208: Chapter 204 Meeting
Yang Hang crouched down and casually helped her pull a loose section of network cable.
"Then what do you think yourselves?"
The old woman's hand paused.
"What can we people at the bottom think?" She sighed. "We didn't know about the bank matter. I only know that I should be fishing and patrolling these past few days. I didn't have many karma points to begin with, and I didn't deposit them in that bank. There's really nothing we can do about the decisions made by those above."
She paused, then added another sentence.
"But Chairman Lin... he is a good person. Before coming to this gathering place, I was drifting alone and almost died; it was Chairman Lin who sent people to fish me out. The daily food rations are enough to eat, and if I get sick, there's someone to look after me. If you say the bank he set up is a scam, I believe you. But if you say he usually treats those below him poorly, I don't believe it."
Yang Hang didn't respond; he helped her tie the last section of the network cable and stood up to leave.
He walked three or four boats inward.
A young man in his twenties was squatting at the edge of the deck, using a Bronze Grade short knife to process a strange fish that had just been caught. His knife skills were not very proficient, and fish scales were flying everywhere.
Seeing Yang Hang walk over, he gripped his short knife alertly.
"What are you doing here?"
"New here, just looking around."
The young man stared at him for three seconds, confirmed he wasn't carrying any weapons, and then let out a sigh of relief before lowering his head to continue scraping the fish.
"Now is not the time to be just looking around," he muttered. "Don't you know we've been targeted by the Fate Master? Those high-level members set up some damn bank, causing us ordinary people to suffer along with them. My Fate Platform permissions have been restricted for thirty days; now, wanting to buy something or strengthen a weapon is incredibly troublesome."
"You blame the Fate Master?"
The young man's hand stopped.
He turned back and glared at Yang Hang, as if looking at an idiot.
"Blame the Fate Master? Are you sick in the head?" He lowered his voice, but his tone was exceptionally serious. "What kind of existence is the Fate Master? It would have been a huge favor if they hadn't wiped our organization from the Fate Platform directly. I blame those high-level members who caused the trouble! Especially that brat surnamed Cheng, showing off in the gathering place all day, putting on a bratty face to everyone he sees. I raise both hands in agreement that he was marked with a red risk. And it's not like I don't understand reason; with what those high-level members did this time, the Fate Master's punishment is actually light. If I were the Fate Master, I would kick them all out of the Fate Platform directly."
The more he spoke, the angrier he got. He exerted force with the knife in his hand, and the fish head flew off, landing in the sea with a splash.
"My fish head!"
Yang Hang couldn't help it; the corners of his mouth twitched.
He continued forward.
On the way, he encountered a four-person patrol team. The leader was a sturdy man in his thirties, with a Silver Grade scimitar tucked at his waist and a protective bandage wrapped around his arm.
Yang Hang took the initiative to greet them.
The other party scrutinized him vigilantly for a few seconds, and upon confirming that he was just an ordinary Survivor of the Rotten Wood Class, his attitude softened.
"Newcomer? Who introduced you?"
"Came on my own."
The leader frowned. "The situation is special now; the organization has suspended accepting new members. If you don't have anywhere to go, you can rest in the outer Houseboats for now and wait for notice."
Yang Hang chatted a bit along those lines, asking about the internal situation of the organization through side inquiries.
The leader didn't really hide anything—he said straight out that the high-level members did indeed tell those below about the bank, but most ordinary members didn't know it was like that beforehand. The atmosphere in the organization is very tense right now, but it hasn't fallen apart because everyone's trust in Chairman Lin himself remains.
"Chairman Lin is a man who follows the rules; in the past, he never let us suffer losses when distributing supplies." The leader spoke with a complex tone when reaching this point. "But this time... sigh, he really did wrong."
Yang Hang listened, nodded, and didn't say much.
He spent another half an hour walking through most of the gathering place. He chatted with a dozen people—a middle-aged woman in charge of cooking, a Bronze Grade teenager practicing his talent on the open sea, and several middle-level managers discussing how to deal with the risk marking period in a makeshift conference room.
The feedback from everyone, when summarized, pieced together a picture much clearer than what he saw while sitting on his Houseboat looking at the Fate Platform comment section.
The bottom and middle layers of the Council of Thirteen—about three thousand people—were indeed mostly ordinary Survivors. They came to this gathering place not for some great cause of restoration, and certainly not to fight for power with the Revival Society. They just found an organization on the Magic Sea where they could huddle together for warmth, a place where they could get food, have patrols, and be taken care of if they were injured.
The ambitions of those at the top and the lives of those at the bottom were two different things.
Yang Hang went over this information in his mind and finally stopped beside a sentry post in the northeast corner of the gathering place.
A middle-aged man in his forties was standing guard, leaning on a Bronze Grade spear. His face was weary, with obvious dark circles under his eyes.
Yang Hang walked over and leaned against the railing next to the sentry post.
"Hard work."
The middle-aged man looked back at him, recognized him as the new face he had seen wandering around the gathering place earlier, and didn't pay much attention.
