Late at night.
Sindisen, who had gone to bed in high spirits only a short while earlier, was jolted awake by a frantic pounding on his door.
Grabbing his glasses from the nightstand and sliding them on, he climbed out of bed with a scowl, storming toward the entryway while cursing under his breath.
"Pound, pound, pound... pound on your mother's door! What time do you think it is?! Can't whatever it is wait until tomorrow, damn it!"
At this moment, Sindisen clearly had not realized the gravity of the situation, nor had his thoughts even drifted in that direction.
After all, news of the fire at the printing factory had not yet reached this place, and the subordinates he had sent along with the protest march had not returned to report.
Even if word had reached him, he might have panicked for a brief second, but likely only for a second.
Whether it was bribing the printing factory staff or looking into the origins of those newspapers, his subordinates had handled all the legwork. From start to finish, he had merely pulled the strings behind the scenes.
At most, he had met them face-to-face a handful of times during drop-offs.
No matter how omnipotent the Alliance's Administrator was, he hardly had eyes planted directly above his head, did he?
Angrily wrenching the door open, Sindisen opened his mouth to swear, only to freeze mid-breath.
Standing before him was neither his secretary nor hotel staff, but a row of grim, stern faces—and an identification badge shoved practically into his nose.
The man in the lead wore an officer's uniform, gazing down at him with frigid eyes.
"Guards Corps. We suspect you of being an espionage agent of the Bugra Free State and of inciting sabotage. Please come with us."
"A s-spy?!"
Cold sweat instantly beaded across Sindisen's brow. Gazing at the heavily armed elite soldiers standing in the corridor, he felt his soul nearly fly out of his body, his voice stammering uncontrollably.
"Wait, there... is there some sort of misunderstanding?! I'm just an honest, law-abiding merchant! How could I possibly be a spy—"
With conclusive evidence in hand, the officer could not be bothered to waste breath on him, simply flicking his hand.
"Take him away."
Several soldiers filed in, slapping handcuffs directly onto the pajama-clad Sindisen, twisting his arms behind his back and marching him outward.
"Wait! Let go! Aaaagh! Alliance soldiers are killing people! Help!"
A squealing howl like a dying pig echoed through the corridor.
Never having faced such an ordeal, Sindisen was terrified to the point of snot and tears streaming down his face, and his trousers were thoroughly soaked... even though nobody had laid a fist on him.
The officer shot a contemptuous glance at the disgraceful wretch.
He was almost beginning to wonder if there really was some mistake in the case; after all, a genuine, professionally trained spy would hardly be this pathetic.
Yet even if that were true, so what?
Even if he was not a spy, what he had done amounted to the exact same thing.
Once they brought him in, he would interrogate him thoroughly.
Woken by the pig-slaughtering shrieks, doors along the corridor began opening one after another, curious heads poking out to watch the commotion.
Relatively few wastelanders were truly terrified of death; after all, not everyone hailed from comfortable settlements.
Watching the onlookers whispering among themselves, the officer shot a meaningful glance at the soldier beside him.
The soldier caught the cue, pulled an arrest warrant from his breast pocket, waved it before the gaping guests, and projected his voice across the hall.
"This is an arrest warrant issued by the Alliance Court! The suspect will face a public trial within seven days, and the court date will be posted by the judiciary!"
"Friends visiting from afar, rest assured: we will never wrongly accuse an innocent person, but neither will we show leniency to criminals who disrupt our order! If you are curious about what crime he committed, you are welcome to apply at the court for public gallery seats!"
Routine procedure completed.
Tucking the warrant away, the soldier joined his comrades in hauling the flailing, shrieking Sindisen down the hotel stairs.
At another hotel not far away, an identical scene was playing out.
The case involving the *Qingquan City Daily* implicated not only Sindisen as the mastermind, but also six other traveling merchants from the Bugra Free State.
Such a massive stir, layered on top of the earlier street protests and the fire blazing in the industrial zone, ensured that word spread through the entire city in no time.
