“Welcome to McDonald’s, what would you like?”
Liu Xu lowered the car window and said to the person in the McDonald’s uniform inside the service station, “Three large Cokes, easy ice, and one hot cocoa… what do you want?”
Qi Ran paused briefly before realizing Liu Xu was asking her. “A Coke, I guess.”
Liu Xu didn’t look back, just nodded and told the server standing at the small window, “Make that four large Cokes, easy ice, and one hot cocoa.”
After ordering, he drove forward to the next window, took the drinks sitting on the cardboard tray, and passed them back one by one. The cup of hot cocoa was taken by the girl sitting to Qi Ran’s right.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened over the past month?” Qi Ran took a sip of her iced Coke and continued, “Also, who are you people? Where do you plan on taking me, and what are you going to do?”
“The three questions of life, excellent questions.” Xie Liusheng smiled. “Let me answer the first one first. In simple summary, only four things of real consequence happened in the last month—and I mean things big enough to get pinned at the top of the Forum. I can’t help with the smaller things; you’ll have to seek those answers yourself, Miss Qi.”
He held up a hand, raising four fingers. “First, and the biggest: the entire system of the Zhongnan Executors has been overhauled and rebuilt. The old game of playing house is finally coming to an end. From what I understand, the new managers in charge are all… quite young. That’s not a good thing. The less someone experienced the Tao Family Incident of 1980, the more extreme their attitude toward patients like us becomes. It wouldn’t surprise me if they next start hunting us down like stray dogs. Honestly, come to think of it, we really are a lot like strays. A danger to public order, and our biggest problem is the multiplying…”
He couldn’t help but give a bitter chuckle at that. “I saw a post once discussing how to solve these conflicts inside The Circle. I think the solution is actually pretty simple, just like managing strays. Those that bite get euthanized. Mandatory sterilization for the ones that don’t. Problem solved, right?”
“Medical genius,” Qi Ran said with a hint of genuine reverence. “You get right to the heart of the problem.”
“Isn’t it?” Xie Liusheng sighed. “I really wonder why such a great comment got pinned and dogpiled by hundreds of people cursing me, threatening to dox me. So excessive, these young people today.”
“No, I think their anger might have been justified…” Looking at the young man who didn’t seem to be joking, Qi Ran felt a wave of genuine exasperation wash over her. She could only change the subject, pressing further. “Why did this happen? Was there some new major event?”
“Yu Mi, the Team Leader from Pingjiang Team 2 that you mentioned. He broke out. A Cleaner helped him escape from the Pingjiang Execution Team Main House,” Xie Liusheng said. “If it was just a jailbreak, that would be one thing. The problem is, he killed an Executor from Team 1, and that Cleaner was found to be a member of New World… that makes things a bit dire.”
“Cleaner? New World? What are those?” Qi Ran asked.
“Cleaner refers to a Special Executor,” the boy sitting to her left said in a low voice. Qi Ran noticed the clear disgust written on his face. “That kind of Executor is no different from a butcher. They don’t care if the target is really a criminal or not, don’t need to search for evidence, and don’t accept any defense. They’re a bunch of lunatics who get to legally murder people and enjoy it.”
Xie Liusheng didn’t refute the boy’s words, only adding a bit more. “Many of them even need regular injections of medication just to keep their mental state stable. They’re genuine madmen.”
“And people like that can become Executors?” Qi Ran was flabbergasted.
“A tool isn’t a problem as long as you don’t cut your own hand. Is it sharp? Does it work? Why would you worry about a kitchen knife’s psychological problems?” Xie Liusheng shrugged. “Don’t worry about the loyalty of these Special Executors. They’re far more loyal than you can imagine. In the Forum’s mockery, they universally carry a deep sense of guilt. They’d practically kneel and kowtow to any Ordinary Citizen they meet, shouting, ‘I’m sorry, my compatriots, for the trouble I’ve caused.'”
