CH 12

Chapter 12

(warning: descriptions of graphic bodily harm) ;  starts at “Nielson stood up abruptly and pulled out his pen.” and ends after “You can kick me out of the International Inspectorate…”)

“When I heard that you were attacked three days ago, I immediately dispatched a medical team to Shenhai.” Director General Nielson glanced at Shen Zhuo, then turned to Bai Sheng with a smile, “But it seems that it was unnecessary.”

Bai Sheng behaved very decently and politely in front of his S-level counterparts: “It’s easy.”

Nielson nodded, with a calm and gentle tone: “Trafficking evolutionary sources is a very serious crime, almost the same as smuggling arms. So after receiving Supervisor Shen’s request for assistance in the investigation, I immediately sent someone to do a detailed screening in the global evolutionary database, but unfortunately, there was no information about the mysterious master ‘Mr. Rong’ – but.”

He paused, then changed the topic: “I can give you a lot of information about the two accomplices, a man and a woman.”

Shen Zhuo reclined in a large armchair opposite the desk, and made a gesture of ‘please’.

“These two are a pair of siblings. The older brother is Noda Shunsuke, who has evolved to A-level and has a rare spatial ability; the younger sister is Noda Yoko, who is B-level plant evolutionary. Both of them are very radical evolutionist protectionists, and they discriminate against and hate ordinary humans very much.”

Speaking of this, Nielson paused, and turned to Bai Sheng with a smile: “Mr. Bai has lived in North America for many years, have you heard of the ‘Round Table Meeting’?”

Bai Sheng looked surprised, he raised his hand and nodded: “Round Table, yes?”

The eyes of the other two fell on the more than two million Roger Dubuis Round Table Knight watch on his wrist.

Nielson was silent for a moment, “…not the watch.”

“Oh—” Bai Sheng suddenly realized, put down his hands and sat up politely.

Nielson was hesitant to speak. Judging from his expression, he probably wanted to ask Bai Sheng if he had a brain injury when he was a child, but luckily his upbringing forcibly held him back.

“Both the brother and sister were once members of the ‘Round Table’.” Nielson explained, “The ‘Round Table’ is an evolutionary protection organization in Europe.

The organization, whose founder is called the “bishop”, once put forward the very famous idea of ​​the wolf-bearer – calling on young high-level evolutionists to be like a wolf, to protect the lower class of the same kind, lest they be persecuted by humans.”

“Bishop.” Bai Sheng repeated with interest, “I’ve never heard of this organization, haha.”

Nielsen didn’t take it seriously: “It’s a good thing you haven’t heard of it. Most radical organizations are a little bit hateful and discriminate against ordinary people who cannot evolve, saying that human beings are ants destined to become extinct… that’s far from it. Compared with those radical organizations, the Round Table is relatively compromised and rational, and has always emphasized that we should not start wars with humans.”

Bai Sheng crossed his long legs, and asked knowingly: “Since the Noda brother and sister are members of the Round Table, then is the assassination against Supervisor Shen last night related to the Round Table?”

“It shouldn’t be.” Nielsen said, “The Noda brother and sister are too hostile and radical to human beings, so they don’t conform to the ‘bishop”s pursuit of harmonious coexistence, they were expelled from the round table as early as three years ago.”

Bai Sheng gave a long “Oh—” and nodded.

Shen Zhuo asked: “Where did the siblings go after the expulsion?”

“The specifics are unknown, mainly in Asia.” Nielson raised his chin to the full-touch screen desk, “I have collected all the witnesses of the siblings over the past three years. All the sighting records have been sent to you by email, go back and have a look.”

Shen Zhuo mumbled absently and didn’t answer.

Bai Sheng glanced at him from the tip of his eyes.

Outside the office window, the sky light crossed the snow peak, reflecting Shen Zhuo’s silhouette like ice and snow, and his eyelashes drooped in clear and slender arcs. He folded his arms and reclined in the armchair, because this action seemed to make the shoulders and back relaxed, or rather, too relaxed.

The supervisor of Shenhai City has never shown such a casual sitting posture to the outside world, so casual to the point of being a bit deliberate.

This was very unusual, Nielson is his immediate boss after all, and the “Wolf of Odin” was notoriously not a pleasant man to be around.

Nielson followed his pensive gaze and landed on an open pen case on his desk.

In the mahogany double-layer pen case, more than 20 pens of various styles are properly preserved, among which there are many rare limited editions by artists, and some of the pen caps are also engraved with different initials.

