I created the Bureau of Anomaly Control
#379 - 373. Doubt (4k)
Shen Zongdao opened the bedroom door and walked in, turning to press a few spots on the doorframe to seal the room. He then walked over to the spacious, high-end sofa in front of the projector and sat down, casually putting on the holographic eye罩.
As the black eye罩 flashed a few times with blue light, the entire room was instantly enveloped in a blue glow. At the same time, a waterfall-like blue light flowed from the eye罩, brushing over Shen Zongdao's entire body. Then, all the light faded away simultaneously, and the scene inside the room returned to normal before his eyes.
Only, three figures stood before him.
Standing directly opposite him was a middle-aged woman in her forties, to his right was a young man in his early twenties, and to his left was an old man who looked to be just approaching fifty.
Although they all looked unremarkable, Shen Zongdao still felt a little nervous even looking at them through the holographic projection, because two of these three were official members of the Neo-Liberal派, and the old man was a senior member of the research institute.
The middle-aged woman spoke:
"We've heard about the matters of Xiaoyao and Ma恩. You were there at the time, correct?"
Shen Zongdao nodded somewhat uneasily:
"That's right. I originally wanted to disrupt them according to the original plan, and I had already angered Tang Xueluan. Ma恩 had no way to stop me, but just as I was about to continue putting pressure on them, Daoist Xiaoyao came over himself.
"Then he said he wanted to apologize to Ma恩. At the time, I thought he was being sarcastic, assuming that Xiaoyao wanted to harm Ma恩 by gifting those things, but he didn't give me another opportunity to target Ma恩 in his words.
"Then Ma恩 was sent to negotiate with Shenxiao. To be honest, he performed particularly poorly in there. I even felt that I had another chance to suppress the Rong邦派. At the time, I had already thought that Ma恩 might need anti-spirit metal, and we could use this to our advantage, using the excuse that he hadn't handed over the elixir to withhold the anti-spirit metal from him, preventing the members of the Rong邦派 from reaching a cooperation with him.
"But before I could see him again, Daoist Xiaoyao proposed that deal. Then he became the darling of the entire Federation. Although Ma恩 didn't directly agree, which was somewhat beyond our expectations,
"I couldn't do anything to target these two Rong邦派 members before he officially refused."
After he finished speaking, the three figures exchanged glances, and then the middle-aged woman asked him again:
"You said this might be Xiaoyao's scheme against Ma恩, so what do you think Xiaoyao's actual purpose is? Is the explanation he gave to the public credible?"
Shen Zongdao paused and pondered for a moment, but ultimately said:
"I can't see it."
The young man spoke up:
"This matter is quite strange. The interests involved in this relationship can't be viewed in terms of anti-spirit metal. To me, giving that stuff to a promising young ability user isn't a problem, but no matter what Ma恩 can do, he's not worth ten longevity pills.
"I think Xiaoyao either wants to retaliate against Ma恩, or he's just taking Ma恩 along the way, but his real purpose is to use Ma恩 as a reason to deal with us, or he's not worried at all that we can crack the technology of the longevity pills. He might even have some real intentions towards Ma恩.
"Of course, Xiaoyao's attitude towards the Federation and towards Ma恩 are unrelated. He might be dealing with both sides at the same time, which means that whether or not he's trying to fool us, there's a negligible possibility that he doesn't want to deal with Ma恩 at all.
"But actually, what his purpose is doesn't matter to us at all.
"At least his proposal to exchange longevity pills for anti-spirit metal on the surface means that he wants us to use this stuff to force Ma恩 into submission, because Ma恩 craves and needs anti-spirit metal, we can use this to pressure Ma恩, and what he's giving us is ten longevity pills, and the Federation can't refuse this condition.
"He's a very cunning ability user. He's never been at a disadvantage when dealing with us in the past. According to the research institute's judgment, almost 90% of the information our spies have gathered is nonsense he made up, so the current situation is actually quite unreasonable."
The middle-aged woman then asked:
"Do you really have no ideas?"
Shen Zongdao shook his head:
"No, I can't think of anything."
The middle-aged woman continued expressionlessly:
"Don't pretend here. I know you just don't want to cause trouble. After Xiaoyao proposed the deal, you never targeted them again, and you didn't even try to suppress Tang Xueluan. Of course, there's nothing wrong with you doing that.