“Going back to New World—honestly, I’m not surprised by it. The organization called New World is also a group of fanatics pushed to the extreme, just the exact opposite of the Special Executors. In simple terms: imagine a lunatic who originally believed ordinary people were supreme and all patients deserved to die. They suddenly have an epiphany and become a lunatic who thinks patients are supreme and all ordinary people deserve to die.” As Xie Liusheng spoke, he suddenly laughed. “There’s a very apt comment on the Forum, saying she’s like the blitzkrieg camp suddenly switching to the surrender camp. Although the end results are diametrically opposed, the two extremes are more or less the same at their core.”
“You’re saying New World is a terrorist organization made of radicalized patients?” Qi Ran asked in a low voice. To be perfectly honest, the term “terrorist organization” felt quite foreign to her.
“Not entirely,” Xie Liusheng said.
Qi Ran looked confused. “What do you mean by ‘not entirely’?”
“Let me think how to explain this.” Xie Liusheng exhaled. “How should I put it? The members of this New World do all have the standard personality of a terrorist organization member, each one so full of resentment they can’t wait to just slaughter everyone in the world. But the problem is their leader. The one who hasn’t shown their face, with not a single rumor about them… is a smart person.”
“He, or perhaps she, knows very well where the bottom line and the rules are. And the members of New World clearly obey her arrangements completely, never crossing the line… So in a sense, they aren’t exactly a terrorist organization, because they pose no threat to ordinary people. Every single one of their actions only affects people inside The Circle.”
“Let me give another simple example. Remember what I told you earlier? That Team Leader of Pingjiang Team 2, named Yu Mi. To escape, he killed one person and wounded another. But both of them were Executors, Insiders. So, in terms of the facts, his only crime was jailbreak, not intentional homicide. Jailbreak cannot even be considered his crime, since he wasn’t really imprisoned, he was in Solitary Confinement. Voluntarily entering, voluntarily leaving; no one can really say there’s a problem there.” Xie Liusheng spoke flatly.
“There are many more examples like that. The members of New World specifically target Executors, but they ensure they aren’t seen by ordinary people, and they don’t cause any damage to public facilities. So, you see? That’s why the Executors have to be reorganized now. If I’m not mistaken, they’ll soon form partnerships between Insiders and Outsiders—pairing Executors with ordinary Police officers. That way, if an ordinary person ever dies at the hands of a New World member, they can logically reclassify the incident as a counter-terrorism event.”
“Ordinary people are… the Golden Plate of Immunity?” Qi Ran understood everything now.
Xie Liusheng snapped his fingers. “Precisely. In other words, the Executor System is about to become more official, stricter… or perhaps, more radical. After all, the recent events have long had the younger Executors seething with fury. All of this, is the first thing I wanted to tell you.”
“That was just the first thing?” Qi Ran paused. She thought she had only missed a single month of time. How did it feel like she’d missed over a decade’s worth of changes?
“Don’t worry, the next things aren’t as significant as the first,” Xie Liusheng said casually. “The Executor business was indeed sudden. Not just you, even many who lived through the last month were bewildered, completely failing to grasp what happened.”
“As for the subsequent events, they can all be summed up in three sentences. Very simple. Qi Jianguo has disappeared. Li Wanying has disappeared…” He paused slightly, his voice trailing off with a hint of a smile. His last sentence struck Qi Ran like a thunderbolt. “The last piece: Li Siwen’s body was discovered on November 4th in his office. Cause of death, asphyxiation. There were signs of torture on the body. Four fingernails on his right hand were pulled out. Only four were pulled out—meaning, he failed to withstand the interrogation. He gave up the secret. That’s why the killer didn’t continue to torture him, but killed him outright.”
“What was that secret? How could Li Siwen have known it? Why did Qi Jianguo suddenly vanish? Why did Li Wanying disappear from the Execution Group’s Solitary Confinement chamber?” Xie Liusheng’s tone was almost coaxing, leading her on. He was truly an excellent storyteller.
“It’s precisely because of these questions that we found you, Miss Qi. I suppose you know the answers to these mysteries a bit better than we do, don’t you?”
Qi Ran looked at him, and then suddenly, she laughed. She laughed heartily, tears spilling from her eyes.
Xie Liusheng watched her laugh, and wasn’t angered by it. He just patiently waited for her to finish.