“The secretary just took it out and is going to send it for maintenance.” Nielson explained to Bai Sheng with a smile, “I personally like to collect writing tools, so I often receive pens as gifts, what a joke!”

“…”

Bai Sheng’s eyes fell on the middle of the first row of the pen case, the most important and eye-catching position was a Montblanc made of Damascus steel inlaid with lapis lazuli, and a thin gold Chinese character is engraved on the sword-shaped clip – Shen.

“Preserving gifts from others carefully is a very good quality.” After a pause of three seconds, Bai Sheng replied with a smile.

Just as Nielson was about to say something, suddenly the door was knocked lightly twice, and then the secretary’s respectful voice came from outside: “Nielson sir, are you there? The impeachment conference sent someone to urge you to go back.”

Shen Zhuo came back to his senses: “Impeachment meeting?”

Nielson couldn’t help laughing: “Impeach me.”

“…”

“The group of human beings in the United Nations Security Council have always felt that humans must supervise the evolutionary, and the International Inspectorate cannot control the evolutionary. Do it yourself, otherwise it will cause great oppression of human rights… Wait, wait, it’s a cliché.” Nielson stood up and pressed the hem of his suit, he laughed at himself: “I was trapped at that meeting and listened to a group of old men reading the scriptures for three whole days. I was so bored that I almost fell asleep several times. The secretary said you were coming, so I used the excuse of going to the bathroom to meet you and take the opportunity to get some air.”

This was an understatement, but Shen Zhuo still stood up: “Impeachment is not a trivial matter, you should go back quickly, Mr. Bai and I will not bother you.”

Nielson nodded, but he still didn’t seem to take the impeachment meeting too seriously, and walked around the desk to shake hands with Bai Sheng again, he said sincerely: “If you hadn’t rescued him that day, Supervisor Shen would have been in danger, please accept my personal highest thanks!”

Bai Sheng replied with a smile: “I can’t afford it, it should be a matter of duty.”

The gazes of the two S-ranks split instantly, and Nielson let go of his hand with a smile, and took half a step back.

Shen Zhuo just didn’t see it, and was about to turn around and go off the assembly line, but the chief inspector seemed to think of something suddenly: “Supervisor Shen!”

Shen Zhuo stopped.

Immediately afterwards, in front of Bai Sheng, Nielson put his hand on Shen Zhuo’s shoulder, and gave him a tight hug.

“The assassination incident last night, I grant you the power to deal with it completely freely.” Nielson switched to German as if there wasn’t anyone else, and said in a deep voice: “When you took office three years ago, I said that this road is dangerous, but I will always protect you. This sentence still holds true today.”

Shen Zhuo was a little surprised, and glanced at Bai Sheng from Nielson’s shoulder.

The two looked at each other, Bai Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly, and saw a very rich and indescribable expression in Shen Zhuo’s eyes.

The atmosphere froze for a moment, and then Shen Zhuo laughed.

That smile is simply that of a diplomat, and there will be no flaws when observed under a microscope. The beautiful face melts instantly, and the curvature of the lips is perfect. Immediately afterwards, he reached out and patted Nielson on the back, stepped back half a step, looked at the Nordic man, and said earnestly:

“I understand, Director General, and I will always be on your side. Go to the impeachment meeting.”

He took half a step back, looked at Nielson with a smile, and his figure gradually faded away.

Offline, in the original place.

The office became quiet again. Only Nielson stood there, motionless, watching Shen Zhuo completely disappear into the air.

The door was pushed open with a click.

“Director General, Cameron’s people have come to urge you several times, the trial is about to begin…” The secretary looked a little anxious, and suddenly seeing the open pen case on the table, he couldn’t help but froze for a moment.

How did you take it out? Is the situation so critical?

Nielson turned his head slowly, his ice blue eyes stared heavily at the gold Damascus pen, and his gaze was fixed on the word “沉”. 1

A thank you gift given by Shen Zhuo when he took office three years ago.

Nielson pulled out the pen, held it tightly in his palm, and strode out of the office.

Passing through the corridor of the building, the elevator went up to the top floor, and two evolutionary guards respectfully pushed open the brass door for him. Behind the door was a huge meeting room surrounded by metal walls and bulletproof glass, the long table was full of people from the UN Security Council.

All human, every face a regular in the newspapers of every country.

The gazes looking at Nielson from all directions were filled with distinct hostility, and even the air was full of strange murderous intent.

“At such a critical moment of raising your hands to vote, you still have so much time to spend in the bathroom. This kind of blind self-confidence is really admirable.” A chunky Italian official looked at his watch and said sarcastically: “It seems that you don’t care about the fact that you are about to be dismissed.”

