Enforcer Manual
Chapter 101: Do I Look Like Cannon Fodder to You?_1

Chapter 101: Chapter 101: Do I Look Like Cannon Fodder to You?_1

In fact, upon hearing Lu Xiang mention the possibility of war coming to the Seventeenth Region, Song Lan’s inner turmoil was far beyond what he appeared to display on the surface.

What does war signify for an office worker?

It means he is very likely to lose his job, leading a displaced and vagrant life, just as depicted in war-themed movies. Even if he managed to scrape through the war, fleeing to a city where he knew no one, the latter half of his life would mostly be filled with shades of tragedy.

In a gloomy factory, earning meager wages, and toiling for over tens of hours every day - the mere thought of it set Song Lan’s scalp tingling.

According to his research since arriving in the year 2166, the scenario of having a high-paying job in a relatively relaxed manner like he currently enjoyed, was an extraordinarily rare occurrence. This era’s majority of the workforce lived in a state of extreme hardship.

So, to prevent the scenes from those movies from befalling him, Song Lan had prepared some disguises, as well as a baseball bat, just past midnight.

With Elmon’s assistance, he managed to sneak into the surveillance center of the suburban prison effortlessly.

Before setting off, he was prepared to knock out the prison guards with a whack, one by one.

Although he knew that the unconscious guards might find it difficult to understand his actions, it was genuinely for the future of the Seventeenth Region. Knocking them out with a bat was actually for their own good.

But to his surprise, the enormous surveillance room was completely unoccupied.

Not only the surveillance room, but he also observed every area in the prison through the surveillance system and failed to spot even a single prisoner guard.

Moreover, the entire prison carried an eerie atmosphere.

Felons were lying down haphazardly, their postures not resembling those of natural sleep, but more as though they had fallen unconscious due to some reason.

The scene inside the surveillance center deepened the ominous foreboding in his heart.

When he learned that Pero and his party were transporting a major offender through the Seventeenth Region, he already felt that something was off. Transporting a convict from the Seventeenth Region back to the central area was a rather long journey. If it were him accomplishing this task, he wouldn’t linger in such a border town of the Seventeenth Region but board a plane at the earliest opportunity and fly straight to the First Region on the same day.

But what did Pero and his companions do?

They escorted the major offender into the suburban prison and Pero himself even deserted the prison to tread on the unrelated turf of the Viper, playing the role of a knight in shining armor.

If there is a crime called dereliction of duty, Song Lan believed that Pero should be the first one to put himself on trial.

He sincerely suggested that Pero should lock himself up in prison to calm down and reflect upon his actions as an official responsible for escorting a major offender, considering what he has done after arriving at the Seventeenth Region.

However, setting aside the possibility that Pero has lost his mind and supposing that his actions had a reason behind them, Song Lan grew increasingly anxious the more he pondered over it.

Their actions resembled someone deliberately waiting for someone to rescue the escorted prisoner.

This forced him to question whether the person who released the prisoner’s information online under the guise of a "concerned citizen" was really a guard from the suburban prison?

In Song Lan’s perspective, escorting was already a thankless task. A trial for major offenders could be conducted anywhere. In this information era, even if one was in the "outer world", as long as the process of trial and execution was filmed and then widely propagated by posting it on the internet, it could still achieve the effect of deterring crime and boosting public morale.

Unless the aim of the trial wasn’t to uplift spirits, but to incite war.

He couldn’t fathom the reason for inciting the war, but such an act of bringing back a major offender to the Seventeenth Region and then conducting a public trial was tantamount to trampling the face of the force backing the criminal underfoot.

If the latter waged a war, regardless of how the war progressed, the Seventeenth Region would undoubtedly be the first cannon fodder.

Song Lan didn’t wish to become cannon fodder.

Therefore, he clutched the baseball bat firmly in his hands and strode out of the surveillance center’s door with a strong and fierce determination.

For the peace of the Seventeenth Region, he had decided to strike anyone who came his way from now on.

What disappointed him somewhat was that the prisoners in the prison were sleeping rather solidly, or more accurately, they all seemed to have fallen into a deep coma. And the prison officers appeared to have been sent home after the arrival of Pero and his people. Song Lan searched cell after cell and finally, when he approached the door of a nearly empty cell, he heard voices coming from inside.

"I didn’t expect to meet someone like you in the Seventeenth Region."

"So, you are the major offender they’ve mentioned, seeing is..."

Song Lan abruptly stopped his pre-constructed universal ice-breaking sentence because he quickly noticed that the prisoner’s face was completely veiled with a leather hood, making it impossible to see her appearance. The only distinguishing feature was her long silvery hair draping over the hard bed.

The moonlight scattered over her body, a sight that led to limitless contemplation.

To avoid the awkwardness of having to abruptly halt his ice-breaking sentence midway, Song Lan changed the subject and asked, "How did you get caught?"

He heard that in prison, this is a customary way for unfamiliar prisoners to greet each other.

In most prisons, the reason for conviction to a large extent determined the future status of the prisoners.

"Destroying a human experimentation lab, liberating enslaved towns, and attacking the United Government’s supply convoys that were acquired through plundering."

The worst-case scenario had indeed occurred.

Because these three offenses could be summarized as one thing - opposing the Federal Government. In this era, this is probably a hundred times more severe crime than arson and murder. Those bandits committing arson and murder indiscriminately in the "outer world" wouldn’t enjoy treatment of being escorted back to the central region for trial.

The identity of the criminal in front of him was probably much more substantial than what a criminal could be measured by.

No wonder the United Government took her so seriously.

"I’ve heard about you, you are the so-called ’concerned citizen.’ Being able to meet you before I leave is worth it."

Song Lan neither confirmed nor denied. After knowing the identity of the prisoner, the entire course of events finally became clear to him - the United Government’s special operations unit in the "outer world" had captured a Rebel Army officer, hence planning to escort her back to the central region for trial.

This had surpassed the boundary of combating crime. Instead, they wanted to suppress the rampant arrogance of the Rebel Army in recent years through this trial.

Song Lan had come across several reports about the Rebel Army when browsing the internet before; the United Government portrayed them as such atrocious thugs, causing serious harm than criminals, but the Rebel Army, with its massive influence in the "outer world", constituted by the locals there openly opposed the United Government’s force.

Of course, Song Lan had always maintained a neutral stance regarding this.

After all, even the Foster Family was represented as a symbol of righteousness in the United Government’s media propaganda.

"So, Mr. ’Concerned Citizen’, what brings you here to me?"