Handong: Sha Li wants political achievements? I'll shut down the entire province.

The heavy, rusty iron door of the First Prison in Handong made a creaking sound that made one's teeth ache.

The heavy iron shaft rubbed against each other, slowly opening a gap no more than half a meter wide.

Gao Yuliang was wearing a pair of black cloth shoes with soles that were almost worn flat.

Carrying a peeling faux leather plastic bag, I slowly crossed the threshold.

The sun outside is too strong.

Like a dull, unsharpened blade, it scraped his eyes, which were already used to the dim light of the cell phone calls.

He instinctively raised his arm to cover his face.

My eyes were sore from the stimulation that tears kept welling up.

Due to severe stomach ulcers, he has become so thin over the past six months that he looks completely different.

His face, which was originally ruddy and exuded the air of a scholar-official, was gone.

Now his cheeks are deeply sunken, and his cheekbones are protruding high, making him look like a skull.

That gray jacket that used to fit me quite well.

It hung empty on its skeletal frame, letting in the wind.

When the wind blew, the hem of the clothes swayed, exuding an indescribable desolate and sour smell.

"Gao Yuliang, go out and get proper treatment, and start a new life."

The prison guard behind him, through the crack in the door, uttered a curt, official remark without any expression.

"Bang!"

The iron gate slammed down, the metal latches snapping shut with a cold, deadly sound.

Gao Yuliang did not turn around.

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing awkwardly against the loose skin of his neck.

That familiar cramping pain in my stomach started churning again.

It felt like someone was violently twisting a rusty wire inside his intestines, causing him to break out in a cold sweat from the pain.

He had originally thought that once he was released on medical parole, he would be able to take a deep breath of the familiar, free air of old Handong.

He was even still thinking about it in his mind.

Who are now in charge of those former most obedient and favored students in the political and legal system?

All you have to do is find a public phone and call him; he'll have connections with Teacher Gao.

They should be able to get a good hospital and a few bites of hot, fine food.

But when he stumbled along the base of the wall to the main road two streets away...

He was completely mesmerized by the sight before him, frozen in place on the asphalt road.

My legs felt like they were filled with lead, and I couldn't move an inch.

The black high-voltage power lines that used to be a tangled spider web above our heads are gone.

Rows of heavy, black industrial drones, like tireless mechanical birds, hover steadily in mid-air.

The pale blue laser beams at their bases are precisely aligned, forming an invisible power grid suspended in mid-air.

The low-frequency humming sound of the engine blended together.

It was so heavy it made your eardrums feel stuffy and your heart race.

"What... what's going on? Has the municipal power grid bureau been restructured?"

Gao Yuliang, his lips dry and peeling, muttered to himself.

His teeth chattered uncontrollably, making a soft, clattering sound, and cold sweat trickled down his temples.

He forced himself to endure the stomach cramps and staggered to a bus stop on the side of the road.

The platform is long gone, no longer bearing those rusty metal signs and brightly colored men's health clinic signs.

Instead, a huge holographic projection was projected by a dark golden beam of light.

The iconic cloud logo of the Lingxiao Consortium.

It slowly rotated in the air, arrogantly dazzling, exuding an absolute and domineering aura.

A silver-white new energy bus silently glided into the station.

The car door opened with a "whoosh".

None of the elderly people queuing up took out their bus cards or even touched their phones.

I walked up to the car door and glanced casually at the recognition camera.

"Beep! Retinal verification passed. Ling Xiao's points are reduced by 0.2."

A cold, mechanical voice immediately rang out.

The people boarded the bus skillfully, chatting and laughing, their faces glowing.

Gao Yuliang was dumbfounded.

He instinctively looked around for beggars, wanting to strike up a conversation and ask what was going on.

In the past, there were many disabled people begging on the ground and old men rummaging through garbage cans on this street.

Now it's all gone.

Several sanitation workers wearing orange vests were not far away.

His chest was embroidered with the dark gold emblem of the Heavenly King, and he was blowing fallen leaves with a high-end cleaner.

His energy and spirit were even greater than those of the former clerks in the municipal party committee office.

Gao Yuliang felt a strong wave of dizziness rush to the top of his head.

A cold sweat broke out, raising a thick layer of goosebumps.

This is not at all the Handong he knew, the one that operated on official documents and personal connections!

The entire city resembled a colossal entity completely taken over by sophisticated machinery.

The official facade has long been stripped bare, leaving not a trace.

