“Captain Xing is a very thoughtful person.” It was Su Fengzi who reacted faster than Lin Chen. His slightly mocking voice came from the corner.

Su Fengzi narrowed his eyes, as if he were judging Xing Conglian for being too whimsical, but perhaps his words came from pure admiration.

Lin Chen thought about what Xing Conglian had thought of earlier.

The problem now was that no matter how they dealt with this situation, they would have to pay a corresponding price, whether it be for public safety or the health of the students. These were all prices that had to be paid, but they weren’t the people qualified to do this exchange.

It was like solving a plane geometry problem. No matter how they solved it, those auxiliary lines had to be added.

“Now we seem to have reached a dead end?” Lin Chen shook his head as he asked.

“What do you think?” Xing Conglian lit his cigarette.

Looking at his silent but firm eyes, Lin Chen suddenly felt relaxed.

“The road to life always comes from the path of death.”

He turned around and leaned on the counter and asked Xing Conglian, “In our minds, what is the most ideal way to solve the crisis?”

“Naturally, I hope they come forward to me and say, ‘Uncle Policeman, I was wrong’, and then put down the butcher’s knife and become a Buddha.” Xing Conglian exhaled a puff of smoke.

“I can try,” Lin Chen replied.

Xing Conglian was shocked. He knew very well that his request just now was an almost impossible task. After all, it wasn’t easy to reverse the will of a group of lunatics in such a short period of time.

But Lin Chen thought about it seriously and gave an equally serious response. He would try.

Truly, he was arrogant.

“Shit, anti-brainwashing?” Comrade Wang Chao suddenly became excited.

“The theoretical basis is this. The members of the group have lost their individual personalities and replaced their individual will with the collective will. This is a state of collective unconsciousness that lacks cognitive ability.. Since it’s an unconscious state, there’s one thing that becomes useful.”

“What is it?”

“Suggestion.”

“Eh, like collective hypnosis? Although that sounds very powerful, is it really feasible?” Even the little comrade Wang Chao was skeptical.

“It’s not that exaggerated.” Lin Chen petted the teenager’s soft hair and said lightly, “If you want them to calm down, warnings, threats, and rational persuasion will have no effect. They are crazy and paranoid. It’s the mastermind that made them what they are now. So, if the mastermind can brainwash them, why can’t we do the same?”

“Although I don’t understand what you’re saying, I think it makes sense!”

“How do we do it?” Before Wang Chao’s voice fell, Xing Conglian spoke up decisively.

“It needs to be done step by step. First, what we have to deal with is a group of avengers full of hatred. Your goal is to hope that they appear in front of you, not in front of those innocent students. Then the only way is to.. pull hatred.”

“Pulling hatred?”

“It’s like playing a game. If your ally cut the boss and does 10 damage and I cut the boss and does 100, the boss hatred for me will be higher, right?” Wang Chao said.

“Yes, you can think of that group as a pack of wolves. How can you make wolves not attack a weak flock but instead attack the target we set for them?”

“You hurt them,” Xing Conglian replied.

Lin Chen nodded.

But before he could continue, Wang Chao interjected, “Isn’t this just going in circles? We don’t know how many there are, who they are, where they are, or how we can hurt them.”

“Not knowing who they are doesn’t prevent us from having some exchange with them.” Lin Chen raised his head and looked at the camera, seeing red dots flashing in the opposite shop. “Guess how many people are watching behind that camera?”

“A’Chen, your brain is just as big as the Captain’s! You want to use the surveillance camera to brainwash them, but will there be that many people watching?”

“It doesn’t matter how many people are watching. The important thing is that someone is watching.” Lin Chen paused, then continued, “There are two inferences. First, if there are 100 people in that group, it’s impossible for all of them to come here every day to read the message board, so we assume that they have their own internal means of transmitting information. Second, look at the shop. Even though they evacuated the space, the entire shop is still tidy, without a single trace of clutter. Assuming that this shop is very important to the group members, even if it’s not a holy land in their minds, it’s still an emotional and spiritual source, so if something bad happens to this store, do you think they won’t feel uncomfortable?”

“How do we anger them?” Wang Chao asked expectantly, as if he were ready to handle the task by himself.

“Since they have lost their humanity, it has devolved into animalistic behavior. For any social animal, the most uncomfortable thing is that your own territory is occupied and trampled on by others..” Lin Chen tilted his head. There was even a slight smile at the corner of his mouth. “Imagine if someone approaches your room and puts your most beloved handicraft on the floor and tramples it.”

“I’ll fuck him up!”

“Then what if that person who crushed your favorite handicraft is someone you truly hate?”

“Captain, if BlackJack did this, can you lend me some money?” Wang Chao asked as he turned his head to face Xing Conglian.

“What do you want to do?”

“Hire some mercenaries to kill him!” the teenager replied angrily.

Xing Conglian laughed dumbfoundedly and said, “Sure.”

Lin Chen was left momentarily speechless but quickly brought the topic back. “So, if you agree to this plan, we’ll need to find a way to exploit their hatred.” After speaking, he turned to look at the captain of the criminal division and said, “The police obviously can’t.”

Xing Conglian raised his hands and said, “I know, but you’re acting with the police, so you can’t do it either.”

“Of course I can’t. My personal strength is limited.” Lin Chen looked around the room. “So we still need a group, one they despise vehemently. Although it may be too biased to say this, just imagine, if you were a member of that group, what kind of person would you hate the most?”

