Side Story: Hell on Earth
Chapter 125
Discussion
The monarch's fleeting, mysterious smile, lasting less than half a second... was missed... when memory recorded this scene in Liberte's mind. He did not know what the monarch had actually perceived.
Liberte deeply analyzed every word of the queen mother, scrutinized every word spoken by the monarch, as if picking bones out of an egg, and even went through everything from every angle when discussing with the monarch that day. But he could not find anything that made him uneasy... except... that sentence he blurted out because he was too happy:
"It seems... the raw materials of Class B medicine are worse than Class A medicine..."
He patted his forehead, blaming himself for letting his excitement get out of control at the most sensitive and critical moment.
And…
He felt a wave of panic, not knowing whether the monarch had heard that slip of the tongue. Now was not the time to worry about this matter. He needed to concentrate all his energy on investigating and interpreting the matter of the "Hive" medical team inspecting the medicines.
The inspection results of Class A and Class B both showed 100% compliance with herbal standards. The two medicines were basically identical and similar in composition; the difference lay in the fact that every herb of Class B medicine, whether in tablet or liquid form, was 1% lower in quality than Class A.
What was even more suspicious was that when announcing the official market distribution, the Red Sea did not explicitly state that the quality of Class B medicine was 1% lower than Class A medicine; the medicine dealers only generally said that Class B medicine used herbs of the same composition, but its efficacy and quality were lower than Class A.
Any pharmaceutical company or medical group would use such unwritten rules when launching a new medicine. No one could pick out any faults, and no buyers would care what percentage of the components the medicines had or what raw materials were used, as long as they could cure the illness.
The medical team said that on September 27 of the 11th year of the Hive calendar, shortly after receiving the Red Sea's medicine receipts, they conducted an inspection, and all the medicines were 100% compliant, with completely authentic ingredients, not fakes.
It was only now discovered that the herbal ingredients of that batch of medicines were Class B, rather than Class A required by the Hive's order. In short, simply understood, it was:
"Not only is a single herb 1% lower in quality, but the overall quality of all the herbs used to produce a pill or a liquid is also poorer, being precisely 1% lower than Class A. Although the quality of each component differs by only 1%, this gap remains extremely huge, clearly drawing the line between the grades of Class B and Class A."
The key was that before ordering the medicines, the monarch and the "Hive" had no idea at all about the existence of Class B medicines. The lack of information led to a fatal loophole in cognition, and the victims were led by the nose in the wrong direction for inspection from the very moment they placed the order…
Liberte connected this information with such a matter: years after selling Class B medicines to the "Hive," the Red Sea took advantage of the years of war and the turbulent state of the world to begin putting these two medicines, Class A and Class B, onto the market.
At that time, the "Hive" was busy dealing with the war, handling internal affairs, and striving to extinguish the erupted epidemic, and from the monarch to the military and civilians... had no intention at all to re-verify whether the Red Sea medicines that the "Hive" had once bought had any abnormalities.
Nobody would be so idle as to inexplicably check something they had already proven to be completely correct.
The question that needed to be answered was: Why did the Red Sea wait so long before putting these two medicines onto the market? They also precisely seized the sensitive period of great chaos under heaven to sell medicines.
Liberte and the monarch, together with the Great General and Belief, did not believe that they had simply sold the medicines back then to buyers who happened to need medical treatment in an emergency... in order to... make exorbitant profits... and... perhaps there was another purpose, which was to make the appearance of these two medicines seem reasonable, thereby deliberately throwing everyone off the trail and covering up the crime of selling Class B medicines to the "Hive" back then.
And…
Why did the epidemic break out precisely when only half of the medical supplies, medicines, and Class B syringes in the warehouse remained? What followed these suspicious events was that at that time, epidemic patients and wounded soldiers were always extremely thirsty and severely deficient in vitamins.
The "Hive" decided to clear the warehouse, distributing all of that remaining half of the fruit involved in the breach-of-contract penalty slips to the victims for consumption... and combining this with... taking Class B medicine to accelerate the recovery process. Normally this might just be a coincidence.
But the truth laid out before their eyes had too many unbelievable, identical developments, and Liberte, the monarch, and the investigation team did not believe that this epidemic was a disaster sent by heaven.
Could it be that...
