Chapter 1468 - A Dangerous Element

At the mention of that name, Xiao Zishan's hands tightened around his tea mug. The moniker "Black Four" hadn't been uttered for several years. Four transmigrators who had once attempted a night raid on Salina to "sample some foreign meat"—only to be beaten to a pulp—had earned a tacky, juvenile code name from the Executive Committee, granted for the sake of the Senate's glorious image.

After being caught red-handed, the four had been split up and dispatched to different departments far from the political center, exiled to various "Horizon's Ends." They also enjoyed the unprecedented treatment of "monitored employment." Every month, Xiao Zishan received a "monitoring report" from the Political Security Bureau. Of course, the purpose was less about preventing them from continuing their misdeeds and more about preventing Salina from seeking revenge one day. She was now a transmigrator herself; if they ever truly came to blows, it wouldn't be as simple as intentional injury or attempted rape.

He mentally reviewed the whereabouts of these four scumbags: one played second fiddle to Big Tiger in the Army, currently plaguing refugees in Kaohsiung; one served as a technical supervisor in the industrial sector; another had been exiled to Gaoshan Ridge to preserve and archive knockoff technologies. Only the last—the mastermind of the original assault—was a master at fishing in troubled waters. Xiao Zishan recalled this one had later been snatched by Cheng Dong for monitored employment.

"Could you mean that fellow Xin Wuzui?" Xiao Zishan said in a low voice.

"Precisely. Among our five hundred or so people, regardless of how frustrated we were in the old world, in this era we all count as figures who know astronomy above and geography below, possessing unique skills, yielding to no one. But Xin Wuzui-san—you know—the skills he holds are something even few in the old timeline had heard of." Zhao Manxiong glanced at Xiao Zishan and twisted out a thin smile.

"Hehe, Old Xiong, I'm starting to understand why you've come." Xiao Zishan spoke slowly. "It seems the water below isn't muddy enough. Since Miss Flower wants to fish in troubled waters, let's send her a big black snakehead."

"Consider it me helping you refresh your memory." Zhao Manxiong-ski slowly rose from the sofa. "I'll come pick it up personally in a few days." He brushed nonexistent dust from his trousers, handed a file folder to Xiao Zishan, tapped gently on the invisible logo, and ambled out.

DELI. Xiao Zishan understood the significance of this logo perfectly. Plastic file folders—found on every street corner in the old timeline—were absolute black technology in this era. Information stored in such a folder, in principle, must never be disseminated. Old Xiong leaving this behind clearly carried extraordinary significance.

Opening the folder, the red "Top Secret" characters stamped on the old-era plastic-sealed loose-leaf index page indicated this was a transmigrator's qualification certificate and a strictly confidential personnel file:

Name: Xin Wuzui. ID: 0127. Gender: Male. Ethnicity: Han... The formulaic identity page. The name was obviously fake, Xiao Zishan thought—but that was common among transmigrators. What followed was an old-world résumé. Unsurprisingly, Xiao Zishan found the growth history of a typical old-world elite: double degrees from prestigious schools, procurement engineer, key account sales manager, product planner, and finally deputy head of marketing at a well-known insurance company. Also born in the late seventies—this guy had mixed much better than I did. Xiao Zishan secretly recalled this loathsome forum show-off from when he'd first come to join Chief Wen and the others:

Wuzui-san was a slightly chubby southerner with a harmless baby face, long eyelashes, and big eyes that exuded innocence. A pair of lensless GUCCI glasses perched on his nose. He always wore tacky suits and shirts, but a discerning eye would spot English calligraphy monograms on the shirt cuffs or inside the jacket lining. The corner of his mouth perpetually held a playful smile; from a distance, he resembled a chubby Terry Lin. But Xiao Zishan, having dealt with him, knew very well that this baby-faced man in understated haute couture was definitely a scumbag masquerading as an elite. In some ways, he was like Superintendent Ma: in their eyes, whether industrial party or sentimental party made no difference. To them, humility was camouflage, smiles were masks, and politeness merely a means to keep people at a distance.

But no group would refuse someone who came bearing massive capital. The transmigration group had used his channels to purchase excessive accident insurance for all transmigrators, ensuring their families in the old world would live worry-free and gaining tens of millions in funds. According to his account before joining, he had used several properties in Magic City as mortgaged startup capital, packaged Chief Wen's shell company as a cultural development firm that had struck gold to fabricate projects, and raised huge sums from banks and private equity. Finally, a month before the bubble burst, he had successfully arrived in the Ming Dynasty.

