460: Chapter 460 The U.S. Army's Tear

On the marble floors of the west wing corridor of Capitol Hill, the sound of footsteps had never been so chaotic.

Usually, this corridor had a rhythm; senators walked with steady, measured paces, while assistants followed behind with quick, short steps, and any intern who occasionally jogged by would get glared at by the corridor security.

Today, no one cared about any of that.

Over the past few hours, the USA's Senate and House of Representatives had been thrown into utter chaos by three reports.

The first: the battle damage report of the Pacific Fleet.

The aircraft carrier strike groups were forced to retreat to the mainland, and their military deterrence was instantly reduced to zero.

The second: the resignation letter of the CIA Director.

The reason for the resignation was written very subtly, but everyone in the loop knew that he was the one who had planned that failed coup in Saudi Arabia, and having botched it, he had to take the fall and leave.

The third: the statistics on the decline of the eagle dollar index.

The numbers were so ugly that after the people from the Ministry of Finance printed them out, they reportedly stood in the corridor for an hour before they dared to deliver them to the President's hands.

All three reports pointed to the same person.

The President of the USA.

The opposition party congressmen smelled blood in the water.

That morning, a joint impeachment motion was delivered to the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

One hundred and thirty-seven congressmen had signed it, spanning both political parties.

The motion was a full eleven pages long, but the core content could be summed up in a single sentence: since Jack took office, the USA had lost the Middle East, lost Southeast Asia, lost Africa, and lost the eagle dollar hegemony.

Each of these four "losses" was enough to give President Jack a massive headache.

With all four combined, it could directly put an end to his political career.

On the afternoon of the same day the impeachment motion was submitted, a closed-door hearing was held in the basement conference room of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Not many people attended, but every single one of them was someone who could make the final call.

Once the conference room doors were closed, the first to slam the table was Senator Senator McCain II.

His grandfather was a Vietnam War hero, his father was a senator, and he himself had completed his undergraduate studies at West Point; with three generations of military blood in his Family, the glory of being a soldier of the USA was etched into his bones.

"What are we still discussing here?" As he stood up, his chair slid back half a meter. "Daxia has completely dismantled our century-old alliance System with a single pill, and we're just sitting here discussing how to surrender?"

He swept his gaze across the conference table.

"We must declare war. Assemble the remaining forces of the Pacific Fleet, unite with our European allies, and implement a full military blockade against Daxia. At the same time, initiate economic sanctions and freeze all of Daxia's assets within the USA."

After he finished speaking, he looked at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not stand up.

He was sixty-four years old this year and had served in the military System for forty years, working his way up from a platoon leader to a four-star general.

Over those forty years, he had fought in the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War, experiencing dozens of military operations of all sizes.

He just sat there, waiting for Senator McCain II to finish before slowly speaking.

"Senator, what are we going to fight with?"

Senator McCain II froze for a moment.

"Xuanniao," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff uttered those two words. "That thing hovered over our capital for four hours at an altitude of one thousand meters. During those four hours, there wasn't even a single blip on the radar screens of NORAD."

He paused for two seconds.

"I don't mean the signal was weak; I mean there was absolutely nothing. It was as if there was nothing in the sky. But it was right there, and everyone in Washington saw it. Our air defense System was as good as non-existent to it."

Senator McCain II's mouth opened slightly.

"Senator, what do you want me to fight with? Patriot missiles? The THAAD system? F-35s?"

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's voice had no emotional fluctuation. "I could send five aircraft carrier strike groups over, but if Xuanniao comes again, all five groups will be wiped out in the Pacific Ocean. Also, you must have seen that Pacific Ocean video from last time."

It wasn't just McCain who had seen it; the whole world had.

That video of the USA's Pacific Fleet being sliced in half by a single blade had been dissected no less than a hundred times on various military forums, with people analyzing every single frame. There was only one conclusion:

No weapon System currently in human existence could achieve such a feat.

Senator McCain II did not sit down, but he didn't speak further either.

The Secretary of State took over the conversation.

"We can set the military option aside. I still agree to negotiations, but the problem is we have no bargaining chips in our hands."

He opened the folder in front of him.

"Chips? As for the Materials used in Daxia's mechas, our national laboratories have analyzed them for three months and haven't even figured out their basic composition, let alone how to manufacture them. Technological blockades? Their technology is already beyond our ability to block. Financial sanctions? The eagle dollar itself can barely stand; what are we going to use to sanction others?"

He closed the folder.

"To put it bluntly, Daxia doesn't need what we can offer them now. But what Daxia has, the entire world needs. How do we negotiate this?"

The conference room fell silent for a dozen seconds or so.

Then, some person in the back row raised their hand.

It was not a senator, but one of several young representatives attending as observers.

By rule, representatives had no speaking rights at closed-door Senate hearings, but the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who was presiding over the meeting, glanced over and nodded.

"Speak."

The young representative stood up. His name was Daniel Chen, representing a California district, thirty-four years old, and a third-generation Chinese-American.

"My proposal is very simple. The USA will formally apply to join the daxia currency settlement zone, using this in exchange for purchase quotas of the rejuvenation pill and youth-preserving pill."

Before he could even finish speaking, Senator McCain II slammed the table.

"This is surrender!"

"This is survival," Daniel Chen did not back down. "Senator, how many cancer patients are there in your district? There are seventy thousand in mine. Seventy thousand families, with someone waiting to die in each one. Daxia has the medicine, and if we don't buy it, these seventy thousand people will die. How are you going to explain national dignity to them?"

"You are using cancer patients to blackmail us!"

"No, Senator, it is cancer that is blackmailing all of us."

Once these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the conference room shifted.

The expressions of several senators began to soften.

Every single one of them had hospitals in their districts, cancer patients, and constituents writing letters begging for help.

The meeting dragged on in argument for another two hours without reaching any resolution.

After the meeting adjourned, Daniel Chen was stopped by a reporter on the steps as he walked out of the Capitol Hill building.

The reporter asked an inconsequential question.

Daniel Chen answered with a smile and then "accidentally" said a bit too much.

Those few words appeared on the front page of CNN two hours later.

The headline read: "Young Congressman Proposes Joining the daxia currency Settlement Zone in Closed-Door Hearing."

As soon as the news broke, social media exploded.

Major polling organizations immediately followed up, and the results came out quickly because public opinion was so concentrated that a trend could be seen without needing a very large sample size.

Eighty percent.

Over eighty percent of the USA's public supported this proposal.

Out of the remaining less than twenty percent, half chose "unsure."

Less than ten percent were explicitly opposed.

There was only one reason: their loved ones were waiting for the medicine.

Cancer does not play politics.

Late that night.

The White House, Oval Office.

Jack stood in front of the window, his hands tucked into his trouser pockets.

The lawn outside glowed dark green under the night lights, and the lights of the distant Washington Monument were blindingly bright.

He had been standing in this spot for nearly forty minutes.

There were two soft knocks on the door behind him, and the Chief of Staff walked in.

"Mr. President."

Jack did not turn around.

"Speak."

The Daxia side has passed a message along through unofficial channels.

Jack's back stiffened slightly.

"What message?"

The Chief of Staff looked down at the slip of paper in his hand and read out the content written on it.

"If the USA wants to obtain more Medicinal Pill quotas, it must hand over all of its overseas military bases."