This was not heaven punishing the "Hive"...
But rather...
Someone reached their sinful hand into this catastrophe...
All relevant personnel were full of doubts. Wan was the number one suspect. He was responsible for transactions, buying and selling, and issuing penalty slips. He did something he had never done before: carefully and meticulously recording the reasons for punishment on every single breach-of-contract penalty slip. Why did he do this?
Perhaps even the monarch could not find a more reasonable reason than "Wan was deliberately making everything transparent"... regarding... the punishment for breach-of-contract behaviors.
Why would he play such a trick that he usually didn't do, and few people would write the reasons for bad weather and punishing partners in such detail on penalty slips?
The only answer could be... Wan was desperately playing the role of a fair and incorruptible character... in order to... prove that he was absolutely innocent in transactions and trade, without any shady business.
Deducting to this point, Liberte simply could not control that comical scene of "protesting too much," bursting into loud laughter on the spot, his laughter echoing through the entire room.
What had seemed like a perfect plan was, ironically, something Wan failed to realize: this foolish act of his had left Liberte laughing so hard that he choked and kept coughing.
However...
The key point he needed to investigate at this time was not Wan playing a foolish trick and thinking himself clever... but rather... the sudden outbreak of the epidemic back then.
The logically coherent, unbroken details in the penalty slips had a direct or indirect connection with Wan and the penalized partner... making him... believe in the hypothesis of artificially manufacturing the virus.
That person secretly spread the infectious disease, forcing the "Hive" to distribute Class B medicines in their entirety, and to transfer all of that remaining half of the fruit penalized for breaching the sales contract out of inventory to save people... reasonable and logical... 100%, there was no longer anything that made him uneasy, and he no longer had any doubts about his deduction based on intuition.
The enemy had no chance at all to sneak in and spread the virus. The personnel inside the "Hive" were all monitored by soldiers and secret agents.
Every time Liberte wanted to sneak around and do something shady, he had to rack his brains to avoid those hounds, and the chance for anyone else to create a virus without anyone knowing was also zero.
Besides, to manufacture a virus, one had to use all kinds of materials, and ordinary people simply had no ability to secretly hoard things that posed a danger to the monarch and the "Hive." As for the leadership class, soldiers, and generals, they were even more strictly monitored to prevent rebellion.
Except for the number one suspect Wan, he could not 100% conclusively point out who the ultimate culprit actually was. What baffled people to no end was the method that bastard actually used to create the virus? Liberte was 100% certain that absolutely no one inside the "Hive" could hide samples containing the virus without being discovered.
Wait...
Samples? Didn't Wan once buy an order containing various medicines, medicinal herbs, and medical supplies for his own family? At that time, the "Hive's" medical team inspected and concluded: the medicines, supplies, and herbs Wan bought were all safe, met high-quality standards, and showed no signs of toxicity.
Wan of course wasn't stupid enough to order things containing toxins and end up being arrested on the spot. He must have bought samples that could pass the quarantine procedures, thereby bringing them back to his family openly and using them as he pleased.
Liberte broke out in a cold sweat as those vague clues were gradually surfacing... This was a terrifying conspiracy carefully arranged from minor details to major situations.
Liberte abruptly stood up from his chair. The joy of discovering the connections between clues and stringing together various intersection points into a complete event... almost... made him forget that he still had to wait for the monarch's reaction.
If the other party made no move, he had to sit tight and wait. Although the two belonged to the same faction, they were not comrades. Once he took action before the monarch made a move, he might completely defeat Wan... but... would suffer a total defeat at the hands of the monarch.
He had already inadvertently exposed his strength once, and absolutely must not commit this kind of foolish mistake again.
Liberte slumped back down into his chair, pressed the button to adjust the chair into bed mode, and lay down waiting for the monarch to contact him.
The walkie-talkie emitted a signal, and he picked it up to answer the call. The monarch responded with a cold sneer to his little trick of forcing the sovereign to take the initiative to contact him. The moment the other party sent the signal, he immediately received it, and began to talk about the investigation of the case in an eager and ardent tone.
"Discussing matters in the imperial palace is more convenient."
Liberte had some misgivings that frequently meeting with the monarch would arouse Wan's suspicion. The monarch put his feet on the table, took out a pipe and lit it, took a deep puff, and comfortably exhaled a puff of smoke:
"Tsk, being smart all the time and then having a sudden lapse into sheer stupidity—that's a real thing..."
Hearing this sarcasm, Liberte couldn't help laughing out loud. He apologized and agreed to go to the imperial palace at 8 PM. The monarch acknowledged with a hum and hung up the phone. His sharp gaze swept across Liberte's portrait photo like a knife:
"This little brat..."
***
Liberte leaned back on the wolf-skin leather sofa, watching a criminal investigation-themed movie, and discussing methods of solving cases. He repeated what the young police officer said to the captain:
"We should not act rashly, so as not to alert the enemy."
He said a redundant sentence, and the monarch responded with a piece of nonsense:
"Why?"
Liberte reached out to grab the wine glass on the table. His sleeve pulled up with the motion of his raised hand, revealing a grayish-black blurred mark that extended from his wrist all the way up his arm and was 10 centimeters long:
"We lack sufficient evidence, have no witnesses, and still cannot finalize the verdict on his crime. If we act rashly, in case there are witnesses we don't know about yet, he will silence them. Everything we have painstakingly searched for and analyzed will go down the drain."
The monarch did not care about what Liberte said; his attention fell entirely on that blurred mark:
"Are you injured or sick? Hey, go to the infirmary quickly for examination and treatment, take precautions, and don't be too careless so as to avoid contracting early-stage infectious diseases. If it is not discovered early and the epidemic spreads like it did back then, we will waste effort cleaning up the mess again for nothing."
Hearing the lingering terror in the monarch's words regarding the historical earthquake-like epidemic that once caused the "Hive" its most catastrophic human casualties and greatest material consumption, Liberte almost spat out the wine in his mouth. The monarch did not find him laughable... as a sovereign of a nation... still... felt lingering fear toward the raging Black Death.
"I do not know how other patients are doing. But during the illness, a grayish-black color appeared on my arm, and after recovering, it just faded and did not disappear. It's probably because my fate is too dark..."
The monarch acknowledged with a hum: everyone's constitution was different. Other recovered victims did not have black marks on their bodies, and Liberte being a bit more unlucky than them was also a very normal matter.
The monarch had not the slightest suspicion; Liberte wasn't crazy, and it was simply impossible for him to fabricate out of thin air something that brought him no benefit at all.
"The epidemic back then was like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse crawling out from hell... sweeping across... everything, spreading the fear of approaching death, draining energy, and burning the throats of desperate patients due to extreme thirst. I still remember myself and countless people once fighting over a single orange... to quench our thirst with it, that stimulation brought out our animalistic nature, and even made us crave drinking the blood of our own kind..."
The monarch listened to Liberte's trembling and terrified voice... yet... still felt that he wasn't just recalling the most dangerous moment of his life... but wanted to divert the direction of the discussion.
He made no attempt to conceal his intention to investigate and uncover why the "Hive" had to forcibly distribute half of the fruit to patients to quench their thirst.
Why forcibly distribute it? Ordinary people would feel that this question was extremely foolish; it was very simple, because the patients were so thirsty that their throats felt as though they were burning, and the "Hive" had to try every possible means to alleviate the severe dehydration. People who knew how to think and use their brains would see that hidden behind… this forced action was the second question:
Why on earth was it that kind of viral infectious disease that induced symptoms of exhaustion and extreme thirst, rather than some other plague? This question itself was the answer: forcing the "Hive" to distribute all the Class B medicines as well as the remaining half of the breach-of-contract fruit in the warehouse.
Whether they were smart people or fools, when the reasoning proceeded to this step, everyone would understand that if this epidemic originated from some dark attempt, its ultimate purpose was... to completely erase... the evidence that could serve to accuse the mastermind behind the scenes.
However... before finding evidence that could verify the source of the epidemic and finding out who on earth was spreading the virus, no matter how reasonable these guesses were and how 100% rigorous the logic was, they were nothing more than products of imagination. Whether it was Liberte or the monarch, they could only helplessly watch the real culprit get away with it.
"I don't believe Wan is able to run amok single-handedly; he definitely has accomplices assisting in creating the virus."