This fellow really had energy. Back then, the Big Three had spent months moving Kraak porcelain just to scrape together ten million for initial accumulation. After this one joined, he had quickly used financial instruments and repeated collateral pledges to easily multiply the original capital, greatly alleviating financial pressure. But he was a dangerous element. Xiao Zishan recalled that after the Salina assault incident, the Senate had held an interrogation meeting—the first time they faced a comrade transmigrator in such a setting. Some details were blurry, but he clearly remembered how this man substituted concepts, used glib speech, and argued irrationally. Anyone with shallower social experience or insufficient cultivation would probably have been swayed immediately, unwittingly taking his bait.

Some thoughts you can think, you can do, but absolutely never say. Xiao Zishan reflected. Wuzui was also an extreme male chauvinist who had shouted it aloud. In his view, no matter how excellent women were, they were merely men's playthings. In the old world, not only had his wife been obedient to him at home, but he had also maintained several long-term liaisons outside—sparing no one from young girls to young matrons. Moreover, he had mastered an art written as love but read as SM. As a senior gentleman possessing a legendary "beauty-dog," he had caused everyone on the forum to contribute quite a bit of gasoline and thermite back in the day.

But as novels go, the protagonist finally messed with someone he shouldn't have—got involved with a girl he shouldn't have touched. At a high-end annual meeting, this man had effortlessly hooked up with the daughter of a local potentate. The girl, fresh out of college, quickly fell for the dashing demeanor of the bad middle-aged man. While the uncle-complex girl was dreaming of love, photos of Wuzui-san walking other female dogs appeared online. Her glass heart shattered instantly. After screaming at the Great Gentleman for over an hour, she had turned and jumped from a 32nd-floor balcony wearing a collar. In that instant, Wuzui-san knew he had to say goodbye to that world.

As a former senior SM enthusiast and failed female dog training expert, he had confessed candidly to plotting the abduction and providing equipment and plans to train Salina (who wasn't yet a transmigrator at the time)—all without a shred of guilt. He had shouted his maxim loudly:

"Every life in nature has its deserved place. A woman's place is beneath a man's feet."

You fame-seeking charlatan—that was clearly said by John Norman! Xiao Zishan cursed silently.

His unwavering belief in the "philosophy" of truly "liberating" women had made the interrogators feel they were confronting someone from another world entirely. So much so that Mu Min, participating as a non-transmigrator advisor, had slammed the case file directly into this old hooligan's face and stormed out—while Wuzui-san, relying on his extraordinary contribution and transmigrator status, enjoyed the pleasure of "spit drying on one's face" without psychological burden.

Xiao Zishan turned to a crucial section of the binder: a sub-document with a black cover and red text—Case File of the 1629 Assault Incident. In it, Xin Wuzui and the other three were sentenced to permanently stay away from Salina and could only work with other female transmigrators under surveillance. Xin Wuzui was additionally barred from overseas posts and departmental leadership positions without Executive Committee approval. This amounted to not only confining Wuzui-san in Lingao but also placing a glass ceiling over his head.

He then reviewed this Gentleman Comrade's work history. With an actuary background, the man had long been used by the Planning Department and Wudaokou as a human data analysis machine—performing big data analysis and helping the Planning Department build data models for the Five-Year Plan via the computer center. Later, with the upgrade of Fragrant Fields Academy, Wuzui-san had been grabbed by Hu Qingbai to provide enlightenment education on data analysis and basic SOP training to senior primary students twice a week, under the supervision of a Political Security Bureau officer assigned to the school.

Xiao Zishan closed the binder. This must be when he connected with your Political Security Bureau, right? As a fellow fanatic of ISO standards, Xiao Zishan understood why Zhao Manxiong had come to him instead of Chief Wen. This fellow was simply a natural ally and advisor to Chief Wen, who was equally uninhibited with women. And Old Xiong was famous for never intervening in the Wen-Ma struggle.

The key was how to release this vicious fish—and how to reel it back. Xiao Zishan couldn't help but gulp another mouthful of Longjing. Zhao Manxiong seemed to have planned this long ago; otherwise, he wouldn't have produced this public enemy of women from his pocket for him to see. He came to me just to let me know. Xin Wuzui was indeed potent medicine. Throwing him out would inevitably cause an uproar. Even if the vast majority of transmigrators didn't know the truth about the Black Four, just stating his theory of female liberation aloud would make not only Queen Du but even the female transmigrators most accepting of male concubinage fight him to the death.

"The best way to extinguish a fire is to set off a bigger explosion beside it?" Xiao Zishan recalled Speaker Qian's famous words and fell into deep thought.

(End of Chapter)