943: Chapter 943: The Sun Still Shines On This Land (Requesting Monthly Votes for this Big Chapter) 943: Chapter 943: The Sun Still Shines On This Land (Requesting Monthly Votes for this Big Chapter) “The rain has stopped, huh?”
Standing in front of the dical scanner, Liz turned with the chanical tray and stretched out her hand to touch the damp air, looking up at the sky where a crack of brilliance was showing.
“It rained all night, finally stopped.”
Beside her, Tucker lit a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and watched the brilliance in the sky.
He was actually quite worried about the situation inside the Mayor’s Mansion.
When he found out that He Ao had sent all the mbers of the Mayor’s Guard who were in the Mayor’s Mansion to evacuate the crowd, he sensed trouble and even made a phone call hoping Mr.
Lin En would leave so people behind for the Mayor’s security, but Mr.
Lin En did not agree with his suggestion.
Then he heard about an assassin trying to kill the Mayor, dying in the Mayor’s office, and the whole assassination process was recorded by the office surveillance.
First, he panicked, then he understood everything completely.
Obviously, Mayor Lin En was ‘luring the tiger out of the mountain’, deliberately setting up an opportunity to catch the ‘assassin’ red-handed.
Tucker’s gaze withdrew from the sky and he looked up, sweeping his eyes across the team mbers who were checking their injuries and the crowd that had already been evacuated in the distance.
It had to be said, the Consortium’s ploy of ‘framing’ was extrely malicious.
If it wasn’t for Mr.
Lin En having him arrange for most people to be taken care of in advance, controlling the situation at the crucial mont, turning a bloody massacre into an ordinary riot,
Letting these bastards kill civilians and protesters, causing chaos while spreading rumors of the Mayor’s Guard killing dissenters.
Not only would many people die wrongly here, but Mr.
Lin En would also be entangled with public opinion and stains.
As long as there was a shred of evidence or sothing caught by the wind, the Consortium would likely take advantage of the dia to slander Mr.
Lin En, even knowing it was a wrongful case.
When everyone is talking about it, whether the matter itself is innocent or not doesn’t matter anymore.
Even if Mr.
Lin En could clarify it in the end, it would greatly affect his authority, also diminishing the impact of his speech today.
Those Consortium lackeys not only wanted Mr.
Lin En dead but also wanted his reputation to be completely ruined, making him a figure that could not be emulated.
The best way to deal with this was to set things up in advance and nip any potential crisis in the bud.
Tucker took a drag of his cigarette, blowing out a wisp of smoke.
But in this world, how many people can keenly sense a crisis beforehand?
The Consortium wasn’t the first to arrange people to protest here, and the surrounding onlookers weren’t the first to witness it.
And even if they could sense a potential crisis, how many would be bold enough to direct the majority of their protective forces to go protect ordinary people?
Besides, from the final developnt of the situation, the opponents were not fools.
Realizing that most of the Mayor’s Guard had been arranged elsewhere, they truly arranged for a Transcendent to attempt the assassination.
Although Mr.
Lin En seed to deliberately give these assassins a clear path, Tucker was quite aware that in so way, Mr.
Lin En was also protecting those mbers of the Mayor’s Guard who had stayed.
With the level of the Mayor’s Guard left in the Mayor’s Mansion, it would have been difficult to stop the powerful Transcendent assassins; they might have beco as souls under the assassin’s blade, only able to slightly reduce the assassins’ energy.
So Mr.
Lin En deliberately let them avoid the assassin, and in giving way to the assassin, he also protected the mbers of the Mayor’s Guard.
Of course, the result of this was that Mr.
Lin En himself was exposed to the full force of a Transcendent assassin, significantly increasing the danger.
The ones ant to protect the Mayor were protected by the Mayor instead.
Tucker took another drag of his cigarette, his gaze moving to a giant screen replaying the speech nearby, looking at the Elderly figure on the screen.
Strong, wise, perceptive, compassionate, decisive.
It seed like a very long ti since he had t such a charismatic Leader.
Perhaps, Mr.
Lin En really could completely change this city.
At this ti, not far away, Liz also finished her dical checkup and simple bandaging.
The diagnostic screen showed her condition was good, with only so external injuries to the skin.
The dical staff had provided basic treatnt and wrapped her up in bandages.
However, these dics had previously been taking care of the Mayor’s Guard mbers and used less anesthetic, so their treatnt thod also seed to be not very gentle.
At the mont, this adorable girl with ash-gold short hair, not very tall, but exuding an air of valor, was curled up next to the makeshift dical table, grimacing in pain.
“Little girl,”
Seeing this, Tucker smiled and, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, walked over, “You have a lot of courage.
My na is Tucker, and I’m currently the Deputy Captain of the Mayor’s Guard.
You did very well today.”
“Thank you, my na is Liz.”
Liz sucked in a breath of cool air as she stood up shakily, leaning on the dical table and looking up at Tucker with hesitation, she whispered, “Did you keep here for so reason?”