The monarch and Liberte intently watched the plot of creating the virus in the movie... this scene... was identical to when the two of them pieced together the details yesterday. They sat peacefully, their gazes fixed straight on the villain who laughed smugly out loud. That fellow enjoyed the fruits of his own work by spreading the virus to the most dangerous yet safest places...
However... that was the logic of movies and ordinary people.
Then what about Wan?
Perhaps that cunning fellow purposely went against the grain.
The most important question now was not to find out where the virus had been spread first? What the people in the game needed to figure out was:
Who was Wan's accomplice? The Red Sea? Those partners who were once fined by the "Hive" on the grounds of breaching purchase and sale contracts? Or aside from this bunch of fellows, were there others who also belonged to the Devil's Alliance and took a slice of the pie?
And... was Wan the mastermind behind the scenes or merely a link among them? He was only acting on orders, so who on earth was manipulating things in the dark?
Supposing Wan or other targets were the masterminds, or even that Wan had conspired with someone, one still could not rule out the possibility of a woman acting as the ultimate Big Boss.
Aside from spreading the epidemic, what were they plotting? If the epidemic was only part of the plan, after the "Hive" consumed medicines, supplies, and manpower, what other goal did they want to achieve? Anything was possible.
Liberte watched the movie clip of the police reassembling the crime scene and made a reasonable hypothesis about the case: they had to find a lead to the fraudulent act. There was no basis to conclude that the source of the virus necessarily did not lie with a third-party partner.
But likewise there was no evidence or trace indicating that the pathogen originated from a second-party partner. The only thing the people involved knew was that Wan bought medicines from the Red Sea. The monarch took a puff of his pipe and said amidst the swirling grayish-white smoke:
"I sent the intelligence department to conduct a thorough investigation of the Red Sea, from the chairman to the employees, carrying out a comprehensive probe into all members of the group, but the result is still nothing. Everything is compliant and perfect, without revealing the slightest flaw."
Liberte sneered:
"Sometimes it is precisely because it is too perfect that it instead becomes the biggest flaw."
The monarch narrowed his eyes and said:
"You mean that no cunning criminal would be foolish and superficial enough not to prepare a backup plan to deal with an investigation into them."
Liberte nodded and replied:
"Precisely so. If physical evidence or abnormal information cannot be found at the second-party partner's end, that rules out the possibility of the Red Sea taking the wrong goods. But whether it is a mix-up, deliberate swapping, or out in the open, ultimately there must be a location that produces and supplies the goods. We must continue to dig deep into the Red Sea's lair and see which warehouse they get the goods from. Does that warehouse really belong to the Red Sea? Only by figuring this out accurately can we deduce along this direction: if that warehouse belongs to a third-party supplier, which company or group is this third party after all? Who is responsible for delivering the raw materials, and who is responsible for Class A/B sorting?"
The monarch still watched the plot in the movie with a calm expression, which played out just as Liberte said. Both the monarch and Liberte tacitly understood that what the listener was evaluating was the speaker... fundamentally... it was not because of the plot in the movie that he realized how he should investigate the case.
Liberte did not simply replay the lines spoken by the actors. The two of them each harbored their own thoughts, and the walkie-talkie emitted a beeping sound.
The monarch frowned, annoyed by his train of thought being interrupted, and picked up the communication device to answer his subordinate's report:
"Reporting commander, we just discovered that the Red Sea does not directly produce medicines. All the medicinal herbs come from a third-party partner—Resurrection."
The monarch let out a soft "oh", and pressed the hang-up button. For the first time, the intelligence team reported all the intelligence they had gathered. For the second time, they did not notify the monarch of the last piece of news in that complete intelligence report.
However, even if they were unable to unearth this noteworthy piece of news, the monarch had long known that the "Hive" did not trade with "Resurrection".
The monarch still watched the scene in the movie where the police chief excitedly celebrated unearthing the key secret. The monarch didn't even need to secretly observe Liberte. He knew in his heart with crystal-clear certainty... that deep-scheming fellow... would absolutely not overreact to this shocking news.
The shrewd little fox knew very well that the old fox would maintain composure when the other party was quiet. The crafty old fox would never madly celebrate like the police in the movie... in order... to show excitement and create a climactic effect for the audience.
As a monarch... he wouldn't... go to please anyone at all. He fundamentally didn't need to... act to display any emotions in front of people who shared the same path but were not in the same boat.