FPE Chapter 34

President Chen was arrested. He was completely dazed, even feeling as though he was dreaming, so much so that he didn’t come to his senses until he was pushed into the police car and handcuffed.

He began to struggle, the fat on his belly jiggling back and forth, his face turning ugly. He declared, “I am President Chen of Yingda Technology Group.”

There were three officers in the car — one driving, two flanking him on either side. Upon hearing this, the one on the left let out a casual “oh,” while the one on the right answered a phone call indifferently.

Yingda Technology Group was among the top players in the industry, with tens of thousands of employees across its various subsidiaries. As a major taxpayer, it also maintained an excellent relationship with the local government. Seeing that these two junior officers had no sense of propriety, he was just about to mention that he and the Mayor of Hai City played golf together regularly and that their two families were even planning to arrange a marriage, when he heard the officer on the left hang up the phone and say to the one on the right, “Just now, some criminal said his uncle is the Mayor of Hai City.”

The one on the right said, “Is he?”

The one on the left said, “Doesn’t matter whether he is or not — if someone commits a crime, they get shot if shooting’s what they deserve. You can joke about anything, but you don’t joke about the law.”

The one on the right let out a cold snort. “Who’s to say otherwise — there are always people who think that having a few connections puts them above the law. Compared to the machinery of the state, those connections aren’t worth a damn!”

President Chen couldn’t help but swallow a mouthful of saliva, yet still found the whole thing utterly baffling. However one looked at it, Yingda Technology Group had already become deeply intertwined with people’s daily lives. Over the years he had spent a great deal of money clearing business channels and greasing the right palms. How could these people dare arrest him with no evidence whatsoever — how dare they!

“I don’t know what crime I’m supposed to have committed. On what grounds are you arresting me?”

The officer on the left finally looked at him directly and spat out a few words. “Endangering public safety.”

“Impossible!” President Chen blurted out. Yingda Technology Group had grown into such a massive operation, and over the years had monopolized the resources of quite a few industries. If anyone said his hands were completely clean, he himself wouldn’t believe it. In the moments since being bundled into the car, he had run through countless possible charges in his mind — but endangering public safety was simply not among them. President Chen had a darkly suspicious mind, and the moment he came to his senses, his first instinct was that he had offended someone formidable, and that this was their doing.

But no matter how he turned it over in his mind, the only person he had recently crossed was that wretched amusement park — yet that had only been set in motion yesterday evening, and he hadn’t even seen any results today. Even if that miserable park truly had the means to bypass all the intermediaries and trace it directly back to him, the police couldn’t possibly have moved this fast, and it was even less possible that no one had tipped him off in advance.

Piecing together everything that had gone wrong today, something felt off no matter how he looked at it. Could it be that his earlier investigation hadn’t been thorough enough, and that there really was some powerful figure behind that wretched park?

President Chen’s outward expression remained unchanged, but inwardly he had already begun to recalculate. So the other side was also working through connections — well, that was something he could work with.

And so, after being brought into the police station, he settled back with an air of ease and said, “I’ll wait for my lawyer. I won’t be saying anything until then.”

The interrogator glanced at him, then said, “That’s fine. We already have all the witness testimony and physical evidence we need. You just need to sign and press your fingerprint.”

President Chen’s eyes went wide. “You — this is a procedural violation! I want to see your chief.”

He still instinctively put on the air of a Yingda Technology Group executive, but the interrogator in front of him was already losing patience, shoving the confession form in front of him. “Sign it quickly. Don’t waste our time.”

While they were speaking, another middle-aged man was being dragged in, passing right beside this interrogation room. President Chen recognized the voice as familiar, turned to look, and was stunned. “Isn’t that President Zhao from Weida Group? What did he do?”

President Zhao was shouting at that moment too. “What did I do? Why won’t you let me see a lawyer? I’ll have you know — your chief was in my bed just last night—”

A bang rang out, and President Zhao’s voice cut off abruptly. All that remained in his wake was the blood that had sprayed outward and the white matter splattered across the floor.

President Chen’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He had been badly frightened, clutching his chest and gasping heavily, his corpulent belly trembling so violently it could barely be contained by his shirt.

Across from him, the interrogator waited unhurriedly for him to calm down, leisurely lighting a cigarette with the air of someone who had seen it all before.

President Chen, however, had plunged into profound terror. President Zhao had been of roughly comparable wealth and standing to himself — the only difference being that he dealt in mobile phones and games, while that President Zhao had been in the food processing business. A man of that stature, and they hadn’t even bothered with a trial or conviction — how could they dare… how could they dare!

President Chen felt as though the world had suddenly turned surreal. He even wondered whether he would make it out of this interrogation room alive today. All his earlier composure and executive bearing had completely deserted him. He asked carefully, “That President Zhao — what did he do?”

The interrogator said slowly, “Endangering public safety.”

Bang — President Chen toppled straight backward. The interrogation room chair couldn’t bear his weight and went down with him, landing flat on its back on the floor, all four legs in the air.

The “interrogator” clicked his tongue and said into his earpiece, “The chairs in this station could do with an upgrade.”

