Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

At that time, he had handled and heard too many similar scenarios, which meant huge trouble, or even annihilation.

But... now he's in a remote and obscure government office called the "Neighborhood Mediation Office," and the incident from back then has already been investigated. The conclusion was "improper conduct" rather than "dereliction of duty," which is why he's been relegated to a lowly position.

Logically speaking, no matter how much investigation is conducted, it shouldn't reach him, right?

The thought flashed through my mind like a lifeline.

However, when those cold, sharp gazes landed on his face as if they were real, when the seemingly casual yet perfectly positioned members of the fast-track team came into view, and when the name "Wang Debo" was uttered in such a stern tone...

Wang Debo immediately felt a chill rush from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. All the strength in his body seemed to be drained away in an instant, his legs went weak, and the racket and water bottle in his hands fell to the ground with a clatter.

Old Liu and Old Sun, who were standing nearby, reacted quickly and instinctively supported his arms on either side, preventing him from collapsing on the spot.

"It's...it's me..." Wang Debo managed to squeeze out two words through gritted teeth, his face as pale as paper.

"Okay." The man in the jacket at the head of the group nodded, his face expressionless.

then……

That was the end of it...

They did not present any identification or documents, asked any questions, read out any explanation, or even glance at Wang Debo again.

The man in the jacket tilted his head slightly.

Several members of the fast-paced team immediately sprang into action, forming a loose perimeter around Wang Debo in the table tennis room.

Several men in jackets calmly glanced at the other dumbfounded old men and the direction of the doorway.

There were no words, no actions, but the invisible pressure made the air feel thick.

Old Liu, Old Sun, and the others looked at each other, their eyes filled with fear and bewilderment.

They are not naive young people; having been in and out of the system for many years, they know what this kind of situation means and understand what they should and should not do at this moment.

Someone moved first, carefully and quietly, trying not to make a sound, close to the wall, towards the door.

The others seemed to wake from a dream and followed suit, lowering their heads to avoid those cold gazes, one after another filing out and quickly disappearing outside the door.

No one stopped them.

Soon, only Wang Debo, shrouded in an invisible net, and seven or eight silent "guards" remained in the table tennis room.

Silence returned, even more oppressive than before.

The only sounds were the faint, continuous whirring from the central air conditioning vents and Wang Debo's own increasingly loud and erratic heartbeat.

Time passed second by second, each second feeling like an eternity.

Wang Debo slumped to the ground, leaning against the cold base of the pool table. After the initial extreme fear subsided, a sense of bewilderment, numbness, and absurdity gradually surfaced.

He secretly raised his eyelids and glanced at the fastest team member closest to him.

The other person stood ramrod straight, staring straight ahead, as if he were merely a still object that needed to be guarded.

What...what are they trying to do?

Arresting someone? Doesn't seem like it. Questioning them? They didn't ask any questions.

Just leave it like this?

After what seemed like an extremely long time, Wang Debo's stiff body regained some sensation.

He first tentatively, very slowly, reached out to grab the ping-pong paddle that had fallen to the ground not far away.

The rubber surface felt cold to the touch.

He paused for a moment and looked around.

Nothing happens.

Those people's gazes didn't even shift in the slightest because of his tiny movement.

He slowly picked up the racket and placed it beside him.

Then, using the same slow, tentative movements, he retrieved the mineral water bottle that had rolled to the corner of the wall.

Still, no one paid any attention.

Wang Debo's heart was pounding in his chest. He mustered his courage and fumbled around, finally pulling his cell phone out of his sweatpants pocket.

The screen lights up, requiring fingerprint unlocking.

He looked up and quickly scanned the area once more.

Still, no one responded.

The man in the jacket who was leading the group even turned his head slightly away, as if he had lost interest in the situation.

Wang Debo's fingers trembled as he pressed them on the fingerprint recognition area.

The screen unlocked, and the main interface lit up, displaying a notification of unread messages from the "Silver Ball Flying" group.

He held the phone as if it were a hot potato, or as if he had grasped a illusory lifeline.

He slowly bent his knees, braced himself with his hands on the edge of the table, and stood up little by little with great difficulty.

My legs were still weak, but I could barely support my body.

He tentatively took a small step to the side.

Almost at the same time he moved, the fast-track team members and the man in the jacket finally moved as well.

They maintained their original spacing and orientation, and as he moved, they also shifted one step as a whole.

They still surrounded him in the center, still silent.

Wang Debo stopped, and they stopped too.

There has been no further action taken.

It wasn't an arrest, it wasn't detention, it was just... surrounding them.

Like a pack of silent sheepdogs surrounding a bewildered sheep.

Wang Debo's heart sank to the bottom, and an even deeper chill gripped him.

This completely unknown form of "control" is even more chilling than simply handcuffing someone and taking them away.

He slowly raised his phone once again.

The light from the screen illuminated his pale, sweat-drenched face.

He opened his contacts.

The list slowly scrolled down, and familiar yet unfamiliar names jumped across the screen, like a microcosm of his more than twenty years of ups and downs in his official career.

My finger slid over a name that was labeled "Chen Jingli (former)".

That was the old clerk who brought him with him when he first entered the Provincial Judicial Commissioner's Office. At that time, he was the clerk of the clerk office and was an eighth-rank official.

Old Chen was a simple-minded but kind-hearted man who taught him many tricks of handling official documents and the unwritten rules of the government office.

Three years ago, Old Chen finally served his full term and retired as an eighth-rank official, returning to his hometown in Jiangbei.

Wang Debo paused, a bitter smile playing on his lips.

Looking for Old Chen? What could a retired eighth-rank official know? What could he do? He'd probably be of no use other than keeping you company in your sighs.

