“The buildings covered in Sime Mold, the densely packed sub-entities crowding in massive waves, and the still-active Nurseries... everything you’re seeing now is the current state of Clearspring City’s eastern district.”

“The Tide may be over, but no one knows how it ended, until our reporters ventured deep into the eastern district and uncovered the shocking truth!”

The entire paper was only three pages long. Chu Guang flipped through it quickly and found that all three pages were focused on the eastern outskirts of Clearspring City.

The first section revealed the whereabouts of the Slime Mold sub-entities. Large numbers of them had not been destroyed, but relocated to the eastern suburbs.

That much was accurate.

After this year’s Tide ended, the New Alliance had indeed transferred all sub-entities to the eastern district rather than selling them to traveling merchants as in previous years.

Chu Guang remembered very clearly, he had given that order himself.

However, by the second section, the tone began to twist.

This part subtly turned its accusations toward the New Alliance authorities, using vague evidence and quotes from so-called informed sources to fabricate a story that the New Alliance had secretly made a deal with the Hive, using unknown methods to make the sub-entities serve the New Alliance’s interests.

In the third section, the focus shifted again, to the survivors of Clearspring City’s eastern district.

Several supposed survivors claimed in interviews that New Alliance troops had driven them from their homes and threatened to feed them to the Sime Mold if they refused to leave.

In truth, aside from a few reclusive loners, most of Clearspring’s survivors had already migrated to Dawn City or Boulder Town after the Bonechewer Clan incident.

Wandering hermits around Clearspring City were extremely rare now, let alone in the eastern district, which was crawling with mutants.

Those survivors were almost certainly not survivors at all, more likely marauders hiding in the ruins, or mercenaries hired for the story.

At the end of the report, the writer left a dramatic closing line.

[The bomb has not been defused, it’s merely been moved from one box to another. It’s right beside us, ready to explode at any moment, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow. A victory bought by compromise is no victory at all. Unless we wipe out every trace of the Sime Mold, this war will never end...]

Finishing the article, Chu Guang flipped back to the front page and glanced at the header.

Just as he suspected, this was the first issue of Clearspring Daily.

It was as if the entire newspaper had been created solely to publish the exclusive. The paper clearly aimed to use this scandal to break into the market.

Watching Chu Guang’s expression, Charlie spoke with a grave tone, “This morning, I found this newspaper being sold at a kiosk near the Merchants’ Guild. I asked the vendor where he’d gotten it, and he scratched his head and said he didn’t remember ever stocking it.”

He paused, then continued, “I sent staff to check the other kiosks around Dawn City. Over 80% of them were selling this mysterious Clearspring Daily. Yet none of the vendors could explain where it came from, it’s as if the papers just appeared on their stalls overnight.”

Chu Guang smiled faintly. “That’s not so strange. Except for Survivor’s Daily, which has its own distribution network, most of Dawn City’s kiosks have direct contracts with printing houses. The printers handle daily circulation, based on the previous day’s sales, and ship everything out at dawn. Someone probably slipped a batch of these papers onto a delivery truck before it left the print yard. Naturally, the papers got spread across all the kiosks.”

With that kind of distribution model, of course the vendors wouldn’t know what they were selling.

Frankly, aside from famous titles like Survivor’s Daily or serialized fiction publications, most of them didn’t even know how many different papers sat on their own racks.

This flimsy three-page paper was obviously a new arrival, popping up all over the city like mold in a damp corner.

Chu Guang didn’t even need to think hard to guess their motive.

They were trying to exploit public fear to undermine the New Alliance’s Ecological Protection Zone.

As for deeper motives, there could be plenty.

He was actually curious what sort of payoff justified such a costly, risky stunt that might provoke the New Alliance.

Charlie, seeing the faint smile on his face, couldn’t figure out why the respected Administrator wasn’t taking the matter seriously.

Worried that Chu Guang didn’t grasp the gravity of the situation, Charlie grew anxious and said solemnly, “Sir, you might not realize how serious this is. Our enemies are trying to use the media to fracture our unity. And with the festival coming up, if anything happens now, it won’t just hurt your prestige, it’ll shake the New Alliance’s regional influence as a whole!”

