Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

"Those who try to whitewash this are either lackeys or capitalists themselves!"

"Feeling sorry for your own kind? Scared? Too late!"

"17 years online, 17 years living in a luxury villa, a house worth 3700 million!!! Now you're pretending to pay 2480, and you think you can atone for your sins? How comfortable is that!"

"Want to turn the page? Then jump!"

152 Run, rabbits!

Toyota Headquarters Building, Toyota City, Tokyo.

The special conference room on the third basement level had no windows, and all the fluorescent lights on the ceiling were turned on, making every face look as if it had just thawed.

There were forty-three people sitting in the conference room.

The wall in front is covered with an entire LED screen.

The screen only displays a PDF document with a red header. Above the header, the name, abbreviation, and logo of the publishing organization are overlapped and deliberately blurred.

"Gentlemen," said the head of Toyota's Global Legal Department, "on October 23, 926, the seventh day of the global 'Most Unethical' ranking test, Quedexia personally visited Ctrip's headquarters. Prior to this, Ctrip had already taken the following actions..."

"First, a full repayment announcement was issued, acknowledging nine systemic infringements. Second, the founder announced the waiver of all personal shareholding rights. Third, the CEO applied for a reduction in monthly salary to the statutory minimum. Fourth, the headquarters building was sold, with all proceeds going into the compensation account. Fifth... Sixth..."

“Ctrip did everything it could. Within seven days, it reviewed seventeen years of past accounts, admitted to every single one, and compensated every single person. As a company, our legal department's consensus after assessment was: this level of rectification is the limit.”

"However, Quedexia still made its move."

At this point, the head of the legal department paused for a moment.

The next page lights up.

A list of nightmarish vocabulary for 300 P7 and above executives at Ctrip, with translations attached to the original text.

Some people swallowed hard, while others took their hands off the table, placed them on their knees, and clenched them into fists.

"Based on this, relevant institutions in various countries and large-scale risk assessment fields around the world have updated their assessments of quedexia behavior patterns."

On the next page, a line of bold black text appeared on the screen: "For systemic violations that the public deeply abhors, prior rectification cannot exempt one from sanctions."

"As long as it's an ordinary person, they genuinely feel that 'this kind of thing should die'..."

"So, how long have you been doing this? Have you made any changes? How many changes have you made? Are you still doing it now?"

"None of these things will affect your ability to be sanctioned."

It felt as if a layer of air had been sucked out of the conference room.

Akio Toyoda turned to the next page.

"At the same time, according to all of quedexia's publicly available action records, from the earliest Huangleme, Choutuan, and Jidong, to Xiaohongshu, to the attitude towards the Mongolian government in the border wildfire incident, to stealing takeout, to keeping dogs off-leash, to selling substandard food, to the bullying incident involving minors, and then to Ctrip, quedexia's trigger thresholds are extremely wide."

"To date, Quedexia has almost never resorted to overly cruel measures when dealing with individual misconduct."

"In stark contrast, Qudexia almost never imposes any 'minor punishment' on organized crimes. While the severity of his actions may appear to vary on the surface, if you factor in the actual suffering, duration, and subsequent impact on the target..."

Akio Toyoda looked up at the forty-three people.

"The intensity is almost constant, and it's all devastating."

On the next page, a new line of red text was superimposed on the table.

"The assessment concludes that the top 5,000 individuals and the top 5,000 organizations on the global list of most unethical individuals are all within Qudexia's potential strike radius."

The sound of "clattering" came from the conference room; it was the sound of several people's water cups and cell phones shaking.

“The top 5,000,” Akio Toyoda repeated.

Global list of the most immoral organizations.

Toyota Motor Corporation, ranked 491st.

The number of votes was not high, and the ranking was not high. It was far behind Ctrip's position of over 100, and even further behind those star-devouring behemoths in the front row.

But when those words appeared on the big screen, not one of the forty-three people could take their eyes off them.

"Now, everyone, please listen carefully to today's topic."

Akio Toyoda stood at the head of the long table, his hands supporting him on the edge of the table, his body leaning slightly forward.

