Volume 14: Devastation Chapter 648: Abnormal Accounts
"Put down the computer!" Seeing Ke Lan looking through the accounts in the notebook, Hinata Yuji suddenly became anxious. He didn't care that he hadn't put on his pants yet, and rushed towards Ke Lan.
But before he could grab Ke Lan with his hands, he was kicked hard in the stomach by Ke Lan. He flew back at a speed several times faster than when he pounced on him, and slammed into the cabinet behind the desk with a loud bang.
Hinata Yuji screamed immediately. He felt as if his spine was broken. The barbs formed by the broken wooden cabinet frame directly pierced through his flesh and fat. Blood flowed along the folds between the fat.
“Ouch…”
Hinata Yuji struggled to sit up, but found that his lower body was completely out of control.
His heart suddenly sank - was he paralyzed? Was his spine really broken?
Damn it, damn it, damn it ! He cursed madly in his heart. Although with the current medical technology, this kind of injury only needs a few minor surgeries and then a week in the medical cabin to recover, but the pain in the treatment process is inevitable - especially the nerve connection surgery for the broken spine. Even with anesthetics, it is impossible to completely block out the "sour and refreshing feeling" like electric shock...
Although he himself had never undergone this type of surgery, he once accidentally injured the spine of a female secretary because he played too much with her. The fat man still remembers the screams she made while receiving treatment.
"This bastard, I must kill him..."
Just as Hyuga Yuji was thinking this, Ke Lan's face became more and more gloomy while he was looking through the accounts. He closed his notebook, and instead fixed his gaze on Hyuga Yuji, and asked in a cold voice, "Why are materials worth 460 million credit points being transferred to the East Fifth District for rescue operations? Hasn't the East Fifth District completely disappeared? There are not even disaster victims. Who are you distributing your disaster relief materials to? Also, why are all the emergency fire-proof materials shipped from the North Seventh District stuck at the checkpoint? Shouldn't these things have the highest priority? Don't tell me you don't know anything..."
Hinata Yuji's heart skipped a beat, and his expression changed instantly. He seemed to have temporarily forgotten the pain in his body, and pointed at Ke Lan and asked in a trembling voice: "You...you are from the Security Bureau?!"
"I'm asking you a question now, don't get it wrong."
Hinata Yuji's chest was heaving violently, and cold sweat was streaming down his forehead. He stared at Ke Lan intently, and suddenly let out a loud roar. He took out a pistol from the ruins of the cabinet with his right hand and raised the muzzle towards Ke Lan!
If he wanted to kill Ke Lan just now because he was angry for a moment, but when Ke Lan pointed out the problems in the accounts of disaster relief supplies, he had already truly decided to kill her.
This matter must not be leaked out. Once leaked, more than just him will be implicated. If he kills a security bureau investigator, perhaps the people above him can find a way to protect himself, but if the secrets in the computer are exposed, not to mention him, even the person above him will probably lose his head.
But before he could point the gun at Ke Lan, Ke Lan had already picked up several pens on the desk and threw them out with force.
The pen instantly pierced through Hinata Yuji's palm, nailing his hand to the ground.
An even louder howl echoed in the huge office.
"I'll ask you again, what are these anomalies in the accounts? What's going on?"
"I... I don't know..." Hinata Yuji shook his head.
"You won't tell me even if you die, right?" Ke Lan picked up the pistol that fell on the ground - he just realized that the safety of the pistol was not on and the bullet was not loaded... In other words, even if Ke Lan didn't do anything just now and let Hinata Yuji pull the trigger at him, the bullet in the gun would not be able to be fired.
Pull the slide, load the bullet, and then turn on the safety... Ke Lan deliberately completed this series of actions in front of Hinata Yuji, and then put the muzzle of the gun against his forehead, "I'll give you one last chance."
"You can't kill me! Even if you are an investigator from the Security Bureau, you have no right to do anything to me without solid evidence and legal trial procedures—"
"You seem to know the process well enough, are you really unwilling to tell me?"
As soon as Hinata Yuji's mouth formed the word "no", Ke Lan pulled the trigger without hesitation.
"Bang!"
