Lately, there had been no shortage of major news, both domestic and international. Every time people opened their social media apps in the morning, a barrage of fresh headlines awaited them.

Among them, Mingbo City remained the country’s clear champion of bizarre news.

Take today’s wild headline: a local man was caught in a massive gay gangbang, leaving his backside completely ruined. His wife discovered the truth, sparking a massive public uproar. Netizens were relentlessly attacking him online, saying that people who deceived others into marriage deserved everything coming to them. Before long, his personal information was leaked, exposing his secret to every one of his friends and relatives.

This man was none other than Zhan Chenghao. As the real culprit behind the Mingbo City earthquake murder case, he felt deeply wronged and miserable. Yet he had nowhere to plead his case, and even if he did, not a single person would believe his claims of innocence.

His original plan was to exploit the chaos of the temporary resettlement camps. He had intended to lure his wife into a dangerous zone, letting other men violate and kill her so he could claim her entire estate and live a lavish life with his mistress. Who would have thought he’d be outmaneuvered? A mere twelve-year-old stepdaughter had set him up, steering him straight into the lion’s den instead.

Now, he was not only severely injured but also a national laughingstock. He could not even look his friends and relatives in the eye, as everyone was convinced he was a closeted gay man pretending to be straight. His wife, whom he had once wrapped around his finger, had already filed for divorce. Looking at him with deep disgust, she threw him out of the house with nothing to his name.

Only then did he learn why his wife had been a single mother in the first place—her ex-husband had also been a closeted scammer. She hates men like him to her very core. Even if Zhan Chenghao could somehow prove he was a straight victim, she could never look past this humiliation and continue living with him.

All his grand schemes had crumbled to dust, all because of that wretched stepdaughter of his.

When the realization fully hit him, he glared with bloodshot eyes at the little girl standing beside his wife, looking as if he wanted to murder her. But his breath caught when he met her gaze. She stared back with eerie, mocking eyes—pupils so dark they seemed to swallow the white of her eyes. For a split second, he thought he was looking at a ghost.

A chill ran down his spine. She was so young, yet she had the cold-blooded guts to pull off something like this. He was really terrified of her.

As final exams wrapped up across the country and the summer holidays officially began, the high-profile murder case involving the sister of Hujing Prefecture’s richest woman—Madam Ouyang—finally reached its verdict.

Xiang Huagong, a previously unknown criminal defense attorney, defeated the prominent, high-priced lawyer hired by Old Madam Ouyang. His brilliant arguments and closing statements left the courtroom spellbound, easily swaying the jury. The jury delivered a verdict of not guilty, and the sister was acquitted and released on the spot.

To express her gratitude for the justice of the law, Madam Ouyang announced that she would donate one hundred million yuan worth of cure-all specialized medicine under the name of Hualan to the Kingdom of Punia—one of the nations victimized by the Atavist Genetics Research Organization.

The moment Madam Ouyang finished her announcement, Old Madam Ouyang flew into a rage at the press conference. Screaming like a vulgar shrew, she even tried to lunge forward and tear at Madam Ouyang’s hair. Her hysterical rants boiled down to one complaint: the money belonged to her late son, so how dare Madam Ouyang squander so much of it on charity?

The display sparked intense backlash online. With the eyes of the entire world on them, was this old woman not humiliating Hualan on a global stage? Besides, that was joint marital property; how on earth could she claim it belonged solely to her son?

A month later, the hundred-million-yuan shipment of life-saving medicine was officially transported to the Kingdom of Punia through the Hualan government.

The royal family of Punia dispatched their own forces to the shipyard, eager to intercept the shipment. They wanted to distribute the medicine themselves to force the citizens to be indebted to them. At the same time, they planned to teach a lesson to certain cities and residents who had shown disrespect or spoken out against the royal family, leaving them to watch helplessly as others received the life-saving cure.

Even more cunning, they declared that anyone who wanted the medicine had to spy on their neighbors and report suspected members of the revolutionary army.

Intelligence agencies worldwide had long received identical reports: the Kingdom of Punia was locked in a brutal civil war, with grassroots revolutionary forces waging a guerrilla campaign against the royalist government.

However, other nations had zero interest in intervening. Punia held little to no strategic military value, and its once-abundant natural resources had been alost depleted over the years. With foreign countries grappling with their own domestic instability and surging crime rates, none of the major powers had the energy to meddle. Thus, there was no foreign interference.

Standing at the docks, a young Hualan soldier could not fully mask his emotions. His face remained tense during the handover, and his eyes practically dripped with contempt as he looked at the royalist soldiers opposite him.

What kind of trash were they? Still playing the tyrant’s lapdog even now. It was one thing to sell their souls before when they needed medicine just to survive, but now that this genetic disease could be completely cured, they were still acting as the oppressor’s willing hounds.

“We are deeply grateful for the generosity of Hualan and our Hualan friends. We shall be friends forever,” the shameless royalist commander chimed, flashing a brilliant smile as he shook hands and posed for photos with the Hualan officer.

With that, the royalist convoy swept up the medicine and bustled away in a hurry.