"First question: Since Qudexia's sanction logic does not take rectification as a prerequisite, and since as long as one commits what he defines as a 'deeply abhorrent offense,' the final result is always the iron fist falling, then do we not need to do anything?"

Without needing any answer, Akio Toyoda raised his voice: "Of course not!"

"Gentlemen, the current situation is as follows."

"Quedexia, the lion, has already reached the highest position on the grassland, while we, the top 5,000 organizations in the world, are just 5,000 rabbits on this grassland."

"A lion eats a rabbit every week; it's an ironclad law of nature!"

"If 5000 rabbits are desperately running away together, and they all run together every second, then great, the only unlucky one will be a random one..."

“But…” The chief looked at each of the forty-three faces one by one.

"If anyone dares to stop, if anyone dares to slacken in their efforts to rectify the situation, if anyone dares to think, 'I've done enough,' if anyone dares to show even the slightest hint of 'I'm going to get beaten anyway, so I'm not going to run away...'"

"Under the world's watchful eyes, in the next round of voting, who will be the rabbit?"

"So... everyone, keep running, keep running, I'm counting on you all!"

--------

Gangnam District, Apgujeong.

The nightclub's storefront is hidden at the end of a sloping alley and is usually only open to members who make reservations.

A matte black Range Rover slowly drove up, its license plate starting with three zeros.

The manager practically ran out.

The visitor took a notebook out of his suit pocket, flipped through a few pages, and handed the notebook to the manager.

"These three pages."

The manager looked down.

Each line on the page contains a person's information—name, age, height, measurements, and occupation.

The occupation section lists models, flight attendants, university administrators, front desk receptionists at a hotel owned by a conglomerate, and even two intern nurses from a nearby hospital.

The message included a phone number and a note, which listed the recommender, personality assessment, and the date of the last meeting.

The manager closed his notebook, bowed, and said nothing.

Soon, the most expensive private room in the nightclub was reassigned.

Champagne, whiskey, and caviar were piled high on the table.

The lights were dimmed to their lowest setting, leaving only a few amber spotlights shining on the bar and the circular booths in the center of the hall. The music was still playing, a kind of thick jazz, with a slow tempo like syrup dripping down glass.

Fifteen minutes later, the first lady arrived.

Then came the second, and the third.

In less than forty-five minutes, more than twenty young women were seated in the private room.

Bottles of wine were opened one by one.

The newcomer was in the middle of the booth, with his hands resting on the back of the sofa. Two buttons on his shirt collar were undone, and his tie was askew.

The girl next to him brought over a wine glass. He took the glass, but didn't drink it. He put it back. Someone was singing, but the music drowned out most of the sound. Only fragmented notes could be heard.

The newcomer sat there amidst the laughter, neither singing nor speaking, and not looking at anyone.

Occasionally, he would take out his phone, glance at it, and then turn it off again.

And occasionally, he would pick up his wine, tilt his head back, and drink it all in one gulp.

The manager stood at the corner of the corridor, looking at the man drinking alone in the booth and the women surrounding him, his brows furrowed deeply.

At 12:40 a.m., the fire door at the end of the corridor was opened from the outside.

The sound of five or six footsteps landing on the marble floor came from the other end of the corridor.

The manager went up to him, and the man showed his identification: Special Investigation Department of Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.

The leader was dressed in a dark gray suit with a neatly tied tie. Behind him were four uniformed police officers and two plainclothes officers. Further back were two men in black jackets who were clearly not police officers, but also did not appear to be prosecutors.

The music was turned off.

“Representative Kim,” the lead prosecutor said, walking up to the booth, “you’ve come quite a distance tonight, from Cheongdam-dong to here.”

The man in the booth glanced at him, picked up the half-empty glass of whiskey in front of him, and slowly finished it.

“Prosecutor Li,” he said, “you’ve worked hard.”

All three officers took a step forward at the same time.

The man did not resist.

As the man stood up, his knee hit the corner of the coffee table, causing him to sway. He reached out to hold onto the back of the sofa to steady himself. A woman in a black dress instinctively reached out to help him, but he gently deflected her with the back of his hand.