The bullet penetrated from the forehead and directly crushed the entire brain - the guy's gun was a 9mm caliber pocket pistol with very small The bullet remained in the cranial cavity instead of passing through the back of the head, thus avoiding those discordant red and white scenes.
"Those people at the door, come in." Ke Lan shouted to the outside. When he kicked Hinata Yuji away, the loud noise attracted the footsteps of several people, but these footsteps stopped at the door of the office, and no one dared to push the door in.
After several seconds, the office door was cautiously pushed open, and several young women dressed as secretaries and with excellent looks walked in with panic-stricken looks.
The first thing they saw was Hyuga Yuji lying behind the desk and the bullet hole on his forehead. Although these women had roughly guessed what happened inside after hearing the gunshots, several of them still let out ear-piercing screams after seeing Hyuga Yuji's body.
"Please be quiet for a moment." Ke Lan said in a deep voice. A secretary who looked relatively calm pulled his companion hard, and then asked Ke Lan in a trembling voice: "Excuse me, who are you..."
"I'm the person sent by the higher-ups to take over the office." Ke Lan said, "Are you all this guy's secretaries?"
He pointed to the body on the ground.
"Yes...no..." The woman nodded, then shook her head.
"Is it or isn't it?"
"We are all Hinata-san's secretaries, but I am the only one who is actually responsible for secretarial work. The others are..." the calmest woman answered.
"These are all toys he specially found, right? Got it." Ke Lan nodded in understanding, then waved to the "real secretary", "Then the accounts and lists of these disaster relief supplies should have been passed down through you, right?"
"Yes..." The secretary nodded with a complicated expression.
"I have some questions to ask you, and you must answer truthfully. Do you understand?" As Ke Lan looked through more and more lists of accounts, he found that there were more and more problematic items.
"Three days ago, four batches of 60,000 emergency rations were dispatched from the Hongshun Food Factory in the North District 9. According to regulations, these emergency rations should have arrived at the worst-hit areas within 24 hours. But why are they still stranded at a distribution point less than 15 kilometers away from here? Don't tell me it's because of traffic jams or insufficient transportation capacity. I know the situation outside better than you guys sitting in the office."
"Yes... Mr. Hinata withheld the emergency rations..." the secretary stammered, "He, he said that the affected areas are now without power... The cold storage has basically been shut down and cannot store such a large amount of supplies. If we send it over now, this batch of emergency rations may spoil due to improper storage..."
"Bullshit!" Ke Lan was so angry that she kicked Hinata Yuji's body again. "Emergency rations, explain it to me - explain to me what the hell emergency rations are! These things are either dry powder preparations sealed in polyethylene and aluminum foil packaging bags, or simply sealed cans. Even if they are thrown into the wilderness for five or six years, they will not deteriorate. You actually told me that they can't be stored without a cold storage?!"
"This... this is what Mr. Hinata said..." The female secretary's head shrank suddenly, her eyes drooped, and she didn't dare to look at Ke Lan at all.
"So what does he mean by that? Don't you have the ability to think for yourself? Even a child knows that canned food doesn't spoil easily, but you senior secretaries don't even know this common sense? Do you really not know or are you pretending not to know? I don't think I need to explain more, right?"
“…”
"Let's take a step back and say that even if these emergency rations really do spoil, why were the fifth to seventh batches of supplies destroyed directly after they were delivered to the distribution center? What does that mean?" Ke Lan sneered, "Even if they were to be destroyed, they should have destroyed the first batch that was delivered, right?"
The secretary was completely speechless.
At this moment, the door of the office was suddenly pushed open, and a group of well-dressed and respectable people rushed in. Although Ke Lan had never dealt with the leader before, he was not unfamiliar with that face.
It was none other than Shane Williams, a member of the United Parliamentary Group.
This man is just over 40 years old, making him one of the youngest members of the United Parliamentary Group. After taking office, he has been quite active and often appears on various television programs. It is hard for Ke Lan not to recognize his face.
He first glanced at Hinata Yuji's body, then turned his gaze to Ke Lan.
The bodyguards following behind him put their hands into the inner pockets of their suits and held their pistols. However, Sean Williams just frowned and waved his hand, signaling his men not to draw their guns.
