The Sun Also Rises

Night fell. The unrelenting downpour caused the temperature to plummet. Though it was July, Fangshi was hovering at a mere twelve degrees Celsius. The heavy rain had also rendered several of the high vantage points Lu Zhao had prepared useless, forcing them to rely on indoor lighting. To guard against emergencies, Lu Zhao had already procured a diesel generator to prevent any lack of visibility in the event of a power outage. The soldiers faintly sensed the chilling gloom permeating the air, every one of them on maximum alert. Lu Zhao evacuated everyone from the police station, dispersing them to the surrounding high ground or major traffic thoroughfares. From the very beginning, he had never intended to make a desperate stand inside, much less use his own soldiers to absorb the brunt of an assault. As for the Lü brothers, Lu Zhao had sent Lü Bowen away to serve as a backup witness. Lü Jinshan, the critical figure, was kept behind; there were too many informants lurking nearby to smuggle him out safely. Once outside the area under his own control, Lu Zhao stood no chance against the city executive. At the entrance of the police station, Lu Zhao and Zhang Like finished their last cigarettes, preparing to pull out. Zhang Like suddenly said, "Let me just shoot Lü Jinshan. Leaving him alive is only asking for trouble." "Aren't you afraid of prison?" Lu Zhao asked. "I'm more afraid of losing," Zhang Like replied. "Someone's coming to snatch him tonight anyway, and the odds are we won't be able to stop them. Why not kill Lü Jinshan and pin it on them?" It was feasible, and brilliant... For a fleeting second, Lu Zhao was tempted. With his teacher expounding the Dao and clearing away his perplexities, Lu Zhao had gained a solid grasp of power struggles. Combined with his own accumulated experience in the workplace, his tactical acumen was by no means lacking. Hearing that single remark from Zhang Like, a foolproof scheme had flashed into his mind in an instant. Lü Jinshan's greatest risk was that he might recant his testimony. As long as he died, that ceased to be an issue, and they could conveniently frame Zhao De for it as well. If Zhao De took action personally, yellow mud would stick to his trousers whether it was feces or not—he would never wash off the suspicion. If he didn't act personally, they would still eliminate Lü Jinshan. Lu Zhao even glanced around; the old police station had no surveillance cameras. A chance to legally eliminate an enemy. "No." Lu Zhao shook his head, rejecting the idea. "What if no one comes? Doing this will land you behind bars." It was a criminal offense, and it violated his teacher's guidance. The greatest taboo in officialdom was adventurism. Killing Lü Jinshan might feel satisfying in the moment, but cleaning up the aftermath would be an absolute nightmare. He had to maintain a position from which he could advance or retreat at all times, pursuing his future one step at a time. What Lu Zhao wanted was never simply to kill a certain individual, but to change the entire Federation. Zhang Like curled his lip. "You just thought of a countermeasure, didn't you?" Lu Zhao maintained a deadpan face. "No. You know I don't really understand these things." "You're quite a master at playing dumb yourself." Seeing that expression, Zhang Like knew his guess had hit the mark. Lu Zhao was normally very casual; whenever he put on a serious demeanor, it meant he was playing dumb. The two donned raincoats and departed the police station. Their breath turned to mist, the temperature dropping lower and lower. Carrying his sniper rifle, Lu Zhao arrived at the top-floor stairwell of a tall building near the police station. *Ring, ring, ring.* His phone rang. Lu Zhao answered it, and Lin Zhiyan's crisp, melodious voice came through. "Someone might make a move against you tonight." "I know." Lu Zhao lit a cigarette and said, "Suspending a third rank superhuman, yet without sending a superhuman of the same rank to replace him." He had sensed it ever since Zhao De was suspended. To suspend a piece of trash like Lü Jinshan, Chen Hongtao had needed Lu Zhao and Old Zhang to prop up the front. Yet for Zhao De, a third rank superhuman, it was merely a simple suspension pending investigation. A high-tier superhuman backed into a corner always had the potential to resort to extremes. Conversely, it meant the higher-ups had other arrangements in store—such as finding a chance to silence Lü Jinshan, and then having someone else step forward to take the blame. Liu Zhihui was a good candidate for that. Lin Zhiyan said, "Come to my place right now, and order all your men to withdraw. I can protect you." Hearing that, Lu Zhao showed a hint of surprise and asked, "Is this your elders' intention, or your own?" "Does that matter?" "If it's your elders', then Zhao De won't have any chance to make a move." "Sometimes playing dumb won't kill you." "I'm sorry, but