"After all, Xiaoyao has the longevity pills that we crave, but that doesn't mean we should just sit idly by and watch Ma恩 obtain anti-spirit metal and reach a deep cooperation with the Shu family. You should know that there's also the worst-case scenario, which is that Xiaoyao wasn't lying about Ma恩, and Ma恩 really is a cultivation genius with the potential to advance to Tier V.
"This is actually what we're most worried about, because longevity pills don't have a high impact on us and the Rong邦派, but if the Rong邦派 and the Shu family have another Tier V external support, then that's terrible news for us.
"That's why we're asking you what Xiaoyao's real purpose is. If what he wants is to retaliate against Ma恩, and you can see that he might kill Ma恩 in the future, or Ma恩 has no chance of advancing to Tier V, then we can completely ignore this matter.
"But if Ma恩 can take the opportunity to advance to Tier V, then even if we don't get the longevity pills, we have to ruin this."
These words caused a trace of worry and fear to surface in Shen Zongdao's heart:
"What do you mean? Those are longevity pills, related to the Fountain of Youth project. How can we just give them up like that?"
He didn't care about longevity pills because he was still young, but there were quite a few old fogeys in the Neo-Liberal派.
Many of them were already in their triple digits, and had used up almost all of the life extension plans through the Fountain of Youth project. For them, longevity pills were a must-have. They didn't even need to really replicate the drug, but as long as they could find a new life extension method through this thing, even if it was just for a few years, or even a few months, those old things wouldn't let it go.
Shen Zongdao couldn't understand why the congresswoman in front of him would say such a thing.
Looking at his surprised expression, the middle-aged woman smiled:
"Scared? Don't worry, there's definitely a reason why I dare to let you do this. Academician Huang's research is about to have a new breakthrough, and it's also about the Fountain of Youth project, but the Federation doesn't know it yet.
"He didn't publicize his research precisely because of the existence of Daoist Xiaoyao. Now the Fountain of Youth project is all focused on Daoist Xiaoyao. Even if Academician Huang publicizes his research now, he won't get the resources to make a breakthrough."
The old man nodded slightly and said:
"My research is very close to success, only enough experiments and accumulation are left."
The middle-aged woman continued:
"The resources he needs aren't a small amount, but it's not impossible. If Daoist Xiaoyao is going to give us longevity pills, the Federation itself won't allow us to invest such a huge amount of resources. The Rong邦派 politicians won't want Academician Huang, who is so close to us, to make a breakthrough, unless they have no choice.
"And rather than letting the Rong邦派's Shu family obtain longevity pills, we'd rather Academician Huang complete his research, so even if we don't have longevity pills, it's not an unacceptable result for us. The Rong邦派 is the one that will really be hurt by this.
"Ma恩 is their person now. If he and Tang Xueluan get the longevity pills, all the credit will be attributed to him, so you can dispel your doubts. We're not asking you to execute a suicide plan.
"The other members all know about this."
Shen Zongdao did indeed have this concern. After hearing this news, he was shocked and afraid. After all, if this was a decision made privately by the three people in front of him who didn't care that much about life extension, then they wanted to use him as a knife.
And he knew what his end would be in this situation—to become a scapegoat.
Because he often did this kind of thing himself, but now there shouldn't be any problems with them doing this. Although they didn't say it explicitly, it was likely that the research in Academician Huang's hands was the real reason they wanted to stop Ma恩, but that wasn't something he should know.
Shen Zongdao was still a little worried:
"So you don't want Ma恩 to advance to a Tier V ability user, but he's a former member of the Salvation Alliance. If it's to prevent him from cooperating with the Rong邦派, it's still outside the scope of the contract, but directly interfering with him like this."
The middle-aged woman said with a smile:
"If he didn't have the identity of a former member of the Salvation Alliance, then we'd have ten thousand ways to knead him. Killing him would be just a few words for us. It's precisely because his identity is sensitive that we came to you.
"In the negotiations a few days ago, your performance was on the passing line. This kind of thing with Xiaoyao is difficult for anyone to handle, and in the end, you deliberately showed hostility towards Ma恩 and Tang Xueluan, and kept a good distance from them. This is actually enough in theory.
