210: Chapter 210 The Blacklist Order Sparks a Global Wave of Hope

"Biden used a state funeral and a hero scientist who had never existed in any archival record to unite everyone around the world."

"Right now, the majority of people on Earth have broken free from that previous mindset of despair, desolation, and utter helplessness."

"Because they believe humanity has enough power to fight the million-strong fleet of the Grey Alien."

"Even if that hero was fabricated, even if those technologies were never the lifelong achievements of any anonymous scientist."

"But hope itself is real."

"A shared belief sufficient to bridge the mental divide of eight billion people was created by that state funeral."

"And you are now going to destroy it with your own hands."

Edward looked straight at Prant, word by word:

"If you publicly state right now that Sophus Tesla is fake, you will be pushing the only hope just given to them off the cliff right in front of all humanity."

"Next, how do you plan to deal with the backlash from the shattering of hope of eight billion people?"

After listening to this, Prant pressed his back deeply into the leather chair,

and gave the cup of cola in front of him, which had lost most of its chill, a small turn, but did not pick it up to drink, remaining silent for quite a while.

He was not angry, let alone unconvinced,

but was recalculating another key logical variable he had previously overlooked.

Previously, he had just been proceeding along a commercial perspective.

A person who never existed was fake, and something fake could never pretend to be real forever.

But Edward's political insight, a height he had never stood upon before, suddenly made him realize that this thoroughly fake Sophus Tesla was not a campaign story told by Biden to voters,

but the sole positive position that had just pulled the entire Earth back from a total plunge into an illusory, escapist despair.

If he went to blow up this position now, the ones affected would not just be Biden, nor just those veteran high-ranking officials of Washington under Biden,

but all of humanity, including Prant himself, who had once stood together at the edge of the cliff and looked down.

He picked up the cola that had been untouched for a long time, took a sip, set it aside, looked at Edward, and lowered his tone a bit compared to before, but every word carried a straightened-out sincerity:

"Biden using a dead person to weave hope for him—this move is indeed deeper than I previously estimated."

"It's not just packaging a fake hero scientist."

"He is directly wrapping humanity's last lifeline around his own wrist."

"If I release all the truth about Sophus Tesla right now, then no one can pretend anymore that this rope is still hanging there, and the person who takes the lead in dismantling the rope will be the first to fall off the cliff."

"I originally planned to win the election, not to fall off a cliff."

Edward nodded slightly.

Musk leaned back into the back of his chair. "So our current predicament is that we cannot touch Sophus Tesla, we cannot touch that state funeral, we cannot snatch back the polling dividends from Biden, and we cannot use any extra exposés to reverse the election rhythm."

He continued analyzing,

"Since ordinary people's emotions have just been pulled back by that state funeral into believing that all of humanity can still be saved, actively trying to prove to them that Biden is making up stories is courting death. We can only win through the surviving technology itself."

"From now on, any conspiracy and tricks will be useless."

"The only path is to defeat the Longevity Faction head-on in the Ten Thousand Ship Slash."

"Our 'Parameter Overload' must prove before the Senate of the Deep State: it is more efficient, faster, and more decisive than the 'Gravity Trap' on Biden's side."

"After one hundred thousand ships of the million-strong fleet of the Grey Alien are wiped out, the survivors will not care who blew up those wreckage pieces first."

"They will only remember that they saw with their own eyes humanity's advanced technology tearing the alien invaders to shreds."

Prant looked across from him, his gaze having recovered the stability he had when he stood up from under the cover and roared with his fist raised after a bullet grazed his right ear at the Butler campaign rally.

He said, "Fine."

"Then let strength do the talking."

"Winning the Ten Thousand Ship Slash, I can still be president just the same."

...

Russia, Moscow, the Kremlin.

The Chairman of the Federal Security Council, Morozov, sat at the head of the conference hall inlaid with full-wall walnut paneling, with several latest briefings just transmitted from the encrypted channel of the Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations spread out before him.

Minister of Defense Belyaev sat to his right,

and Federal Security Council Secretary Kravchenko sat to his left,

Several other high-ranking officials from the military and intelligence systems took their seats in order along both sides of the long table.

The giant electronic screen on the wall was repeatedly playing the live footage of the state funeral of Sophus Tesla:

A mahogany casket, the Stars and Stripes, a pipe organ, and Biden with both hands pressed against the edge of the podium, confirming word by word to the camera that Lighthouse Country possessed advanced technology sufficient to fight the million-strong fleet of the Zeta Star.

The image froze on Biden's old face, pushed by national live streaming and magnified to nearly half the height of the wall.

Morozov threw the briefing onto the table, resting his thick, crossed fingers in front of him.

Of course they knew Sophus Tesla was fake.

The existence of the Deep State had long been filed in the Russian intelligence system,

and that internal evaluation report on the Longevity Faction and the Tech Faction was as long as two hundred and thirty pages,

ranging from Diana Hopkins wearing fluid armor to sweep through the Mozhaisk military restricted zone, to Zhang Long using blue gloves to break one of Sterling Remington's arms on the spot at Casablanca Manor—every single segment was in there.

