Xie Zhi wagged a finger. “What’s so great about the name Feng Daguan? As an old friend, I sincerely suggest you run for office under the name Big-Face Fang instead. That way, the voters will remember you.”
Trade Officer Feng plainly hated being told he had a square face. He was so furious that even his right-angled jaw trembled. “Xie Xi! Don’t think your connection to that person in Central District makes victory a foregone conclusion. The Crown Prince of our Western District isn’t on particularly good terms with that Mr. Xie!”
Xie Xi?
Ji Tan felt the back muscles under his forehead tense. He didn’t dare move and merely committed the name to memory.
Xie Zhi abruptly raised his voice. “Who are you to discuss the Crown Prince’s affairs?” With that, he charged forward, wielding a massive hammer.
Without warning, Ji Tan lost the support beneath his head and pitched forward. Looking around, he discovered that everyone else had straightened up, no longer affected by the oppressive pressure. He hurriedly stood off to one side, pretending nothing had happened.
The enormous, illusory red hammer came crashing down with overwhelming force.
Feng Daguan was not afraid. He manifested an illusory hammer of his own, a long-handled wooden mallet. Even though it was an illusion, the dark-brown grain of the wood was visible. It looked like a judge’s gavel with an elongated handle.
The wooden mallet blocked the red hammer’s attack, but the force of their collision shattered several glass water tanks nearby.
“What a waste.” Ji Tan ducked the flying glass and crouched behind the fish-cutting counter, feeling sorry for the seafood crawling all over the floor. By the time those two finished fighting, half of the creatures stranded out of water would probably be dead.
Straining under the pressure of the giant hammer, Feng Daguan said in disgust, “You’ve turned the Hammer of Justice into a demolition sledgehammer! You’re a disgrace to the Sequence!”
“What the hell do you know about hammers?” Xie Zhi stopped in midair, swung his weapon around again in an instant, and brought it down hard on exactly the same spot.
The floor beneath the Trade Officer’s feet cracked and splintered.
The supermarket manager was on the verge of tears, begging desperately, “Sirs, please stop fighting! Whatever it is, we can talk it out!”
As it turned out, a big hammer really was more useful than a little one.
Feng Daguan could no longer withstand the force. The slender handle of his wooden mallet had been driven down onto his shoulder, creasing his blue trench coat. He gritted his teeth, opened his mouth, and suddenly began reciting in the polished tones of a radio announcer: “In this supermarket, thick with the smell of seafood, the brave and upright Feng Daguan is battling Xie Xi. Both are C-rank Orderbearers of the Governor Sequence, their powers evenly matched…”
As he spoke, the wooden mallet pressing against his shoulder gained just enough strength to rise a little.
Ji Tan listened in bewilderment, then asked the woman with wavy hair crouching beside him, “Why did he suddenly start narrating everything?”
Lawyer Qiao shifted her footing in slender high heels and leaned closer to whisper, “I don’t know much about it either, but apparently people in the Governor Sequence get a boost if they narrate the scene they’re in. I’m not sure exactly what gets boosted.”
“…” So the Governor Sequence’s method of powering up was to provide a voice-over? Ji Tan’s mouth twitched. It didn’t seem any more dignified than the domineering-CEO act.
“Ugh!” Xie Zhi apparently couldn’t stand hearing it. He immediately freed one hand, held an index finger to his lips, and said, “Shh!”
Feng Daguan’s voice was instantly sealed inside a small area. His mouth continued moving, but no one around him could hear the emotion-filled narration.
With the racket gone, Xie Zhi raised his foot and kicked at him.
Feng Daguan dodged sideways. His mouth moved in an inaudible curse, and he immediately shrank his wooden mallet before lightly tapping it against his left palm.
Ji Tan couldn’t hear him, but he could make out the words from his lips: “Judgment: Invalid.”
A virtual red coin appeared in front of Feng Daguan and spun through the air.
“That’s an ability you can acquire at D-rank in the Governor Sequence. It lets you judge whether something is valid or invalid, but there’s only a fifty-percent chance of success. If it fails, the effect backfires and causes trouble for the user instead. That would be awful.” The lawyer explained it quietly to Ji Tan. As an experienced Senior Lawyer, she was well-informed.
The coin stopped spinning and suddenly flattened out. On the face turned upward was a black check mark, meaning the judgment had succeeded. The zone of silence vanished at once, and Feng Daguan’s voice rang out clearly. “Enough! I’m not fighting anymore!”