Not long afterward, a now-roused President Chen signed the confession with trembling hands and asked haltingly, “This… should only count as attempted crime, right? Three years at most, yeah?”

The “interrogator” said, “Not bad — you know your law.”

President Chen gave two hollow laughs and dared not reply. Before today, he would never have imagined himself cowering before an ordinary police officer.

Shortly after, the “interrogator” came out with the signed confession, peeling off the police uniform as he walked, revealing a different-colored uniform underneath. The cut was sharp and crisp, the cuffs tightly fastened, and on the chest was an emblem of a star and a dagger — the uniform of the Special Operations Management Division.

The moment he stepped out, someone took the confession from him and said, “Captain Song, the autopsy on Zhao Xiangdong’s body has been completed. Everything’s been cleared out.”

Zhao Xiangdong was the President Zhao who had been shot dead in front of President Chen just moments ago.

Captain Song asked, “Earlier, he said he had some kind of relationship with Chief Cao — what exactly was it?”

The team member’s expression shifted slightly at that. He lowered his voice. “A few years ago, Zhao Xiangdong got into some trouble. To get himself off the hook, he tried to bribe Chief Cao with a woman… then discovered that Chief Cao preferred men, so he went ahead himself.”

Captain Song: ……

He was silent for a moment, then asked, “Has Chief Cao been looked into?”

The team member said, “He’s been sent to the autopsy table as well.”

Captain Song nodded. “Let’s go take a look.”

They turned through a corridor ahead and unlocked a secure room with a fingerprint scan. Inside the room, in addition to two already-autopsied bodies, there was a writhing mass of flesh contained within a glass enclosure.

The thing was deeply revolting. The team member beside him took one look and turned away, then continued, “That thing is called a Parasite Crab. Not particularly aggressive — it spreads through sexual contact. Those who are parasitized will transform into a black crab roughly one meter tall within half a month — disgusting and foul-smelling — but there are no outward signs of it until the transformation is complete. There were none of these in the country originally. Zhao Xiangdong brought it back with him when he returned from abroad a few days ago. The people he came into contact with are currently being traced — we should have results fairly soon.”

Captain Song gave a nod. As they were speaking, the mass of flesh inside the glass enclosure had already transformed into a black crab, its body draped in a faint haze of dark mist — though on closer inspection, it looked almost like an ordinary crab, just somewhat unsettling.

“As for the Fantasy Amusement Park side of things — what does the higher-up say?”

The team member said, “The orders from above are the same as before: leave it alone.”

****

The following day, a scandal broke involving Yingda Technology Group Headquarters. Its founder, President Chen, had bribed five individuals — Liu, Zhang, and others — to release snakes into Fantasy Amusement Park. President Chen had since been apprehended and had confessed to the charges.

The moment the news broke, Yingda Technology Group’s stock price went into freefall — the kind not even eight horses could pull back.

Netizens were thoroughly dismayed.

“What’s going on this past week — it’s been one bombshell after another, there aren’t enough melons to go around.”

“Emmm… though I’ve long known that real-world corporate warfare is anything but glamorous, I assumed tactics like cutting power and seizing company seals were limited to petty squabbles between small businesses. I didn’t expect a group as large as Yingda Technology to stoop to this.”

“Good thing I had the foresight — once I confirmed that Fantasy Amusement Park’s holographic technology was real, I sold my shares immediately. A company like Yingda Technology, already falling behind technologically, was never going to last.”

……

Inside Fantasy Amusement Park, Chi Yizhen, who had gotten up early that morning and seen the official statement, was completely dumbfounded.

“What — what’s going on? I hadn’t even used any of the countermeasures I’d planned against Yingda Technology Group, and he’s already been arrested just like that?” Chi Yizhen was thoroughly puzzled. “Are the authorities really that fast?”

[Is fast a bad thing?]

Chi Yizhen shook his head. “It’s not that it’s bad — it’s just that every part of this feels off to me.”

Just yesterday, he had been thinking about leaking the transaction records of the other side buying internet water armies, but he hadn’t expected the authorities to suddenly publish IP location data. That in itself was nothing — perhaps it was just a coincidence — but the speed with which President Chen of Yingda Technology Group had been arrested made him immediately sense that something wasn’t right.

“Game, don’t you find it strange? My place has full holographic technology, you know — the authorities should have taken notice long ago. But no one has come looking even now. Doesn’t that seem abnormal?”

[o? Has the player finished today’s tasks yet?]

Chi Yizhen was cut short, immediately remembering the contents of his task list, and resignedly donned the character cards of Sal and Chi Xiaozhen to go out and build his characters’ reputations.

Fortunately, the game had unlocked a new feature allowing him to multitask; otherwise, even with both his beloved “son” and beloved “daughter” running wild out there, he still wouldn’t have been able to finish setting the personality profiles for two character cards.

In the meantime, he also made a trip to the dryads’ settlement and had a brief exchange with Naweia, their leader, regarding work arrangements. Before he knew it, two days had passed.

On the morning of the third day, the children’s area of Fantasy Amusement Park opened for operations — total ticket prices unchanged, children’s tickets at half price.