102: Chapter 102 Using Hundreds of Millions to Get Closer? Sorry, in front of the state apparatus, your money is just paper.

Wang Fugui slapped down with great force, his palm stinging red, but he didn't care.

In his eyes, there was nothing in this world that couldn't be smoothed over with a slap like that; if there was, he would just slap it again.

"Fill it in!"

Wang Fugui propped his feet up on Gu Changan's paint-chipped desk, the soles of his shoes rubbing against the base of the national flag ornament. His posture was as arrogant as a newly enthroned petty tyrant. "Fill in whatever you want! One billion? Ten billion? As long as you give me this shitty position and obediently become my dog from now on, this money will be your life-buying money!"

The butler behind him timely handed over a fountain pen made of pure gold, respectfully placing it beside Gu Changan's hand.

Those ten fully armed foreign mercenaries chewed gum, their eyes playfully sizing up the young man in uniform as if looking at a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

Gu Changan did not touch the pen.

He set down the thermos in his hand and reached out to pinch the light piece of paper.

"A Citibank unlimited cashier's check?"

Gu Changan held it up to the light, his tone as if he were appraising a supermarket receipt. "Mr. Wang, isn't your perspective a bit too small?"

Wang Fugui was taken aback, then burst into wild laughter, the fat on his face trembling. "You think it's too little? You have the nerve to think it's too little? This is unlimited credit! There is nothing in this world that unlimited credit cannot buy!"

"Do you know how much the data transmitted in one second by the optical cable buried under this building is worth?"

Gu Changan ignored his wild laughter and just watched him calmly, his eyes carrying a hint of pity, like looking at someone mentally disabled. "Do you know how many Citibanks any random piece of intelligence about anomalous creatures from here could exchange for?"

"What shitty optical cable, I'll buy..."

Buzz—buzz—buzz—

The harsh sound of mechanical shredding interrupted Wang Fugui's grand speech.

Gu Changan held the priceless cashier's check between two fingers and expressionlessly fed it into the paper shredder beside the desk.

The expensive pulp turned into worthless scraps under the grinding gears, falling like snowflakes into the transparent wastebasket. The sound seemed exceptionally harsh in the deathly silent office.

In that instant, time seemed to stand still. Even the mercenaries stopped chewing their gum, looking at the pile of shredded paper in disbelief.

That was an unlimited credit check! Just like that... shredded?

"You... you're crazy!" Wang Fugui's eyes nearly popped out, and the finger pointing at the shredder was trembling violently. "That's money! That's money you could spend for ten lifetimes! You lunatic!"

"To me, that's just waste paper."

Gu Changan stood up, leisurely straightened his uniform collar, and casually brushed off non-existent dust from his cuffs.

His movements were slow and elegant, yet they carried a suffocating sense of pressure, as if the person sitting behind the desk was no longer a minor official, but a towering mountain.

"First, let me correct a cognitive error of yours."

Gu Changan walked around the desk, the sound of his leather shoes on the floor dull and forceful. He walked step by step toward Wang Fugui. "This is not some shitty research institute; this is a first-level state secret unit and belongs to a military restricted zone. Secondly, I am an active-duty personnel, and although I am only a deputy director, I am still a state cadre."

He stopped half a meter in front of Wang Fugui, his eyes as cold as two ice blades, piercing directly into Wang Fugui's heart.

"You brought fully armed foreign mercenaries, forcibly broke into a military restricted zone, used huge sums of money to attempt to incite a state public servant to defect, and even publicly insulted the national flag."

Gu Changan leaned forward slightly, his voice low, but every word was heart-piercing: "Wang Fugui, in the criminal law, this isn't called a transaction; this is called armed rebellion."

"Re...rebellion?"

Wang Fugui's face turned pale instantly, but the arrogance in his bones remained. "Don't you dare try to scare me! I have money! I can hire the best lawyers! I have diplomatic immunity... no, wait, I can buy a small country's presidency!"

Fear made him hysterical; he suddenly stepped back and roared hoarsely, "Bodyguards! Do it! Cripple him for me! As long as he doesn't die, anything goes! I don't believe money can't buy a life!"

The mercenary leader behind him was a burly white man with a fleshy face. Hearing his employer's order, he immediately pulled out the tactical dagger at his waist and lunged at Gu Changan with a sinister grin.

This was a fifty-million-dollar contract; let alone crippling a person, he would even dare to massacre a village.

Click—hum—

Before his dagger could even stab halfway, the surrounding mottled, peeling walls suddenly flipped open like a Rubik's cube.

Countless pitch-black gun barrels instantly extended, and dense red infrared laser dots, like the eyes of the Grim Reaper, locked tightly onto the center of every mercenary's forehead.

What was even more terrifying was the ceiling.

Several ceiling tiles fell away, and three black exoskeleton armored robots mounted with six-barreled Gatling guns slowly descended. The humming sound of the barrels preheating and rotating was more melodious than the Grim Reaper's scythe.

The mercenary leader's movements froze in mid-air.

Even behind his sunglasses, one could see the cold sweat seeping out on his forehead.

As an expert, he recognized at a glance that this was the Chinese military's latest "Heavenly Eye" defense System, and those mechs were the legendary "Suppressors"; a single bullet could turn a carbon-based lifeform like him into a sieve. Whatever fifty million dollars, whatever professional ethics—in the face of absolute firepower, it was all bullshit.

"I surrender!"

The burly man instantly dropped his dagger, knelt on the ground in a standard French military salute posture, raised his hands high, and shouted in broken but fluent Chinese, "I was tricked into coming! I'm just here for tourism! I want to apply for consulate protection! I'm a law-abiding citizen!"

