CHAPTER 48: CHAPTER 48: INTERCEPTING THE SPECIAL FLIGHT

"I guess, the questions in the inquiry won’t include something like this, right?" Sun Hang said in a low voice, breaking the silence first, "It’s not because of negligence, but because these questions are too obvious... It’s like a sheriff asking for your name and gender when recording, but won’t ask if you’re dead or alive."

"But... it’s too late now," Yang Lian murmured, "The others are easy to deal with... but the representatives of the Federation Council have already left Celestial City on their chartered plane... The plane took off half an hour ago and should have already flown out of Shuzhou Territory by now."

"Get the chartered plane to return immediately! Also, gather all the missing persons... Make it clear to that group of officials how serious the situation is, tell them if they don’t want the Blood Moon showing up in every corner of Celestial City, then they should do as we say!"

...

Ten minutes later.

Yang Lian put down the phone with a complicated expression and shook her head at Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi: "It’s no use... The Management Committee did not agree to our request. They believe the most urgent task is to immediately restore the normal operations of all departments... As for the ’visions’ seen by the missing persons, they are adamant that these are hallucinations caused by the influence of eerie objects during the space-time displacement, which will recover naturally after some time."

"Idiots," Wang Xiyi’s comment was concise and straightforward.

"Can’t the Public Security Bureau send people to forcibly bring these guys in?" Sun Hang said.

"The Management Committee said... we have no right to restrict their personal freedom, and if we use force, our actions could very likely be defined as mutiny or rebellion," Yang Lian said helplessly.

"I can’t believe it... If this plot happened in a novel, the readers would have been cursing up a storm in the comments section by now, right? With the Management Committee being this stupid, humans haven’t gone extinct yet? This is way too unreasonable, isn’t it?" Sun Hang cursed.

"Novels still need to consider logic and rationality, but the real world doesn’t," Wang Xiyi said with a half-smile, "Someone once said, this world is just a giant amateur troupe, don’t think those elites high above are particularly smart, many merely climbed up with family background, luck, or even the benefits of the times. You’d be hard-pressed to find one truly capable person out of ten."

"But the funny thing is, this over ninety percent of incompetents firmly believe they are important and irreplaceable," Sun Hang sat down and sighed, "I’m tired, I suddenly don’t want to care about this anymore, let them be... Let everything destroy itself quickly."

"Are you really planning to give up?" Wang Xiyi asked.

"What else can we do? Seriously arrest all those missing people?" Sun Hang glanced at her from the corner of his eye, "You look like you can fight, can you alone take on hundreds, even thousands of fully armed bodyguards, sheriffs, and regular military soldiers?"

Just then, a Field Operations Department operative suddenly rushed into the operations conference room, gasping for breath, said: "Just, just now, right now, two high-speed fighter jets took off from Longquan Air Force Base. According to the information, their mission target is to intercept the chartered plane of the Council representatives that just flew out of Shuzhou Territory."

"Huh?" Sun Hang was stunned for a moment and looked at Wang Xiyi, who shook her head immediately.

"Don’t look at me, I’m just a Hunter, not influential enough to mobilize the Air Force at will."

Although the Investigation Bureau and the institute have significant authority to mobilize the military, the military is also hierarchically graded... They can only freely mobilize soldiers of the Celestial City Guards, and going a level up, to the level of the Federation’s regular army, all mobilizations require defined procedures of approval, personnel numbers, officer rankings, firearms and ammunition, and even vehicles and heavy equipment all have very strict limitations... among them, the most challenging to mobilize is the regular army’s air forces.

Generally, what the Investigation Bureau applies for as so-called "air support" is either drones or helicopters belonging to the guard team, as for the regular army’s air force, even the institute director cannot persuade the air force base’s commander to have two regular army fighters take off for such a highly peculiar "dangerous mission" within such a short time.

Intercepting the Council representative’s chartered plane... should anything go wrong with this mission, the responsibility falling down could hardly be shouldered by tying together all the Management Committee’s group of bumbling fools.

"Is it the Federation Council’s order?" Sun Hang asked.

"We only disseminated the news ten minutes ago, the Council wouldn’t react so quickly," Yang Lian shook her head, "Even if some of those council members realized the severity of the issue, they also would have to convene a phone conference first before making any decisions. By the time they act, the representatives’ chartered plane would probably be landing."

"It was... it was the Special Task Force leader’s order." The reporting operative only caught his breath after gulping down more than half a glass of water, "He... upon learning this news, directly... drove madly to Longquan Yi, pointed a gun at the air force base’s commander, forcing him to dispatch fighters to intercept the representatives’ chartered plane... now, the entire air force base has already entered a first-level lockdown status, with guard units surrounding the command tower in layers."

"Tsk, seems like there’s at least one sensible person... I like that kind of audacity," Sun Hang’s eyes lit up, and he darted to the door in a flash, "By the way, is that guy still pointing a gun at the air force base’s commander?"

"If he had put the gun down, he should have been arrested by now... hijacking a local air force base’s military chief officer is deemed a major crime," Yang Lian said.

"Yang Lian, Night Slayer, let’s go to Longquan Yi too!" Sun Hang called the two, "There’s an old saying that ’fleas don’t itch, debts don’t worry’—since that buddy has already taken the commander hostage, merely intercepting one chartered plane isn’t enough, tell the Celestial City Management Committee people, if they don’t gather those missing persons together, we’ll blow the air force commander’s brains out for them to see!"

"You’re... this is rebellion!" Yang Lian said though she still packed her things promptly, putting on her backpack.

Wang Xiyi snapped her fingers, a fleeting flame burned away the bandages on her body; she casually grabbed the coat draped over the chair back, wrapping it around her bare torso.

"Yang Lian, you go find some clothes for Night Slayer first, I’ll get the car—we’ll meet at the north gate!"