Although the answer was obvious, instances where something was overlooked precisely because it was too obvious weren’t unheard of—like the person who keeps frantically searching for their phone while holding it right in their hand. They had analyzed the symbolism of “fish” without ever suspecting that the apocalypse element itself might simply be “fish.”
It wasn’t that no one had thought of it. The idea was just too straightforward. In the face of world-ending catastrophe, nobody dared to think so simply.
“The first time I met Luo Shang, he was fishing—and what he pulled up was a dead fish.”
The Special Countermeasures Team naturally included Extraordinaries among its ranks. Roland, who had direct contact with Luo Shang and ranked as the nation’s top Extraordinary, was the first to speak up.
“Was he hinting at it even back then? Hinting that this would be our fate?!” Roland said gravely.
How terrifying Luo Shang truly was!
They had originally pegged him as nothing more than a lucky bastard—a rich kid who had stumbled into two decades of lavish second-generation privilege by sheer accident. But the deeper they delved, the more horrifying he seemed.
Ever since word spread of Luo Shang’s cross-dimensional smackdown on the Goddess of Life, every anomalous detail about him that had been previously shelved was dragged back into the light.
Now, every action of his demanded fresh reinterpretation.
“Using ‘fish’ as a metaphor for the world itself? There are creation myths that start with fish, though they’re rare. The clearest domestic example where fish explicitly symbolizes the world comes from the Hani Tribe’s creation epic, the Twelve Slave Bureau. It plainly states that the world was born from a massive fish flapping its fins…”
An expert in folklore and legends jumped in without delay.
“Our world is that fish. A dead one means our world perishes—and Luo Shang reeling in that dead fish positions him as the grim reaper come to collect our remains?!”
“That’s why he’s sitting back and watching. He wants to preserve the status quo… just waiting for our world to meet its end…”
Someone ventured the grim conclusion.
“No—if Luo Shang wanted our world destroyed, why would he bother capturing the goddess of the Life Goddess Cult?”
Luo Shang’s stated position was to keep everything around him unchanged. And he had indeed taken action against the Life Goddess Cult for disrupting his peaceful routine.
People had naturally concluded that his goals aligned with theirs. The world’s destruction clashed with his desire for stability, so he couldn’t possibly want apocalypse.
His classification as an apocalypse element only meant he possessed the power to end the world—not that he intended to wield it.
But this new line of analysis was brutally harsh.
What if the “status quo” Luo Shang was preserving was the world’s inexorable slide toward doom?
He had crushed the Life Goddess Cult because it wasn’t the true harbinger of destruction—just an irritating mosquito buzzing around his life.
The real destroyer? He simply didn’t care.
Otherwise, why had three of the Nine Tripods shattered?
If Luo Shang had truly intervened, not a single one would have cracked.
“Reports from across the Atlantic, combined with data from our Astronomical Observatory, paint a dire picture,” the leader of the Special Countermeasures Team announced. “A massive gravitational field has abruptly materialized in the cosmos. It’s pulling every celestial body toward it—including our solar system. The effect hasn’t reached us yet because it manifested so recently.”
“This could be the apocalypse trigger. Every star and planet in the universe will be crushed and devoured into a singularity… followed by a cosmic big bang.”
“The situation is critical.”
The leader continued gravely, “We can’t keep banking on the Nine Tripods to shield us forever. We’ve only got six shots left.”
“I have a proposal,” someone interjected suddenly.
“Out with it,” the group leader nodded.
“Our intel on Luo Shang is still too thin. Why not bring in the people who actually know him? Let them weigh in on next steps.” The speaker pressed on. “They’ve spent real time around him, and evidence shows their actions can sway his. Fold them into the countermeasures team for brainstorming—they might offer perspectives we lack.”
“Approved.”
~~~
That very afternoon at three o’clock, Su Mingyao, Su Bingyao, Shen Changqing, and even those out of town like Su Tiancheng and Li Qingshu all received urgent alerts.
“Special Countermeasures Team? What’s this now? It says report to some address… Wait, isn’t that an abandoned building? This has to be a prank, right?”
Staring at the unfamiliar number, Shen Changqing could hardly believe his eyes. He even found it a bit amusing. He searched online for any reports of scams like this, then promptly ignored the notification and went back to handling documents at the company.
Ten minutes later, a team of special police officers strode through the front doors of Shen Company. They flashed their badges at the front desk receptionist and said, with polite but unmistakable gravity, “Good afternoon. We’re looking for Mr. Shen Changqing.”
“He’s on the top floor!” The front desk receptionist had never seen anything like this. She blurted out her boss’s location in a flash.