Clatter.

The remaining nine mercenaries knelt even faster than their leader, throwing their weapons all over the floor and lying on the ground, wishing they could bury their heads into the cracks of the floor tiles.

Wang Fugui watched this group of "top-tier bodyguards" instantly switch sides, and he was completely dumbfounded.

"You... you guys..." He was trembling with rage. "A bunch of trash! I paid you! Get up and fight! Beat him to death for me!"

No one paid him any attention. Right now, in the eyes of those mercenaries, Gu Changan was even more terrifying than Satan in Hell.

"It seems your money cannot buy a life." Gu Changan kicked the dagger on the floor away and took a yellow tape measure out of the drawer.

He pulled it out, and the tape measure made a raspy, tearing sound.

He measured the spot under Wang Fugui's feet and then made a note in his notebook.

"What are you doing?" Wang Fugui asked, trembling, his voice laced with a sob.

"Sentencing."

Gu Changan didn't even look up. "Sentencing, in the literal sense. The floor tile you are standing on right now belongs to a core confidential area. According to the 'Military Facilities Protection Law' and the 'National Security Law,' unauthorized entry into the red line gives me the right to execute you on the spot."

Wang Fugui's legs went weak from fear, and he collapsed onto the floor. The System in his mind was frantically sounding alarms: [Warning! Lethal-level firepower lock detected! Host halo completely ineffective! Suggest immediate escape!]

"Don't... don't kill me..." Wang Fugui was truly terrified; those rotating Gatling gun barrels were pointed directly at his head, and that suffocating sense of impending death made him nearly stop breathing.

"Kill you? That would be letting you off too easy."

Gu Changan put away the tape measure and casually pressed a red button on the desk. "Didn't you just say you wanted to buy this building and rename it 'Fugui Tower'? And turn this place into your harem?"

"Since you like this place so much, let me show you your future neighbors."

With a hum, a blue holographic projection rose in the center of the office.

The image displayed the underground structure of this building. It wasn't an ordinary basement, but a giant honeycomb-shaped prison reaching hundreds of meters deep.

Inside those specially made transparent cages were various monsters that exceeded human cognition. There was a zombie covered in green hair, gnawing on raw meat; a radiation mutant with festering skin emitting a faint green glow; and a monster with three heads that was banging its head against the wall.

"Let me introduce them."

Gu Changan pointed at the radiation monster. "This is Containment Object No. 086, brought back from Chernobyl. Within three meters of it, your cells will begin to liquefy. If you lived above this, the amount of radiation you would receive daily would be roughly equivalent to five hundred X-rays."

He pointed at the zombie. "That's an old resident from Xiangxi; it loves eating fresh human brains, especially those filled only with money."

Gu Changan smiled innocently. "Mr. Wang, are you sure you want to live above this? The floor heating isn't very good, and the Yin Qi is a bit heavy."

Wang Fugui looked at the hideous and terrifying monsters on the screen, his stomach churning violently. He just wanted to show off, to buy a building to flaunt his wealth; he didn't want to live in a haunted house more terrifying than Hell!

"I won't buy it! I won't buy it!" Wang Fugui crawled backward, using his hands and feet. "I want to go home! Let me go! I have money, I'll give you whatever you want, just don't make me stay here!"

"Since you're already here, what's the rush?"

Gu Changan pressed another switch again.

With a click, a heavy alloy gate suddenly descended from the wooden door that had been kicked in, completely sealing off the only exit.

"Although that check from earlier is shredded, the facts of your attempted bribery, breaking into a restricted zone, and armed rebellion are ironclad evidence." Gu Changan took a pair of specially made silver handcuffs from his waist and shook them. "Let's talk about whether you will spend the rest of your life... oh no, the rest of your lower half... working a sewing machine in an ordinary prison, or being neighbors with that zombie gentleman underground."

The sound of that cold metal clashing was the final straw that broke Wang Fugui.

He completely broke down, shouting desperately into the air: "System! Help! Teleport me out! I want to leave this ghost place! Hurry!"

[Beep—Detected that the host is facing extreme danger. Forcibly activating the 'Ten Thousand Mile Travel Talisman'! Consuming all Profligate Points!]

A blinding golden light suddenly erupted from Wang Fugui's body, and his body began to become illusory and transparent, as if it were about to disappear into thin air in the next second.

"Hahahaha! Gu Changan! So what if you have guns! I have cheats!"

In the instant before his body was about to disappear, a twisted, ecstatic joy appeared on Wang Fugui's face. "When I get out, I will definitely raze this place to the ground! I..."

"Childish."

Gu Changan stood where he was without moving, just shook his head helplessly. "Playing with spatial teleportation at the National Bureau of Abnormal Affairs? Do you take our spatial anchor as a decoration?"

He snapped his fingers.

Hum!

Ripples visible to the naked eye suddenly surged through the air, like an invisible giant hand, slamming fiercely onto the ball of light that was in the middle of teleporting.

Wang Fugui, who had already become half-illusory, was like a stone shot back by a slingshot, flying backward and slamming heavily against the wall.

"Pfft—"

The excruciating pain brought by the spatial backlash made him spit out a mouthful of blood, the golden light dissipated instantly, and he slid down like a dead dog.

[Warning! Spatial channel violently severed! Teleportation failed! System core damaged!]

Gu Changan walked up to Wang Fugui, who was covered in blood and had a dazed look in his eyes, squatted down, and with a click, cuffed the cold handcuffs onto his wrists.

"Attempted jailbreak; crime added one degree."

Gu Changan patted Wang Fugui's face, revealing his signature menacingly kind smile. "This time, it's not something you can just pay some bail money to walk away from."