Because all those arrested were merchants from the Bugra Free State, even merchants who had merely passed through the territory shivered in terror, utterly baffled as to what was unfolding.
Were they going to war with their northern neighbor?
Surely it wouldn't happen this abruptly, right?
Throughout the entire night, every merchant from Bugra anxiously inquired about what had occurred, terrified that the trouble might drag them down as well...
***
The long night finally drew to a close.
Early the next morning, a sudden gasp of disbelief rang out from the editor-in-chief's office at the *Survivor Daily* newspaper headquarters.
"All burned to ash?!"
Hearing that yesterday's printed run had gone up in flames, Zhao Yigeng, editor-in-chief of *Survivor Daily*, blurted out the words before freezing on the spot, rendered completely speechless.
Nothing this absurd had ever occurred before—not even when the frontline was less than fifty kilometers from the industrial zone!
Fortunately, he wouldn't have to agonize over tomorrow's front-page headline, but unfortunately, today's issue was almost certainly ruined.
Faced with a predicament he had never encountered, Zhao Yigeng was momentarily at a loss for what to do.
Just as his headache was mounting, a knock sounded at the door.
Assuming it was an editor delivering copy, he instinctively raised his head and called out.
"Come in."
The door swung open.
Yet upon seeing the figure who strolled inside, Zhao Yigeng nearly jumped out of his skin, shooting up from behind his desk with a start.
The secretary standing in front of the desk did the exact same, eyes widening in shock as he stared at the warm, smiling man in the doorway, his hands hovering awkwardly as if he had forgotten where to place them.
Taking three seconds to hurriedly straighten his attire, Zhao Yigeng forced a hasty yet beaming smile, thrusting his right hand forward as he rushed to greet him.
"What an honor, what an honor! Respected Administrator, what wind has brought you here? Please excuse the mess, I had nothing prepared for your arrival!"
Chu Guang shook the editor-in-chief's hand, releasing it with a chuckle.
"You're far too polite. I just happened to be passing by and decided to take a look around. I hope I haven't interrupted your work."
"How could it ever be an interruption! Xiao Wang, quickly brew some tea for the Administrator... Administrator, please have a seat!" Zhao Yigeng's face was flushed with excitement, gesturing toward the nearby sofa to usher Chu Guang over.
"Right away, right away!" The secretary named Xiao Wang dashed toward the teapot on the side, moving so frantically that he nearly sloshed hot water across the filing cabinet.
Feeling slightly abashed by the pair's excessive enthusiasm, Chu Guang cleared his throat softly.
"No need to be so nervous. Well... I won't sit down. If I do, I'm afraid you'll feel obliged to replace the sofa with a new one."
Tossing out the quip in a teasing tone, Chu Guang turned his gaze to the secretary setting the teacup properly on the table and spoke amiably, "You're Xiao Wang, right? Would you mind stepping outside for a moment? I have some matters to discuss with your editor-in-chief."
Both men froze.
Zhao Yigeng, however, reacted swiftly.
At his frantic ocular signals, the secretary named Xiao Wang promptly vacated the office, gently pulling the door shut behind him.
Stepping out into the corridor, Xiao Wang immediately spotted the guard who shadowed the Administrator everywhere standing outside, and his heart sank with a thud.
What on earth did Boss Zhao do wrong?
To think the Administrator came down here in person...
Xiao Wang was not the only one harboring anxious doubts out in the hallway; the most stressed of all was naturally Zhao Yigeng inside the office.
However thrilled he had been a moment ago, he was twice as apprehensive now.
The Administrator's tone always gave him the creeping dread of being held accountable for a blunder, yet no matter how hard he racked his brain, he could not fathom where he had slipped up and offended this great lord.
While his mind spun in distress, Chu Guang spoke in a measured tone.
"I came here simply to ask about one thing. Does today's paper contain any coverage regarding Qingquan City's eastern district?"