After everything had ended just now, she was ready to leave, but Tucker had brought her over for a dical checkup.
“It’s nothing,”
Tucker looked at Liz, who slled of cigarette smoke and had an odd expression on her face but dared not speak.
He snuffed out the cigarette butt and said, “The thing is, I saw your footage earlier in front of the broadcast screen, revealing the cris of the Consortium’s lackeys.
You’re very brave,”
He glanced up at the attackers who were being restrained nearby, then turned back to continue, “We happened to capture so attackers, so we were hoping you could cooperate and be a witness.”
“Ah, at that ti I was just a bit carried away by the speech…”
Liz opened her mouth; she wasn’t very keen on dealing with the City Governnt, but then she hesitated, glanced at the bandage on her hand, and spoke slowly, “But if you need a witness, I can be a witness.”
Then she paused slightly, her hesitation apparent, but she eventually spoke up, “Also, I did receive quite a bit of money, from the leader.
Should this money be confiscated…?”
“Which leader?”
At her words, Tucker was taken aback, “The bald chanized Body reforr who attacked you?”
“No,”
Liz shook her head, “A skinny, tall one, looks a bit fierce…”
As Tucker listened to Liz’s description, he was montarily stunned.
Then he raised his bracelet, projecting a photo of a gaunt man, and handed it to Liz while asking in a low voice, “Is this him?”
Seeing the photo, Liz was startled at first, then squinted carefully and nodded lightly, “Yes, that’s him.”
Then she glanced at the wound on the gaunt man’s neck and hesitantly looked up at Tucker, “Is he dead?”
“He’s dead, assassinated the Mayor, then got killed,”
Tucker withdrew his bracelet, looking nonchalantly at Liz, who was obviously confused upon hearing the phrase ‘assassination of the Mayor,’ “You don’t have to worry about his threats anymore.
As for the money you received, that’s your legitimate personal inco.
Just rember to pay your taxes on ti; we have no right to interfere with your inco.”
“Really?”
With the confirmation that the money wouldn’t be confiscated, Liz, still sowhat surprised, suddenly focused her attention on Tucker with a look of delight.
Then she seed to realize that she was being a bit presumptuous and bowed slightly to Tucker with formality, “Thank you.”
She had received a thousand federal coins from the gaunt man, plus today’s ‘part-ti fee,’ amounting to a total of one thousand and seventy-five federal coins.
That was enough for fourteen weeks, nearly four months’ rent.
All this money, if spent on dication, would also cover a few months’ worth of her parents’ dical needs.
Strictly speaking, she indeed completed the gaunt man’s commission, whether it was participating in the protest or stepping in front of the screen—only the latter part provided the gaunt man with so ‘surprises,’ which she had made clear to him beforehand.
Of course, with the dia literacy she’d acquired from spending ti with Ini, she was now getting her bearings.
It was very possible that from the outset, the gaunt man planned to have her killed as soon as she appeared on the screen, to instantly consolidate the narrative with photos in the dia of ‘Mayor’s Guard kills protester.’
If that were the case, her photo would probably be on the front page of the city’s newspapers tomorrow—except as a blurry image of a corpse.
Of course, after she’d added the ‘surprises,’ the gaunt man was also planning to kill her on the spot.
So she was truly grateful from the bottom of her heart; if Tucker hadn’t led the Mayor’s Guard to rush in quickly, giving no opportunity to the attackers who were close to her, she reckoned she wouldn’t have made it to watch the bald strong man make his entrance before her life curtain closed.
“Don’t thank , if you want to thank soone, thank Mr.
Lin En,”
Tucker shrugged, “All these arrangents were made by Mr.
Lin En.
He was the one who keenly sensed all this and made the preparations.
I’m just a worker.
Everyone who survived the attack today really should thank Mr.
Lin En.”
“Mr.
Lin En?”
Liz blinked, then she slowly reacted and asked softly, “Do you an Mr.
Mayor?”
“Yes, Mayor Lin En.”
Tucker looked at her with so confusion, “You don’t know the mayor’s na?”
Liz unconsciously shrank her head and said with so embarrassnt, “I didn’t really care about these things before.”
Now it was Tucker’s turn to fall silent, “You never paid attention to Mr.
Lin En, yet you risked your life to reveal the truth in front of the screen for Mr.
Lin En?”
“Mr.
Lin En’s…
speech was right, wasn’t it,”
Liz smiled and lowered her eyelids, speaking softly,
“My parents are retired miners.
They contracted pneumoconiosis, and their hearing isn’t good either.
When they were diagnosed, the disease was already severe, and they had lost most of their working ability.
The mine laid them off without any compensation.
Now they can only take on so simple part-ti jobs.
We don’t have the money to get biological lungs, nor to cleanse the lungs, we can barely afford so dicine.”
She paused for a mont and spoke in a low voice, “I’m not really brave, it’s just that at the ti, I was a bit…
charged up.”
