Chapter 65: Featured Banner?
A chill ran down Rong Na’s spine.
Had he said something to infuriate the Commander?
Surely… not?
He felt a sudden pang of guilt.
“Quite the righteous soul, aren’t you?”
Rong Na saw the Commander lean back against the chair, tossing out the remark with cool detachment.
“Haha… Everyone has to do their part for humanity’s, uh, future, right?”
Rong Na forced out the words.
It was the very line the city guards parroted at every public assembly—high-minded platitudes he had always found utterly hollow.
“Where is the restaurant located, exactly?”
“Right outside the West Wall, just a short walk south!”
“Are there any landmarks?”
“Uh… Does a ring of white light covering the outside count? That dome repels all the emerald mist!” Rong Na added eagerly, as if struck by inspiration. “So she’s definitely an Awakener!”
“Oh, right! Commander, I even spotted Zhou Xue lurking around the diner—that Zhou Xue from Dark Star!”
Like a lapdog fetching a bone, Rong Na spilled the “secret” he had uncovered.
Hearing this, Yves cast a sidelong glance at Keith.
Keith caught the cue immediately, taking over the questioning with practiced ease.
“Zhou Xue? You know her?”
“No, not really…”
Why was the officer asking that? This was veering wildly from what Rong Na had envisioned.
He fumbled for words, stammering, “Uh, well, isn’t Zhou Xue… working for the brass?”
“Every citizen of Seed City works for the preservation of Seed City.”
“Ah, right, of course.”
Rong Na cursed the hypocrisy of these uniformed dogs again under his breath.
He had handed them intelligence this valuable, and they still gave him the cold shoulder.
Keith continued, “Does the food from this diner purge toxins from the human body upon consumption?”
“You even know about that?!”
Rong Na gasped in surprise. “Yes! The food there purges poison, and every single dish seems to have a different cleansing effect!”
“What kind of containers is the food served in?”
“Er, well… paper bags, I think?”
“What about plastic?”
“Seems like it, yeah. There’s some one-pot stew packed in plastic containers.”
Keith subtly exchanged a glance with the Commander.
His testimony lined up perfectly with the plastic remnants recovered from the Black Fields.
The Commander gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
“Very well. We have taken note. Thank you for your report,” Keith said with bureaucratic formality.
Hearing this, Rong Na breathed a sigh of relief.
Judging by the Commander’s icy demeanor earlier, he had genuinely feared he’d stepped on a landmine!
“No thanks needed, no thanks needed—it’s my civic duty! Now that this diner has food that purges toxins from the body, if you ask me, it should be seized and handed out to the public for free. Charging money for it? That boss doesn’t have an ounce of collective honor!”
He laid on the flattery thick while taking a backhanded jab, yet not a single soul took the bait.
The Commander’s office remained dead silent; you could have heard a pin drop.
It suddenly dawned on Rong Na that the rations distributed daily by the city guards weren’t free either.
His little rant bordered dangerously on veiled criticism.
“Ah! Wait, I didn’t mean anything by that! Sirs, I wasn’t talking about Seed City’s rations! The rations are, uh, farmed by conscripts risking life and limb, so paying for them is only fair—it’s for the survival of Seed City, after all! It’s completely different from that diner…”
A strained smile froze on Rong Na’s face. Yves cut him off mid-sentence.
“Do you have anything else to report?”
“No, that’s all… Oh, wait! The gate is about to open for evening entry! Sirs, you should dispatch guards to stake out the West Gate right now—you’ll definitely catch those toxic strays red-handed!”
“We do not require your guidance on how to conduct our duties.”
The Commander’s tone remained forged of iron.
“…Understood.”
“Show him out.”
The smirk plastered across Rong Na’s face had grown thoroughly rigid.
This was entirely different from the glorious scene he had imagined.
By all rights, shouldn’t the authorities be over the moon, rushing out alongside him to round up the suspects?
He had even been prepared to offer up his own thugs as disposable muscle if the brass ran short on manpower.
He would have savored nothing more than watching the scum who defied him get brought to heel.
Tsk… pompous hounds in uniform. What kind of self-important game are they playing?
“Officer.”
Stepping out into the hallway, Rong Na called out to Keith.
“Uh, that intel of mine was pretty valuable, wasn’t it?”
