Chapter 102: Suzuna vs. Qingyu

At the Takamagahara Historical Memorial Museum, there were no other visitors at the moment.

Xia Qingyu stood before the cluster of monuments honoring the successive governors, motionless and silent for a long while.

Today she was not wearing her usual figure-hugging dress and black stockings. Instead, she had on ordinary casual clothes, trousers, and sneakers, yet that fierce, chilling aura of hers remained impossible to conceal. It was as if a sword were trying to disguise itself as a kitchen knife, and Chen Zi'ang found the sight faintly absurd.

“A benefactor’s fortune lasts but five generations,” Xia Qingyu said softly. “Chen Zi'ang, when do you think Takamagahara’s debt of gratitude to the Shi family can finally be exhausted?”

“That’s not something I can answer,” Chen Zi'ang said, refusing to respond.

“Not something you can answer, or not something you dare answer?” Xia Qingyu sneered.

Chen Zi'ang looked at the monument before her. It bore the achievements of the first governor, Shi Zhiqing.

Before Shi Zhiqing reclaimed Takamagahara, this planet had been a lair for interstellar pirates.

Of course, when people think of interstellar pirates, they usually picture the cliché of a warship suddenly bursting out and shouting for surrender. The reality, however, was far crueler than imagination.

According to the words carved on the monument, during the years when the pirates ruled Takamagahara, the Northern Pole City region had a population of roughly two hundred thousand. Only twenty thousand of them were pirates; the rest were conscripted slave folk.

The pirates’ authority over the slaves was virtually limitless. To put it simply, if they fancied your daughter, they could take her away; if they played her to death, they would send your family to collect the corpse. If a ship was short-handed, they would drag your son off to serve as cannon fodder. In short, the slaves could not even be counted as people, only as a kind of resource to be taken and used at will.

And among those twenty thousand pirates, only one thousand were truly pirates; the rest were “slave soldiers” assigned to the grunt work.

In the era of interstellar travel, operating a ship required vast numbers of hands. Aside from essential systems such as fire control, piloting, and life support, everything else was left to the slave soldiers.

By rights, if the slave soldiers had organized resistance, the ship would certainly have become impossible to run.

Yet historical records show that there were very few instances of rebellion against the pirates on Takamagahara, and most of the populace’s mentality was deeply warped: they took pride in becoming pirates.

Among the slave folk, only about a third of the families were willing to send their children to serve as slave soldiers. But among the slave soldiers themselves, as many as eighty to ninety percent fought bravely in raids and eagerly served the pirate leaders.

“The contents of this monument reflect the character of the island people very aptly,” Xia Qingyu said coldly. “Endurance, adaptation, and overthrowing one’s superiors.”

“Like a watermelon: whatever mold you put it in, that is the shape it will finally grow into—then it will try to burst the mold apart.”

“In the age of pirate rule, the only way to rise above one’s station was to become a pirate oneself. So even while their parents and relatives were still being squeezed and exploited by pirates, they would throw themselves into the fray without regard for their lives, eager only to become part of the pack.”

Having said this, Xia Qingyu stopped and looked at Chen Zi'ang with calm, expectant eyes, as if to say, “Let me hear your thoughts.”

“Uh.” Chen Zi'ang was silent for a long time, then asked, “Aren’t we supposed to be dealing with Nishikawa Mie?”

“The one you have to deal with is a witch,” Xia Qingyu said icily. “For a witch, her divinity is beyond your ability to infer. You can only analyze her thinking through her humanity, and the national character of the island people is certainly something you cannot get around.”

She actually did not mock him. It seemed Nishikawa Mie was putting considerable pressure on her as well.

Chen Zi'ang thought to himself, and heard Xia Qingyu continue:

“People who have been bound for a very long time will, after suddenly breaking free of those restraints, inevitably develop a desire to destroy things wantonly. Like students tearing up textbooks after graduation exams, or prisoners rampaging through a prison during a riot and escape, it is, at its core, still an outlet for emotions suppressed over the past.”

“Because the island people are so good at endurance, this psychology is especially pronounced in them. Nishikawa Mie has suddenly gained power from the lowest depths of humiliation, so she will inevitably seek destruction as a way to vent.”

“Indeed.” Chen Zi'ang chuckled. “Northern Pole City is exploding all over the place now. Your judgment, Qingyu, has been perfectly confirmed.”

“Human apes have actually learned sarcasm. It seems imitation is a shared instinct among primates,” Xia Qingyu shot back. “Please attempt evolution: how are we to exploit this psychology of Nishikawa Mie’s and make her obediently walk into the trap we have set?”