I'm not very good at playing dumb." On the other end of the line, Lin Zhiyan's delicate brows knit tightly together, and she felt a fierce urge to curse. This was what she hated most about Lu Zhao: he saw through everything clearly, yet insisted on going his own way regardless. "I'm not joking with you. You have to leave this time. Don't you understand that enduring for a moment brings calm, and taking a step back opens up a broader horizon? If you want to catch corrupt officials so badly, you can come with me to Cangwu in the future." "Why must you be so stubborn!" Her voice rose slightly over the line, before lapsing into silence. Lu Zhao could tell that Team Leader Lin's concern for him had already exceeded the bounds of a mere working relationship, and she had realized it as well, falling quiet. *The teacher said that she and I share a bond of fate.* Recalling the old Taoist's words, a strange ripple stirred in the depths of Lu Zhao's heart. Had it not been mentioned, he would never have cared, but once brought up, it was hard not to let his mind wander in that direction. "Do you remember that class I substituted for you once? The one about the relationship between willpower and psychic power?" Lu Zhao intended to play dumb. Romance between men and women was like sesame seeds meeting mung beans—it was enough if their eyes clicked. Or perhaps there had been an idea before, which had later been abandoned. At the very least, Lu Zhao had no such thoughts right now. Her attention diverted, Lin Zhiyan said with disdain, "Do you think you're some supreme sage or virtuous master? So many years have passed, I forgot about it long ago." "Then I can review it for you." Lu Zhao hadn't actually taught Lin Zhiyan such a class, but that did not stop him from using what he had recently learned to instruct her. It could serve as a modest token of gratitude. "For psychic superhumans, developing abilities is the most difficult of all, and the paths of development vary widely. Most of us study Taoist theory." "Taoism offers a great deal of criticism against the 'obsessive ego'—treating human consciousness as the primary subject. Yet most of us psychic superhumans happen to be stubborn people. Why do you think that is?" Without hesitating, Lin Zhiyan answered, "Because we haven't attained the realm of the ancient sages." Lu Zhao shook his head. "It is because we clash with the 'obsessive ego' that others impose upon us. You speak of blending with the dust, of exempting grand dignitaries from punishment, of flattering the honored and serving the noble—those are merely notions residing in certain people's heads." "I don't see it that way, so you call me stubborn, call me foolish, call me rigid." The rain began to fall even harder, faintly drowning out Lu Zhao's voice as if rebuking his heresy. *Crack!* All the lights in the police station went dark, plunging the entire Foreign District into blackness. In the darkness, the cell phone emitted a faint glow, outshone only by the brilliance in Lu Zhao's eyes. "The ancient sage Wang Yangming once said: Knowledge is the intent of action; action is the work of knowledge. Knowledge is the beginning of action; action is the fruition of knowledge." "The so-called cultivation of psychic power is our perception of the world and our dialectic understanding of objective reality. The ancients called it the Dao." *What kind of person do you want to become?* That had been a trending topic back in the year 3222. Lu Zhao was six years old that year, having just entered primary school, and the very first lesson the teacher had taught was 'What Kind of Person Do You Want to Become?' Teachers from two different worlds had asked the exact same question. Later, inside Li Dongxue's dream, he had watched color televisions that were never seen in the countryside of that era, and the host had posed the very same question as well. That era seemed to place immense value on dreams. The social atmosphere held little anxiety over survival, centering far more on personal aspirations and grand imaginings of the future. Lu Zhao's mentor at Dijing University had once authored a paper discussing the number of psychic superhumans across various eras. In the year 3230, the number of psychic superhumans was ten times higher than it was now, and high-tier superhumans were twenty times more numerous. In 3240, the Cataclysm struck, and psychic superhumans fought until they were pushed to near extinction. Psychic superhumans possessed absolute rationality, yet also harbored absolute sensibility. His mentor had written: *Spirit is something more precious than gold; only a golden age can nurture the spirit, and this era provides no fertile soil for its development.* Lu Zhao thought his mentor was entirely right, but now, he wished to add one sentence. A dark era needed the illumination of the golden spirit even more. "Night will fall, but the sun also rises. That is my Dao."