The end of the world is approaching, I'm handing myself over to the country.

Yoshiaki smiled and spoke, then suddenly reached out his hand.

"Show me your meeting notes, and I'll help you review the details of today's meeting."

"Okay."

Wang Tian quickly handed over the hard-covered notebook he had been holding in his arms.

Liangce took it and casually flipped through it.

The next second, the smile on his face disappeared, replaced by a look of astonishment.

The notebook was filled with densely packed writing.

But those characters were more like a bunch of scribbles than actual characters.

They were twisted, coiled, and strangely structured; none of them were familiar to him.

Ryōsaku pointed to the notebook and looked up at Wōtien.

"What are you writing?"

"A prescription?"

Wang Tian looked at You Liangce's confused expression and gave an embarrassed smile.

"Senior, this is a shorthand script that I invented myself."

"I invented it myself?" Ryosaku's interest was piqued.

"Um."

Wang Tian explained, "I don't really want the person who finds my notebook to be able to read its contents directly if I accidentally lose it someday."

"Especially for these kinds of meeting minutes, confidentiality is very important."

Ryōsetsu remained silent.

He looked down and examined the incomprehensible symbols in the notebook again, remaining silent for a long time.

After a long while, he slowly closed the notebook and handed it back to Wang Tian.

He patted Wang Tian on the shoulder solemnly.

"You really need a young mind to work well..."

After saying that, Yoshisaku seemed to remember something, took the notebook back, and opened it again.

He pointed to a complex symbol on one of the pages, consisting of several intersecting rings.

"What does this mean?"

"Can you really understand it yourself?"

......

the other side.

Chi Zhengyang's office.

Old An stared blankly at the tea canister in his hand, but his mind was elsewhere.

He raised his head and looked at Chi Zhengyang, who was busy at work, not far away.

"Old Chi, is it really okay for us to use such despicable methods to deal with a child?"

Chi Zhengyang didn't turn around; his fingers continued to tap rapidly on the keyboard, retrieving line after line of scrolling data.

His silence made the air in the room even more stagnant.

Old Master An gently placed the tea canister back on the table, a hint of reluctance appearing on his usually gentle face.

He sighed and continued speaking.

"I feel that the little guy has always been well-behaved and not a troublesome child."

"Moreover, his father sacrificed himself to save others, and over the years, the child's mother has silently endured it all without ever bothering any of us."

Why should we disrupt other people's peaceful lives?

At this point, Old Master An seemed to feel something was amiss: "What I mean is, we can use a gentler approach."

Chi Zhengyang finally stopped what he was doing.

The data on the screen froze instantly, focusing on a photo of a boy's file.

He turned around, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"No friends, no social life—how do you know that's the kind of life that child wants?"

"If this is truly the life he wants, how could he live like a walking corpse, utterly devoid of life?"

Chi Zhengyang's calm question carried an undeniable penetrating power.

"And also, the mother of the child you mentioned."

A soft chuckle escaped from Chi Zhengyang's lips.

"She certainly works hard, but I don't think she's a good mother."

Old Master An's body trembled slightly.

Chi Zhengyang ignored his reaction and continued speaking.

"I don't know what she was thinking, whether she was afraid of trouble or being entangled."

"But the current situation is that she would rather endure hardship and raise her child to be a timid and withdrawn person than fight for her child."

Upon hearing this, Old Man An stood up excitedly.

How do you know she didn't try?

"How can you be sure that the information you're seeing is genuine and hasn't been altered?"

Old An frowned, his gaze fixed on Chi Zhengyang, his voice trembling slightly with suppressed anger.

"Don't you know how difficult it is for an ordinary person to fight for their rights?"

He slammed his palm on the table, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"After that little girl's father had his accident, she was a woman raising a child alone, facing rejection everywhere she went, with nowhere to turn for help!"

"Have you looked into how you got through those days?"

"Have you ever considered that it's not that she didn't want to fight for it, but that she was too afraid of reality, so she passively chose to accept it?"

Chi Zhengyang listened quietly, expressionless, as if the desperate woman mentioned by Old An was just an insignificant statistic.

In the office, only the low hum of the server and Old Man An's heavy breathing due to excitement could be heard.

Once his panting subsided slightly, he let out a very soft chuckle, a sound that seemed particularly jarring in the quiet room.

"Wronged?"

"Who doesn't suffer injustice while living?"

Even now, you and I have to endure injustice!

Chi Zhengyang's voice wasn't loud, but it was icy cold and devoid of any warmth.

"Why should she be the exception?"

"Moreover, I've already explained this before: hard work and cowardice are two fundamentally different things."

"Just because you've worked hard doesn't mean you're right!"

His gaze passed over Elder An and landed on the cold, hard data.

"I don't care, and I don't have time to care how much suffering she has in her heart, or how much struggle she has gone through."

"All I can see is the current outcome."

He strode over to Elder An, extended his finger, and pointed at the screen from a distance.

The screen displayed the slightly pale and bewildered face of the young man.

"As a result, because of her concerns and worries, the hero's son became a useless person who even had difficulty communicating normally with others."

"The result was that a young man who should have had unlimited potential was locked in a cage called 'protection' by her own hands, living a life of confusion and despair."

Chi Zhengyang turned his gaze back and looked directly at Elder An.

"Old man An, tell me, is this the result you wanted?"

His voice suddenly turned cold.

"No, is this the outcome she wanted?"

"Or is it something Zhang Heng wanted himself?"

Chi Zhengyang snorted lightly: "That kid didn't have a choice before."

"But things are different now; I can grant him that right!"

Every word was like a heavy hammer, striking Old Master An's defenses and making him teeter on the brink of collapse.

Chi Zhengyang, however, had no intention of giving him any chance to catch his breath.

"What I want to do now is not to disrupt their peaceful lives."

"It's about rescuing them from the quagmire of being bound by rules."

"Even if the methods are a bit harsh, even if it makes him uncomfortable, in the long run, this is truly for his own good."