66. Aftermath (Please follow and read~)

"What is it?"

Qin Lan raised her head and looked at Hu Weifeng, who had walked in hurriedly. It was obvious that the young man had something urgent to tell her, yet he seemed at a loss for how to begin.

Hu Weifeng paused, then unable to hold it back any longer, blurted out, "Huang Qingfeng is finished."

Qin Lan stared at him. "What do you mean?"

Hu Weifeng said, "Ren Shizhi reported Huang Qingfeng. The Coordination Bureau and the Special Operations Department seized him, but not long after the interrogation began, he committed suicide. Right now, in the entire Coordination Bureau, only you and I know about this. Do you remember the confidentiality order he issued? He himself was a mimic fungus!"

Qin Lan abruptly stood up. "You're saying the one who reported him was Ren Shizhi?"

"That's right." Hu Weifeng didn't understand why Qin Lan was so astonished.

She walked straight out of her office and saw Ren Shizhi, dressed in a suit, already standing in the hallway, followed by two heavily armed Special Operations Department members wearing black helmets and face masks.

Upon seeing Qin Lan, Ren Shizhi smiled and nodded at her.

Yet this only made her heart sink.

Given her understanding of Ren Shizhi, he would certainly be able to extract enough benefits from this incident, but it was still far from enough to secure a promotion—he had no real backing or background within the Federation.

Or rather, he used to have one, but he had personally eliminated it with his own hands.

No one liked recruiting such a person as their confidant, no matter how capable he might be. This meant Ren Shizhi would remain in his current position for a long time to come.

However, the merit he had achieved could not be erased, so Ren Shizhi's influence here would far exceed what it used to be—and she believed he would undoubtedly seize upon this advantage.

What Ren Shizhi desired was, in a sense, mutually exclusive with what they were currently doing.

She walked up to Ren Shizhi. "I hear you've made a great contribution."

Ren Shizhi smiled modestly. "I merely did what I ought to do. No one expected Huang Qingfeng to have issues. Let me introduce you; these two are members from the Special Operations Department. They will be responsible for tracking *that thing*."

The thing she had handed over.

Just when Qin Lan expected Ren Shizhi to make a fuss and leverage the situation, he merely looked at the two Special Operations Department members and said, "This is Qin Lan. You can handle the handover with her from here on."

What kind of game was he playing?

With doubt and vigilance, Qin Lan asked, "You must have gained quite a few benefits from this matter, right?"

"That's right," Ren Shizhi admitted openly. "Until they find someone else to take Huang Qingfeng's place, I will report directly to the higher-ups. In other words, for a short while, you can look at me as half a Huang Qingfeng."

Qin Lan said with a smile, "I'm not referring to such trivial matters. If there were no benefits to be had, would you have reported him?"

Ren Shizhi looked straight into her eyes. "That is all there is."

She wore an expression of disbelief. "You'd better not try any little tricks behind my back."

He did not continue discussing the matter.

Because even Ren Shizhi himself found it hard to believe that he genuinely hadn't managed to reap any benefits at all.

If he had kept this secret to himself, he wouldn't have reported Huang Qingfeng at all; instead, he would have used it to bargain for resources that could advance his career step by step. Even with a longer processing time, he could have secured substantial gains.

Yet Qin Lan could never have imagined that she was merely a puppet, and the one pulling the strings from the shadows was actually her current subordinate on the surface, Ma En.

"Don't worry," he feigned the appearance of someone truly concealing something. "I won't cause you any trouble. After all, your sister is the Empyrean Strider Qin Luan; I wouldn't want my name appearing on her desk."

In the past, although Ren Shizhi felt a sense of awe toward Qin Luan, he, like other politicians, believed that as long as he kept within certain boundaries, he could unscrupulously provoke this powerhouse.

But after meeting Ma En, he no longer thought that way.

Long ago, while watching combat footage of the Empyrean Strider, he had once vaguely felt the exact same sensation as when facing Ma En, though it was countless times fainter, to the extent that he hadn't even realized its presence at the time.

That sense of fatalism.

There were some things one could never hope to conquer.

Qin Lan was quite surprised by his remark; whenever Ren Shizhi had mentioned her sister in the past, he always acted as if he couldn't care less.

"I didn't expect you to be afraid of her."

Ren Shizhi shrugged. "Of course. Who wouldn't fear someone of their own kind who could crush them to death with a casual wave of their hand?"

One of the Special Operations Department members suddenly stepped forward and looked at Qin Lan. "Miss Qin, we are here to track that object. If possible, perhaps we can go and discuss this matter first. Every second counts."

She scrutinized the Special Operations Department members for a few moments.

This was also one of the reasons why Qin Lan had initially thought Ren Shizhi meant trouble.

The Special Operations Department was also an agency responsible for various supernatural incidents, taking direct orders from the federal government. Its overall scale was much smaller than the Coordination Bureau, and it handled more specialized and exceptional situations.

For instance, this infiltration incident involving the mimic fungus.

Due to the nature of their work, the mandates of the two organizations occasionally overlapped, and they frequently held conflicting demands, causing mutual friction between the two sides.

However, as far as Qin Lan knew, there was an even deeper reason: the current head of the Special Operations Department had once questioned Qin Luan's loyalty, arguing that her methods were not in the best interest of the Federation.

He had proclaimed that if he were allowed to intervene in Qin Luan's work, he could increase the Coordination Bureau's efficiency by fifty percent. At the time, politicians had felt there was some merit to his words.

Then Qin Luan had sought him out, taking half a minute to thoroughly beat that proud Tier V esper to the point where he doubted his own existence, thereby proving that ninety percent of the Coordination Bureau's efficiency existed solely because of her.

Shortly thereafter, he founded the Special Operations Department.

Qin Lan nodded to the two Special Operations Department members. "Follow me."

Ren Shizhi watched as they walked into Qin Lan's office, then immediately turned around to leave.

Ma En "happened" to appear around the corner of the corridor.

His body stiffened for a fraction of a second, but he immediately resumed a normal expression and continued walking forward.

"Is something the matter?" Ma En asked with a look of curiosity.

Ren Shizhi forced the corners of his mouth into a smile. "Nothing at all. Everything went smoothly."

Ma En gave a slight nod. "How are the things I handed over to you? They should be very safe. Those three syringes were the last ones I had left; I don't have any others on me."

Ren Shizhi understood Ma En's implication. "Of course. Xu Wen only left behind six syringes—three are in our hands, and the remaining three were acquired by East Federal Pharmaceuticals. We will definitely keep a close eye on them. After all, no other syringes exist."

Ma En nodded with satisfaction. "I truly can't imagine what would have happened if you hadn't noticed Huang Qingfeng's problem."

Swallowing hard, Ren Shizhi said, "Thank you. Do you think I handled it well enough?"

Ma En wore a look of sudden realization and even stepped aside to yield the path. "Of course."

Ren Shizhi walked forward with steady strides, yet no one knew that his undergarments were already soaked with cold sweat.

A narrow escape from death.