Chapter 45: The military came to their door in the morning, and the man was executed in the afternoon.

On the hacked phone screen, the small white text reading "This stream is suspected of violations and is undergoing rectification..." sat like an epitaph on a tombstone, declaring that this broadcast had come to an abrupt end.

The atmosphere in the office was suffocating, almost frozen solid.

Li Jiajun remained in his stiff, slowly turning posture, his neck twisted at a ninety-degree angle. He looked like a wax figure that had been abruptly paused, his face frozen in an expression that shifted from shock to dullness, eventually settling into a complete blank.

Before him, over a dozen sharp, scrutinizing, and curious gazes swept over him from head to toe, again and again, like tangible searchlights.

No one spoke; only the occasional sound of wind from outside the window and the breathing of everyone present, which they were forcefully suppressing, could be heard.

This terrifying silence ignited an even larger storm.

Within just a few minutes of the stream being cut off:

#Streamer taken away during live broadcast#

#Li Family Toy Factory raided#

#Baishui City Mayor appears in stream#

#What crime did the Streamer actually commit#

A series of aggressive hashtags, like intercontinental missiles, tore through the trending lists of all mainstream Social Media Platforms like Social Media Platform, Douyin, and Bilibili with devastating speed. Each hashtag was followed by a bright red "Explosion" icon.

The whole internet exploded!

"WTF! What just happened? I just went to the bathroom, and when I came back, the Main Streamer's channel was gone?"

"I recorded the whole thing! Brothers, it wasn't special effects! It was real! The Main Streamer got raided! The aura of those guys in black, I felt weak in the knees just watching through the screen!"

"The military came in the morning, and the person was executed in the afternoon."

"He went very peacefully. I heard that when he was being cremated, he even returned to life, shouting: 'But this is a toy factory?'"

Countless jokes and memes flew around, but soon, some sharp-nosed Netizens who had followed the earlier diplomatic incident connected this event to the news from a few days ago.

"Wait... brothers, do you remember at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference a few days ago, when Ugly Country accused us of that 'Li Family Toy Factory'? It couldn't... it couldn't be the Main Streamer's factory, right?!"

"Holy crap! I just went to check, and the Main Streamer's factory name is exactly the same as the one in the news! So, that Swarm Drone that turned the Israel armored brigade into scrap metal... was it really made by the Main Streamer?! I always thought it was special effects!"

Once this shocking conclusion emerged, the entire internet went into a frenzy.

The long-standing debate between the "Special Effects Camp" and the "Reality Camp" finally had a definitive, irrefutable answer at this moment. The so-called "special effects" were, goddamn it, real!

In the office, Li Jiajun's brain finally began to slowly reboot after over a minute of crashing.

He blinked stiffly, moving his gaze from the heavily armed soldiers to the dignified Old General, then to the excited-looking Liu Jianguo, and finally, settled on the Baishui City Mayor's smile, which looked even worse than crying.

Various possibilities flashed through his mind like lightning.

He began to frantically self-examine, recalling his short and "glorious" life, trying to figure out which incident had been exposed.

'Tax evasion?'

This thought popped up first, but he immediately dismissed it.

'Impossible. My crappy factory is barely scraping by, losing money every month. What taxes are there to evade? If they were going to investigate, it should be people from the tax bureau, why this lineup?'

'Could it be... the bad things I did when I was a kid were dug up?'

An image surfaced in his mind: that hot summer when he was eight years old, peeking at his neighbor taking a bath over the courtyard wall?

But he only peeked at Auntie Zhang next door... Auntie Zhang's eldest daughter, second daughter, youngest daughter, and sister-in-law?

'But even if that's the case, it's not a major crime, right? Surely not enough for this kind of lineup? Even the Mayor personally showed up? How much face is that? I'm just an ordinary citizen; can I enjoy this level of treatment for peeking at a bath? It feels like they're about to execute me.'

He thought over and over, reviewing all the illegal things he had done from childhood to adulthood, and realized the biggest crime might just be peeking at people bathing when he was a kid.

'Impossible, for such a small thing, absolutely impossible.'

'So...'

As the saying goes, once you eliminate all possibilities, whatever remains, however impossible, must be the truth.

Thus, a unique conclusion dawned on him.

'This must be a misunderstanding!'

In just over ten seconds, Li Jiajun completed the logical loop from extreme panic to self-examination, and finally to the conclusion that "this is a huge misunderstanding."

His heart actually settled down just like that.

The expression on his face also gradually returned to calm from the initial shock and dullness, and he even squeezed out a smile that he thought was very innocent and pure.

This scene was keenly captured by the leading Old General. The Old General couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth. He had originally thought this kid had been scared out of his wits by this show of force, but he didn't expect him to calm down so quickly. He recalled the profile of this young man from the investigation file before coming here with interest: "The target's way of thinking is different from ordinary people, with a unique train of thought, and possesses extremely strong psychological quality and on-the-spot adaptability."

'Just don't know what this kid is thinking,' the Old General thought to himself.

He no longer gave Li Jiajun more time to think and gave a look to Sun Danian beside him.

Sun Danian understood immediately. He took out a stack of high-definition color photos printed on glossy photo paper from his briefcase and spread them all out on Li Jiajun's desk with a "clatter."

On the photos were tanks blown into piles of twisted scrap metal, armored vehicles burning with raging flames and billowing black smoke, and a hellish iron graveyard on the Gobi Desert. Each photo was filled with the scent of blood and death, with immense visual impact.

Then, Sun Danian carefully took out the plastic battery cover, stained with sand and slightly damaged at the edges, from a transparent evidence bag and gently placed it on top of the pile of bloody photos.

He extended a finger, pointed at the cute cartoon bear logo that was still clearly visible amidst the sand and bloodstains on the cover, looked up, stared intently at Li Jiajun, and asked word by word:

"Mr. Li, you shouldn't be a stranger to this 'Li Family Toy Factory' logo, right?"