“Sorry.”
Tucker sighed softly and spoke in a low voice.
“It’s okay, actually it’s very good.
On any street corner in Wick District or Nevus District, you can easily find soone with a story more tragic than mine,”
Liz laughed and shook her head.
For so reason, her gaze naturally shifted behind her, towards the huge screen that was broadcasting the speech.
Without realizing it, she once again imrsed herself in the calm, yet passionate speech.
Tucker stood quietly to the side, stepped back a bit, and lit a cigarette.
Liz quickly listened to the speech segnt again, and then she seed to rember sothing.
She pondered, and slowly lifted her head to avert her gaze, looking towards the white building behind the screen, towards one of the wooden windows still radiating light.
If her conjecture at the ti was correct, that window was the source of the petal-like radiant light.
But as she gazed at that window, she had a vague feeling that it looked familiar, as if she had seen it sowhere else.
She hesitated for a mont before turning back to Tucker and pointing to that window, “Can I ask what that window is?”
“Hm?
Which one?”
Tucker looked up sowhat blankly, removed the cigarette from his mouth, and followed Liz’s pointing finger, then his gaze paused slightly.
He didn’t directly answer Liz’s question but instead looked down, towards the screen where the speech was still playing, not far ahead.
Liz’s gaze also followed his down.
At first, she didn’t understand and then she saw the window behind the Elderly in the speech.
At that mont, she finally realized why that window gave her a sense of familiarity.
Because she’d been watching it in the video of the speech all along.
She turned back and asked cautiously, “That…
Mister, has he always been there?
During the attack, I an.”
“After the speech, he might have been,”
Tucker spoke slowly, with the cigarette in his mouth.
He too had seen the burst of light that pierced through the bald strong man, “As for whether he’s there now and in the future, I don’t know.”
“Thank you.”
Liz nodded lightly, aware that the Guard Captain before her must have so sort of confidentiality obligation that prevented him from revealing the Mayor’s current or future whereabouts.
So, was it Mr.
Mayor who saved at that ti?
The dazzling brilliance brought by the petals once again erged in her mind.
Just then, she felt a faint vibration on her wristband.
She lifted her hand to look at the wristband, which displayed a call from Ini.
She quickly opened the wristband and realized this wasn’t Ini’s first attempt; Ini had called several tis in the past few minutes, but Liz had been distracted by the window and the speech and hadn’t noticed the incoming calls.
She lifted the phone, gave Tucker a slight nod, moved a bit further away, then stretched out her hand to answer the call.
“Good heavens, I finally got through!”
A tense shout ca from the other end of the line, “Liz, can you hear ?”
“I can hear you,”
Liz replied quickly, “I was just tied up with sothing, couldn’t take the call earlier.”
“I just turned on my wristband and saw online that there was a terror attack at the gates of the White Jasmine Palace?
Liz, were you working there part-ti?
Are you hurt?”
The concern was evident from the other end, “When I couldn’t get through to your phone, I thought you were dead.”
“Relax, I’m not that easy to kill,”
Liz said with a laugh, then paused, “And not only am I not dead, but I’ve also done sothing big.
You’ll see in the major news headlines soon…
um, if all goes well.”
“What’s the big deal?
Is it related to the terror attack?
You’re not going to tell you went and played the hero, are you?”
There was a hint of shock from the phone, “Your little fra, those thugs could strangle you with one hand.”
“Watch your mouth,”
Liz retorted with a lifted eyebrow, “I calmly faced a whole group of them on my own.”
“It’s probably not calmness, but you were too scared to move,”
Ini joked, sensing her friend was in good spirits and still able to joke, “So, our headline star, are you interested in giving an exclusive interview?”
“Of course, but that depends on whether your stingy boss is willing to pay up,”
Liz laughed, “After all, my appearance fee is quite high, and I also have to confirm with the Mayor’s Guard what can and cannot be said.”
“Okay, my superstar, I’ll finish up this big news I’m holding, and after I post it, I’ll co find you…”
Ini’s voice laughed and laughed, then suddenly paused, “Wait, the Mayor’s Guard, are you serious?”
“Would I lie to you?”
This ti it was Liz who laughed out loud, but then she winced and bent over from reopening her wound due to the sudden movent.
However, she covered the microphone so that Ini on the line wouldn’t hear her in pain.
“Then I’ll have to have a good talk with my stingy old boss,”
Ini seed to be lost in thought on the other end, “If this news of mine goes viral, I should be able to negotiate a better price.”
“Then I’ll be counting on you for next month’s rent, ace reporter.”
Liz said with a chuckle.
…
Tucker watched from a distance, with a cigarette in his mouth, as Liz happily talked on the phone.
His gaze then landed on the still bright old window and lifted to look at the clear light spilling over the sowhat disheveled Jasmine Flower Sea through the tearing clouds.
The sunlight still shone on this land.
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