He rubbed his palms together, dropping a blatant hint with his eyes.
Keith fixed him with a humorless, thin smile, turning the tables on him: “You just declared that you came forward for the future of humanity, the end of the cataclysm, and the survival of Seed City. With such towering righteousness, surely a man like you isn’t grubbing for a petty reward?”
“Haha… Of course, of course not.”
The smile on Rong Na’s face practically cracked into pieces.
Pah! These dogs in uniform weren’t just insufferably smug; they were stingy to the bone, tighter than a rusted vice!
“Rong Na is a vicious, deceitful operator, suspected of multiple infractions within the walls. The guards simply lacked hard evidence whenever they responded to the scene,” Keith reported to Yves upon seeing the uninvited guest off.
“Greedy, treacherous, unscrupulous, and a coward who preys exclusively on the weak,” Yves murmured flatly. “It was written all over his face.”
“Commander, he brought up Zhou Xue earlier… Hard to tell how much he actually knows.”
“The shallower the pond, the louder the splash.”
“You believe he is ignorant of the full picture?”
“Whether he knows or not, daring to probe us using this matter proves he harbors extortionate ambitions. We cannot let him linger.”
Yves gazed out the arched window. “Find any plausible pretext to detain him. Sentence him to hard labor in the Black Fields.”
A cold sneer touched his lips. “Didn’t he claim he wished to contribute to Seed City’s preservation?”
“Understood,” Keith replied, then asked, “How many should we round up?”
“Every ringleader pulling the strings. Cut off the head, and the rest will scatter on their own in time.”
“Yes, sir.”
Keith pressed further, “And the intelligence he provided?”
Yves pondered for a moment. “Eighty percent chance it holds true. A worm like that lacks the spine to fabricate a lie before us.”
“Should we dispatch a detachment to inspect the West Gate?” Keith asked.
Yves shook his head.
“If that establishment truly possesses a protective dome capable of repelling the emerald mist, and produces untainted, edible food, it signifies that the proprietor—or whoever pulls the strings behind the curtain—wields power vastly outstripping everything Qiweng City has researched for years.”
Yves lifted his gaze, his dark eyes brooding and deep.
Reaching out, he slid a document across the desk, tapping the figures inked upon the page. “The traffic through the West Gate over the past two days has hovered between one hundred and fifty and one hundred and ninety individuals—nearly half the population of Seed City. Sustaining that many people with food while guaranteeing absolute zero casualties… do you truly believe an ordinary Awakener could accomplish such a feat?”
Keith’s expression hardened. “Commander, you mean to say…?”
“Over these past years, Qiweng City has poured an astronomical fortune of resources, Awakeners, and researchers into this nightmare. If an alternative solution were viable, the Black Fields wouldn’t still be grinding human lives into dust today. I do not know what this sudden restaurant beyond the West Wall truly is, but it cannot be a simple squad of Awakeners.”
Keith listened in silence as Yves continued, “Cultivating an Awakener demands far more time than you or I could fathom. Exceptional as Zhou Xue’s latent talent may be, she would barely qualify for a third-tier strike team in the Three Great Cities. If the Three Great Cities couldn’t pull off such a feat, could a stray band of Awakeners manage it? Are we to believe every single one of them possesses a priceless purification gift, acting like tireless automatons working around the clock?”
“…”
Yves set the parchment down and sank into brief contemplation before declaring:
“Therefore, until we discern their true allegiance, we must not act rashly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Instruct Nelson to keep those two under strict, unblinking surveillance.” Yves tapped his finger against the entries for Number 86 and Number 87 on the casualty report. “Any outside parcels sent into the Black Fields Quarantine Sector are to be intercepted and searched without exception.”
“Understood.”
“No…” Yves looked up, his gaze sharpening. “Notify me immediately upon interception. I will inspect them in person.”
“Yes, sir!”
Outside the city walls, Ling Jing had just drawn business to a close and was preparing to latch the glass doors when the system chime rang out.
Ding!
Ling Jing: “?”
That chime sounded remarkably familiar.
[You have unlocked a Hidden Achievement! Completed: ‘Establish a Restaurant and Enter the Radar of the Authorities’! Continue expanding your establishment’s renown~]
[Reward: One pull on the Featured Banner!]
Ling Jing: “Huh?”
Featured… banner?
