"May I ask where you're from, and what to call you? What brings you to this planet of ours?" The middle-aged father could not help asking.
"A rest; I've brought the child out to travel and look around. My surname is Zhao; you can call me Little Zhao. This is my wife and my daughter," Zhao Chen explained with a smile.
He paused, then asked, "And what should we call you all?"
"My name is Sidon; this is my wife and child."
"Someone like that just now: doesn't anyone here keep him in check?" Zhao Chen asked out of curiosity.
Sidon shook his head helplessly and said, "Keep him in check? How? His father is the deputy city lord now, and the future city lord."
"Then do they always throw their weight around like this?" Zhao Chen frowned slightly.
Sidon hesitated, thought a moment and said, "They are a bit overbearing. But compared with when the Dax Empire civilization ruled before, it's much better. At least these people at most insult you with words, then use a bit of privilege in some places. Basically, the great majority of people in this city never run into spoiled scions of that kind. Only I never thought we'd be so unlucky today as to run into one at just this time."
"No vicious incidents of that sort?" Zhao Chen asked.
"There are, but not many. It's as I said: compared with when the Dax Empire civilization ruled before, it's far better, so people naturally don't think much of it. To be able to get by in days like these is already quite good," Sidon said, shaking his head helplessly.
Contentment.
This was the case for the great majority of ordinary people.
So long as you did not truly make it impossible for them to live, ordinary people could put up with a great deal.
"Then how do you feel about your living conditions here now?"
The food had already been served.
Zhao Chen chatted as he ate.
"Naturally it's much better than before. Take this city right now. Back then, we never had living conditions this good. Back then I was a skilled worker, and my conditions were much better than other people's: I got to live in the shantytown. Others, lower down still, could only live underground. The conditions there were terrible, and over time a lot of people got all sorts of skin diseases and were in poor health. But the managers would never give you any treatment at all, not even rest. Those managers only wanted output. So long as there was enough output to answer to the Dax, they didn't care at all whether the people under them lived or died! Now, compared with before, it really is the difference between heaven and hell. Here, even an ordinary person, so long as you have a job, can get a decent place to live. Housing is divided into ten grades, matched to ten grades of job. The lowest grade of job gets shared housing, a suite with four households living in it. And someone like me, a skilled worker who learns new techniques fast, counts as grade three at present. Add my wife's job, and our housing standard is grade three and a half. We can get a seventy-square-meter flat. That's more than enough for our family of three to live in. And once we've worked over thirty years, ownership of this housing can become ours. So everyone works with something to look forward to," Sidon said, his eyes shining as he talked about his work.
"But in this housing allocation, there are people who use privilege too. Take people at the same grade as us, in the same housing estate: floors were supposed to be decided by drawing lots, but in fact some of the good floors had long since been taken by people with connections. Ordinary people like us could only draw lots and scramble for what was left," Mrs. Sidon could not help grumbling beside him.
Zhao Chen nodded.
Zhao Chen and the others had foreseen this sort of use of privilege too.
However complete the system of oversight, this kind of thing, using a little power and taking a privileged path, would still happen.
As the saying goes, water too clear holds no fish.
It is like doing business for some big boss: your relatives and friends come to buy from you and say a few nice words,
hoping you'll give them a better price, or throw in some gifts, and so on.
That is in fact using privilege to take a shortcut.
On this sort of thing,
the attitude of Zhao Chen and the others was: so long as it isn't too serious, we won't ask.
But once the line was crossed, a price would have to be paid!
The high-voltage line was drawn there; if you chose to cross it yourself, paying the price was a certainty.
Seek your own death, and nothing good would come of it.
Halfway through the meal,
at their request, the waiter brought out the red-chocolate birthday cake left in their keeping earlier.
Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" for the girl together.
Nannan's eyes were all but fixed on that birthday cake.
But she was still good and sensible and said nothing, only waiting quietly.
