Nominal: Hou Liangping blocking the door? He was slapped away!

A cold wind, mixed with the lingering smell of tear gas and the earthy stench, rushed into the hall.

The hellish scene outside the door was laid bare before Li Dakang and Qi Tongwei.

The entire branch office compound was illuminated as if it were daytime by searchlights dropped by more than a dozen armed helicopters.

More than 300 elite special police officers, who had just been so aggressive, now looked like defeated prisoners of war.

They were driven by the black-clad special forces soldiers with rifle butts, their hands behind their heads, forming humiliating lines as they squatted in the open space in the center of the courtyard.

Every face was etched with the fear of surviving a catastrophe and the bewilderment of being at a loss.

Their prized Type 95 assault rifles, riot guns, and pistols were roughly piled up into a small mountain.

Those weapons, representing the power of the state's violent apparatus, gleamed with a cold and humiliating light under the stark white lamplight.

"Secretary Li, Director Qi, please."

Zhou Weiguo's tone was devoid of any emotion, but the "please" gesture he made was full of unyielding force.

Two Dragon Fang special forces members, one on each side, "escorted" Li Dakang and Qi Tongwei, "inviting" them from the warm hall to the cold steps outside the door.

Shen Zhong strode out of the hall.

He ignored the two local officials who were completely distraught.

He simply stood quietly at the top of the steps, the heels of his military boots gently tapping on the hard marble.

He looked down at everything in the courtyard from his high vantage point.

His gaze slowly swept over more than three hundred faces, some filled with fear, some with anger, and some with confusion.

The scene was completely silent.

All that remained was the muffled, oppressive roar of the rotors of the dozen or so armed helicopters overhead cutting through the air.

The roar was like an invisible mountain pressing down on everyone's hearts, making it hard for them to breathe.

Li Dakang and Qi Tongwei were forced to stand behind Shen Zhong, like two students who had done something wrong, being punished to stand in front of the entire school.

A cold wind blew by, and they felt a chill run through their bodies.

That wasn't cold caused by the weather.

It was a chilling feeling that seeped from the very marrow of your bones, a feeling called fear.

Shen Zhong moved.

He slowly walked down the steps.

His gleaming military boots treaded step by step on the steps.

"despair."

"despair."

"despair."

The sound of each step was exceptionally clear, like the footsteps of death, precisely striking everyone's hearts.

He did not approach the group of special police officers squatting on the ground.

He walked straight up to Qi Tongwei.

He stopped in his tracks.

Qi Tongwei's heart almost stopped beating at that moment.

Looking at the calm, expressionless face before him, he felt an immense pressure that made him instinctively want to back away.

But his body had barely moved.

Two special forces soldiers, as tall as iron towers, silently approached him from behind, blocking all his escape routes.

Those two bodies were as hard as two walls.

Followed by.

Several thin beams of infrared light shone from the surrounding shadows.

Those points of light, representing death, instantly locked onto Qi Tongwei's brow, heart, and throat.

Qi Tongwei's whole body stiffened.

He didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

He could clearly feel that if he made any further unusual movements, his head would explode like a rotten watermelon in the next second.

Shen Zhong extended his hand.

His movements were slow, even deliberate and unhurried.

He didn't touch the gun, nor did he touch Qi Tongwei's neck.

His fingers landed on Qi Tongwei's police tie, which was slightly askew due to the earlier commotion.

He used his index finger and thumb to carefully straighten the tie of the deputy director of the provincial public security department.

The movement was so gentle, it was as if she were helping a junior colleague who was about to go on stage to receive an award to tidy up their appearance.

But Qi Tongwei felt that those two fingers were two cold, venomous snakes, coiled around his neck, ready to tighten at any moment.

Cold sweat trickled down his forehead, drop by drop.

He dared not move.

He dared not make the slightest move.

He could only watch helplessly as the hand straightened his tie and then slowly traced its way across his chest.

Qi Tongwei felt his dignity being stripped away bit by bit by this hand.

Sudden.

Shen Zhong's fingers stopped on the police siren on his left chest.

Then, with a sudden yank!

"Sizzle—!"

A sharp tearing sound rang out in the quiet courtyard.

On Qi Tongwei's crisp second-level police superintendent uniform, the badge that represented his identity and honor was forcibly torn off, along with a small piece of fabric.

Shen Zhong didn't even glance at what he was holding.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the police badge, still bearing Qi Tongwei's warmth and honor, into the muddy water at his feet like a piece of trash.

"Clatter".

A soft sound.

Qi Tongwei felt an unprecedented sense of humiliation, like a volcanic eruption, rising from the bottom of his heart to the top of his head.

His face turned a deep, purplish-red color at a speed visible to the naked eye.

It was anger born from extreme humiliation, and the frustration of being powerless to do anything about it.

Li Dakang, who was standing to the side, saw this scene clearly.

His last line of defense crumbled completely with the sound of fabric tearing.

He felt his knees buckle and he almost lost his balance.

Shen Zhong did not look at Qi Tongwei again.

It was as if tearing off his badge was like brushing off a speck of dust, utterly insignificant.

He turned around and slowly walked to the pile of captured weapons.

The best equipment of the Jingzhou police was piled up there.

He casually picked up a brand-new Type 97-2 riot gun, weighed it in his hand, and looked at the police identification number on the gun.

Then, he tossed the gun back into the weapons pile as if it were trash.

"Clang!"

The gun collided with other weapons, producing a piercing metallic clang.

The sound was like a resounding slap, striking the face of every police officer present.

After doing all this, Shen Zhong slowly turned his head.

He looked at the Jingzhou Municipal Party Committee Secretary, whose face was ashen and whose body was swaying precariously.

He spoke coldly.

"You are definitely not worthy of wearing this outfit."

He turned around heavily and stepped back onto the stairs.

Each impact of the military boot soles against the marble floor produced a dull echo, making the air in the courtyard even more heavy.

He stood at the highest point, with the bottomless shadow of the police station building behind him, and in front of him more than three hundred disarmed police officers and war machines hovering in the air.

At this moment, he is the only rule here.

He didn't look at Li Dakang, who was already mentally unstable, nor did he pay attention to Qi Tongwei, who had his police badge torn off and was completely distraught.

He simply turned his head slightly towards Zhou Weiguo beside him.

"Take the things out."