Chapter 1040 Countdown

"Lancelot suggested that I divide the patrol members of the Lionheart Club into different groups. Each group should perform its own duties, intersperse our trusted core cadres, design two overt and covert patrol routes, and try to The people planted by the investigation team within the Lionheart Club cannot be caught.”

"No, my suggestion is not to consider the spies of the investigation team for the time being. This is more like a well-prepared conspiracy to make us tired of internal inspections and forget what we should really do at the moment. I agree with the suggestions of core cadres, but their The work should change from detecting moles to ensuring the normal progress of the group's work. Step by step is what we should do now."

With a "squeak" sound, the red double cherry wood door was pushed open. Lin Nian entered the president's office of the Lion Heart Club and saw Chu Zihang and Su Qian standing by the window talking. The black oak desk beside them The upper floors are filled with documents, reminiscent of the desks of Chinese high school students. This chaos continues to the floor and corners of the office. There are piles of paper pages everywhere. It feels more like the future than an orderly office. Organized library.

Chu Zihang and Su Qian stopped talking just before the door opened, and turned to look at the door. After seeing Lin Nian walking in, Su Qian was visibly relieved, "Are you back? Did you go there before? Where are you? The entire Lionheart Society is looking for you."

"There are some things to deal with, and it's almost done now." Lin Nian closed the door, "What's going on with the investigation team?"

"They should know that you gathered in Norton Hall after taking advantage of the earthquake to escape from house arrest." Susie stood on the side of the window and glanced at the woods outside Norton Hall, "But there is no action yet, just to control public opinion and Spread rumors against us."

"I understand a little bit, what are the specific accusations?" Lin Nian didn't want to stand all the time, so he walked to the desk and pulled out the welcoming chair and sat down.

"Resisting orders, dangerous bloodline, harboring dragons, etc., nonsense." Susie said lightly.

Lin Nian glanced at Chu Zihang and found that Chu Zihang was also looking at him. He thought for a while and said, "Actually, it's not nonsense. If they dare to say this, they must have evidence. Now they are showing off. Students are more receptive to the evidence.”

"That's also perjury." Susie insisted.

Lin Nian didn't speak or make an expression. He just raised his hand and scratched his forehead.

"Su Qian, I want to have a few words with Lin Nian alone." Chu Zihang said.

Su Qian was startled for a moment, glanced at Chu Zihang and Lin Nian, but without asking any questions, nodded and walked past Lin Nian who was sitting with the folder in her arms, and left the office neatly.

It wasn't until the door closed that the office became completely quiet. Lin Nian and Chu Zihang looked at each other and then got straight to the point, "The situation is a bit troublesome."

Chu Zihang sat back on his swivel chair and waited for Lin Nian's next words across the desk.

However, Lin Nian did not continue speaking. Instead, he glanced at the messy office around him.

"After checking, there are no electronic monitoring devices." Chu Zihang said.

Lin Nian nodded. If Chu Zihang said no, he would believe it and said bluntly, "I can't do anything now, at least not in the near future. I can't resist what the investigation team wants to do to us. I can only It’s up to you.”

"The reason for going to bed last night?" When Chu Zihang heard the news, his eyes subconsciously stayed on Lin Nian for a while.

"The guy we met at the South Railway Station appeared in the ice cellar last night and attacked Professor Schneider. There were several unexpected factors that appeared one after another, but they were not big problems. I did not reveal my identity and had another head-on conflict with the guy. Once, the problem was left there." Lin Nian's words were concise and to the point.

Chu Zihang was silent for a while, and suddenly looked at Lin Nian as if he remembered something, "Is the problem you have now about losing control of your bloodline?"

"How did you know? Did you guess?" Lin Nian frowned.

"The investigation team's latest statement claims that your bloodline is very unstable, and they have presented 'evidence'. They believe that your blood has been contaminated by forbidden technology, and they are going to let you have a public blood test." Chu Zihang looked at Lin Nian Silent reaction, "Is the problem big now? Because of 'Blood'?"

"The problem is indeed huge, but it is not the cause of the violent bloodshed. It is similar. I used the more troublesome bloodline refining technology." Lin Nian leaned on the chair and found a relatively comfortable position for himself.

"This is not a problem. You are safe in Norton Hall and no one can break in." Chu Zihang said, "But the hearing is another matter. If they make this application at the hearing, it will be difficult for you to reject."

"I will try to resolve this before the hearing."

"Can it be solved?"

"I try my best."

"Then this problem is not that big." Chu Zihang said calmly, "Both you and I know that the 'rumors' being spread by the investigation team are not slander in the true sense."

"Yes, so this is the most troublesome thing. When they present the evidence at the hearing and the students find out that all the rumors are true, that is when I am completely nailed to the guilty seat." Lin Nian closed his eyes.

"Why did you let that dragon go?" Chu Zihang looked into Lin Nian's eyes and asked.

There was no other meaning. Chu Zihang asked this question simply because he wanted to know what Lin Nian was thinking.

"Someone is plotting against me and wants me to make some wrong decisions as soon as possible."

"Did he succeed?"

"It's hard to say." Lin Nian opened his eyes. "Whether I kill Shao Nanyin or not is probably what he wants to see in the end. It's nothing more than a big win or a small win. I played this game with him. I It’s already lost. But what pisses me off the most is that I simply can’t refuse the invitation to this game.”

"Your enemy is very troublesome." Chu Zihang whispered, "Is it the person named 'Emperor'?"

"First of all, he is not a human, he is just a beast." Lin Nian said, "He has won this game for the time being, but there is still the next game, and I will not lose the next game."

Chu Zihang was silent.

"Actually, I suspect that there are people from him in the investigation team."

"Can he sneak into Kassel Academy?" There is a lot of information about the 'Emperor' Chu Zihang that is closed.

"He can do more than you think. He should have played a role as a promoter in this hearing. I suspect that he joined forces with a Dragon King."

"The enemy you met last night." Chu Zihang understood.

"It should be no accident. Remember that we all forgot the face of the guy in the South Railway Station? That should be the power of the 'Emperor', and they should have reached some kind of secret alliance."

"There's no worse news than this."

"Yes, that is, we don't know what their ultimate goal is, and we are still being dragged here by a hearing." Lin Nian said, "If something goes wrong at the hearing, I will be found guilty. , when the time comes, I will find a way to defect, and then solve their plot from the outside."

Chu Zihang glanced at Lin Nian and knew that he was not joking.

"I want to leave, but not many people can stop me. Even if this is the headquarters of Cassel College." Lin Nian glanced outside the window at the spire of the clock tower that was disappearing and appearing in the deep maple forest in the distance with the autumn wind, "I'll be in trouble then. You take care of Su Xiaoqiang and Lu Mingfei."

"There's no need to think about things so badly." Chu Zihang shook his head.

"Things are already very bad." Lin Nian said slowly, "You don't know what I have done, and you don't know what this hearing means to me. This is burning bridges by crossing the river, and burning bridges by crossing the river is almost certain, even though the principal and the others have been We are preparing for this, but in my opinion our probability of winning the hearing is still relatively pessimistic.

Maybe this doesn't mean that the school board really wants me to die. They should have done a complete psychological profile on me and know that even if I fall out, I won't actually kill anyone in the school, so the guilt when convicted will be very high. Subtlety I am not willing to accept this compromise and if they convict me I will leave school. "

"So you asked me to take care of Su Xiaoqiang and Lu Mingfei." Chu Zihang said.

Lin Nian looked at Chu Zihang and asked, "Can I ask you for a favor?"

Chu Zihang paused, looked directly into Lin Nian's eyes, and said slowly, "You take care of your own girlfriend."

He refused.

Lin Nian was startled for a moment, feeling that these words sounded familiar.

"You will not lose the hearing." Chu Zihang said, "Didn't you say there is another game? In my opinion, the next game has already begun. Now we are all in this game, in my It seems that if you really defect, you will play into the hands of the 'Emperor'."

"But even if I win the hearing, it's probably a small win for Him."

Lin Nian actually wanted to tell Chu Zihang that this hearing was really more troublesome than imagined.

Last night, he had already turned over the hearing materials prepared by Patsy Gattuso, the secretary of the investigation team. Even in his opinion, those materials were irrefutable evidence.

Perhaps the outcome of this hearing was doomed from the beginning. If the 'Emperor' really entered the court, then as mentioned before, he would either win big or small.

Lin Nian really didn't want to lose, but sometimes, he really felt that he couldn't win. He cut off the hearing platform with a knife like a thug, chopped King Solomon in half with his gavel, and then killed all the people who were targeting him at the scene. The investigation team, the Senate, and the tenured professors were chopped into pieces? Although the idea was good, he knew he couldn't do it.

So he felt that he would lose with a high probability, but before losing, he thought he could leave the table first.

"This is an escape." Chu Zihang said coldly.

Lin Nian's thoughts were guessed, and he looked at Chu Zihang in shock.

"He can win a little, or even win all the time." Chu Zihang stared into Lin Nian's eyes, "You just said that you will not lose the next game, so you can't lose, you can't lose even once . Do you think running away can solve the problem? If you give up resistance and surrender in a continuing war, then everything will be over. If you run away, you will run away for the rest of your life.

Lin Nian, you are different from me. You don't look like someone who will admit defeat. You will never admit defeat, so I don't want to see you admit defeat. "

Lin Nian saw something in Chu Zihang's eyes, something based on the firewood burning in this boy's soul. Denial, rejection, and full of expectations, as if he wanted to capture something from himself that would make him feel at ease. And more determined about the future.

Lin Nian silently raised his hand to hold his forehead, gently ran his thumb through the hair on his forehead and exhaled.

After a long silence, he nodded, "This is the Lionheart Club, and you are the president. You have the final say. But even if I don't admit defeat, it will be difficult for me to win the hearing. This is not something that can be changed with determination. You are Understand this."

When Chu Zihang saw that Lin Nian's eyes had really given up on leaving the table and discarding his cards, Chu Zihang gradually moved his eyes away and looked in the direction of the school outside the window and said slowly, "Your area of ​​expertise is on the battlefield. If in this world If 'right' and 'power' really exist, then what you symbolize is absolute 'power', but the current stage requires 'right'. It is a matter of course that you have no way to deal with the hearing. That is the area in which school directors are good at .

They put their hundreds of years of cunning as a bargaining chip on the table, forcing you to use your only knife as a bargaining chip, unable to pull it out as a weapon.

If the 'Emperor' has bet on this game, then he is indeed a smart enemy. He knows how to fight against your weakest point every time. You should really be careful with him. Lin Nian, my intuition tells me that He may be someone who is particularly familiar with you, but you have never doubted Him. "

"But in this game, except for the knife, I have no other chips." Young Lin said in a low voice, "I am not omnipotent. I can't even teach my junior high school students high math questions. Maybe you are right. , I have nothing but 'force'."

"No one will be disappointed in you because of this." Chu Zihang said,

“Because no one is omnipotent, this is also the meaning of the existence of the Lion Heart Society. A lion fighting alone will die in obscurity in the corner of the grassland. Only a united lion group can cross the grassland and build a homeland.

No one ever requires you to be omnipotent. There will always be people who are good at things you are not good at, as long as they think you are worthy of help. "

"Do I deserve help?"

"The hearing the day after tomorrow will give you the answer." Chu Zihang said, "If you think there is nothing more you can do, then try to believe. Not in miracles, but in yourself."

No wonder Chu Zihang didn't pay too much attention to the problem of his bloodline, because as they said, it didn't matter what Lin Nian's bloodline or strength was in this game.

No matter how sharp the knife is in this game, it can only be used as a bargaining chip on the card table, and Lin Nian only has this knife and nothing else - maybe he had it before, and he was always surrounded by people who gave him courage and purpose. , but that person has already left. When the only knife in his hand cannot decide everything, he will find a way out of the card table for himself in advance, so that the situation will not become so ugly.

But Chu Zihang didn't think so, and many people didn't think so. These people stood behind Lin Nian, as numerous as mountains and seas, watching the game silently from where he could not see. Lin Nian only saw the knife as a bargaining chip on his table and thought it was pessimistic, but he did not see that the people behind him had piled up a mountain of chips. The height of those chips exceeds the card table, and the shadow even covers the faces of the gamblers on the card table who think they have a chance to win. When they are dumped, those ugly faces are bound to be bloody.

Lin Nian was silent for a long time, stood up from the chair, turned and walked towards the door.

".I hope so," he said softly.

Chu Zihang watched his back leave and silently thought in his heart, "It must be so."

—

At the same time, the central control room.

Maybe the mountains and sea standing behind Lin Nian are just a small grave mound, or a stinking ditch?

In short, he should be considered one of these people. At this moment, he is lying leisurely on the command chair in the central control room, with his legs crossed on the expensive walnut table top where the professors on duty usually work at their desks, and he is drinking heavily. Coke, beside him, empty Coke cans were placed like dominoes, and files as high as mountains were everywhere.

The alchemy cipher machine prints at high speed, making a crisp sound; detouring around secret server units hidden around the world, countless news reports and forum posts are unearthed; a large number of access doors to the Kassel College network are completely opened, and secrets are Keys were inserted into the door locks of unknown servers one after another, firewalls one after another were breached and the data inside were forcibly stolen; 3D projection placed all processes in the center to show everyone's progress.

Members of the entire press department in the central control room mobilized to take over the most important audio-visual part of Cassel College on weekdays. According to the instructions of the principal and vice-principal, all doors and exits of the control room were manually blocked. Outside the prescribed time limit, No entry or exit is allowed, even people from the executive department cannot break in without permission.

The frenzied vice-principal even installed an infrared-sensitive broadsword mine at the door of the control room. A warning sign at the entrance of the corridor and stairs outside the control room stated that there was a minefield and that you must bear all responsibilities. People from the investigation team have passed by here countless times. Of course they know there is something wrong here, but looking at the dense high-tech minefield, they can only sigh and curse the vice principal.

Including Fingel, who now sits in the central control room, is also one of the people who scolded the vice principal, because these high-tech minefields not only stopped the investigation team from probing, but also cut off the escape route of everyone in the Information Department. .

Fingel believed that he was loyal, and the vice-principal also believed in Fingel, but he did not believe that his horsemen were as loyal as him. So the entire news department was locked in the control room and refused to complete the tasks assigned by the vice-principal. Indicators, eating, drinking, and diarrhea all have to be here.

If someone wants to escape, they have to weigh the value of the minefield jointly laid out by the principal and vice-principal. The two veterans who participated in World War II will not laugh with you about their mine-laying techniques. They orthodoxly learned the skills from the big brother of the former Soviet Union, such as hidden mines, There are all kinds of booby traps and double trip mines you can think of here. It is a microcosm of the history of the development of minefields.

The Information Department now has to be loyal even if they don't want to be loyal. Before their mission is completed, everyone is working hard at their workstations, trying their best to take over all the authority that Norma had when she was down, in order to achieve their astonishing goal.

"Boss, in the 2009 Chicago incident, the file numbered SW-CCG-003 was dug out from Norma's archives. In it, the 'S' class showed off its power and chopped off the hands of a group of Chicago native gangsters. The wrists were completely severed. The attack was very cruel. . . ”

"Show photos of the scene!" Fingel waved his hand from the command chair.

A lifelike picture appeared on the 3D projection. In a port factory, under the dim yellow light, there were neatly severed hands. Blood flowed through the ground. Countless tributaries were intertwined and gathered together like vines, just like an impressionist scene. oil painting.

Fingel glanced at it and turned his head away. Many brothers in the news department got hairy on their backs after glancing at it from the corner of their eyes. So many severed hands were piled up in one photo. The impact was even greater than that of a simple dead person. horrible.

"Yes, it is indeed violent. But it doesn't prove anything! But as usual, what do you think of Group A?" Fingel, with his legs crossed, turned to look at the horse boys sitting on a row of chairs on his left and asked.

Someone in Group A immediately raised their hands and said seriously, "It is clearly stipulated in the Executive Department that executive specialists should complete their tasks with as few casualties as possible. As an 'S'-level specialist, he has the crushing spirit of 'Snap'" , he can completely incapacitate these gangsters instead of ruthlessly cutting off their hands, so we have reason to suspect that the commissioner has serious violent tendencies and bloodlust!"