"Are you... Ke Lan?" Although he had never met Ke Lan before, as the direct person in charge of "Aguna Tor", Ke Lan was definitely a person worthy of special attention for the members of the United Parliament... What's more, Ke Lan's position was directly granted by the Undead Crew Association, and not through the hands of their United Parliament, which made people even more concerned.
"Yes." Ke Lan nodded.
"I just received an order from above, saying that you will take over the Disaster Relief Office...but you don't have to kill anyone, right?" Although Sean's tone was calm, his dissatisfaction was clearly revealed.
"Since you know that I was sent by the higher-ups, you should also know what Hinata Yuuji did, right? Or... what did he do for you?"
"Mr. Ke Lan, let me borrow an old saying from you Chinese people - you can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want. Hinata Yuji may have made some minor mistakes in his work, but it's not a crime punishable by death, right?"
"A small mistake? Are you sure it was just a small mistake? Negligence of duty, embezzlement of funds, destruction of supplies... If you count them up, which one is not a crime punishable by execution?" Ke Lan asked back.
"But Hyuga Yuji is a candidate for the next councillor... Even if he really did commit these things, only the people above him are qualified to execute him."
"Then I happen to be the one who is qualified to execute him." Ke Lan said, raised his gun and pointed it at Congressman Williams, "And you..."
"Are you crazy?!" Williams' eyes twitched and he took two steps back without leaving a trace. The bodyguard beside him immediately stepped forward and protected him behind him.
"The fifth seat, the Pope."
"What?!" Williams was stunned. For a moment he couldn't react to what Ke Lan was saying.
"The Undead Crew, the fifth seat... Is this position enough to execute Hinata Yuuji... and you?"
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible !" Williams' eyes widened and he shouted, "There is no way the crew will accept new members... You are lying!"
"You might as well give them a call and ask...if you can get in touch with one of the members."
…
Regarding the issue of the Undead Crew Club, after the meeting, Ke Lan specifically asked Demeter and Poseidon, and the answer she got did not surprise Ke Lan - the Undead Crew Club was actually an evolution of the "Ten-Man Decision-Making Seat" at the beginning of the Ark's voyage.
As the name suggests, there were only ten people in the ten-member decision-making seat at the beginning, and they represented the highest will of the Ark. As time went on, the scale of this organization gradually expanded, and later on, the number of people had more than doubled compared to the beginning.
The way the ten-member decision-making seat recruits new members is through recommendation... But soon, the members found that the more people there are, the more bloated the organization becomes, and the more problems it causes. After several discussions, the maximum number of people in the ten-member decision-making seat was fixed, and twenty-two seats were set up using the sequence of the Major Arcana cards. This is the prototype of the current Undead Crew.
At that time, only when the old members died would they look for new candidates - until the technology called "Coffin of Eternal Life" appeared.
This technology can seal a person's body in an ice coffin and then connect the consciousness to the virtual world. This technology can allow a person to survive for more than 500 years while the body is dormant and the consciousness is awake... Soon, after this technology passed clinical trials, the members of the ten-member decision-making seat used it on themselves.
And renamed the organization "Undead Crew Association".
Of course, in order to prevent panic and dissent among the people, their presence has shifted from the front stage to behind the scenes, and they control all affairs on the Ark through the new organization, the "United Parliamentary Group".
It has been more than two hundred years since the last member of the Undead Crew was sealed in the "Coffin of Eternal Life" .
Demeter told Ke Lan that they did this not for the sake of so-called immortality, but to ensure that the Ark's decisions and direction would remain consistent during the long interstellar journey... This was a necessary measure for the continuation of the race.
As for the matter of the β-type replicators, Demeter and Poseidon did not deny it, but they did not tell Ke Lan more inside information - the people who proposed this plan were basically in the "opposition " camp, and they knew no more details than the prophet.
Ke Lan originally wanted to clarify the identities of himself and the prophet, but Demeter told him to solve the urgent problem first and then deal with these things - and the so-called urgent problem naturally refers to the disaster aftermath of the Alexander incident.
Ke Lan originally thought that there shouldn't be any trouble if these matters were handed over to the United Parliamentary Group, but he never expected that the senior officials of the United Parliamentary Group were corrupt to this extent.
It's rotten almost completely from the inside out.
What the undead crew will leave behind for themselves is indeed a veritable... "mess".
