novelraw Chapter 171: Shifting the Conflict
Chapter 171: Shifting the Conflict
Inside the dim scrap yard.
The air carried a heavy, repressive weight.
Su Zhan sat in a chair, five members of the Purple Lightning Gang kneeling before him.
Su Zhan said nothing; he simply stared at them in silence.
One minute passed.
Sweat the size of beans broke out on Dao Ge’s forehead.
He opened his mouth, then slammed it shut again.
Two minutes passed.
The green-haired lackey began to retch.
He clamped his mouth shut, too afraid to make a sound.Tears and snot smeared his face.
Three minutes…
“B-big brother…”
The Aberrant finally collapsed emotionally, his body nailed to the wall trembling violently. “Ask whatever you want… we’ll tell you everything! We know nothing, we hide nothing!”
Once he begged, the others immediately followed suit.
“Yes, yes!”
Dao Ge started kowtowing like a pestle pounding rice: “It was that monster forcing us to do it! We were just errand runners!”
The girl in the leather jacket’s makeup was ruined from crying: “I can take you to the warehouse! All the goods are yours!”
The others began begging and groveling as well.
The whole scene instantly turned noisy.
Su Zhan smiled inwardly.
He didn’t speak because he wanted precisely this effect.
There’s a logic to negotiations.
You have to seize the initiative.
Make the other side speak first, make them reveal their demands—then you firmly hold the upper hand.
Although he had already seized the initiative by force, this method made that dominance even more secure.
Su Zhan simply kept watching them; his gaze grew colder.
The five kneeling before him shook like sieved grain.
“B-big brother!”
Dao Ge broke down first, his forehead slamming heavily against the ground: “I was wrong! I really know I was wrong!”
The leather-jacket girl went limp on the ground; her carefully styled purple hair stuck to her pale face: “Spare me! I’ll never do it again!”
She trembled as she reached for Su Zhan’s pant leg.
But when she touched his cold gaze, she recoiled as if electrocuted.
The green-haired lackey had gone insane with fear, banging his head constantly: “Grandpa! You’re my real grandpa! I beg you, don’t kill me! Spare me! Just let me go like I’m nothing!”
The two other lackeys babbled incoherently:
“We were forced!”
“That monster told us to do it!”
“Please just let us go like we’re nothing!”
The Aberrant nailed to the wall writhed frantically: “Master! Please, master, judge me with mercy! I didn’t see clearly! Ask me whatever you want, I’ll say it all! Please give me a way to live!”
One pleading voice after another rose up.
Su Zhan remained silent.
That silence was like an invisible mountain, pressing down until their breaths nearly stopped.
“We really know we’re wrong!”
“We’ll reform from now on!”
“You tell us to go east and we won’t go west!”
Their pleas grew more pitiful.
Dao Ge began slapping his own face, the smacks loud in the quiet.
When Su Zhan judged the pressure was sufficient, he cleared his throat twice.
The room fell silent at once.
Everyone stopped talking and froze with their hands mid-motion.
Six pairs of frightened eyes turned to Su Zhan.
They all waited for his answer.
Life or death hung on this man in the chair’s single thought.
Su Zhan finally spoke, his voice calm: “Dao Ge, right? I’m curious—why would you obey an Aberrant? Aren’t you afraid it’ll eat you all one day? Or is this person a relative of yours?”
He had never seen this kind of situation outside.
Who would humans find other humans to send to die for an Aberrant?
Elsewhere, he had only seen humans protect Aberrants out of family ties.
Never this.
This was just plain human treachery—serving an Aberrant.
And even if the other party threatened them, normally they still wouldn’t do this.
A normal person would first report it to the authorities.
After all, doing tasks for that side might someday turn you into their meal.
That’s what people usually think.
Dao Ge shuddered, his forehead slamming hard on the ground: “Don’t—don’t call me Dao Ge! In front of you, I don’t deserve that title! Call me Little Dao, or Daozai!”