“People who are better than me?” Xing Conglian said.

“Prettier than me?” Wang Chao said.

“Smarter than me?” Professor Ye said.

“Not only better, prettier, and smarter, but they are also extremely intelligent. In short, they are those who are favored and could offset a hundred times the efforts of ordinary people,” Su Fengzi concluded with a smile.

“Shit, are we going to drag all the?school flowers and grass* in University City into the water?” Wang Chao rubbed his palms together excitedly. “That seems very interesting.”

*Refers to the most beautiful/handsome girl/boy that’s recognize by everyone in school (aka the school hunk/beauty).

Lin Chen’s gaze fell on Xing Conglian.

The captain of the criminal division was still thinking. Suddenly, Lin Chen saw him raise his head and asked, “Is it too late?”

“I’m a little nervous, mainly because the layout takes time..”

He wanted to continue to elaborate, but Xing Conglian stopped him with his sharp eyes.

“Let’s go,” was all that the captain of the criminal division said.

Xing Conglian was a simple person.

Lin Chen realized the meaning behind his simple response. It roughly meant,?“I decided we’re doing it, and I’ll take full responsibility. You just need to do it.”

Lin Chen didn’t say anything else. He nodded at Xing Conglian and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was now almost close to midnight. Time was more constrained than he thought.

His tone also became solemn. “Professor Ye, I will have to trouble you.”

—-

Ye Yan was a person who was afraid of trouble.

After all, most people who engaged in mathematics liked to nest in their own territory and think about problems that they were interested in.

And these questions of interest obviously didn’t include how to be a good actor.

He looked at the row of red brushes and paint cans in front of him, extremely depressed.

“Does it really have to be me?” He scratched his head irritably, restraining his desire to kick over the paint bucket in front of him.

“Yes. Time is tight. It doesn’t allow you to write down the calculation process and let us find students to recite it,” Lin Chen explained.

Ye Yan always thought he was crazy, but he didn’t expect anyone to be crazier than him.

Just a few minutes ago, the police sent two buckets of red paint and a row of brushes. His task was to use these props to paint the process of unlocking their coded language with blood red characters all over the coffee shop, leaving a naked provocation at the end.

How heartless could someone be to come up with such an idea?

“Don’t worry, you can turn your back to the camera the entire time so they can’t see your face.”

“Then why should I wear his clothes!” Ye Yan tugged at the smoky gray suit that didn’t really fit him and made him uncomfortable all over.”

“Because.. of all the people present, only my clothes looked the most expensive.” The owner of the suit reached out his hand and gently tidied up the hem of his shirt for him.

“You’re not allowed to get my clothes dirty!” Ye Yan looked at Su Fengzi wearing his outfit and became even angrier. Why did the same clothes look like they were made for dogs on Su Fengzi’s body?

“Okay,” Su Fengzi said as he tied the tie for him. “Please pay attention to safety.”

It was rare for Ye Yan to hear Su Fengzi speak so solemnly that he suddenly felt inexplicably moved.

“Don’t get my clothes dirty. It’s really expensive,” Su Fengzi added.

The empty coffee shop stood quietly in the corner of the underground world.

A hammer had already been prepared. Wang Chao had calculated the range of the surveillance on the camera in advance, so everyone stood in its blind spot.

Ye Yan was barefoot. He tugged at his tie, lifted the hammer, and took a step forward. He raised the hammer high and swung with all his strength.

A loud crash sounded, and glass exploded as the hammer flew into the store.

Ye Yan stepped on the glass ballast all over the floor and walked into the dark coffee shop.

The floor was the color of pure wood, but at this moment it was stained with broken pieces of glass. The man who walked into the store threw down the paint bucket daintily, causing a few drops of bright red paint to spatter out and fall onto the floor like blood.

Like all crazy character settings, once standing in the field in which he was confident, Ye Yan didn’t need any acting skills to portray the contempt mortals had for geniuses.

With one hand in his pocket and the other holding a paint brush, he tilted his head slightly and began to write casually and neatly on the walls as if there were rousing music playing. Ye Yan’s strokes were moving faster and faster.

The lights were dim, and his back looked rebellious and free.

It was like a god writing runes or a painter splashing ink indiscriminately.

Numbers one by one formed formulas, and they grew and spread on the snow-white walls at an alarming rate. More and more red paint dripped slowly along the walls, sprawling in tiny lines that looked like blood-red vines.

Looking at the blood-red handwriting spreading in the shop, Xing Conglian said, “A normal person like me would want to rush in and beat him up.”

“Shit, I’m getting goosebumps,” Wang Chao said as he rubbed his arms.

“This isn’t enough.” Lin Chen stood with his hands in the air and spoke quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s still like I said. The power of an individual is always limited. It’s impossible for a group to turn their spreadhead because of an individual’s resistance. The only thing that can attract a group is another group.”

“We want them to think that Professor Ye isn’t alone and that there are others behind him?”

“Yes, we want them to think that behind Professor Ye stand those whom they hate to the point of madness, those who can humiliate them and crush them without any effort and are completely out of their reach. We want to think that the people provoking them are those that are blessed by the heavens.”

“But how do we do that?”

“The group only accepts suggestions, so we can make up stories,” Lin Chen said, tilting his head slightly and looking at Su Fengzi.