Chapter 147: Hit the target with one strike
"...Tonight will be the most wonderful night. Even as an old man, I won't let the children enjoy it. Without further ado, let's get started..."
Jing Maoxun was quite understanding. While others read their speeches for more than ten minutes, he only took three or four minutes to finish his speech and motioned You Guangyu to come on stage to continue the process.
There was nothing unusual about the process, and no one noticed anything was wrong.
It was a shot that caught people off guard.
As everyone was applauding and preparing to see Jing Maoxun off the stage, in the warm atmosphere, there was a bang and the glass shattered.
Before anyone could react to the sound, or even wait for it to fade away, there was another bang—
In full view of everyone, Jing Maoxun's brain was covered in blood, which splattered everywhere, creating a blood mist that lingered under the light for a long time.
The smell of blood instantly filled the entire conference hall.
After a moment of dead silence, unprecedented chaotic screams broke out in the venue.
No one knew where the bullet came from. Even Jing Maoxun couldn't believe that he would die... so sloppily!
He swayed twice, still unable to believe that he was hit on the head, but the shadow of death had already enveloped his ears and eyes.
If the bullet hits other parts of his body, he might still have a chance of survival, but if he is shot in the head, even the god of death cannot send his soul back to the world.
Why, how could it be, who is it——!
Since he came here, he was sure that everything was under his control. Everyone in the empire was either his people or his captives, or insignificant civilians. No one could pose any threat to him.
But even so, before participating in the performance, people were asked to check all nearby places where close-range sniping was possible, so it was impossible for anyone to snipe.
Glass can't be as fragile as paper, without any resistance...
Yes, the glass is wrong!
He looked stiffly in the direction where the bullet had penetrated. The glass fragments scattered on the ground were extremely thin. Even the most crude construction team could not use such thin floor-to-ceiling windows as building equipment.
So it was intentional and planned long ago... When and who fired the shot!
Judging from the shooting direction, the perfect sniper point is nearly a kilometer away.
With this level of sniping skills, the first reaction would only be Huo Shizhen and Yin Zhiyou, but one of them is already dead, and the other is far away in Fugan District. It is impossible for them to appear in the imperial capital out of thin air.
It was even more impossible for it to be anyone else. Whether it was military academy students or other excellent snipers with records, they had all been checked. The X system had long taken over the surveillance of the entire imperial capital. If someone entered the imperial capital with a sniper rifle, it would be impossible for them to not find anything.
so……
In just a few seconds, countless guesses flashed through his mind, but that was all.
His collapsed body was supported by his subordinates who rushed over and gave him first aid. They also shouted at everyone to stay where they were and to wait until his condition improved before giving them instructions on the next steps.
But he knew... it was too late. He didn't even have time to say a word, let alone wait for emergency treatment.
Ridiculous and hateful!
To die here, to...
There was no way he was sitting on the glass next to the platform. Who would have thought that a loophole would appear here!
At the end of his life, he figured something out and looked in the direction of Lin Guantang, only to see the young man who was very angry just now sitting quietly in his seat.
There was no expression on her face, her ice-blue eyes staring at him calmly, watching him fall down helplessly and die——
Compared to the chaotic crowd behind him, Lin Guantang was too calm, as calm as...
It was as if he had planned the shooting and had anticipated everything.
Everything was as expected.
…
Those omegas who were standing against the wall waiting were already in a state of mental tension. When they suddenly saw someone being shot in the head at close range, with the closest one only a few steps away, and had blood splattered all over their face, the fear they felt was no less than having a demon right in their face.
Several of them fainted on the spot, and the rest were also extremely terrified, screaming in an ear-piercing manner. Even when they were scolded by the bodyguards to stop shouting, they could not hide their frightened emotions and actions.
However, compared to the panic, the excitement and surprise that felt like a successful plan dominated the mood, and all attention was shifted to Lin Guantang.
They wanted to run to Lin Guantang immediately, but were stopped by the guards and could not move a step at all. However, that did not stop them from screaming in success and looking at Lin Guantang with eager eyes.
And the same name and the same hope that all of them called out in their hearts——
Begonia, Begonia——!
We did it!
I know that you will never give up on saving us, and you will definitely be able to save us!
***
It was a very ordinary day.
The omega got up early and prepared to leave the school. As soon as he arrived at the school gate, he saw that the guards at the gate had been replaced by unfamiliar people, and their number had doubled, and they looked ferocious.
After exchanging a glance, the unfamiliar security guards came over viciously and drove them back to school.
It was like a nightmare coming back.
No one is allowed to step out of the campus. After contacting their relatives and friends to inform them that they will undergo secret training for a period of time and cannot receive or send messages, all external communications are cut off. They are not allowed to take the opportunity to pass on any information because the system has been mastered and every word they send will be known.