Fine, if she got fired for it, so be it—no, wait, these were special police. Who knew if the company would even still be standing afterward!
“Thank you.” Roland, the team leader, nodded and pocketed his badge before leading his men upstairs.
The receptionist watched them go, her heart finally unclenching after a few tense minutes. She whipped out her phone to share this earth-shattering gossip with her close girlfriends.
“Sisters, big trouble! President Shen’s somehow pissed off the special police!”
She hit send, but the message never appeared in her girlfriends’ chat group.
Front desk receptionist: ?
She tried sending a few other messages, and those went through just fine.
But when she typed it out again to spill the beans, her screen showed that the “group chat” had been dissolved.
Front desk receptionist: !!
That did it. She gave up on sharing entirely.
She couldn’t even talk about it. Just what the hell had President Shen done… she wondered.
Would she see them dragging him out in handcuffs any minute now?
Everyone else in the company lobby had witnessed the scene too, and they ran into the same bizarre issues. People who snapped photos found the pictures vanishing from their phones without a trace. Those trying to go live discovered their connections severed. Even typing related keywords refused to post anywhere. Panic rippled through the crowd as they whispered speculations about what President Shen—Shen Changqing—must have done to warrant such a heavy-handed response: not just a SWAT team swooping in for an arrest, but a total lockdown on all information.
Up on the top floor, in his office buried in paperwork, Shen Changqing heard a knock at the door. He looked up and called, “Come in.”
The door swung open, and a squad of armed special police officers filed in from the hallway like a school of fish, forming two silent, stone-faced rows as they stared him down.
Shen Changqing froze.
The pen slipped from his fingers and clattered to the desk.
He racked his brain at lightspeed, reviewing everything he’d done in recent years for anything illegal. He was the sort who could quietly dispose of a homeless drifter like Su Shang without a whisper, and his business dealings weren’t exactly by-the-book either.
But…
Even tallying up his shadier moves, Shen Changqing was baffled.
Sure, he bent the rules a little—maybe even a lot—but that was just unlawful, not criminal. Did they really need to send a whole team of armed SWAT officers to haul me in??
No way! I’m running a legit publicly listed company here. With this kind of show of force, anyone would think I was peddling drugs, not ordinary goods!
A man stepped forward from between the two ranks of officers.
Roland cut an imposing figure—broad-shouldered and bearlike, even more intimidating than the black-clad officers around him. It was clear at a glance that he was in charge.
He flashed a smile at Shen Changqing, who was seated in his ergonomic chair. The expression sent Shen leaping to his feet like he’d been shocked, practically offering up his seat with a “Please, have a seat, sir.”
He had to admit, after spending time with Luo Shang, Shen Changqing seemed to have unlocked some hidden talent for fawning over people. He hadn’t even realized he could grovel like this!
“Are you Mr. Shen Changqing?”
“Yes, sir!” Roland’s tone alone snapped him into a rigid military stance.
“You received that text message, correct? The meeting starts in less than twenty minutes, and you haven’t made a move yet. So headquarters sent me to escort you.”
Roland delivered the explanation casually, as if it were no big deal.
Shen Changqing: Huh?
That wasn’t a joke?
Holy shit, you could’ve said so earlier! All this drama nearly scared me to death! Was that really necessary? Was it?
It absolutely was.
Because this was no small matter.
Dispatching Roland and his SWAT team was headquarters’ way of giving Shen Changqing a reality check—a show of force. Everyone else had fallen in line without hesitation, even those out of town who booked flights at warp speed. Just him, Shen Changqing, sitting tight. What, did orders from the top not carry weight with him?
“Our armed helicopter has already touched down on the rooftop helipad. You just need to come with us.”
Roland’s words were polite enough, but there was zero real respect for this pretty boy. The vaunted Shen family fortune? Its market value meant nothing to him. Right now, Shen Changqing’s worth boiled down to one thing: “Luo Shang’s former fiancé.” Not some big-shot “President Shen.”
What mattered was his value as an extension of Luo Shang—not the man himself.
Wealth was just a resource people traded with. True power was what wielded those resources.
“Armed helicopter……”
No way, really no way. Shen Changqing was still in a dazed state right now.
He truly had no idea what Luo Shang had done afterward or how massive a commotion he had caused—it was so big that it actually required the nation to step in and intervene…
In Shen Changqing’s eyes, the scope of Luo Shang’s torment was still limited to just the few of them; it hadn’t escalated to that level yet…
He swallowed hard.
“Alright, may I ask how I should address you?” Shen Changqing asked Roland.
“No need for formalities. You leave first, and we’ll talk later.” Roland was too lazy to say more to him.