He hesitated, then added firmly, “We must act immediately! Before the rumor spreads, we should recall every copy of that paper from circulation!”

Chu Guang asked casually, “And after the recall?”

Charlie blinked, then quickly improvised, “We should tighten publication review standards, prevent anything like this from happening again, and track down whoever’s behind it, especially whoever published this Clearspring Daily...”

Chu Guang shook his head with a small laugh.

Closing the paper, he handed it back to Charlie. “I understand your point. The person behind this is clever, but their methods aren’t.”

“They’ve underestimated the unity of our society, and the faith our citizens have in us after this victory. They even made multiple factual mistakes in their interviews. That sort of trick might work back in old Boulder Town, but here, it’ll only make them look like fools.”

“Our supporters aren’t so easily fooled. What we need to do now is hold steady, don’t panic over such a clumsy stunt. If we rush to recall the papers, as you suggest, it’ll only make our own supporters uneasy. Whoever’s hiding in the shadows will be delighted.”

At this point, Chu Guang couldn’t help but grumble inwardly about Survivor’s Daily. Those folks were usually sharp, especially after stealing the spotlight during the Boulder Town scandal last year.

Yet this time, they had gone completely blind. The eastern district of Clearspring City had become a massive story, and they hadn’t printed a single word about it!

He assumed the article was still in the works, but two days had passed, and there was nothing. Instead, some unknown clown had beaten them to the punch.

As a semi-official paper, Survivor’s Daily should have addressed public concerns promptly with factual reporting. What else were they good for otherwise, decoration?

Chu Guang didn’t believe for a second that the people of the New Alliance only cared about festival food.

They must be wondering about the new ecological zone, but simply trusted that he would handle it.

If anyone deserved blame for letting that trust hang unanswered, it was Survivor’s Daily.

He made a note to have a talk with the chief editor soon, see what on earth they’d been thinking.

Of course, that mysterious Clearspring Daily couldn’t be ignored either.

Turning to Lu Bei, Chu Guang gave instructions. “The photos must’ve been taken yesterday. Go to the stationed units and ask who was near the eastern district at the time and what their identities were. Just find out the facts for now, don’t do anything yet.”

It was inevitable that the ecological zone would attract attention from other survivor factions, perhaps even scouts from the Army slipping into Dawn City.

Those types were cautious, though. They preferred to watch from the shadows rather than risk exposure.

Chu Guang wanted to know which idiot had decided to break cover this time. The matter needed to be investigated thoroughly.

Lu Bei straightened to attention and saluted crisply. “Yes, sir!”

...

Compared to the cooperation agreement with the Academy, a fabricated newspaper story was a trivial nuisance.

Despite Charlie’s panic, Chu Guang honestly didn’t take it too seriously.

Simply put, he didn’t believe anyone would actually buy it.

Anyone who’d lived in Dawn City knew what the eastern district of Clearspring City was really like.

Aside from the players, nobody in their right mind wanted to go there.

“Survivors forced to abandon their homes...”

That sounded like utter nonsense.

After giving Lu Bei his instructions, Chu Guang returned to the Shelter to discuss with Yin Fang the plans for establishing the special zone in the Wandering Swamp and the proposed academic exchange with the Academy.

But what Chu Guang didn’t know was that, even as Lu Bei carried his orders to the eastern district of Clearspring City, that same fabricated news article had already landed on the desk of the Enterprise’s embassy within the New Alliance.

Reading the paper’s explosive headline, Yi Chuan couldn’t help widening his eyes, stunned for several long seconds before he found his voice again. “... The Hive was relocated to the eastern district of Clearspring City by the New Alliance Administrator and is now being kept in captivity, its sub-entities controlled by some evil power for his own use?”

His mouth twitched. Finishing the paragraph, he finally lost his composure, shaking his head as he tossed the ridiculous rag onto the desk.

“What kind of crap is this supposed to be?!”

Captive Hive?

He hadn’t even known their partners were capable of something like that! 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Ever since the Tide began, the Enterprise had been closely monitoring the New Alliance’s progress, not only because of the New Alliance’s strategic importance to the Enterprise’s plans, but because the mutant Sime Mold itself was one of the greatest threats in the entire wasteland.