If you send something that shouldn't be sent, the consequences are predictable.
They were cut off from all external communication channels and could not even log into the campus intranet. The entire O Academy became an isolated island in the imperial capital.
Then they were forced to undergo various training and brainwashing on this isolated island.
They were required to recite the omega code, which they had never seen before and was extremely corrupt, to learn humble interests over and over again, and to undergo naked body inspections of their appearance and figure one by one.
Anyone who dares to be dissatisfied, anyone who dares to resist, anyone who dares to refuse will be punished by death as a warning to others.
If they want to hate someone, let them hate Lin Guantang.
If he hadn't been so arrogant as to try to change everything and provoke the school board, we wouldn't have been experiencing what we're experiencing today.
That was all caused by Lin Guantang's arbitrary behavior.
Why don't you just finish your studies honestly? Why do you have to meddle in other people's affairs?
Originally, only a few people would be selected. The rest of the people could have happily spent their college years. The board of directors and the hidden rules had nothing to do with many people at all.
Besides, being chosen is not a bad thing. Just like Lin Guantang himself, being chosen by Young Master Huo, he also rose to fame overnight and turned from a sparrow into a phoenix.
As a result, he did not mention a word about the benefits he gained from it, but used an extreme exception to directly block other ways to ascend to heaven.
If this isn’t selfishness, then what is it? If this isn’t sinister intentions, then what is it? If this isn’t hypocrisy, then what is it!
So if you want to hate, hate him!
——Do you really want to hate him?
Late at night, some people gathered quietly in the small dormitory in the dormitory building - this is the advantage of completely cutting off the system. Although the periphery still maintains comprehensive surveillance and allows entry but not exit, the surveillance at the door of each dormitory in the dormitory building is no longer effective.
The discussion was transmitted silently in the darkness.
"Before leaving the imperial capital, he said something to me."
"If we face an unbearable crisis, replace that floor-to-ceiling window in the conference hall with the jasmine flower sticker on it."
"Then if nothing unexpected happens, the school construction department will come to repair it."
"Then we just have to wait until the time comes—when that happens, we will be rescued."
"Will he really come to save us?"
"Can you really still believe it?"
"Even if you don't believe it, you must never leak it. Just pretend it never happened. Please."
"If the secret gets out, all of us will become auctioned items, regardless of whether we are rich or poor, and our lives will no longer belong to us."
"It's not that he carries all of our hopes on his shoulders, but that each of us carries the future of ourselves and all of our classmates on our shoulders."
…
In the darkness, someone passed by the dormitory lightly, someone left lightly, and someone answered a question.
"What are those people doing together at night instead of sleeping?"
"...They were just crying and discussing... whether or not a collective protest was possible."
"Oh, a bunch of idiots."
Yeah, a bunch of idiots.
But he is also one of the fools.
Nothing happened on the second day, but on the third day, when they were learning to make pottery in the conference hall, a controversy arose. The students were arguing and moving towards the glass window next to the platform, but they were scolded too quickly and could not reach it at all.
Then he used all his strength, lifted a huge stone, gritted his teeth, and smashed it towards the glass window.
"Stop arguing!"
"If you keep arguing, I'll kill you all."
Everyone instantly fell silent, looking at the person who spoke in disbelief.
You Guangyu? !
Why did he suddenly... Glass window, was he planning to—
Bright sunlight streamed into the conference room. You Guangyu stood in the shadow of the wall, clapped his hands, exhaled, and said:
"If you don't want to die, keep going."
As if he had just come to his senses, he looked at the crack with some annoyance, and then whispered to the teaching assistant:
"Please, please ask the school maintenance department to fix the window quickly, and don't tell anyone else about this... I'll be scolded for being uneducated."
Being a perfect omega is his life goal. A traditional omega would not do such a rude and uneducated thing. He has been poisoned by the so-called new style of the O Academy for too long, and he actually did such a rude thing. How could he let others know about it?
The teaching assistant understood and quickly arranged everything.
They were standing next to a corner, and the man who came to install the glass seemed a little familiar, as if... he was a brother of a teacher in an archery class.
Everyone looked at each other, no one said a word, and everyone waited patiently.
Waiting for that time to come.
We are united, we trust each other, we make a promise, even if we are far apart, even if communication is blocked, even if there are many doubts, we still have a tacit understanding, we still keep the secrets, and we are still willing to take risks until we finally see the dawn of freedom.
***
Whether it was students from O College or everyone else in the venue, they were all controlled and not allowed to move or speak loudly. Only small cries and discussions could be heard one after another.