“I’ve already thought of a method,” Chen Zi'ang said seriously. “At the Takamagahara Historical Memorial Museum’s ceremony today, we should focus on publicizing the Ecological Protection Act signed by Shi Jintang, and provoke Nishikawa Mie.”

“Do you plan to devolve from human ape into a broken record?” Xia Qingyu sneered.

She turned and walked deeper into the memorial hall without looking back, and Chen Zi'ang hurried after her.

A sudden flash of inspiration struck him. He quickly opened a short-video app and searched for “Takamagahara Historical Memorial Museum,” wanting to see exactly what bait Xia Qingyu had cast before Nishikawa Mie.

“...Today, Councilman Kobayashi Tadanao has announced that he will carry forward the political platform of the late Councilman Qin Senhe, who died unexpectedly earlier, and continue promoting the passage of the Animal Rights Bill. This afternoon, he will attend the ceremony at the Takamagahara Historical Memorial Museum, where, while commemorating Governor Shi Jintang, he will explain to the public the origins and significance of the Ecological Protection Act.”

After watching the news clip, Chen Zi'ang fell into thought for a moment, then could not help slapping the table in admiration, though there was no table around him.

Nishikawa Mie assassinated Qin Senhe partly to stop the Animal Rights Bill from passing, and partly to vent the hatred in her heart.

Now that another councilman intended to take up Qin Senhe’s political cause, it must have felt to Nishikawa Mie as though the enemy she had gone to such lengths to kill had suddenly climbed back out of the coffin.

And on top of that, this Kobayashi Tadanao was going to educate the public about the Ecological Protection Act... the hatred baited for Nishikawa Mie was practically maxed out; it was almost as if they were dancing on her face.

“Qingyu, amazing!” Chen Zi'ang caught up with Xia Qingyu and praised her repeatedly. “That’s you all over! This arrangement is absolutely brilliant. Even if Nishikawa Mie grows suspicious, with that obsessive vengeance of hers, she’ll probably have no choice but to come!”

“Who do you think I am?” Xia Qingyu said with a cold laugh. “Shut up!”

Chen Zi'ang obediently fell silent, thinking that he was already trying very hard to flatter his superior, but since the superior did not buy it, there was nothing he could do.

“Senior!”

A spirited voice came from behind them. Chen Zi'ang turned and saw Tsukimiya Suzuna running toward them from the corridor behind.

Then she noticed Xia Qingyu standing beside him. The sweet smile on her face did not change, but somehow it seemed to switch into a fake smile.

“You’re late,” Xia Qingyu said coldly.

“Sorry,” Tsukimiya Suzuna replied lightly. “On the way here I saw two sisters fighting, and I couldn’t help stopping to watch for quite a while. It was so exciting that I hardly noticed the time.”

“What sisters fighting?” Chen Zi'ang asked, frowning.

“No idea. Maybe they were fighting over a man,” Tsukimiya Suzuna said with a shrug. “Is senior interested in that sort of thing too?”

“If you have time to watch other people fight, why not use it to improve your own professional skills?” Xia Qingyu sneered. “Or have you become so immersed in your flirtation with the object of your crush that you’ve forgotten who you are?”

Chen Zi'ang immediately felt mortified and hurriedly said, “Wait, I think—”

“Yes,” Tsukimiya Suzuna said, taking Chen Zi'ang’s arm. The fake smile had vanished completely from her face, and her voice gradually turned cold.

“You’re not wrong. I like senior.”

“I value him more than life itself, more than anything I have.”

“And I absolutely, under no circumstances, will hand him over to a woman who is already unworthy of being with him just because of those filthy, decayed, disgusting ambitions and desires!”

The instant those words left her mouth, the coldness and impatience on Xia Qingyu’s face vanished without a trace.

In their place came a kind of suppressed fury, as if it might tear someone apart and devour them whole.

Her eyes flew wide, and within those jet-black pupils, a fierce murderous aura churned wildly like magma in a volcano’s throat.

Tsukimiya Suzuna’s expression also twisted as if out of control, as though she were suppressing immense hatred and malice, and she let out a low growl.

“So that’s what I can never understand: why dare you come back? What face do you have to come back?”

“If you had even the barest shred of shame or conscience, you should have stayed far, far away from senior for the rest of your life! You shameless, filthy bitch who deserves to be ground to dust and ashes!!!”

A tremendous crashing sound suddenly thundered through the memorial hall.

Before Chen Zi'ang could even react, Tsukimiya Suzuna’s body had already been hurled through the air like a high-speed shell fired from a cannon, smashing the distant governor monument clean in half at the waist.

The end.