"It's alright." His voice was hoarse. "I've been standing for six hours; I'll be relieved in another half hour."
"How is the organization doing now?"
The middle-aged man was silent for a few seconds.
"How else could it be?" He looked at the dark, dull sea in the distance and sighed. "I hope the Fate Master... can see us ordinary people. I know that what our organization committed this time leaves no room for forgiveness. As members of the organization, we enjoyed the benefits, so naturally, we must bear the costs incurred. We ordinary Survivors accept the Fate Master's punishment; the only thing we hope is that the Fate Master won't hate us because of this matter~"
Yang Hang looked at him.
The middle-aged man's profile was illuminated by the lingering light of the twin moons in the distance; he was weary but not desperate. An ordinary, as ordinary as can be, Survivor, standing at a peripheral sentry post of an organization that was being eyed by the entire Yanhuang Civilization because of the high-level members' mistakes, was still diligently standing his watch.
Yang Hang withdrew his gaze, nodded, and said nothing.
The next second, he vanished in front of the middle-aged man.
No light, no sound, no warning whatsoever.
It was as if he had never appeared.
The middle-aged man froze in place.
The spear in his hand almost slipped out.
He turned around abruptly, his gaze scanning every inch of space within thirty meters—empty. There were no boat shadows on the sea, no footsteps on the floating bridge; he was the only one within a hundred meters of the sentry post.
A living person had disappeared before his eyes.
The middle-aged man's pupils contracted violently.
He thought of something.
His pupils suddenly dilated.
"No... it can't be, right?"
His voice shattered into dust in the wind, his legs went weak, and he sat directly on the wooden planks of the sentry post.
His hands were still shaking.
---
Council of Thirteen. Gold Tier battleship.
In the highest-level conference room where major matters were discussed on ordinary days.
At this moment, Lin Huaiyuan sat alone at the head of the empty round table. The water in his teacup had long since gone cold.
The other eleven chairs were empty.
The meeting had long since ended; Cheng Rui had gone back to his cabin to throw things. Director Sun Zheng didn't know where he had gone. The others faced the reality of the punishment, but the things that needed to be done still had to be done.
In the dim, unlit room, the old man just stayed there quietly.
His expression seemed to be contemplating something, or perhaps reminiscing about some past events.
Don't know how much time had passed.
The lights in the cabin suddenly flickered.
Lin Huaiyuan looked up.
On an empty seat directly opposite the round table, someone was sitting there, though he didn't know when they had arrived.
Lin Huaiyuan's pupils contracted violently.
The person opposite—in his early twenties, with a calm expression and clean features, wearing a dark short-sleeved shirt that was as ordinary as could be, sitting in a casual posture, with his legs even crossed.
He was unlike any member of the Council of Thirteen. He was also unlike those high-level members of the Revival Society he had secretly studied. He was unlike anyone he had ever met in his life.
It wasn't a difference in appearance.
It was temperament.
The kind of temperament where, even though he was sitting opposite you, you felt the whole room belonged to him.
Lin Huaiyuan's heartbeat accelerated a few beats. His right hand unconsciously gripped the teacup.
The intuition granted to him by years of military career and ups and downs in officialdom told him—this young man in front of him was that existence.
He took a deep breath, suppressing the surging emotions layer by layer.
"May I ask... is it the Fate Master... who has descended?"
His voice was steady.
Yang Hang didn't answer immediately.
His gaze swept over the half-drunk teacup on the round table, and he reached out to pick it up.
His fingers lightly tapped the rim of the cup.
A brand-new ceramic cup materialized in his palm—the texture was warm and moist, the glaze like jade. Brown liquid appeared out of thin air at the bottom of the cup, and a light tea fragrance began to diffuse in wisps.
Yang Hang took a sip and greeted:
"First time meeting."
Lin Huaiyuan's breathing stopped for a beat. Then he slowly exhaled.
He had met quite a few big shots in his life. When those people sat in front of you, they would either use pressure to force you to bow your head, or use power tactics to make you willingly kneel.
But this one in front of him.
Did nothing.
Just by sitting there drinking tea, you already knew—in front of him, all your methods, schemes, and trump cards were completely meaningless.
"Do you have any objections to the punishment?" Yang Hang put down the teacup, his tone casual, as if chatting.
"No." Lin Huaiyuan shook his head. "The punishment is reasonable; this old man accepts it."
Yang Hang looked at him.
"AI Customer Service received your feedback."
Lin Huaiyuan's body stiffened slightly.
"The experiences written in there," Yang Hang tapped the tabletop with his finger, "I want to hear you narrate them."
Lin Huaiyuan was silent for two seconds.
"Fate Master, do you not believe me?"
Yang Hang shook his head, meeting his gaze calmly.
"I know what you said is true; I simply want to hear you tell it yourself."
It wasn't a request. Nor was it a command. It was just a very ordinary sentence.
But Lin Huaiyuan understood—this was his only chance.
The old man closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, a very thin layer of moisture welled up in those cloudy eyes.
"This old man joined the team at fourteen."