Before Fingel could speak, someone on the other row of chairs to his right shouted, "Dissent Ali!"

"People in Group B, don't bring game vocabulary!" Fingel reminded him by tapping an empty Coke can on the table. "Go on, what different opinions does Group B have?"

The person who objected in Group B retorted loudly, his eyes blazing:

"I think the 'S'-level actions are legitimate acts of self-defense and can never be related to violent tendencies and bloodlust!

According to the mission summary in the SW-CCG-003 file, the text clearly describes what happened at that time. It was this group of armed gangsters who first pointed loaded firearms at the commissioner. When the commissioner was threatened, he should use all means Use emergency measures to avoid danger, including directly killing the source of danger! "

"Well, it's a good rebuttal, and it also has a mission summary as a basis. Group C is going to write it down." Fingel nodded and thought it made sense, and directed a girl wearing glasses in the middle of the two rows to write these things down. The conversation was recorded on a laptop.

"No, please note, spokesperson of Team B, we acknowledge that the rules and regulations of the Executive Department allow our commissioners to fight back unlimitedly in self-defense when their lives are threatened. However, do you really think that the 'S' class was under life threat at that time? "The spokesperson of Group A couldn't bear to show weakness and continued to fight back,

"According to the mission report, in the subsequent battle against the dragons, the 'S' class released a sixth or even seventh-level 'Snap'. In his eyes, the speed of the bullet flying could be captured, right?

Under this disparity in strength, he still chose to be ruthless, just like you faced a kindergarten baby holding a knife, but still cut off his hand. Doesn't this mean that there is an irresistible problem deep in the heart of the person involved? Control the bloodthirsty factor and violent tendencies? "

"Please pay attention to Group A. This is a serious moral kidnapping and concept substitution of the 'S' class. First of all, the ones holding guns are not kindergarten babies, but powerful gangsters. Each of them has at least three lives in his hands. , please do not weaken the enemy too much and deify the 'S' class." The heads of Group B turned at high speed and immediately caught the not-so-subtle verbal trap attacks of Group A, and then defeated them, "Besides, in the context of the situation, the 'S' at that time 'He's still a freshman! Even if he has the advantages of blood and speech, he will still be nervous and make mistakes on the battlefield! Cutting off the enemy's hand just proves that the 'S' class is fragile.

He believed that he could not fully control his speech spirit and the situation, which led to a lack of sense of security in his heart, so he chose the safest and most extreme method to disarm and resist the enemy.

Do you really expect a 17-year-old freshman who is still underage to use your so-called optimal solution and risk being shot to disarm a group of armed gangsters? Don’t forget that in the regulations of the Executive Department, ensuring the commissioner’s own safety is the top priority! The Executive Department has always been an institution of violence, not a ridiculous parenting institution! "

The guys from Group B stood up to speak with a sonorous and powerful voice. Fingel immediately raised his hands and applauded, "Well said! Group C will write it down and use this formula to deal with it! Although these files cannot be distorted and The facts have changed, but if we analyze it from different angles, we can still get different arguments! We don’t need to distort the facts, we just need to convince the jury. This is one of the few excellent systems in the United States. When the time comes, the hearing Those idiots will definitely lose their teeth in defense!"

After praising Group B, Fingel looked at Group A and said seriously, "Group A! Give it a try! Although the idiots in the investigation team are full of fat heads, we still have to pay attention to the enemy tactically! Let's make full use of it! You are so sharp in your arguments in the forum! Tell me all possible attack possibilities! Group B! Protect our fragile and helpless 'S'-class babies to the death!

Everyone has seen what the junior brothers have done over the years. I don’t need to say much about what we senior brothers should do. Everyone knows it in their hearts. I have to catch all the dirty water thrown at him and throw it back intact! If you are digging for files, keep digging! Today I'm going to see how many knives the investigation team has to verbally abuse our 'S'-class babies! "

An electronic hourglass is constantly flowing on the 3D projection screen. It is a countdown. There are less than thirty-nine hours until the hearing begins.