"We must remove the protection of the Male Act!!!"
"The male population has long stabilized!!!"
"We must remove the protection of the Male Act!!!"
...
After finishing the riot and delivering everything I had to say, I expected the Piao family to either negotiate or outright ignore us.
We had requested a reply on very short notice. We had threatened that if they didn't respond, it would mean they didn't truly care for the people.
I thought they might try to negotiate. Or maybe they would just ignore us.
Even if the riot had just happened and the Piao family didn't respond, nobody would really blame them—the Piao family had always protected regular people.
But to my surprise, they did reply.
Not only that, but they also sent a hover limousine to pick me up.
Even more astonishing, they had arranged the same treatment for the two civilian lottery winners—the ones selected as citizen representatives. I only learned about this while watching Marcus's livestream. Seeing it confirmed in real time left me genuinely surprised.
For a moment, I couldn't put two and two together. This was the same family I had been warned about—the "evil" Piao family, the ones I had been brainwashed to see as enemies.
And yet, here they were, sending a limousine five hours early. Only I knew that, and it weighed heavily on my mind.
Every step I took, every gesture I planned, could be observed—not just by the Piao family, but also by spies from the government or rival families. I couldn't afford a misstep.
I had been awake since five in the morning, figuring out which persona to use in front of the Piao family and the sisters. I had to be careful. Even the smallest slip could be used against me.
I ran through every scenario in my head, trying to anticipate cameras, listening devices, and agents hidden in plain sight.
I was grateful to only have one persona to manage, but even that required constant mental effort. Remembering who I was before all this manipulation felt like dredging up a buried self I hadn't touched in years.
I looked out at the limousine. I could have gone down early, waited inside, and taken my time—
But Garfield had explicitly sanctioned me to arrive last—