Two old men were playing chess on a bench at the station.

While playing chess, they chatted idly, spitting as they went.

"Old Zhang, did your grandson grow taller after eating that piece of premium rice that Master Yan gave us?"

"Of course it grew! That rice gruel, when cooked, is like a golden soup; my daughter-in-law even got rid of her lumbar muscle strain after eating it!"

"Master Yan is really honest. Those officials in the municipal party committee before, they just held meetings all the time, they couldn't even fix a road properly."

These words are like a barbed steel whip.

The whip lashed Gao Yuliang's once-proud old face, making his skin burn.

Just then, a completely black taxi without a regular license plate glided up in front of him like a ghost.

The car windows were completely black.

The rear doors popped open automatically, revealing a row of dry, genuine leather seats.

A cool breeze carrying a sophisticated fragrance wafted from inside.

Gao Yuliang was too exhausted to walk any further.

He gasped for breath from the pain in his stomach, reached out to hold onto the car door frame, and was just about to sit inside.

My gaze swept across the driver's seat, and my scalp instantly tingled with a dense patch of pockmarks.

The air above the driver's seat was sloshing around!

The steering wheel is slowly turning on its own!

There wasn't even a ghost in sight!

"Is anyone there, driver?"

Gao Yuliang was so frightened that he took half a step back, his cloth shoes slipping on the edge of the puddle.

He shakily reached his hand into the inside pocket of his gray jacket.

After rummaging around for a while, he pulled out a few crumpled 100-yuan bills soaked in sweat.

This was all the belongings he had hidden in a crevice before he went to prison, and which were returned to him after the formalities were completed.

"I... I'll pay in cash, at the municipal government compound, is that alright?"

Gao Yuliang clutched the few red bills, his hands trembling like leaves in the autumn wind.

The money rattled as he squeezed it, and the image of Chairman Mao on it became distorted from his grip.

A plump middle-aged woman who had just finished buying groceries was passing by.

They stopped and looked him up and down as if he were a monster.

The middle-aged woman was carrying a bag of top-grade mutated Red Fuji apples, each one bigger than a fist.

She rolled her eyes and chuckled.

"Hey, old man, are you some kind of wild man who just crawled out of the deep mountains and forests?"

Gao Yuliang's face stiffened, and his throat tightened. "Young lady, what do you mean by that?"

"What do you mean? Those few scraps of paper you're holding aren't even good enough to wipe your butt in Handong right now!"

The woman spat a mouthful of sunflower seed shells on the ground and pointed to the huge holographic logo in the sky.

"We're out of cash in Handong! You need to use Lingxiao Points to buy even a scallion! You think you can use this worthless paper to hitch a ride on Master Yan's fully automated driverless car? Dream on!"

We're out of cash.

These four words struck Gao Yuliang like a heavy hammer.

All that remained in my eardrums was a sharp, high-frequency tinnitus, a constant buzzing.

He was the old Han Dynasty official who was cunning and calculating, and valued checks and balances.

Along with the few banknotes in his hand that represent official credit, he was on this street.

It has become a pile of garbage that no one cares about.

The stomach acid finally became uncontrollable.

Gao Yuliang suddenly bent over, clutched his stomach, and gagged violently twice, spitting out a mouthful of bitter yellow liquid.

His fingers loosened, and he lost his strength.

Those few crumpled RMB notes slipped through his stiff fingers.

"Clatter".

The red bill fell into a puddle by the roadside.

The murky water instantly seeped into the paper fibers, turning the human head pattern on it into a blurry mess of waste paper.

Just like his once proud scheming of half a lifetime, it has completely rotted in the mud.

The woman shook her head, too lazy to pay attention to the crazy old man, and turned to leave.

Gao Yuliang bit his pale lips tightly.

He grabbed the old woman's sleeve, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"Young lady, you just mentioned Master Yan..."

Gao Yuliang forced out a rough, bloody breath as he stared intently into the old woman's eyes.

"Where is that brat Yan Qingfeng now?"

The woman flung his hand away, rolled her eyes, and backed away as if guarding against a thief.

"What are you, you old lunatic, asking about Master Yan? That living god Master Yan is obviously staying on the top floor of the Lingxiao Building in the city center!"

The older woman stared suspiciously at his shabby appearance, pursing her lips.

"What's wrong? You're such a beggar, you can't even afford food, and you want to go to the building and ask Master Yan for points by claiming kinship?"