Hermes did not leave. He calmly gave instructions and discussed with Sheng Fenghua, Jian Yinglai and others. Jian Yinglai seemed to have made up his mind to make the sculpture and did not say a word. Sheng Fenghua stared at him, not knowing what he was thinking. In the end, he nodded and asked him to arrange everything.
At the same time, he opened the terminal and quickly made other arrangements, but that was not within Hermes's concern.
While waiting for the old man's final confirmation of the results - he was not blind, nor was he slow, he had already confirmed in his heart that the old man could not have survived and might have died.
He also believed that many people must have had this premonition, but... probably no one dared to announce the old man's death.
We were just testing each other...to decide what to do next.
After Hermes gave all the instructions, he returned to the distance, put his fingers on the table, leaned over slightly, and looked down at Lin Guantang, who had not expressed anything from beginning to end.
After looking at it for a while, he said casually:
"Is this your work?"
Some people guessed it, some didn't - but even if they guessed it was related to him, they couldn't figure out how he did it.
In short, Hermes's suggestive words drew everyone's attention to Lin Guantang, wanting to hear what explanation he had to give.
Even the guard next to him released his loaded gun.
Perhaps they were afraid that they would accidentally shoot him dead while he was halfway through his story, and then they would never hear the whole truth - that would be too painful.
As everyone waited with bated breath, Lin Guantang finally spoke, but his words were incomprehensible.
"I wonder if Violet has told me everything honestly without hiding anything. If so, I'm very sorry—"
Lin Guantang raised the corner of his mouth, and in Hermes' gradually narrowed eyes, he said slowly:
"There's something I forgot to remind you of. I denied the presence of a certain person, but I also didn't acknowledge the presence of another person."
It's just a deliberate guidance.
Hermes heard Lin Guantang's low mumbling, and after a little thought, he understood everything.
After I suddenly realized it, I actually found it funny - this is really the case, the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind it, and behind the oriole, the cat is hunting.
It is really hard to tell who is plotting against whom and who is in whose trap.
The boss suspected that he had been undercover in the military academy for too long and was no longer loyal, so he transferred him out of Fugan District and left his good friend Ge Xihe in Fugan District.
Doing so would, on the one hand, make it impossible for him to transmit messages across the air, regardless of whether he had second thoughts or not;
The two of them used Ge Xihe to restrain him, making it impossible for him to abandon everything and run away no matter what the reason.
Although Hermes felt that his boss didn't need to do this and that he was loyal to his boss, he also understood his boss's concerns and chose to obey.
But looking back at today's results, this approach is not only not smart but also outsmarted.
If it was Hermes who stayed in Fugan District at that time and was responsible for various tasks - including intercepting Lin Guantang, Huo Shizhen and others, after some tug-of-war, he would have passed back the information that Yin Zhiyou appeared in Fugan District.
I'm afraid they won't be trusted.
But if it was Violet, who was loyal and trusted by the boss, and she revealed the information without knowing that the boss was listening...
Then there is nothing to question.
But ah but——
From beginning to end, Yin Zhiyou neither went to the border area to carry out any mission nor went to the Fugan area. He had been lurking in the imperial capital, just waiting for the only chance to hit the target.
He was the only one who possessed a sniping skill beyond the average person's level that could earn people's complete trust - after all, Huo Shizhen was already dead.
What amazing endurance.
Haha, he is still that annoying guy.
But then again, this kind of thing is too random. If the boss doesn't come here, it will take forever.
So should we say it was a case of foresight or a coincidence?
Hermes chuckled, twirled the gun in his hand, and said disapprovingly:
"What a cunning little fox, but—if I hadn't shown up here and let you get this lucky opportunity, would you have waited ten or twenty years?"
That's no big deal.
Jing Maoxun waited for Huo Shizhen to fall into the trap and go to Fugan District, where he pulled out the chip and committed suicide. Hadn't he been waiting for many years?
Plans can never keep up with changes, and all the careful preparations are no match for the right timing.
But such opportunities are always hard to come by, and the possibility of artificial creation is too small.
But it is definitely not nothing.
It's not just luck.
Lin Guantang did not respond to this topic directly. He just took out a pair of headphones, fiddled with it a little, and handed one to him.
Hermes:?
It wasn't just Hermes who felt strange. All the other onlookers were confused and didn't know what they were talking about.
Besides, shouldn't they be in an antagonistic relationship? The boss is dead, but instead of getting angry and demanding an explanation, they just started chatting and even shared headphones.
Is this a dating site for elementary school students?
To be honest, Hermes did not dislike Lin Guantang. On the contrary, he admired him quite a bit, even though they had different positions and even though he could roughly guess that the assassination was his work.
He should be angry and resentful when his boss was killed, or as shocked and terrified as those behind him.
But he felt inexplicably relieved in his heart, and was willing to admire Lin Guantang's ability to plan everything without anyone noticing... although now was not the time to express his admiration.