Xie Zhi rested the enormous red hammer on his shoulder and tilted his head at him. “Giving up already?”
Feng Daguan dismissed his wooden mallet. With his square face set in a cold, solemn expression, he declared, “We’re here to govern, not to destroy things. Order Officer Xie, a brute like you who only cares about fighting would bring disaster upon Western District if you ever became its district dictator.”
Nearby, a blue-uniformed employee had been recording the entire exchange with a special device. After capturing that remark, the employee carefully filmed the surrounding damage and the terrified expressions of the onlookers. If the video were released, it would probably be very damaging to public opinion of Xie Zhi.
Ordinary mobile phones couldn’t withstand the impact of favor-power. Trying to record it with one would make the phone shatter on the spot; only special equipment could capture such scenes.
Ji Tan took out the phone in his pocket, which had shut down after being frozen in the cold room, and tried it. It wouldn’t turn on at all, so there was nothing he could do to help.
Xie Zhi, however, didn’t seem the least bit concerned. He put away his giant hammer and gave a casual wave.
The silver-uniformed officers immediately surrounded the Trade Bureau’s blue-clad staff. Moving before anyone could react, they subdued the two who had tried to seize Ji Tan earlier and confiscated the recording equipment while they were at it.
“Trade Bureau personnel abused favor-power and threatened a legitimate business. Take them away for investigation,” Xie Zhi said unhurriedly, patting the trembling Feng Daguan with the back of his hand.
Most Trade Bureau employees were ordinary people, while its Orderbearers generally belonged to the Assistant Sequence. The two who had acted earlier were among the few from the Police Sequence who possessed abilities capable of intimidating others through force.
By contrast, everyone Xie Zhi had brought with him was a battle-hardened Orderbearer from the Police Sequence.
The lawyer took the opportunity to explain all this to Ji Tan. Although he had been in City A for quite some time, this was his first chance to get a clear look at two Orderbearers fighting, and he had thoroughly enjoyed it.
“Fine. You’ve got me.” Forced to concede, Feng Daguan stopped insisting on taking the parties involved away. He didn’t even dare ask for the confiscated recording device back, requesting only that Xie Zhi release his subordinates.
After leaving behind a Notice of Suspension for Rectification, the Trade Officer threw out one final “Just you wait” and departed with his staff.
The supermarket manager accepted the notice with a miserable expression, then bent down to pick up a crab that was crawling about, his heart aching at the sight.
“Our Order Administration Bureau will cover half the supermarket’s losses. You can ask the Trade Bureau for the other half.” Xie Zhi took the crab from him and tossed it backward without looking, landing it precisely in a water tank that had somehow escaped being smashed.
As soon as he finished speaking, the silver-uniformed officers behind him dutifully brought out their glowing restraints. The squad leader said, “Sir, this supermarket manager is an Orderbearer. We can arrest him.”
The manager, who had only just breathed a sigh of relief, said, “Huh?”
“You allowed ordinary people to come into contact with frogfish. That’s illegal.” The squad leader spoke with complete impartiality and signaled the officers to tie the manager up.
“Wait, no, listen! Look at this young man. He’s perfectly fine now, isn’t he? He even became an Orderbearer because of what happened! Our supermarket happens to have an available slot for promoting someone to Orderbearer status. Why don’t we give it to Little Ji and treat this as the supermarket voluntarily supplying the resources for his advancement? Would that be acceptable? Of course, Tom’s Supermarket will pay every cent of the required fine, without leaving a penny unpaid.” With his hands bound by glowing restraints, the supermarket manager spoke at three times his usual speed and poured out the entire plea in one breath.
Tom’s Supermarket had its own plan for cultivating E-rank Orderbearers. For example, when Uncle Yan was close to retirement, the supermarket might have considered promoting Ji Tan to Orderbearer status so he could take over the job of slaughtering frogfish.
The manager’s proposal had exactly the same motive as his earlier attempt to hoodwink Ji Tan. He wanted to turn a major problem into a minor one and then make it disappear entirely. If everyone went along with the story that the supermarket had deliberately provided Ji Tan with frogfish meat, the matter could be smoothed over.
But the Order Administration Bureau wasn’t buying any of it. Nobody paid attention to his machine-gun explanation. The silver-uniformed officers of the Sequence-Breaking Unit simply kept their heads down and tied people up. They tested the sanity readings of Manager Zhang and Lu Ren. Both were above sixty, so neither had gone mad, but they were bound and taken away as well.