The first slice of cake the girl cut, she handed to Nannan.
"Nannan, you eat first. If it's not enough, we'll cut a bit more over here," the girl said, looking at Nannan.
"Thank you, big sister. Happy birthday, big sister!" Nannan spoke very sweetly; she was very sensible, and very cute too.
Hardly anyone could resist her cuteness.
When the cake had been shared out,
this dinner was nearly at its end as well.
And just at this point,
a racket came from outside too,
and red and blue lights could be seen flashing.
At this moment, the diners still eating on this floor all looked this way without thinking.
Everyone knew this was aimed at the guests at this table.
"You…" Sidon looked at Zhao Chen with some worry.
Zhao Chen said with a faint smile, "Don't worry. Just sit here. Treat it as an after-dinner show. I promise you, after this meal you won't be dragged into anything."
Sidon grew all the more curious about who this man before him really was,
that he could be so confident.
Putting it together with the questions he had asked earlier:
could this man be from the Governor's Office's inspectorate?
But that spoiled scion, it was said, had people from the Governor's Office in his background too.
Still, whatever the case, this gentleman had stood up for them, which was how he had got himself into this trouble.
Whatever happened, they would choose to stand by this gentleman.
The racket came from outside.
Very soon, several dozen people burst onto the fifth floor of this restaurant.
"B City No. 3 Peace Bureau, on official business! Everyone stay where you are; don't move!" A dozen-odd peace officers in peace-officer uniforms walked in, shouting sternly.
Then the spoiled young master Zhao Chen had stamped into the floor earlier led this lot straight to Zhao Chen's table.
"Uncle. It's this fellow; he attacked me just now! I have reason to suspect this fellow is a rebel remnant. Arrest them all, quick, and take them back for questioning!" The spoiled young master stared hard at Zhao Chen, his lips moving slightly.
He was saying to Zhao Chen:
Watch closely, you.
Now I'm going to make you pay!
"Show your identity documents." A man who looked like the chief of the peace bureau walked over and stared at Zhao Chen,
looking this man up and down, making sure he was no one of any standing in his memory.
Zhao Chen and Chu Xuan took out their identity documents, and Nannan's too.
These identity documents were naturally fake.
But they would pass for real; after all, apart from the personal details on them, which Zhao Chen had made up himself,
the department that issued these identity documents, the procedure followed, even the backend data, were all there.
Tell me: were these identity documents real or fake?
The peace-bureau chief took the identity documents and scanned them with a device.
Very soon these people's identity details came up.
Zhao Chen, from such-and-such a department of the Governor's Office.
He glanced at the position:
only the most ordinary clerk,
with somewhat better pay at most.
His wife was much the same.
Having seen this, the peace-bureau chief let out a breath of relief.
Seen this way, these people ought to have no backing, and dealing with them would be fairly easy.
"We suspect you of being rebel remnants; we're taking you back now!" The peace-bureau chief glared at Zhao Chen and at once ordered his men forward to make the arrest.
"Rebel remnants? On your word alone you can arrest people? By procedure, you should first apply for an arrest warrant; only then do we go with you. Arresting people outright like this, with no investigation at all: I have reason to suspect your procedure is out of order!"
The peace-bureau chief, hearing this, looked at the man before him in some surprise,
and could not help laughing out loud.
Perhaps this was the first time in quite a while that anyone had told him his arrests were out of order.
"Hey, you're just a lowly little clerk at the Governor's Office. There are tens of thousands of people like you in the whole system. And you're telling me here that it's out of order? I think your brain's gone soft. Let me tell you: in this city, what I say and what I do is in order! Men, arrest the lot of them for me!" the peace-bureau chief ordered outright.
A few breaths later,
every peace officer the peace-bureau chief had brought lay on the floor.
The peace-bureau chief stared in terror at this man before him, like a combat machine in human form, and his hand went to his waist without thinking.
But nothing was there.
Damn.