"But I know your abilities are more than that. You've been in the limelight recently, and you've handled several tricky things. In my opinion, you deliberately avoided Ma恩 when dealing with them, and focused more on Tang Xueluan.
"And that's because you simply don't want to cause trouble, and just perfunctorily complete the task at hand, right?"
This question made Shen Zongdao a little embarrassed:
"No, I actually tried my best..."
The middle-aged woman interrupted with a somewhat unhappy expression:
"Don't act in front of us. I don't want to accuse you. You're not our slave, so your little thoughts don't make me feel anything is wrong. I can completely understand your behavior of reducing risk. No matter what, Ma恩 is an ability user.
"Not long ago, many politicians died at the hands of ability users, but now we need you to show your ability.
"We can't deal with Ma恩. How could we do such a thing? But didn't you notice anything unusual about Ma恩 in this negotiation at the time?"
Shen Zongdao didn't think there was anything unusual about Ma恩's performance, but he still asked:
"What?"
The middle-aged woman continued:
"We watched the recording of Ma恩's negotiation and gave it to professionals for repeated inspection. In the end, we noticed an astonishing fact, which is that this negotiation was actually of no benefit to Ma恩.
"And some experts have suggested that Ma恩 has actually performed very well in many scenes in the past, but this negotiation in front of Shenxiao seemed a little too embarrassed, which is likely to be what he showed us.
"And that means he may have done something secretly with Shenxiao, although we don't have any evidence and haven't found anything, but we must not rule out this possibility, right?"
Shen Zongdao was stunned for a moment, and then immediately replied:
"That's right."
She was completely lying through her teeth. If there was a problem with Ma恩's negotiation recording, then the entire Federation should know about it, not just these few people from the Neo-Liberal派, and Ma恩's motives were actually very obvious.
And if you can suspect him just because Ma恩 didn't get any benefits, then the prerequisite must be that Ma恩 has the ability to succeed in everything he does, which seems even more absurd and ridiculous, and his performance was actually very reasonable. The individual experts she mentioned were likely the worst few in terms of ability.
And most importantly, it doesn't matter to them what Ma恩 thinks. With the size of the Federation, it's impossible to suspect an ability user of Ma恩's level. No matter what, he can't do anything about Shenxiao's affairs.
It's not a question of whether he wants to or not, but Ma恩 simply can't do it.
The only reason this suspicion can be established is that Ma恩 was once a member of the Salvation Alliance. Everything else is absurd and ridiculous, but even that's enough, after all, they don't really suspect Ma恩.
This is just a reason to bypass the ceasefire treaty.
The middle-aged woman continued the question she had just said:
"Do you think what Xiaoyao said at the time was sincere?"
And this time, Shen Zongdao immediately understood her meaning:
"I think there's a high possibility that Xiaoyao wants to deal with Ma恩."
That was the truth, but not the whole truth.
The middle-aged woman nodded:
"So what ideas do you have now?"
Shen Zongdao narrowed his eyes slightly, and then immediately gave his answer:
"First of all, we have to investigate Ma恩 again. His recent behavior has been a bit suspicious. I suspect that he actually wants to collude with Shenxiao. We have to launch an investigation against him, and I think there are several places where we can start.
"We have to conduct a more in-depth background investigation of him, followed by an investigation of Tang Xueluan, and I plan to find Kania, who just completed the examination of Ma恩, and use her to find out if Ma恩 is hiding any secrets.
"During the negotiation, I felt that Kania actually had something she didn't say in her heart. I think she may be our breakthrough point. As long as there is any 'evidence', we will find him for an in-depth investigation.
"Secondly, before our investigation is successful, we still have to prevent Xiaoyao from harming our Federation's important member Ma恩. I plan to investigate whether Xiaoyao wants to secretly harm Ma恩. If so, we have to stop him from doing so."
If Xiaoyao really wanted to harm Ma恩, they could just watch Ma恩 die. Only if Xiaoyao sincerely wanted to teach Ma恩 would they have to find a way to ruin the apprenticeship.
And the truth might very well be that neither of these things is a problem, but that doesn't matter.
Because as long as you swing the shovel hard enough, even a fake treasure map can lead you to real gold.
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