He trembled as he raised his head: “He’s not our relative… Big brother, you don’t know—here in Black City… the relationship between Aberrants and humans is different from outside…”
Su Zhan raised an eyebrow, indicating he should continue.
“The City Lord, he’s the boss of Black City. His rule is to treat everyone equally.”
Dao Ge swallowed. “He says that in this city, whether you’re human or Aberrant, whether you’re yellow-skinned or white-skinned, everyone is treated equally. This is the City of Freedom.”
The Aberrant on the wall quickly chimed in: “That’s right! The City Lord said Black City is the City of Freedom—there’s no racial distinction!”
Su Zhan snorted coldly: “And in reality?”
Words can be said; believing them is foolish.
Dao Ge nodded vigorously: “Well, it’s not quite as nice as it sounds, but compared to outside—where people see an Aberrant and open fire—Black City is tolerant.
At least here, we can do business with Aberrants.”
“Business?”
Su Zhan looked at Dao Ge.
“Y-yes…”
Dao Ge was sweating like rain: “Qin Ge can fight; he helps us grab territory; we have connections and can get him… food—everyone benefits…”
The leather-jacket girl cut in: “In Black City, human and Aberrant fights happen all the time! Last week the Iron Snake Gang slaughtered two Aberrants who weren’t careful!”
Su Zhan stared at Dao Ge and asked: “Aren’t you afraid he’ll turn on you and eat you?”
Black City—the City of Freedom.
What a so-called City of Freedom.
“Big brother… honestly, in Black City, I feel humans and Aberrants are equally dangerous.”
Dao Ge gave a smile worse than crying: “An Aberrant might eat me, sure, but so might a human. It’s just a different method. Here, you might be stabbed in the back by another human at any time.
There are lots of ways.
For example, the Iron Snake Gang’s boss—last week he fed one of his lackeys to his big dog.”
Qin Ge on the wall hurriedly added: “Exactly! I keep my word at least! Those human gangs flip faster than turning pages!”
Su Zhan considered this.
Seen this way, Black City’s logic made sense.
Why are human-Aberrant conflicts irreconcilable elsewhere?
Because outside is relatively stable.
Most human safety threats come from Aberrants.
And Aberrants must kill at least one human a month.
That’s why the conflict can’t be resolved.
But Black City is different.
From Dao Ge’s words, human infighting happened daily here.
Human threats were no longer only from Aberrants; it was fifty-fifty between humans and Aberrants—or humans might even pose a greater threat to each other.
That reduced the human-Aberrant contradiction.
Su Zhan’s eyes brightened as he suddenly understood.
For Aberrants, this place was a top-tier hunting ground!
Or rather, a prime survival haven.
Here, humans didn’t universally hate Aberrants the way they did outside. Even if some hostility existed, it was far weaker than elsewhere.
Logically, such an environment should attract a continuous influx of Aberrants across Daxia.
If Aberrants streamed in, Black City’s “ecological balance” would break and humans would re-unite to oppose Aberrants.
But reality didn’t show that.
Therefore, Black City’s higher-ups must be deliberately preventing that from happening.
Su Zhan couldn’t help but applaud the Black City elite in his mind.
What a City of Freedom.
They used one tactic to alter the human-Aberrant relationship.
That tactic was—shifting the conflict.
They shifted the human-versus-Aberrant contradiction into a human-Aberrant versus human-Aberrant contradiction.
They treated all groups as one whole.
Then they lifted restrictions.
Let that whole roast itself from the inside—people killing and threatening each other.
As a result,
human-versus-Aberrant conflict almost disappeared.
Shifting the conflict—very clever.
In his previous life, Su Zhan had seen some examples of shifted conflicts.
For instance, when internal conflicts in a certain country grew too intense, the leaders would start a war and redirect internal tension outward.
And for other examples… never mind, he didn’t dare say more.