“Suspend you? Why?”
Xu Qiang was stunned for a moment, then seemed to think of something and forced a smile as he said: “You don’t need to worry about me. There’s actually not much pressure. How could personnel appointments and dismissals be swayed by public opinion?”
“I’m not worried that you can’t hold up.”
Lu Bai stood up and walked to the window, glancing at the yellow tape pulled up below the inpatient department.
He said in an almost matter-of-fact tone: “Now not only am I not worried that the higher-ups will apply pressure, I even suspect that even if you wanted to dismiss me, they wouldn’t approve it.”
Xu Qiang on the other end of the phone immediately fell silent. Spoken so clearly, he naturally wouldn’t fail to understand Lu Bai’s meaning.
In short, this wave of momentum had already put the Special Affairs Bureau on the opposite side of the civilians.
The arguments on the internet were about stance, emotion, and volume, not the truth.
After all, truth wasn’t important in the public opinion field.
As long as everyone on the internet was saying so.
Even if it wasn’t, it was.
As time passed, if Lu Bai wasn’t fired, the civilians’ resentment toward Lu Bai and even the Special Affairs Bureau would only grow day by day.
By then, if some even fiercer material was added, paired with hot-blooded, frenzied civilians, who knew what would happen.
“So firing me first, our reaction is a bit slow.”
Lu Bai calmly added: “I hope my guess is wrong.”
Standing up now to clarify or apologize was already too late.
At first, he thought the mayor creating public opinion was just to force the Special Affairs Bureau to fire him under pressure.
Now it seemed he had been a bit careless.
He truly hadn’t expected the parasitic organism to use this kind of tactic; he hadn’t considered this aspect at all.
Of course, more likely, this bureau itself involved death fighters.
……
Lu Bai hung up the phone.
He conveniently pulled the drawstring, opening the blinds to maximum to clearly see the view outside the window.
Yao Yi watched him finish the call and eagerly asked: “Brother Lu, what did Bureau Chief Xu say?”
“Didn’t you hear? I told him to fire me first.”
Lu Bai slightly turned his body, his tone still as gentle as ever.
This was probably a benefit of this body—at least he wouldn’t get irritable emotions from anything, allowing him to stay calm at all times.
“Why? Others might not know, but doesn’t Bureau Chief Xu know? No one in the entire Special Affairs Bureau has taken down more parasitic organisms than you. Why fire you?”
Yao Yi didn’t understand the situation and thought Xu Qiang had said on the phone that he couldn’t withstand the pressure, leading to Lu Bai’s decision.
Lu Bai said jokingly: “I just want to resign, and the higher-ups might not even approve it.”
Yao Yi: “Ah?”
At that moment.
Bang~ Bang~ Bang~
The house door was knocked on, and Tong Shujuan pushed the door open carrying a stack of thermoses.
She stared at Yao Yi playing on his mobile phone on the hospital bed and shouted discontentedly: “The hospital room was transferred to the seventh floor and you didn’t even tell me? Do you still want to eat lunch?”
“Are you teaching me how to do things?”
Yao Yi said with a straight face.
Who knew that upon hearing this, Tong Shujuan’s eyes immediately widened.
Yao Yi instantly cowered: “Cough, well, wasn’t I busy speaking up for Brother Lu online?”
Tong Shujuan, due to working at the Special Affairs Bureau, naturally knew about this long ago.
She instantly lost the mood to tease and placed the thermoses she was carrying on the small tray table, looking at Lu Bai standing by the window with his back to everyone.
“Team Leader Lu, with things as they are, let’s eat first.”
……After eating and drinking their fill.
Tong Shujuan packed the bowls and chopsticks into the thermos, and before leaving, saw Lu Bai walk back to the window and stand there. Thinking he was feeling down, she immediately felt compassion and softly comforted him.
“Team Leader Lu, don’t take this to heart too much. We all know what kind of person you are. Anyway, the internet has no memory. Worst case, just go offline for a few days.”
Lu Bai gave her an innocent smile, then turned his head back.
Seeing this, Tong Shujuan sighed silently, not wanting to say more. She said goodbye to Yao Yi and left alone carrying the thermos.
……
The afternoon passed quickly.
Anyway, with Yao Yi watching, Lu Bai didn’t need to keep paying attention to the public opinion on the internet and shifted all his attention to the system panel floating in front of his retina.
【00:00:05】
……
【00:00:02】
【00:00:01】
As the countdown ticked down second by second toward zero.
【Ding!】
【Successfully acquired current deathmatch arena node.】
【Double points reward loaded.】
【Current points: 32, current rank 1/187】
Lu Bai exhaled a breath of turbid air and sat back down on the bench.
From this moment on, the “node” locations obtained by all death fighters would display as Lu Bai’s position.
If nothing unexpected, quite a few death fighters should start taking action.
He was actually quite happy to see this situation—no need to specially search; the death fighters would come to him proactively.
Seeing Lu Bai finally sit down, Yao Yi thought he had figured it out and couldn’t help saying: “Brother Lu, how about we clarify it online?”
Mainly because his injury wasn’t healed yet, he couldn’t play games that required two hands and could only browse news to pass the time.
So Yao Yi had personally witnessed the entire process of public opinion intensifying, and now it looked like it was only getting worse.
“How to clarify?”
Lu Bai stretched lazily and said with a smile: “Say you think your team leader does a better job than me? Then you come up and we’ll try?”
“Uh, but are we just doing nothing?”
Yao Yi was a bit helpless. He had been explaining for Lu Bai, but with little influence, he couldn’t stir up any waves.
As the two were chatting, a mobile phone ringtone suddenly rang.
Lu Bai took out his mobile phone and pressed the answer button.
“You might have guessed right.”
The first words from Xu Qiang carried an unconcealable gloom.
“Oh?”
“Just like you guessed, the suspension was rejected by the higher-ups.”
Xu Qiang didn’t know whether to cry or laugh: “The reason they gave was that public opinion shouldn’t interfere with government decision making.”
Having anticipated this result, Lu Bai wasn’t surprised.
He nodded thoughtfully: “Then help me write a resignation letter now, and conveniently send the content of the resignation letter out in the name of the Special Affairs Bureau.”
After saying that, he hung up the phone.
The worst case was that even this resignation letter couldn’t be sent out.
He naturally wouldn’t pin all his hopes on this.
Anyway, he had already acquired the “node.” He didn’t need to stay in the hospital anymore, at least not in a place where too many people knew.
Seeing Lu Bai stand up and walk toward the hospital room door, Yao Yi blurted out: “What’s up? Where are you going?”
Lu Bai waved his hand and casually explained.
“Going out to avoid the spotlight. Contact me by phone if anything comes up.”