He had thought this was only an ordinary call-out, cleaning up after the spoiled young master,
so he had not brought any weapon at all.
Now he truly had no way to deal with this fellow before him.
Little did he know that not having brought a weapon had in fact saved his life.
Had he grabbed a weapon now,
those plainclothes guards around, who looked like diners, would at once have shown him what a hundred different ways to die meant.
Someone had even quietly locked onto his head already; at the least sign of danger, he would be dead the next second.
"You… you're bold. You dare assault peace officers. That's an added charge against you!" Unable to subdue Zhao Chen, yet unwilling to let it go, the peace-bureau chief could only make threats.
Zhao Chen suddenly showed a slight smile and said, "Since you think we're guilty, then how about this: our family will go along with you to the peace bureau. I'd like to see how you'll convict us!"
Hearing this,
everyone around was greatly startled.
The peace-bureau chief looked at the man before him in disbelief, then rejoiced inwardly.
This fellow was simply like an idiot.
Going along with him to the peace bureau:
whether he would come out alive was another matter.
Here, they had no weapons in hand and were no match for this fellow.
But once at the peace bureau, there was no telling.
And there, whatever happened, wasn't it for them to say?
"Fine. Then take them back! I'll give you justice!" The peace-bureau chief laid heavy stress on that last word.
Zhao Chen, Chu Xuan and Nannan all stood up.
But no one dared come up and lay hands on them; they only dared surround them, so that it looked as if these peace officers were escorting them out of the restaurant.
The Sidon family was very worried, but Zhao Chen told them to rest assured, to treat it all as if nothing had happened, and that they could go home now.
Watching Zhao Chen's family get into a peace-bureau vehicle,
how could the Sidon family possibly go home with their minds at ease?
"They really won't come to any harm?" Mrs. Sidon was very worried.
At a place like the peace bureau, wasn't it for the peace officers to say? Turn off the cameras, and then who could say what would happen?
"Of course we can't leave it be. I'll find a way to pull some strings. This Little Zhao got into this danger helping us. We can't let anything at all happen to them," Sidon said, and at once began contacting everyone he might reach on his handheld terminal.
And not far behind him, two Fierce Dragon guards had been watching all of this.
Zhao Chen had told them to stay behind, specifically responsible for the Sidon family's safety.
After all, who knew whether those spoiled scions would come back to make trouble for this family?
Zhao Chen did not want his own actions to bring undeserved disaster on this family.
"Nannan, are you scared?" Zhao Chen looked at Nannan, sitting between himself and Chu Xuan, and asked.
Nannan shook her head and said, rather excited instead, "Nannan's not scared. This is just like the plots of those short dramas Nannan watches. Is the face-slapping next?"[1]
As she said it, Nannan even looked eager.
Short dramas?
Face-slapping?
Zhao Chen could not help laughing; he had never imagined Nannan would actually like watching things like that.
Very soon the peace-bureau vehicles drove into the peace bureau.
Even those spoiled scions had come along.
"Uncle, how are you going to deal with these people?" the spoiled young man said through gritted teeth, his head bound in gauze.
"How do you say I should deal with them?" The peace-bureau chief looked at this young master, the deputy city lord's son.
This fellow was really good at making trouble; that bullying incident half a month ago he had only just smoothed over, and now he had stirred up this.
If not for seeing that the boy's father could become city lord in the future,
which would help him advance a step further himself,
he would never bother with this fellow's rotten business.
"First pin the charge of rebellion on their whole family. Then I'll question that man and that woman myself! That man dared lay a hand on me. I'll make him pay. Get me a suit of individual exoskeleton armor. I'd like to see which is harder: his fists, or my individual exoskeleton armor!"
The spoiled young man was already wearing a cruel smile.
The other spoiled scions beside him looked ready to enjoy the show too.
They had played this sort of game before:
wearing individual exoskeleton armor to play a boxing game with ordinary people.
The outcome was easy to imagine!