“If only we could have distributed the medicine directly to the people of Punia,” the young soldier muttered.

“Watch your tongue,” the officer barked, cutting him off.

Just as they were preparing to depart for Hualan under the watch of the local port authorities, another bustling crowd of royalist soldiers suddenly marched up, claiming they were there to take delivery of the medicine.

“What? The medicine? Didn’t you guys just drive off with it?” the bewildered Hualan transport officer asked, staring at the newcomers.

The young soldier’s eyes went wide, his eyebrows shooting up in realization.

The newly arrived royalist commander froze, his face twisting as he glared at the local mayor. The mayor, drenched in cold sweat, shook his head in absolute panic.

The revolutionary army had disguised themselves as royalists and made off with the entire shipment! The royalists were burning with rage, yet they could not dare vent their anger on guests from a powerful empire like Hualan. Swallowing their fury, they could only pretend it was a misunderstanding.

In any case, the shipment had been successfully delivered. Whatever local drama unfolded afterward was none of Hualan’s business. Without wasting another second, the Hualan crew boarded their airship and took off.

“Shameless scoundrels,” the officer muttered with a cold, scornful snort as he looked down from the cabin window. Of course, he had realized that the first men were revolutionaries in disguise. Although they had put on a decent act, the far too tense and watchful looks in their eyes had given them away.

Yet he chose to look the other way. After all, it was another country’s internal affair, and they could not openly intervene. But what was the harm in throwing them a quiet lifeline?

Besides, the shipment was a donation to the citizens of the Kingdom of Punia. No one had specified which citizens had to receive it.

“That information broker is impossible to figure out,” the officer murmured to himself.

According to the files gathered by the Hualan intelligence agency, the revolutionary army had originally planned a devastating, suicidal assault on the capital of White Sand City. It was only because their leader, Musani, had purchased crucial intel from a mysterious information broker that the suicidal mission was aborted at the eleventh hour, preserving the vital sparks of the revolution.

In this world, a lot of people made a living selling information, both famous and obscure. Even entertainment paparazzi could be considered a low-rent version, digging up celebrity dirt to sell for a profit.

Thus, Hualan’s intelligence division could not be entirely sure if this broker was the owner of the Puzzle Intelligence Agency. Musani had not shared the broker’s identity with anyone; the rank-and-file revolutionaries only knew they had a savior.

Yet instinct told them it had to be the Puzzle Intelligence Agency.

If you called her kind, she often sold exclusive information to ruthless criminals, showing perfect professionalism by never selling the same secret twice. But if you called her evil, she had almost given away the Mingbo City earthquake warning and the Punia revolutionary intelligence for next to nothing.

Did she really slash her prices just because the information was ‘about to expire’?

She was impossible to read.

Meanwhile, the revolutionary forces who had made off with the medicine arrived safely at their base camp.

“I think the Hualan commander realized we were impostors, but he chose not to blow our cover.”

“They have always been different from those Western nations.”

“Distribute the medicine immediately,” Musani, the revolutionary leader, commanded. “Prioritize the critically ill. Saving lives is our only focus right now.”

Thanks to the intervention of the United Nations, countries around the world had once again offered their help. A permanent cure for the genetic disease had finally been developed. However, most of the donated shipments had been seized by the tyrannical royal family. They used the cure as a weapon, refusing to give it to any citizen who showed the slightest sign of resistance and leaving them to die.

On the surface, the citizens appeared submissive and fearful, but beneath the facade, a monstrous hatred was brewing.

Because of this, the revolutionary army grew stronger by the day.

As the medicine was quickly sorted and sent to various hidden outposts, a rebel soldier rushed to Musani with an envelope in hand.

“Commander, we found this tucked inside one of the medicine crates.”

Stunned, Musani opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. Written in simple Punia script was a single sentence:

We were once sheltered by the same umbrella. I wish you all the best, my friends. — Zhuang Minghui.

Zhuang Minghui was, of course, the real name of Madam Ouyang.

Interesting enough, in the Punia language, the characters for “umbrella” and “god” were almost identical, with only a single stroke separating them. Had the shipment fallen into the hands of the royalists instead of the rebels, anyone who intercepted the letter would have completely missed the hidden message. They would simply have assumed that the foreign donor had made a spelling mistake and meant to write, “God bless you.”

Musani stared at the note, her usually stern face softening with emotion as she immediately grasped the profound weight of those words.

Without that info broker’s timely tip, she would not have hesitated. She would have led her forces into that suicidal siege, ending in their annihilation. They were the pioneers, the vanguard destined to lead. Only when a path was forged would the masses dare to follow—just as a single spark is needed to ignite a prairie fire.

Had their spark been extinguished back then, how many more decades would this nation have suffered under the rule of those royalist scumbags? How many more innocent lives would have been lost?

Taking a deep breath, Musani carefully tucked the letter away and plunged right back into the grueling, yet glorious, fight for their freedom.

Now, with summer half gone, the long-awaited national conference concerning the Atavist Management Regulations had finally arrived.