Now that the New Alliance had resolved a crisis that even the Post-War Reconstruction Committee had failed to solve, the Enterprise’s entire Highest Council had started to view them with new respect.

However, questions remained.

How had the New Alliance solved the Tide crisis? How had they destroyed the central Hive? And how could they be sure it wouldn’t simply regenerate as before?

The Highest Council wanted answers, and intended to obtain them through diplomatic channels.

In fact, several of the more radical members had proposed a bold idea, to outsource the Mother Nest cleanup operation in the Among Cloud Province entirely to the New Alliance.

To provide them with more intelligence, Yi Chuan, as the Enterprise’s representative to the New Alliance, had instructed his secretary to go out and buy every newspaper covering Clearspring City’s eastern district.

The man had been gone half a day and returned with trash.

Pressing his fingers against his temple, Yi Chuan sighed and looked up at the secretary standing beside his desk. “I asked you to bring back newspapers reporting on the eastern district. Why did you bring me this garbage?”

The secretary looked awkward.

He too had found the paper’s content ridiculous, its headlines sensational, its writing exaggerated, but still tried to defend himself with a nervous cough. “This was the only paper we could find reporting on the eastern district or the Hive. Every other publication that mentioned the Tide or the Hive just re-quoted Survivor’s Daily.”

Yi Chuan blinked. “And Survivor’s Daily itself?”

The secretary’s expression turned complicated.

“The latest issue’s front page is all about the upcoming festival. No mention of the battle’s details, nor the Ecological Protection Zone in the east. It looks like information on the subject has been deliberately suppressed. I suspect the New Alliance pressured Survivor’s Daily to downplay those stories, perhaps for confidentiality reasons.”

Confidentiality?

Yi Chuan’s brow furrowed deeper.

What was there to keep secret?

If the New Alliance truly possessed a method to neutralize Mutant Sime Mold, every surviving faction in the wasteland would flock to learn from them. Even the Army might swallow its pride and bow its head, because that was nothing less than an issue concerning the future of humanity itself.

Shouldn’t that kind of discovery be something to announce to the world?

The secretary’s tone turned tentative. “Isn’t it possible... that what this article describes is actually true, just not so exaggerated? That this paper might have been deliberately released by the New Alliance itself?”

This time, Yi Chuan didn’t immediately reject the idea.

He tapped his finger lightly on the desk, thought for a moment, and asked, “Your reasoning?”

The secretary explained methodically, “The entire eastern district of Clearspring City is under New Alliance military lockdown. Any survivor approaching is immediately expelled. There’s no way ordinary people could take such clear photos... or smuggle them out.”

Yi Chuan nodded slowly. It made sense.

He hadn’t personally been to the eastern district, but the embassy had received the military restriction notice.

Still, that was only a matter of feasibility.

“What about motive?” he asked. “What would they gain from doing this?”

The secretary answered succinctly: “Desensitization.”

Yi Chuan blinked. “Desensitization?”

The secretary nodded. “When dealing with sensitive issues, one tactic is to first leak an unbelievable story, something so outrageous that everyone’s initial reaction is shock or disbelief. Then later, when you clarify that the truth isn’t that extreme, people are more willing to accept it.”

A glint of insight flashed in Yi Chuan’s eyes. “Like saying you’re going to tear the roof off the house before you merely open a window?”

“Exactly,” the secretary said. “I suspect they’ve developed some kind of technology capable of controlling the Hive. And it’s definitely not just mind control, our own tests proved that psychic methods don’t work on Mutant Slime Mold.”

Seeing Yi Chuan’s expression grow more serious, the secretary added,“Also, the fact that the New Alliance is soft-launching the story suggests they’re preparing for an official announcement. Otherwise, releasing this smokescreen would serve no purpose.”

“So I believe they’re using this opportunity to signal a willingness to cooperate.”

He hesitated, then added, “I also heard that an Academy representative was seen near the New Alliance Tower today, the B-class researcher who’s been watching them from the sidelines.”

At that, Yi Chuan abruptly pushed back his chair and slapped his hand onto the very newspaper he had thrown to the side earlier. “Send an official request for a diplomatic meeting. I want to discuss this matter face-to-face with the administrator himself.”

The secretary nodded at once. “Right away, sir!”