Chapter 472: Live Messenger

The crisis was continuing to brew, and as stock prices continued to plummet, the widespread panic was only growing more and more severe.

Promotion and confidence were two key elements required to maintain stock prices, and if both of those elements were lost, then the stock prices would inevitably plummet, and that was exactly what was happening here.

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Many of the giants in the finance sector were already rubbing their hands together with glee. This was a massive opportunity, and if they could capitalize on it, then they would secure many years' worth or profits in a very short time.

Just the profits that had been generated in these first few days alone had been enough to increase the wealth of many people by severalfold, and they were celebrating jubilantly while eagerly waiting to see what Adam was going to do next.

However, Adam wasn't participating in the celebrations. Instead, he was still busy carrying out his duties in the election center and the special psychic police station.

"You should take some time to relax from time to time. Constantly being in a state of high tension is not conducive to achieving your ultimate objective. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that a short-term stock market crisis alone won't be enough to bring down a corporation as powerful as the Gaia Organization."

This was a piece of advice from Cowboy, and Adam thanked him for his concern.

The Gaia Organization was an unfathomably powerful monolith that provided platforms and servers to over half of all of the software companies in the world, including the countless virtual businesses in the Metaverse.

Even Cowboy's company was reliant on the Gaia Organization for its operation, and it was no exaggeration to say that the Gaia Organization had become a global business empire.

For such a massively important entity, its stock price was no longer an indication of its true value. Its intangible assets, such as the Gaia Tax that it charged all of the companies using its services, the banking and loan services that it provided, and the top-tier digital safety and data access technologies that it possessed were all things that were impossible to fully account for in its stock price.

Just like how air and water were necessities for survival, the services of the Gaia Organization were necessities for people of the digital age, and they could still live just fine even if all of the money that they had invested into the Gaia Organization's stocks evaporated entirely.

In order to bring down the Gaia Organization, Adam would have to force them to pay for their past crimes and return the power to the people. Adam required a stronger weapon and more convincing evidence to accomplish this, something that would directly sway everyone's confidence.

However, this was an extremely difficult endeavor, and even with so much support from the likes of the pawn shop and the northern congress, he was unable to find a suitable incision point.

Adam was confident that he was definitely going to be able to find an incision point, but he didn't know where.

A few days later, he received an unexpected message.

An important target of his had entered Sandrise City and had been intercepted and detained at the border. At the moment, this target was being escorted by Mechguard units to the special psychic police headquarters for interrogation and investigation.

"Liu Shouren?"

This was a very familiar name to Adam.

Not long ago, he had just retrieved his brother, Liu Shouyi, from Shadow City, and that had been the beginning of his crusade against the Gaia Organization.

Liu Shouren was an even higher-ranking employee with access to more information, and it was clear to Adam that he had intentionally gotten himself detained at the border.

Interesting. Looks like they're trying something else now. Has he been sent here to test me, or is it for some other purpose?

Instead of pondering the matter, Adam went straight to the special psychic police headquarters, where Liu Shouren was detained in an interrogation room with Mechguard units stationed beside him.

Adam sat down across the table from him, and a slightly deranged smile appeared on Liu Shouren's face as he chuckled, "Well, well, well, look who it is! I have the honor of meeting the mayor in person! Oh wait, sorry, you're still not the mayor yet."

Adam's expression remained unchanged, and he was looking at Liu Shouren as if he were looking at a pile of dead meat. After a brief silence, Liu Shouren dropped the act, and the deranged smile on his face faded as he leaned forward slightly to get a closer look at Adam.

"It's incredible to think that someone so young has been able to do so much in such a short time."

Adam didn't want to waste any time, and he cut straight to the chase. "Let's get to the point, Mr. Liu. I'm sure you're aware that you don't have much time left."

His words were like a knife that had been driven straight into Liu Shouren's heart, and his face became twisted with rage as a vicious look appeared in his eyes.

He slammed his handcuffed fists heavily down onto the stainless steel table, causing the entire room to shudder slightly, and the Mechguard units beside him instantly trained their guns on him, ready to shoot him down at a moment's notice.

Adam raised a hand to stop the Mechguard units as he looked straight into Liu Shouren's eyes, watching as the emotion in his eyes turned from rage to frustration, then to complete dejection and resignation, and it was as if he had suddenly aged 10 years.

"You're right. I'm just a messenger, a living messenger who doesn't even know what message he's carrying in his head," Liu Shouren sighed with a self-deprecating smile. "Looks like I was too naive. I thought I was some bigshot who was indispensable to the organization, but I'm nothing more than a fool."

Indeed, he was nothing more than a tool to make money for those above him, and if he were to lose his value, then he would be instantly discarded. There were countless younger and more capable individuals waiting in the wings to replace him, and this had always been the brutal reality of his existence, but he had willfully turned a blind eye to this in the past.

"No matter how high you climb, you would still always just be an expendable pawn. It's not that you didn't work hard enough. Do you know why you ultimately ended up in this position?" Adam asked.

.

A puzzled look appeared on Liu Shouren's face, and he asked, "Is it because I should've worked harder, or I simply wasn't lucky enough?"

This was the type of concept that was drilled into everyone from a young age, the naive thought that they would be able to climb to the top as long as they worked hard enough and had sufficient luck on their side. It was an illusion being sold by the upper class, telling everyone that they could join them at the top as long as they were willing to put in the work.

However, that was nothing more than a lie.

Take the elderly residents of the retirement homes that he had visited as an example. They had worked hard their entire lives, yet in their old age, they were treated even worse than animals that were farmed for their meat.

This lie was one of the tools that the upper class used to control the entire world, and that was something that Adam had figured out long ago, but he couldn't be bothered to explain this concept to Liu Shouren.

Instead, he gently laid a finger onto Liu Shouren's arm as he murmured to himself, "Let me see what message they've prepared for me."