He looked down at the wine-stained shirt, then at the tie crumpled up and tossed in the corner of the sofa. He picked up the tie, hung it around his neck, and awkwardly tied a knot.

The man walked through the group of twenty-odd women, pausing as he passed the manager: "Notebook."

The manager glanced at Inspector Li.

Li Jian nodded slightly, expressionless.

The manager took out a notebook from his pocket and handed it over with both hands.

The corridor, the fire door, the elevator—no one spoke.

The man's face was reflected in the mirror. His eyes were open, the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, a layer of stubble had sprouted on his chin, and there was a small cut on the corner of his mouth, with a little dried bloodstain on his lips.

He looked at himself in the mirror and smiled.

……

Thirty minutes later, on the third basement level of Samsung's headquarters building.

Several official vehicles drove directly from the courtyard ramp into the VIP parking area of ​​the underground garage. This is a closed area reserved for senior executives. The license plate numbers of all vehicles must be entered into the system in advance. There are no windows on the exterior walls, and there are more cameras than in the corridors.

At the end of the ramp, the metal roller shutter slowly rose, and after the official vehicle drove in, the shutter slowly lowered again, completely shutting out the Seoul night.

The main lights in the underground parking area were off; several rows of emergency lights cast their shadows on the concrete walls, turning everything a grayish hue.

A row of people stood at the end of the parking area.

The car door was pulled open from the outside, and the man was pushed out of the car. There was a round iron plate on the ground that had appeared out of nowhere, like the kind used for dogs to drink water. It was stainless steel and so new that it was reflective.

The man was pressed down in front of the metal plate, and when he was pressed down, his knee hit the edge of the plate with a loud thud.

"Hahaha, I say, everyone, you're not even pretending anymore, are you..." The man raised his head, his gaze sweeping from bottom to top over the row of people in front of him, from their leather shoes to their ties, and from their ties to their faces: "How should I address you all... Chairman, President, or Executive Director, or perhaps, Officer Lee, Officer Kim, oh, and Prosecutor Park?"

"Let him wake up."

Before I could even look up, two senior police officers, one on my left and one on my right, had already walked up to me, each carrying a bucket.

Cold water poured into his collar, and the water flowed down his head, causing him to fall to the ground. He braced himself with his hands in the iron pan, and water splashed up and hit his face.

The second bucket arrived, then the third, the fourth...

The watering lasted for almost five minutes, with several interruptions, probably while they were collecting water.

By the time the sixth round of water came down, the man was coughing violently. Water filled his nasal cavity, choking him so much that he curled up by the metal plate, his shoulders twitching, his fingers gripping the edge of the plate tightly.

He only poured two buckets of water this time because he was still talking.

“What’s the point…” the man gasped for breath. “We’re all going to die… Don’t you all understand? Every single one of us… is going to die sooner or later.”

After saying this, the man's body seemed to have a bone removed, and he slumped down, leaning against the iron plate with his forehead against the stainless steel rim, letting out a long sigh.

That's you.

The voice came down from above. The man standing in the middle was expressionless. His tie was the same one the man had helped him with this morning—dark blue with silver-gray stripes, tied perfectly.

“That’s you,” the man said, his hands in his suit pockets. “Among the thousands of organizations around the world, are we the only ones who will suffer? Even if we can only hold on until the 500th week, that’s almost 10 years! Who knows what will happen after 10 years?”

"Ten years from now," the man on the ground lifted his face from the metal plate and laughed loudly, "with Samsung's reputation, with what we've done to the Republic of Korea, with everything we've done over the years... ten years? Are you serious? Hahahaha... Did you hear that? He said Samsung can last ten years!"

“Nobody knows how long we can hold out,” the man said, raising his hand to stop the senior police officer who was about to get more water. “All I know is that your actions today will make it so that we won’t even make it to next week.”

After saying that, the man turned around and walked towards the elevator.

Two senior police officers stepped forward, lifted the man lying on the ground from the metal tray, and led him to another elevator.

At 6:00 AM, Seoul police issued a statement: