435: Chapter 435 Singapore Returns to Zero

Two weeks later, when Li Lanzhi was reporting the operation of the transformation center to Zhang Cheng in the presidential office, she attached the transcript of this surveillance record to the last page of the document.

Zhang Cheng finished reading, looked up, and closed the folder without asking for statistics on the progress of the transformation. He asked: "Is that dock still there?"

"It is. Changi Naval Base Dry Dock No. 3—its structure was not damaged after the US military supply pier was bombed. The Naval Engineering Team listed it as 'available' in the battle damage assessment report."

"List it as the number one heritage site on Singapore's historical building protection list. Erect a monument at the entrance. The inscription should be that quote from Ng Eng Hen—in five languages: English, Burmese, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil."

Li Lanzhi recorded this on her tablet, her fingers suddenly pausing. "Material for the monument?"

"Coral limestone. Taken from the original site of the Syonan Chureito monument—the Japanese tore that monument down, the British didn't rebuild it when they returned, and after Lee Kuan Yew took power, he built a parking lot over it. From now on, the parking lot is the monument."

He unscrewed the pen cap and sketched a rough diagram on the back of the document—a piece of irregular coral limestone squatting on a rectangular base, with the honeycomb-like holes eroded by seawater preserved on the rock's surface.

When he pushed the sketch to Li Lanzhi, he added: "Make sure everyone who sails a ship into Changi Port sees this sentence before they drop anchor."

Under the dome of the Federation of Myanmar Parliament Building, all two hundred and seventeen members stood up.

It wasn't because anyone ordered them to—it was because the voting results that had just been cast were still hanging on the electronic screen, and the "Approve" next to every name was still glowing green, like rows of lights ignited simultaneously.

Two hundred and seventeen green lights. Zero votes against. Zero abstentions.

Speaker U Tin Win took off his reading glasses and read in Burmese: "The Basic Law of Singapore Special Municipality"—effective immediately.

This Basic Law consisted of only twenty-seven articles, each of which had been personally revised by Zhang Cheng within the past seventy-two hours.

Article 1: The Singapore Special Municipality is an inseparable part of the Federation of Myanmar; its territory, territorial waters, and airspace sovereignty belong to the Federal Government, and no form of autonomy shall be retained.

Article 2: The Mayor of the Special Municipality shall be appointed directly by the Federal President, serve a five-year term, and be responsible to the President.

Article 3: All laws, administrative orders, tax systems, and monetary systems within the Special Municipality shall apply to the Constitution and relevant laws of the Federation of Myanmar from the date this law takes effect.

Articles 4 through 27—each one was dismantling the state apparatus that had existed for sixty-two years: parliament dissolved, political parties deregistered, the military incorporated into the Federation of Myanmar Defense Forces, the police system placed directly under the Ministry of the Interior, and the final judicial power transferred to the Federal Supreme Court.

Not a single article was negotiated.

When U Tin Win read the final article, his fingers gripped the edge of the paper tightly—he had been the Mayor of Yangon during the military junta, had seen coups, surrenders, and governments in exile, but he had never seen a law like this: it wasn't written at a negotiating table; it was written on the battlefield, and the date at the bottom of every clause was the moment the DF-17 hit its target.

"Now—please have the President appoint the first mayor of the Singapore Special Municipality."

The side door of the Parliament Building was pushed open. It wasn't Zhang Cheng who walked in—it was Old K. He wasn't wearing a military uniform, but the dark blue service uniform of the Federation of Myanmar Defense Forces Military Police Command, with a baobab badge pinned to his chest.

He walked to the podium, opened a presidential decree, and without any pleasantries, read directly: "Hereby appointing Wu Zhiming as the Mayor of the Singapore Special Municipality of the Federation of Myanmar, effective immediately. By order—Zhang Cheng."

When this name was read out, what sounded in the Parliament Building was not applause. It was a kind of breathing sound squeezed out from deep within the throat, held back for a long time.

Because not a single member present knew the man walking up to the stage. He was wearing the dark grey Zhongshan suit of a federal government civil servant, wearing narrow-rimmed glasses, his hair combed meticulously, looking like a history lecturer at some university.

But his background file was laid out page by page as Old K read it—sent to an orphanage at three, adopted by a Chinese Singaporean couple at six, his foster father was arrested in the 1987 "Operation Spectrum," detained for eighteen months in a detention center, and died of cirrhosis three months after being released.

After graduating from the Department of Chinese at Nanyang University, he himself was blacklisted by the Ministry of Education, and for the next thirty years, he drifted between Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia, teaching Chinese in temples, running a street stall in a Phnom Penh market, and working as a foreman in a rubber plantation in Siem Reap.

Last year, he was accepted by the federal government as a returning overseas Chinese and worked in the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Naypyidaw—but what wasn't written in the file was that line of system-generated code: Advanced Death Soldier, implanted background legalization deep cover, serial number NSI-1772.

Wu Zhiming walked onto the podium and stood in front of the microphone for five seconds. Then he said the same sentence in three languages—Mandarin, English, and Malay: "I am Singaporean."

In the parliament hall, some people coughed, some twirled their pens, and some took off their glasses to wipe them, wiping for a long time.

"Thirty years ago, this country told me—I am not Singaporean. Because my foster father participated in the leftist movement, because I studied in the Chinese department of Nanyang University, because I taught students to write the words 'hometown' in a composition class.

Today, I return here as a Singaporean—not to this island, but to this place. From today on, this place is no longer a country; it is a city. My city."

He opened the text of the Basic Law in front of him and pointed to Article 1.

"Territory, territorial waters, airspace—sovereignty belongs to the Federation. This sentence wasn't written by me; it was written by the President. But I can tell you what this sentence will make happen: This afternoon, all property title files of the Singapore Land Authority will be transferred to the Federal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

Tonight, the Singapore Monetary Authority's right to issue the Singapore dollar will be transferred to the Central Bank of the Federation of Myanmar. Tomorrow morning, the Myanmar naval flag will be raised at Changi Naval Base. Tomorrow noon, all currency exchange windows on the streets of Singapore will close, and the New Myanmar Kyat will circulate throughout the territory at a 1:1 exchange rate."

Someone in the back row stood up to interrupt, but Wu Zhiming did not look up.

"The 'Shuguang Cloud' government affairs system will complete the deployment of city-wide nodes within ninety minutes. Your ID numbers, driver's license information, property registration, tax records, medical records, and entry/exit records—everything will be migrated to the federal data center in real-time.

This system does not require manual input, does not require queuing, and does not require filling out forms. You walk into any community service station, the camera scans your iris, and all your information is on the screen. You want to protest—fine, please first register your name and address in the system."

He took off his glasses and held them in his hand.

"My foster father had no name back then. His number in the detention center was 87-0421. Operation Spectrum arrested sixteen people in total; none of the sixteen had a trial, no verdict, no criminal charges.

They were just taken away one night and released at different times; some were missing teeth, some had lost their hearing, some died at home in the third month after being released—just like my foster father.

This afternoon, with the assistance of the Ministry of the Interior, I will re-investigate all the case files of Operation Spectrum. It is not revenge; it is archiving. Every perpetrator, every approval step, every signature on a detention order—will be entered into the public archive and preserved permanently.

I will not arrest you, I will not put you on trial, I will not physically touch you. I will just make sure your names are remembered."