In short, he still approved of Lin Guantang, but when he looked at the headphones that Lin Guantang handed him, he instinctively felt disgusted.
After Lin Guantang gestured again, he finally took it.
Fortunately, there are no signs of modification on this pair of headphones, so his ears should not be blown apart and he will die on the spot like his boss.
After putting on the headphones, a voice came from inside within a moment.
"I once said something to you. You may have forgotten it, but I don't mind saying it again."
The man said in a casual tone with a damnable, disgusting ease:
"No matter how many traps and schemes you have, they are nothing but fancy self-righteousness. I need to fire one more shot and use the definite information of death to tell you that in terms of the ultimate goal, you have lost."
"No matter how many traps and schemes you have, they are nothing but fancy tricks. The real target is the passenger seat of car number 2, Sikong Tan. I need to fire one more shot and use the confirmed death information to tell you that in terms of the ultimate goal, you have lost."
Yin, Zhi, You——!
Hermes almost subconsciously wanted to shout out those three words through gritted teeth.
But before that, another wave of memories that had been buried deep in his mind surged up at an unstoppable speed.
***
In a deep courtyard filled with flowers, an old man and two younger ones are leisurely drinking tea and chatting.
A housekeeper appeared quietly, put the things where they should be, but did not leave.
Instead, he looked at Lin Guantang with a gratified expression, as if to say, "My son has grown up."
"I'm so touched, Xiao Haitang, you're so considerate of me. If it were some big devil, he wouldn't care about my life or death."
This housekeeper was not someone else but Sikong Tan in disguise. He had originally planned to set off for Fugan District, but was urgently stopped and asked to come to the Huo family's old house.
I was really scared.
When I heard what they were talking about electronic ghosts, I broadened my horizons.
After realizing the power of the electronic ghost, Lin Guantang confirmed that he had gone to the Fugan District, and the probability of him being caught was 100%.
"I can't just watch you go to Fugan District and die."
Lin Guantang said.
Sikong Tan thought for a moment and said, "It's not that easy to die."
Lin Guantang added: "I don't want to be your enemy either."
Sikong Tan: "Do you think they will catch me and then... turn me against you?"
"Very likely."
Rather, it will definitely be like this.
Lin Guantang said:
"You possess too much intelligence. I won't let you die, but if I let you live, the information I've obtained through coercion and inducement will inevitably be mixed with countless lies and will not be believed. If I want to obtain accurate and reliable information, I must gain your trust and get you to voluntarily reveal the true information."
Sikong Tan smiled and said, "I shouldn't be so easily bewitched."
"This concerns your life, the military academy, and even the future of the empire. I don't want to gamble on a possibility."
Lin Guantang shook his head:
"Using hypnosis or other methods, with just a mark, they can enter my dreams from a distance. After capturing you, they can change your consciousness and make you think you are one of them. It should not be difficult."
Sikong Tan was thoughtful for a moment before he said:
"So you're going to—"
"Hypnotize you first."
Lin Guantang said what he didn't say.
He raised his head and looked at Huo Shizhen again. He had already learned about the military academy's hypnosis methods from Huo Shizhen in advance and had come up with a plan.
"Hypnotize you to forget certain secrets that must never be revealed, give you a hint of your deepest mission, and - set a codeword that will awaken you in the future."
Sikong Tan had a bad feeling:
"What's the code?"
"It's a codeword that you'll remember so vividly that you'll never forget it. Whenever it's mentioned, you'll have a conditioned reflex."
You've explained it in such detail, it seems you've already figured out what the codeword is, but—
Why do I have a chilly feeling?
Sikong Tan raised his eyebrows:
"for example?"
"How about using the most disgusting words from the person you most dislike as your wake-up call?"
Lin Guantang avoided his gaze, coughed, and then said lightly:
"It would be best if this person is someone who is involved in the plan. This way, when the time comes, we can wake up to this matter and find a faster solution."
Sikong Tan looked at Lin Guantang meaningfully, and said with deep sorrow:
"Xiao Haitang, you've become a bad boy. You can actually say such villainous words."
Lin Guantang blinked and said innocently and seriously:
"I just think that the saying that hate lasts longer than love still makes a lot of sense."
"Then do you want to hate Huo Shizhen?"
"I'll decline this one for now."
Sikong Tan snorted. He certainly didn't want to adopt Lin Guantang's suggestion, which asked him to go to his mortal enemy for help. How could this be possible? Wouldn't he be inferior to others in the future?
But the abominable thing is——
He had to admit that, apart from his good friend Ge Xihe, there were other people who could shake his mind and break his defenses...
There was only the final test of the pre-school training a long time ago, and Yin Zhiyou's arrogant tone and dismissive words.
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