Nielson pulled the seat at the end of the long table, smiled and said, “No matter how you plan to kick me from the position of Director General, before the result of the vote, I am still an unshakable existence for you all, am I not?”

His uncharacteristic relaxation immediately ignited the anger of many people in the conference room: “Stop dying 2, Fritsch Nielson! You know very well in your heart how biased you are towards those similar evolutionaries. We have tolerated you for five full years!”

“The Ombudsman is an institution that supervises the evolutionary, how can it fall into the hands of the evolutionary themselves?!”

“The Security Council will not tolerate you any longer!”

The crowd on both sides of the long table was excited, but Nielson ignored everyone and looked straight at the other end of the long table, where a silent figure was sitting in the shadows.

“It is true that someone will be kicked out of this door today, but that person will not be me.” Nielson looked directly at the figure and asked with a smile, “Want to bet, Cameron?”

The man in the shadow remained calm and did not answer.

There was a loud bang, and the Italian official dropped the document just now: “Nielson, you have forcibly intervened in our country’s adoption of the Evolutionary Armed Proposal and we haven’t settled with you yet! You–”

Trigger warning starts now.

Nielson stood up abruptly and pulled out his pen.

There was a flash of cold light, and the palm of the Italian official was nailed to the table!

“Ah–”

The scream pierced the sky, blood splashed, and everyone around suddenly changed color: “What are you doing?” “Stop!”

The Italian kicked and screamed desperately, Nielson licked the blood on the back of his hand, like a white wolf with gorgeous fur from the Nordic ice sheet, with a clear and cruel smile: “Liquidate me?”

He threw the pen cap on the conference table casually, and the Damascus steel made a clanging sound when it collided with the table, clearly revealing the engraved “Shen” written on it.

In the shadows at the other end of the long table, the man named Cameron finally moved slightly and stared at the pen cap unexpectedly.

“Sorry to keep everyone waiting, because when I was out just now, a close friend came to visit me suddenly and gave me this pen—everyone here must have heard his name.” Nielson looked down at the crowd from top to bottom, showing a bloody smile: “He is the leader of the Human Regeneration Project, also known as HRG, Shen Zhuo.”

The air suddenly became quiet.

As if a nuclear bomb was dropped without warning, most people didn’t react, but a few high-ranking officials were so shocked that they almost got up suddenly.

“…how did you do it?” Cameron finally opened his mouth in a low voice.

“How did I manage to come and go at Shen Zhuo’s call?” Nielson completed the second half of the sentence that the other party hadn’t said, and looked at the figure mockingly: “What do you think, Cameron?”

“Three years ago, Shen Zhuo was lynched and tortured because of the accident in Qinghai. Nineteen bones in his body were broken. He refused to admit that he killed Fu Chen when he was on the verge of death. I sent someone to save him from the mob, and he would be dead without me. It was from that time that Shen Zhuo became my closest and most steadfast ally.”

“The irony is that it wasn’t until today, three years later, that the HRG project was completely deadlocked, that humans finally realized the value of deliberation.”

There was silence in the huge conference room.

Everyone’s faces were ugly, only the Italian official had one hand pinned to the table with a pen, and kept crying in pain and fear.

Trigger warning ends.

“You can kick me out of the International Inspectorate, you can put me in jail, you can even devour the evolutionaries like swarms of carnivorous ants until only bones remain. But don’t forget, as the last hope of the HRG project, Shen Zhuo is in my hands.”

“If I don’t let him go back to the research institute, you’ll just be like desperate rats in the gutter, forever dreaming of seeing what the Humanity Regeneration Project has to offer.”

Nielson raised his hand and made a “please” gesture.

If one ignores the blood flowing vertically and horizontally across the table in front of him, then his smile can really be called perfect manners and personable.

“Now, gentlemen here, please vote. You’d better start praying now that you can cast a result that satisfies me.”

No hands were raised, and no one spoke. The officials who usually called for the wind and rain showed a look of suffocation on their faces, and they all looked across the long table secretly asking for help.

Cameron, who had been sitting in the shadows from the beginning to the end, finally stood up, showed his face in the light, and raised his hand to straighten the skirt of his suit, and concluded calmly:

“Three days of impeachment… It was really a careless move, and the whole game was lost.”

Cameron is about forty, or possibly older, but it’s hard to tell. He has obvious characteristics of mixed race between East and West, his hair is black, but his eyes are a cool gray-green, and he speaks in a smooth and understated tone.

Nielson stared at his greatest natural enemy and sneered slightly: “Give it up, Cameron.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t lose to you, but I lost to my always high expectations of weak human nature.” The corner of Cameron’s mouth curled up, it was a fake but impeccable smile of a diplomat: “Stupid obedience and sentimentality are indeed Shen Zhuo’s character traits since he was a child, I should have expected it.”

He nodded politely, turned around and walked towards the door of the meeting room. Nielson sneered behind him and said, “Next time I won’t let you walk upright out of this door, Cameron!”

Cameron stood still and turned his head.

This angle makes the shape of his brows and eyes and even the outline of his side face bear a terrible resemblance to Shen Zhuo, but the mocking smile on the corner of his mouth conceals it: “It’s good to have dreams, Nielson.”

He straightened the front of his suit and strode out of the metal door.

Shenhai, a high-end community.

At the same moment when the realistic projection disappeared, Bai Sheng found himself back on the sofa in the living room, and let out a sigh of relief.

The tablet was still on, and there was only a new email on the interface, with the title of the whereabouts record of the wanted suspects, the Noda brother and sister. Shen Zhuo frowned and glanced at it, he was about to stand up from the sofa when suddenly he was pushed backward by a huge force:

“Shen, supervisor, inspector.”

Bai Sheng put his hands next to Shen Zhuo’s ears, bent his knees and pressed on the sofa, trapping him in front of him, his voice was so gentle that it almost dripped water:

“May I ask, do you have any weird hobbies, baby? If you want to have an office romance, you still have to have me be around and watching from the side. When the two of you go to Northern Europe for your wedding, do you still want me to hold a video camera in front of you to witness that moment of the century? What good will it do to you to blind my pair of S-class dog eyes, huh?”

The distance between the two was no more than half an inch, and Bai Sheng’s arrogant eyelashes almost slapped Shen Zhuo’s face.

“…” Shen Zhuo’s expression was complicated, he hesitated to speak, and after a long while pushed Bai Sheng’s chest back with two fingers, he said sincerely:

“I’m dirty. Let me take a shower in the bathroom, or I’ll spit on you later.”

Bai Sheng: “?”

Shen Zhuo pushed him away, got up and went straight to the bathroom of the master bedroom.

Bai Sheng was baffled, and was about to taunt after chasing after him, when suddenly Shen Zhuo stopped as if thinking of something, looked back at him, and said with an indescribable tone:

“Every time I can’t stand it anymore, there will be ghosts and snakes suddenly falling from the sky, making you look so normal… your strongest ability is probably lucky value.”

Bai Sheng: “Huh?”

Shen Zhuo walked into the bathroom without looking back, and slammed the door shut.

After half an hour, the rushing water stopped and the bathroom door opened again.

Bai Sheng and Chen Miao were leaning their heads together in front of the tablet, concentrating on studying the whereabouts records of the Noda brother and sister.

Hearing this, Bai Sheng turned around and said: “Are you a clean freak? How many times are you going to rub yourself…” Then the voice stopped abruptly.

Shen Zhuo’s collar was open, his hair was slightly wet, and the water droplets from the ends of his hair soaked into the collar along the back of his slender neck.He wiped it casually with a towel, and from the familiar pattern, Bai Sheng recognized that it was his face towel.

“What?” Shen Zhuo asked casually.

Perhaps it was because he had just taken a shower, his skin was like transparent porcelain soaked in water, but the corners of his brows and eyes were as clear as ink, and the corners of the lips were slightly red after the steam evaporated.

“…”

Bai Sheng stared at the towel in silence for a moment, then slowly said: “It’s nothing, I suddenly feel that the humble house is full of brilliance… I won’t sell this house in the future.”

Chen Miao’s eyes turned back and forth between the two of them. With years of experience in being with a king like a tiger, he was keenly aware of his senior’s attitude towards his brother Bai. The tolerance index suddenly increased exponentially, so he coughed cautiously:

“Um…senior, we are looking at the travel records of the Noda brother and sister in Asia in the past three years, and Brother Bai found a strange place.”

Shen Zhuo casually threw the towel on the back of the chair: “Huh?”

“The Health Center of Quanshan County was destroyed by a fire three years ago.” Chen Miao raised the tablet and pointed at the map, “But Yoko Noda came here immediately after she was dismissed from the Round Table, and was found wandering in the ruins of the fire and the surrounding mountains many times. She was last seen six months ago and the sighting was also nearby. She has never been seen again since.”

“This abandoned hospital is just around Shenhai City, only over 200 kilometers away from us, a two-hour drive.”

– end of chapter twelve-