But they were also clearly aware that this move by Biden was a top-tier open conspiracy:

Anyone who dared to expose this lie was going against the eight billion people of the world, and would be backlashed like a tsunami by that collective emotion that had just broken free from despair, bearing consequences too heavy to afford.

Therefore, even Russia did not dare to make a rash move.

Morozov loosened his crossed fingers and said, suppressing his anger:

"Then join the hegemony framework of Lighthouse Country."

"Other countries have shared advanced technology, we can't possibly get nothing at all, right?"

Belyaev did not answer, nor did Kravchenko.

All the high-ranking officials present lowered their gazes in unison, stopping on the wood grain of the ash tabletop; no one was willing to be the first to speak at this moment.

Morozov unclenched his fists braced on the table edge and clenched them once more, leaning his forehead forward, his chin almost pressing against his chest, and raised his voice toward the long table,

"Speak! Are you all mute?"

Minister of Defense Belyaev finally slowly raised his head, which had been lowered all along, and said in a dry, hoarse voice hesitatingly,

"Lighthouse Country has blacklisted us."

"They said... any country in the world can share advanced technology, except us."

As the words fell, the entire conference hall fell into a pin-drop silence.

Everyone shrank their shoulders by half an inch, and even the air seemed to have had its last layer of cushion sucked away.

Morozov slammed a palm onto the tabletop, causing the briefing folder that had just been repeatedly playing the state funeral footage to bounce half an inch from the shock,

Following closely, he abruptly stood up, pushing his chair back so hard that it crashed against the wall wainscoting, his voice directly tearing open the conference hall that had been sealed by silence,

"A bunch of Anglo-Saxon bastards!"

"That old dog Biden! Scoundrel! Old schemer!"

"With his left hand, he holds Sophus Tesla, a fictional genius who never existed, spinning fairy tales in front of the whole world, while with his right hand in the United Nations Security Council, he tells us, 'We don't know what the Deep State is, and we have never received advanced civilization technology!'"

"Now, after obtaining the hegemony framework signed by all countries, he turns around and blacklists us alone!"

Morozov paced back and forth behind the conference table with his hands behind his back,

his gleaming military boots making the crystal water glasses on the edge of the table buzz and tremble slightly with every step,

"This is no longer lying; this is a public execution where they are too lazy to even use modifiers!"

"He is using advanced technology to shackle every country in the world that might stand with us under his chains, leaving us alone in this room!"

Belyaev and Kravchenko did not reply.

All the high-ranking officials present remained silent.

Every single one of them had been pushed into this airtight hard shell by the interception order of being "blacklisted."

They had long searched repeatedly inside for all kinds of response plans, but could never find an exit.

The only thing they could do at this moment was to maintain sufficient silence before the Chairman poured out all his remaining anger.

Morozov paced around the table for several more rounds, resting his fists on the tabletop, clenching and unclenching them repeatedly, and finally stopped in front of the giant screen that still froze on the close-up of Biden's state funeral speech, slowly saying to everyone in a cold and deep voice:

"Biden, you used the hope of eight billion people as your shield to block all hands wanting to expose the lie."

"You won this game of chess."

"But you had better never let any cracks appear on that shield."

He turned around, facing all the high-ranking officials still sitting in silence and not daring to move on both sides of the long table, took a deep breath, pulled his chair back to its original position, and slowly sat down.

...

New York, Brooklyn, Sunset Park Industrial Area.

Those faces that were filled with despair just a few days ago were all flooding the streets at this moment.

Someone waved a flag and roared loudly to everyone around:

"Humanity will triumph! Alien bastards! No matter how many of you come, we'll blow up as many!"

Wharf stevedores were sweeping the streets while repeatedly singing a few self-composed, completely out-of-tune ballads with hoarse voices.

On the other side, next to a fire hydrant,

a group of drug addicts who had been lying on the ground earlier, twitching randomly like marionettes, were now gathered around an old-fashioned television set propped on top of an abandoned freezer, waving their arms,

They shouted at the live broadcast footage of the Prime Minister of the John Country and the President of Gaul Country signing the tech-sharing memorandum in turn:

"Those alien bastards can blow up an entire Three-Body Star System, and we can block them outside the Oort Cloud!"

On the other side of the intersection,

a young man wearing a wrinkled white shirt, who had been holding a cardboard sign that read "Seeking Logistics Positions in the Alien Fleet" a few days ago, folded the original cardboard in half, pressed it into a square, and threw it into the nearby trash can,

He picked up a new marker from the convenience store ruins and rewrote on another piece of cardboard:

[Former JPMorgan Chase analyst, willing to provide financial modeling support for Earth United Defense, pro bono.]

He hoisted this cardboard piece over his head and bounced a few times.

Some people didn't know JPMorgan Chase, but bounced along with him anyway.

Amidst this fanatical clamor, only one teenager was quiet to the extreme.

He was probably fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing an old hoodie with frayed edges, standing at the edge of the intersection previously piled with abandoned police cars and broken wine bottles, leaning his back against the charred exterior wall of the laundry that had just been burned by fire earlier.