Hearing that this was the topic, Zhao Yigeng let out an immediate breath of relief, smiling hastily.
"None! Rest assured on that! Upon receiving news of the military control over the eastern district, I instructed the editorial department at once to suppress all related news—"
Chu Guang cut in, "Who told you to suppress it?!"
"Ah..." Zhao Yigeng was caught off guard by the reprimand. He opened his mouth, unable to find anyone to pass the blame to, and shook his head nervously. "Well... nobody, really."
While the Alliance invested heavily in media outlets, it rarely intervened directly in their day-to-day development, generally only demarcating an operational scope and leaving them to run things themselves.
For instance, while the shelter held a collective controlling stake in *Survivor Daily*, it had never dispatched high-ranking officials to meddle in the newspaper's management.
Zhao Yigeng himself was the undisputed top executive of *Survivor Daily*.
Blacking out the news had been a decision he made based on top-level directives and his own political instincts; the order had originated from him, and truly nobody had commanded him to do so.
Yet he saw nothing wrong with that decision. The celebration was just around the corner, after all, followed by a funeral.
Even if they were to report on the eastern district of Qingquan City, shouldn't they wait until those two far more significant events had concluded?
Moreover, it depended on whether the Alliance authorities intended to keep the matter under wraps.
Seeing that the editor-in-chief had completely failed to grasp the crux of the issue, Chu Guang sighed and continued patiently.
"The military control was imposed to prevent unrelated civilians from entering and encountering danger, which would make the causes of any deaths impossible to untangle. There isn't just the slime mold fruiting body there, but mutants, and potentially even rogue super mutants or marauders! We have more than enough security to ensure Yu's safety, but if someone dies inside, even if it wasn't at the hands of Yu's fruiting body, the public will instinctively blame it on her, sparking irrational panic."
"The shelter residents are actively exploring ways to coexist with harmless slime mold fruiting bodies, and the eastern district of Qingquan City will lift its military control when the time is right..."
Watching Zhao Yigeng nod like a woodpecker, Chu Guang paused and snapped with disappointed exasperation.
"I'm not telling you this so you can bob those few hairs on your head! I'm telling you to write this in our newspaper! You need to interview the people worth interviewing—the Alliance Institute of Biological Research has experts far more specialized than me! Then you need to tell our citizens why we are doing this, what the benefits are, what the risks are, whether we have taken those risks into account, and what preparations we have made to mitigate them... Yet what did you do?"
"If Qingquan City's eastern district doesn't appear in *Survivor Daily*, does that mean it ceases to exist? If you don't report on it, does that mean others won't care? The things we ignore, someone else will gladly care about on our behalf; the people we fail to unite, someone else will gladly unite for us!"
Although Chu Guang's phrasing remained measured, the critical tone, backed by his immense personal authority and presence, bore down upon Zhao Yigeng's shoulders like a mountain.
This was true even though Chu Guang had no desire to humiliate him, having even preserved his dignity by shooing his subordinate out before speaking.
Looking at the editor-in-chief hanging his head like a chastised child, not daring so much as to draw a loud breath, Chu Guang sighed and continued in a softer tone.
"The people trust us, and what we must do is respond to that trust, rather than expect them to unconditionally grasp our difficulties every single time. Besides, if you ask me, what bloody difficulty is there? Could it possibly be harder to deal with than the Legion or the Tide? Certain people got clever and voluntarily surrendered our ground to someone else. How is that any different from being a deserter on the battlefield?!"
Zhao Yigeng kept his head low, wearing a look of profound remorse, wishing he could find a crack in the floorboards to crawl into.
He had known about the *Qingquan City Daily* matter, but because its content was so preposterous, he hadn't taken that clown seriously at all.
Yet that was precisely the problem: because *Survivor Daily* had refrained from reporting on the eastern district, and its various subsidiary publications had remained equally silent, the *Qingquan City Daily* had ended up being the only outlet bold enough to make a peep.