Those two were ordinary people and, in theory, should have fallen under the Public Security Office’s jurisdiction. Since the case involved frogfish, however, it belonged to the Order Administration Bureau.
“Mr. Ji, you’ll have to come with us too.” The squad leader addressed Ji Tan with a stern expression.
Ji Tan nodded in cooperation, removed his bloodstained apron, and hastily wiped his head and face with a towel. The dry cloth stung his cheek, and only then did he realize he had cuts on his face as well.
The lawyer took a bandage out of her expensive leather handbag and deftly stuck it onto his cheek. “I’ll go with you.”
“There’s no need. I’ve already taken up so much of your time today, and you’ll still have to collect your share of fish in a while.” Embarrassed to trouble her any further, Ji Tan quietly confided, “I know someone at the Order Administration Bureau. Don’t worry.”
Lawyer Qiao waved him off. “There’s no rush to buy fish. I already bought some yesterday. I only came today to join the excitement and stock up. This is a major case, and I promised to be your attorney, so of course I’ll see it through from start to finish. The Order Administration Bureau is a frightening place. You won’t be able to handle it alone. If they detain you, things will get very troublesome. Even knowing the captain of the Sequence-Breaking Unit wouldn’t help.”
Her last two sentences were so grave that a chill ran down his spine.
Ji Tan didn’t dare steal a glance at his real connection, Old Xie, the head of the Order Administration Bureau. He could only nod. “Then I’ll be troubling you, Sister.”
“Just call me Sister Qiaoqiao.” Lawyer Qiao beamed and smoothed her voluminous waves.
“I think I’ll stick with Sister Qiao.” Ji Tan’s mouth twitched. The name Qiaoqiao had left him with something of a psychological scar.
He couldn’t help feeling that if he uttered the incantation “Qiaoqiao,” this glamorous, poised lawyer would suddenly mutate the very next second and say something like, “Brother Huo, just look at him!”
As they chatted, they followed the Order Administration Bureau personnel outside.
Xie Zhi looked a little displeased. He pulled Ji Tan, who was engrossed in conversation, over to his car and settled him inside. “Treat your wounds first. Don’t make it look as if our Order Administration Bureau abuses children.”
Sitting in the back seat, Ji Tan tipped his head up to look at Xie Zhi standing outside the car. “Who’s a child? I’m already an adult, Mr. Xie Xi.”
Xie Zhi, who had turned to get the first-aid kit, stumbled as his left foot caught against his right. By the time he returned with the kit from the trunk, the woman with the big waves had quite naturally taken the seat on the other side of Ji Tan and resumed chatting with him.
Xie Zhi tossed the first-aid kit to Ji Tan and sat in the front passenger seat himself. The captain of the Sequence-Breaking Unit took the wheel, stepped on the accelerator, and drove their impressive procession toward the Order Administration Bureau.
The lawyer helped treat the wounds on Ji Tan’s arm while making casual conversation. “When you first ate the frogfish meat, did you feel as though your flesh and bones were separating?”
Ji Tan thought for a moment. “At first, yes. But after I finished slaughtering that fish, my flesh and bones were all joined together again.”
“Pfft.” A peculiar snort of laughter escaped the Order Officer in the front passenger seat.
Sister Qiao didn’t understand what was funny. After all, City A didn’t have that particular snack. “Is something wrong?”
Xie Zhi turned around and looked at the pink bandage on Ji Tan’s face. “Sounds delicious.”
Elio’s Note ¹: 骨肉相连 (literally “flesh and bone joined together”) is also the name of a popular Chinese grilled meat-and-cartilage snack. Ji Tan’s innocent description reminds Xie Zhi of the food, which explains his “sounds delicious” joke.
Sister Qiao: ?
Ji Tan didn’t take the bait. He didn’t speak to people whose names and identities were unclear. Instead, he turned back to Sister Qiao and continued their conversation, asking whether she had felt the same way when she first ate the meat.
Lawyer Qiao shook her head. “No.”
She had studied law at university and joined a law firm immediately after graduation. Only after working as a lawyer for a long time did she choose to become an Orderbearer. When she ate the meat, she advanced straight to E+ in the Lawyer Sequence, meaning the upper level of E-rank.
Sister Qiao said, “My assistant ate it early on, though, and he did have that problem.”
Ji Tan asked, “How did he solve it?”
Sister Qiao replied, “I filled his schedule with work and made him put in overtime for two straight weeks so he could properly integrate his powers.”
Ji Tan: “…Is that really okay?”