces, and the “Cage of Logic” was broken.

The next moment, the real scene inside the room was displayed before everyone in all its bloody horror.

There was no laughing and talking; there was no luncheon. The people in the room were sprawled out, unconscious. The Roundtable bishop was slumped in his wheelchair, blood dripping everywhere, his throat stabbed through, clearly dead!

“H-help…” Pardes struggled to crawl over from the floor, his mind dazed from barely resisting the psychic ability.

“The… Director General… k-killed… the bishop…”

Exclamations and roars erupted everywhere.

Chaos reached its peak. The Security Council members tried desperately to charge in, while the Supervision Office agents resisted in vain. Only Cameron stood there, his heart sinking to the bottom in an instant, a chill rising in his soul—

Nielsen was not in the dining room.

Where had he gone?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the island.

Beach Hotel.

Bai Sheng, one hand tucked into his trouser pocket, walked out of the hotel entrance.

The sunlight cast a glow on his expressionless, handsome side profile. His narrow, straight bridge of the nose looked like it had been carved by a knife, and a cold shadow fell from the corner of his mouth.

Below the hotel steps was a black Mercedes-Benz, sent by the ceremony organizers to pick him up. The driver was already waiting politely by the car door.

Bai Sheng rarely had his hair styled so neatly, dressed in a black tailored suit with matching leather shoes. The texture and cut of the vicuña wool were exquisite and sophisticated, and the silver-gray pocket square and tie matched perfectly, exuding a cold and arrogant nobility from his very bones.

Compared to his usual relaxed and casual image—always grinning and putting his arm around everyone’s shoulders—he seemed like a completely different person.

In fact, before this, Bai Sheng had been so agitated that he didn’t want to go to that luncheon at all. He was an S-rank; he enjoyed the freedom of social interaction as he pleased. No matter how grand or formal the occasion, if he wanted to go, he went; if he didn’t, he didn’t. No one would say a word about it, and no one would be foolish enough to come and lecture an S-rank on etiquette.

But at the very last moment before the banquet, he still couldn’t suppress the true longing in his restless heart.

He wanted to see Shen Zhuo.

In fact, the more things reached this point, the more one needed to respect the other person’s decisions, but logic and emotion were two different things after all. The young male wolf had crashed headfirst into the partner he had wanted to capture for the first time in his life. Even his heart was burning; his pulse was suppressing a scorching emotion he had never experienced before. With no experience to guide him, he could only stagger forward, following his instincts.

Even if it meant showing weakness or yielding, or playing it by ear.

Seeing him was enough; even just looking at each other quietly was enough.

Bai Sheng walked down the hotel steps, breathed out silently, and nodded to the driver opening the door.

At this moment, his phone rang—an unknown number.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other end was in English and spoke very quickly, questioning him directly: “Shen Zhuo isn’t answering his phone. Is he with you?”

“…”

Bai Sheng’s memory was sufficient to identify the caller’s vocal profile within half a second: it was that Security Council high official, Elton Cameron. But this question was bizarre. Bai Sheng did not immediately answer yes or no, but asked in return:

“Who are you?”

“Don’t play dumb, S-rank.” The background on Cameron’s end was chaotic; judging by the sound, he was walking quickly while talking: “You’ve already recognized who I am. Listen to me: from this moment on, you absolutely cannot let Shen Zhuo leave your sight for even a second. No matter what happens, you cannot let anyone take him away. I am sending a helicopter to pick you both up and leave this island immediately.”

“…” Bai Sheng sensed something, his brow tightening slightly: “What happened at the venue?”

Cameron hurried through the crowd under the protection of his followers, looking back as he spoke.

The dining room had been surrounded by reporters, the venue was in chaos, and ability users had blocked all entrances and exits.

Everyone was blindly searching for Nielsen in panic, yet they didn’t know that Nielsen had long since left the venue.

“Nielsen has gone to find Shen Zhuo,” Cameron said coldly through his teeth. “If I’m not mistaken, he is about to do something very unfavorable to Shen Zhuo. Do you understand what I mean?”

There was no reply on the other end of the line. Just as Cameron, impatient, wanted to emphasize it again, Bai Sheng’s strained reply finally came from across the phone, the tail end of his voice carrying unconcealable shock and doubt:

“…What did you say?”

Cameron keenly detected his meaning. He stopped dead in his tracks, almost unable to believe his ears: “You aren’t together?!”

In that instant, the reaction from the other side had already given him the answer.

“You’re glued to each other like Siamese twins every single day, so why on earth did you choose to learn to walk independently today of all days?!” Cameron roared mercilessly, almost having his blood pressure raised by the foolish ant: “Where is Shen Zhuo right now?!”

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