Fortunately, the culprits had not prepared thoroughly.
Had they been just a bit more prepared, fine-tuning the ratio between truth and rumors to make their claims appear more legitimate, the fallout could have been catastrophic...
The more Zhao Yigeng reflected, the colder his sweat ran down his forehead.
He had finally realized the sheer gravity of his error.
Noticing the voice of reprimand cease, he kept his head bowed and said in a heavy tone.
"This was a dereliction of my duty... I apologize. I failed your trust!"
Seeing that he understood his mistake, Chu Guang's irritation dissipated somewhat, and he continued with patient firmness.
"The one you should apologize to isn't me, but everyone who placed their faith in you. The ideological battlefield of public opinion sits right there. If you don't occupy it, our enemies will charge in. We have first-rate wasteland warriors who marched onto the battlefield for noble ideals, charging forward without fear of death. I don't want them returning home only to read third-rate rags, having all their sacrifices reduced to the enemy's punchline."
Even the notoriously haughty Academy had acknowledged that their achievements in Qingquan City were an extraordinary miracle—something that deserved genuine pride.
What they should have been lighting were bonfires of celebration, not their own printing factory.
Not even the Legion had managed to bomb his factories, yet in a time of peace, it was torched by his own people.
Having just cooled down, Chu Guang's fists clenched tight once more.
Zhao Yigeng watched him with trepidation, inwardly reviewing where else he might have fallen short to displease the Administrator.
Right then, a commotion drifted in from the corridor outside, one voice ringing familiar enough to catch Chu Guang's attention.
"What is wrong with my draft?! The safety analysis of the downtown broodmother comes straight from Professor Heya, director of the Alliance Institute of Biological Research! Why can't it be published?!"
The high, sharp voice sounded like an enraged kitten. Chu Guang knew instantly that it had to be a certain green-haired girl.
It wasn't that he was truly familiar with her voice; it was rather that he knew the scribes under his command far too well, and none of them would ever produce a tone like that.
Sure enough, another voice replied immediately.
"Hmph, the director of the Alliance Institute of Biological Research doesn't speak for the entire Alliance."
"But the professor has researched this field deeper than anyone else!"
"I know, but science is one thing, and reality is another! We can't always just trust science—"
"What kind of nonsense is that?! If we don't trust science, what should we trust? The Great Horned Deer God?!"
"You can always trust the Administrator! Ugh, why don't you get it? You're a reporter for *Survivor Daily*; try to show a little vision!"
"...The *Survivor Daily* I knew wasn't like this."
"And that's why your paper went under, didn't it? Bottom line: before the celebration, don't run news that could stir up controversy. It doesn't matter who you show it to—this comes straight from the editor-in-chief!"
"Then when can we report it?!"
"After the funeral for the fallen soldiers... a few days after the celebration should be fine."
"Are you out of your mind?! Pushing it back an entire week—is that even news anymore?!"
Watching Chu Guang's face darken by the second, Zhao Yigeng listened to the bickering outside, his own expression growing increasingly impossible to maintain.
Especially when he heard the line, *And that's why your paper went under.*
It was true that the *Survivor Daily* founded by Hal in Boulder City was gone, but in the end, the inner city that choked it to death had gone down with it.
That fool really didn't use his brain before speaking!
Zhao Yigeng gave a dry cough and said, "I'll go set the editorial department straight..."
Before his words even finished, the office door was shoved open, and Dolly barged in like a gust of wind, brandishing a manuscript in her hand.
Hot on her heels was Yang Yan from the same office, who was also her direct supervisor.
She had marched in prepared to debate the editor-in-chief, only to freeze when she realized Chu Guang was also in the room. In an instant, both newcomers stopped dead in their tracks.
"Administrator?!"
"Y-You... why are you here?"
Without reprimanding the two, Chu Guang cleared his throat lightly.