Next is "Brother Zhou (the clerk of the neighboring county)".

These are friends I met when we were both candidates for the Ministry of Personnel after passing the civil service exam in the same year.

Back then, both of them dreamed of becoming at least county magistrates or registrars in the future.

Later, Brother Zhou was luckier and was transferred to a neighboring county as a clerk, in charge of arrests and prisons. Although it was not a high-ranking official position, it still had some real power.

He himself entered the Censorate as a clerk, which seemed like a higher starting point, but now it seems to be a vain illusion.

The two had some contact in their early years, sharing their troubles or showing off their minor "good news," but as they went through ups and downs, their relationship had long since faded.

Go find him now? The clerk may seem to be in charge of the constables and jailers, but in the face of this force that is clearly from a higher level, or even directly assigned by the prefecture or province, a low-ranking clerk like him would probably be in trouble himself, let alone help.

“Wu, the registrar (Ministry of Revenue, Qingli Division)”.

This was a distant cousin of his cousin's husband, who served as a registrar in a certain department of the Ministry of Revenue, holding the rank of ninth grade.

When he first entered the Censorate, his family was quite proud of this "connection," believing that he had connections in the court.

In reality, this Wu clerk was cautious and timid, only managing some tedious household registration records, never daring to make a single mistake, let alone take care of relatives and friends.

Wang Debo only sent greetings during holidays as a matter of routine, and the other party always returned the greetings with the utmost politeness and formality.

At this moment... he could almost picture the other person's panicked and desperate attempt to deny responsibility after receiving the call.

Further down the list are old acquaintances who are still working as clerks or compilers in various state and county government offices, or doing the lowest-level clerical work in various ministries and departments in the capital.

Most of them had phrases like "household registration office of a certain county" or "corridor office of a certain department" after their names, and their highest rank was no more than the eighth rank, with most being unranked.

These people might normally exchange information and inquire about trivial matters, but faced with this strange, silent encirclement that seemed to be aimed directly at him, they could probably do no more than he could.

I kept searching and searching...

Finally, as he looked up again, Wang Debo's gaze met that of the man in the jacket who was leading the group.

The man in the jacket had turned his head back at some point and was quietly watching him.

His face remained expressionless, but in Wang Debo's eyes, a very faint emotion flashed in those unfathomable eyes.

This is not a warning, nor a threat.

That was more like encouragement...

And, pity.

55 Neck

Wang De'an couldn't understand the exact meaning in those eyes.

But Wang De'an had vaguely heard rumors—after spending a long time in the government office, there were always some unfounded rumors—that because of certain special reasons that cannot be told to outsiders, when a person is "specially cared for" by a certain force, in the initial brief period of time, there might be a slight gap in the phone call, or perhaps... the phone call might be tacitly allowed to be made.

The idea was absurd yet alluring, like a phosphorescent glow in the darkness.

Wang De'an didn't know if this was a test, but he was already drowning and couldn't care less about that.

His fingers no longer hesitated, relying on instinct and a vague understanding of information channels to quickly search through his contacts.

He needs someone who is relatively well-informed, or perhaps... someone who has some connection to matters like law enforcement or criminal investigation.

This was extremely risky and could drag the other party down with him, but at this moment he just wanted to figure out which law he had violated.

He found a name with the note "Brother Feng (Judge of the Provincial Surveillance Commission)".

This Brother Feng was someone he had met years ago when he was working at the Provincial Judicial Commissioner's Office. Although he was only a ninth-rank official in charge of reviewing case files, due to the nature of his office, he was always more perceptive than others about rumors about cases and officials' movements in the province. He was also quite loyal to his friends.

Wang De'an gritted his teeth and dialed the number.

The phone rang three or four times before it was answered.

"Hello? De'an?" Brother Feng's voice came through, sounding perfectly normal. "Why did you suddenly decide to call me today?"

Wang De'an lowered his voice and spoke very quickly: "Brother Feng, I... I've run into a bit of trouble. I'd like to inquire whether there's been any news about me recently, either from the censorate or the investigation department?"

There was a two or three-second silence on the other end of the phone.

Even Wang De'an himself thought, "How could you even ask that question..."

However, when Brother Feng spoke again, his tone was surprisingly frank: "Your rumors? De'an, we've known each other for a long time, so I won't lie to you. From what I've heard, the disciplinary inspection department hasn't mentioned anything about you recently. Since you were transferred to the mediation center, haven't you been doing quite well...?"

Wang De'an was taken aback.

Brother Feng wasn't finished: "However... I did hear a friend from the internet monitoring department mention that there's a 'special attention list' circulating these past few days, involving some... well, some 'civilian incidents' that are hard to explain... Your name seems to have appeared in some correlation analysis, but he doesn't know the specifics. Why don't you... ask someone from the internet monitoring department? I remember, don't you know Xiao Liu from the postal inspectorate?"

This guidance came too directly, or rather, extremely abruptly.

In officialdom, so clearly pointing the finger at another department as to "trouble" is an extremely rare and high-risk act.

But Wang De'an had no time to ponder the strangeness of the matter. He thanked him, hung up the phone, and immediately found "Superintendent Liu (Superintendent's Office)" in his contacts.

This was a low-ranking clerk he met by chance at a dinner party. The clerk was responsible for the basic compilation of some public opinion reports at the Inspector's Office.

This time the connection was established much faster.

Xiao Liu's voice was young, with a businesslike crispness: "Wang, the peace envoy? What is it?"

Wang De'an, steeling himself, repeated what Brother Feng had said.

Xiao Liu seemed to pause for a moment on the other end of the phone, and then responded with the same unusual frankness: "Oh, you mean that... please wait a moment."