Crimes
Biological experiments?
Kong Xiang immediately realized something. He had calculated the end of the excavation route. It was none other than that sealed rainforest, the artificial creature that had escaped, the mutated rainforest. Even in the mid-to-late 21st century, biological experiments were a technology that was difficult to control precisely.
The development of human beings has been lukewarm due to the entanglement of various ethics associations and technological barriers in the early years. It was not until artificial life forms emerged that people realized how uncontrollable the new technologies in this field could be. At present, the main focus of development is only to extend the lifespan of the upper class, while everything else is regarded as a sensitive area.
Li Zhi glanced at Kong Xiang, and that feeling of being seen through reappeared in Kong Xiang's mind. But strangely, Kong Xiang did not dislike this gaze. In contrast to the fear he felt when he didn't even look up before, he now felt as if someone was supporting him when he received her gaze, giving him a strange sense of security.
It's strange. How can one feel safe when someone sees through them? In the past, Kong Xiang would never have accepted the feeling of having his thoughts exposed.
At this moment, Ziche Yu gently placed her hand on her brother's shoulder. Kong Xiang turned around, and the other party's expression remained unchanged. She said to him, "Li Zhi, she is different."
Chen Yilin asked, "Why do you say that?"
Zi Cheyu raised his hands and placed them on the left and right temples of Chen Yilin and Kong Xiang respectively. Soon, they received a complete memory.
This is the sixth year since the Queen ascended the throne. Riots and repressions continue in various places. The situation is worse than in the previous three years. Even the Queen's power has been reduced. Some places are still nominally under control, but in reality they are out of control. However, most people are unaware of this. Only some ministers are genuinely anxious at the meeting.
“That area is your hometown, and you can still cause trouble here. If this continues, they will take back the resources, and the war will spread here. You might as well donate your brains and go home to enjoy your old age.”
"One of the ministers said."
"This is only a small loss, don't worry, we can control it. It's just a special period, and they need to allocate some resources to us. You know, if data isn't shared, they'll find a lot of loopholes."
He said to the fat minister opposite him.
"What kind of time is this to be thinking about business! Your own backyard is on fire and you're still expecting people to clean up your mess!"
The minister who was scolded chuckled awkwardly: "If all else fails, we can just clean it again. It's not like we haven't done it before... as long as the 'Queen' sitting on it is still here."
The woman opposite him took a deep breath, her expression not much more relaxed, but she frowned and said, "Queen... don't you feel that she's becoming more and more unruly? She's even having private dealings with some ministers behind the Speaker's back. Hmph, she claims to be united, but she's actually reaching an agreement with this puppet behind his back."
"They're using a puppet to try and seize independence." The fat minister didn't think it was a big deal: "There are only a few people, and they're easy to waver. With the Speaker in control, they won't amount to much. Sooner or later, we'll get rid of them too."
Is that so? But their situation has been deteriorating for the past three years. In addition to external resistance organizations, internal power struggles have intensified. Can a single speaker really maintain the situation?
The speaker is their true "king," but he does not possess the absolute authority and omnipotence of the "queen" they have created. Compared to the extreme and idealized image of the queen, his power of speech is merely what an ordinary person can achieve. The queen's majesty is an absolute deterrent that can only be achieved by combining the power of all of them.
So if an extreme queen can survive under an unconventional system, what about them? Knowing where the crisis point of disintegration lies, how can they still unite as one?
Impossible. Without faith to sustain them, relying solely on the transfer of benefits, their team is no match for the Queen alone.
Therefore, for the country as a whole, the Queen cannot fall, at least not now.
As I pondered, the image of the Queen in my mind had already entered reality through the main gate. Today, she was dressed more casually, without a heavy gown, just a light long dress. Her crown was still dazzling, but her ears, hands, and neck were relatively simple. However, the parliament did not react much. Firstly, the ministers had been overwhelmed by all sorts of messy matters recently and had no time to pay attention to such peacetime entertainment. Secondly, as long as the Queen's authority remained, it was reasonable for her to do whatever she wanted and wear whatever she wanted. There was no need to worry about the public's dissatisfaction as before.
"You should know the purpose of gathering everyone here today, so I have a question for you."
When Li Zhi pointed to the fat minister who had been whispering just moments before, everyone was stunned.
According to today's plan, the Queen should be furious about the frequent uprisings in various places. She doesn't need to say much; she just needs to show her anger in front of the people. Li Zhi's sudden outburst has stunned all the ministers who basically didn't take her existence seriously.
Under the pressure of the live broadcast, the speaker was already subtly giving his own people a warning: if things went wrong, he would immediately retrieve backup data to show the public the prepared content, or simply cut it off. In short, he couldn't let an actor's sudden outburst affect their important business.
The portly minister received the speaker's signal, looked around, then gazed at Li Zhi directly above him. He feigned his usual respect, yet also seemed somewhat reluctant to lower his head, and replied, "Your Majesty, is there anything you wish to know?"
Li Zhi looked at him and said, "You still have the nerve to ask me? The region you're in charge of has lost a significant portion of its economy recently, and the economy is in complete disarray. How can you still have the nerve to stand here and talk to me? Under normal circumstances, I should make you apologize with your death in front of billions of people."
The fat minister frowned and his lips moved. The Queen had said these arrogant words countless times in the past six years, but none of them had ever made him feel so uncomfortable.
"Tonight, you, and the rest of you, will stay in the conference room and report to the public on the recent problems in your areas. I want to hear everything."
As the Queen called out names, those whose names were called looked up in disbelief, glancing at both the Queen and the Speaker.
The speaker's face twitched for a moment. The Queen's roll call was so effective that everyone except those named could sense that they had been called. This was not only an act of resistance by the actors, but also a demonstration by the Queen.
He glanced back at some people in the crowd. Everyone had different expressions and hadn't yet accepted the fact that the "Queen" suddenly seemed to have the power of a queen.
Who is it? Is it a traitor among them, an outsider, or... does Li Zhi himself have this ability?
No, even if one person's strength is at its peak, it's impossible to overcome their locked technology. There must be someone else involved, plus Li Zhi had planned this all along.
The Speaker looked at the Queen on the stage. The Queen, who had been slightly tilting her head up, noticed his gaze, but instead of lowering her head, she looked down to meet his eyes.
“My Speaker,” the Queen said with a smile, “do you have any objections?”
The Speaker bowed his head respectfully and said, "Of course not, my Queen."
This open provocation officially marked the beginning of Li Zhi's true path to becoming a "tyrant," the first person Kong Xiang saw after his promotion who was so tyrannical that even the ministers were filled with fear.
“But that’s not you, Your Majesty. Based on my interactions with you these past few days, you would never be so flamboyant. That would be detrimental to the resistance.”
Kongxiang opened up.
Shen Bai said, "Who said she represents our resistance organization?"
He picked up a can of beer, but Xu Zhizhou glared at him and turned it into cola. Still, he stubbornly switched back to beer. Li Zhi glanced at it, snapped his fingers, and switched it to 96-proof vodka. Chen Bai almost took a sip, but when he smelled the aroma, he gasped and almost choked on the smell. He wanted to switch back, but there was no way to do so, so he had no choice but to obediently put it down.
Seeing this, Chen Yilin pondered, "The demolition effect means that to achieve our goal, we must use more extreme measures to force some people to accept the status quo."
“Many people have misunderstood one thing,” Shen Bai said. “The opposing forces are never just the ministers of the parliament and the resistance organizations. If absolute technological suppression can suppress all irrationality, then when higher-dimensional technology emerges, everything will collapse.”
Kong Xiangdao said, "What you want is that collapse. Only through collapse can order be restored. But before the technology has reached a point where it can suppress them, what you have chosen is... to incite their internal strife."
Shen Bai nodded, and Chen Yilin also suddenly realized: "No wonder the Queen started to amass wealth on a large scale from the sixth year. I was wondering what you wanted to do with the money when your power had already reached the point where the whole country belonged to you. It turns out you were stirring up internal redistribution."
Li Zhijing glanced at the water glass on the table. Because Chen Yilin leaned over and touched the edge of the table, the water in the glass rippled.
“At the time, I needed to protect the organization, but resisting the organization was already conspicuous enough. Before I could fully mature, I had to learn to lie low.”
Li Zhi raised his eyes, his gaze meeting Kong Xiang's burning gaze. Kong Xiang said, "So when the queen fully matures, she can do whatever she wants, including... dominating everyone and becoming a true tyrant."
Shen Bai retorted, "That's a really harsh thing to say, but when dealing with those old parasites who have been entrenched for years, sometimes it's better to be ruthless."
"Changed again! This policy wasn't even discussed in parliament; it was just issued directly. Who does she think she is?!"
A bystander felt a jolt in his chest, as if startled, and reminded him, "She is...she is the Queen."
"Queen?"
The first man slammed his hand on the table: "I forgot that just a few years ago I was an actor performing on stage. I only found a few treacherous backers, and now I probably don't even care about those people anymore. I'm just riding roughshod over all of us!"
The room became unusually quiet because of his slap, and his words echoed throughout the council chamber, but no one spoke, as if they all had their own agendas.
The next moment, the person who slammed the table suddenly stood up and kowtowed to the ground.
Someone glanced at the speaker, who frowned, about to say something. Just then, the doors to the council chamber opened, and the queen they spoke of, as she did every day and night, slowly walked in from outside. However, she now possessed real authority and no longer needed to perform in front of the cameras.
The ministers below no longer needed to put on an act. The moment they saw the Queen, everyone's heart tightened, fearing that they would be the next ones to lose control.
The Queen, from some unknown point in time, first bypassed their data blockade, her consciousness chip becoming independent. At first, they didn't think much of it, as it was just someone gaining some privacy and being able to communicate with them. But when they could no longer block her communication, her voice would occupy their minds no matter where they were. They finally realized that her priority had truly reached its peak without them even noticing. Then, the communication became even more terrifying. They were unsure how much of their chip and neural connections she could read, and even less certain about how much power she had to call upon or even tamper with it. More and more people gradually became pawns in her hands. To escape this terrifying situation, they tried to find the people and equipment to support her calculations, because this level of calculation required enormous computing power. But after searching all the possibilities, they had to accept the most terrifying scenario.
All her computing power comes from her brain; it doesn't require chips or external computers—it's purely a biological brain.
Li Zhi walked slowly into the council hall, step by step. Unlike usual, she was wearing ordinary casual clothes and sneakers. Her steps were light and graceful, but each step felt like it was stepping on everyone's heart.
Thump, thump.
As she walked forward, her overall demeanor seemed no different from that of an ordinary person, yet there was something else about her, because she was twirling and playing with a round object on her wrist. That object was none other than the crown she had worn for nine years, the most precious thing on her body.
The light reflected from the jewels on the crown flashed in the speaker's eyes. For a moment, he was also in a daze. He knew that this crown was fake, and the real one was at his home, but at this moment, he felt that perhaps the one she was holding was real.
Li Zhi walked to the throne, slowly turned around, and then suddenly sat back down with a smooth and light movement. She hooked one finger around the crown, tilted her head to look at the politicians below, and then fixed her gaze on the minister who was still kneeling and kowtowing, asking:
"What's wrong? I could hear them discussing something nice outside the door, but now that I've come in, they don't even dare to look up?"
"Your Majesty, the meeting has not yet officially started, and we are all waiting for you to speak."
"A minister said."
"Wait for my command..."
The Queen glanced sideways at the minister who had spoken and sneered, "And who are you representing, speaking before me?"
The atmosphere was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. In an instant, the minister who had spoken also felt his heart leap into his throat. He didn't want to be afraid, but a strange feeling was pressing down on him, making it hard for him to breathe.
Finally, under this extreme pressure, his heart raced, his breathing became rapid, his vision went black, and he collapsed.
"His Majesty!"
The speaker spoke up to remind him, but Li Zhi merely glanced at him and said, "What? Afraid I'll kill him?"
She laughed: "I do this all the time. Whenever the Queen is unhappy, she finds a few people she doesn't like and drags them to the guillotine. Sometimes it's the rebels, sometimes it's the people who said a few words unintentionally, sometimes it's you, you, or you, the dissidents who need to be eliminated. The Queen's power is really effective. It's so simple that all you need to do is gather all the hatred and fear onto one person, and everyone else can hide behind the scenes and do whatever they want!"
Li Zhi threw down her crown, her smile growing increasingly unrestrained, though the smile didn't reach her eyes. The Speaker could sense her chilling intent to settle scores with them. He hadn't been oblivious all these years, but by the time he wanted to do something, Li Zhi had already grown to a point where they simply couldn't control her.
The puppet emperor one day truly became the tyrant in their eyes.
For the ministers in the council chamber, the truly terrifying day arrived nine years too late.
"A crown can be fake, and so can a person."
Li Zhijing said quietly, "A cunning person like the former speaker has already prepared an escape route for himself. As for the remaining underlings, those who should be controlled should be controlled, those who should be sentenced should be sentenced, and those who should be executed should be executed. In short, the power has temporarily returned to everyone's hands."
Kong Xiang looked at her: "That's why the cabinet underwent a major reshuffle a year ago, and I was also promoted to participate in the new policies."
Yi Guoduan said, "The damage they left behind is highly corrosive. We need a chance to completely fight back, but the Queen's time is running out."
Kong Xiang looked at Li Zhi: "Our chips enable us to perform calculations that exceed the capabilities of the human brain. As for computing power, most people, like us, have implanted chips and rely on external computers for calculations. However, cutting-edge research many years ago began to try to reduce machine computing power and use biological development to expand the computing power of the human body itself. The full development of the human brain will realize immeasurable value, but it will also bring more uncontrollability, especially for people who have already mastered a lot of computing resources. The value brought by brain development is far less than immortality. So soon, funding was suspended, and all research directions shifted towards keeping cells young so that humans can live in their best condition forever."
Li Zhichao nodded slightly: "That's right, I am the first and only experimental subject whose brain has been developed to the extreme. The price is that the rest of my body's functions have deteriorated rapidly. In order to find a glimmer of hope from the unbreakable class barrier, I am about to burn out my lifespan before dawn."
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