"I have no desire to get involved in your debate, but allow me to add a personal thought: I always trust science, and I recommend you do the same... though it's not mandatory, of course."
Looking at the stunned Dolly, he continued in a gentle tone.
"May I see your draft?"
Heya had not mentioned giving an interview to *Survivor Daily*, likely considering it a trifling matter not worth bringing up.
And in truth, it was.
Much like Chu Guang himself, who hadn't paid much mind to the *Qingquan City Daily* Old Charlie had brought him at first, given the sheer volume of pressing matters demanding his attention.
Moreover, Chu Guang had always encouraged the blue jackets to drop their haughty airs and communicate more with the wastelanders, rather than assuming wastelanders understood nothing and refusing to speak to them at all.
That was precisely how the bastards in the Enlightenment Society had isolated themselves. Humanity possessed a natural reverence for knowledge and expertise, but nobody appreciated arrogance.
Looking up at Chu Guang standing in the room, Dolly nodded blankly and handed the draft forward.
Chu Guang accepted it and scanned through.
It clearly addressed virtually every concern he had raised with Editor Zhao earlier, all framed from an objective standpoint.
And that was what pleased him most.
*Survivor Daily* was not merely an information channel for the general Alliance public; it was also the primary source of news for local and independent media throughout the Alliance's territories. If a message was distorted from the source, it would veer thousands of miles off course by the time it reached the ends.
"Well written."
Offering that word of praise, Chu Guang handed the manuscript to Zhao Yigeng.
Seeing Chu Guang's satisfied expression, Zhao Yigeng took the draft with both hands and swore solemnly.
"I will have the editorial department place this on tomorrow's front page immediately!"
As he spoke, Zhao Yigeng shot a stern glance at Yang Yan standing behind Dolly.
The editor snapped out of his daze, straightening his back.
"I'll contact the printing factory right now and tell them not to rush the reprint of yesterday's edition!"
"Not just the front page. With a matter this significant, how could one page possibly cover it all?" Chu Guang looked at Dolly, who was frozen in pleasant shock, and continued with a genial expression, "I want a dedicated series... at least three special columns, completely clearing up every misunderstanding and putting all the Alliance citizens' worries about Yu to rest!"
Hearing such wonderful news, Dolly clenched her fists in excitement, momentarily at a loss for how to express her gratitude. Then, remembering something, she seized the opportunity to ask.
"Wait, respected Administrator, is Yu the name of the broodmother in the shelter? I heard she can understand the Human Alliance language... C-Can I interview her?"
Heya had made no promises, merely suggesting she seek the Administrator's permission, but securing an audience with the Administrator was normally exceedingly difficult.
"Of course you may. Yu is quite an amusing little fellow; in fact, many people have met her... before she became a broodmother. By the way, you can bring her some sweets as a greeting gift."
Delivering the suggestion in a teasing tone, Chu Guang then turned to Zhao Yigeng and continued.
"In the future, stop overanalyzing and guessing blindly. Rather than trying to divine what I'm thinking, you'd do better to focus on doing your own job properly."
If something truly concerned the classified collective interests of the Alliance, he would instruct the relevant personnel to keep it secret. There was no need for subordinates to conjure up their own wild guesses.
Zhao Yigeng snapped to attention, straightening his spine and offering a crisp military salute like a disciplined soldier.
"Understood! I will engrave your teachings in my mind!"
"I'm no expert in this industry; you should learn more from the journalists who arrived from Boulder City. A voice of progress is progressive anywhere. All right, I won't linger here any longer. Get back to your work; I have tasks of my own to attend to."
Chu Guang nodded with a smile. Giving a glance to Lü Bei standing by the door, he led the loyal young man outside.
Next, he needed to meet with Enterprise's representative.
The Academy's representative had already presented him with an astonishingly generous congratulatory gift; he wondered what sort of surprise the Supreme Council would offer in turn...
They were old friends and longtime partners, after all.
Surely they couldn't offer less than outsiders, could they?
Chapter 650