983 Must Step Down
Huo Shaoheng calmly glanced at Gu Nianzhi. “You don’t like eating pancakes?”
Gu Nianzhi quickly shook her head. “They’re pretty good, but the maple syrup is a bit too sweet.” As she spoke, she picked up the pancake with both hands and took a bite.
The golden syrup-covered pancake combined with the flavor of the scrambled eggs tasted as delicious as a quiche.
It was truly delicious.
Picking up a napkin, Huo Shaoheng casually helped her wipe a bit of syrup off the corner of her lips.
Yin s.h.i.+xiong’s eyes widened so much that they were able to pop out of their sockets. He suddenly asked, “Nianzhi, where did you spend the Lunar New Year?”
Gu Nianzhi turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “I spent it here, why?”
Yin s.h.i.+xiong grunted before quickly glancing at Huo Shaoheng and discreetly giving him a thumbs up.
Huo Shaoheng ignored him and replied dryly, “Little Ze is out on a mission and Nianzhi is here to help us with work and contact him. She’s been taught by Little Ze, so they work quite efficiently together.”
So that was why.
Yin s.h.i.+xiong instantly felt that he had a.s.sessed things the wrong way.
He had spent Lunar New Year like he was soaking in honey, so his vigilance and keenness had greatly diminished.
When he thought of how Zhao Liangze had ridiculed Huo Shaoheng and been exiled to the Cape of Good Hope in Africa as a result, Yin s.h.i.+xiong felt a bit guilty.
He’d had a great time, but his comrades had completed all the missions while he was gone. He felt very guilty!
Quickly sitting up straight, he said to Huo Shaoheng, “Huo Shao, can I end my vacation and come back?”
“You don’t want to rest any longer?” Huo Shaoheng set down his cutlery and picked up the gla.s.s of red wine to completely drain it. “How about you come back after having a son first?”
“No, no, no… No need…” Yin s.h.i.+xiong quickly waved his hands. “We have to take it step-by-step. Didn’t I just propose…” He finished saying this and began to giggle.
Gu Nianzhi also giggled with him. She felt that the sweet and loving Brother Xiong was very interesting.
However, Huo Shaoheng felt that Yin s.h.i.+xiong’s dazzling smile was begging to be punched.
“Brother Xiong, I saw you and Qiqi’s proposal ceremony. It was really pretty! Qiqi was very touched!” Gu Nianzhi sensed that Huo Shaoheng’s att.i.tude towards Yin s.h.i.+xiong was a bit dismissive, so she quickly changed the topic to smooth things out.
Yin s.h.i.+xiong rubbed the back of his head and replied with a dreamy expression, “I also thought it was pretty good. I thought about it for such a long time before I thought of the idea!”
“The diamond ring is very pretty too.” Gu Nianzhi pointed to the middle finger of her right hand. “Qiqi must look so beautiful wearing it.”
Yin s.h.i.+xiong laughed. “Qiqi already went back to school. That’s right, you’ve already graduated! Will Qiqi be living alone now?”
“The school should be arranging a new roommate for her.” Gu Nianzhi also missed her days of living with Ma Qiqi. After all, she was her best friend.
As the two of them had a friendly talk about Ma Qiqi’s roommate, Huo Shaoheng was the only person who seemed to not fit in.
He didn’t mind. As soon as he finished the charcoal-grilled steak he’d been eating, he heard his phone ring.
Putting on his Bluetooth headset, he connected to the phone. “What is it?”
“Chief, General Ji is calling.”
“Connect me.”
Huo Shaoheng stood up and returned to his suite upstairs.
Gu Nianzhi and Yin s.h.i.+xiong were in the middle of an exciting conversation, so no one followed Huo Shaoheng upstairs.
They also knew he was going to deal with work.
Huo Shaoheng hadn’t called for them, so they weren’t allowed to follow.
…
When he returned to the suite on the second floor, Huo Shaoheng walked into his study and shut the door. Turning on the computer, he began a video call with General Ji.
“General Ji, what is it?”
“Shaoheng, do you know about what happened on Weibo last night?” General Ji appeared very solemn. He seemed to be making the call alone.
Huo Shaoehng nodded. “What is it? What is the Secret Service’s statement on this?”
“The Secret Service is still investigating it. Weibo was infiltrated by a hacker yesterday, but the methods they used were too clever and left no traces at all. Weibo also restarted all its global servers with data backup copies, so it directly deleted a lot of direct evidence. They are very frustrated too.”
Huo Shaoheng paused. “Was there any loss of state secrets?”
“…There wasn’t any of that.” General Ji happened to smile when he heard Huo Shaoheng say this. He replied humorously, “Of course, this would be considered a leak if the prime minister’s affair was considered a state secret.”
Huo Shaoheng laughed, leaning back on the tall swivel chair. “So what are you worried about?”
“Didn’t you see the news?” General Ji stiffened for a second. “I thought that you would know about it.”
Huo Shaoheng was slightly surprised. He’d slept with Gu Nianzhi last night and had felt extremely at ease, so he’d somehow ended up oversleeping.
However, his facial expression remained calm as he smoothly turned on the wall-mounted TV in the study and took a glance.
All the TV channels were hotly discussing yesterday’s Weibo incident. Aside from that five-minute short video, there was another incident that was the focus of the day’s intense discussion on all the major TV networks, media outlets, and online forums.
Someone had initiated a pet.i.tion asking Prime Minister Tan to acknowledge his mistake and resign. It had already ama.s.sed tens of millions of reposts and hundreds of millions of likes and supportive comments. The Internet Water Army working under Cai Songyin’s company had been completely swamped by the ocean of public opinion. Even their shadows were invisible.
What was considered public opinion?
This was the true public opinion.
Lincoln once said that “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Tan Dongbang had emerged from the election campaign as an underdog. For such a person to win the election, he’d needed to possess a n.o.ble and unblemished character to earn the approval of voters in a short time, while also defeating other political veterans.
When this character collapsed in the voters’ eyes, the recoil had also been very rapid.
In other words, when the voters discovered that he’d lied to them, they’d hated him as much they’d once loved him.
People who didn’t work honestly and only wanted to take shortcuts to heaven using unscrupulous means often discovered that the higher they climbed, the further they’d fall.
Tan Dongbang had an extramarital affair and that wasn’t considered particularly bad for someone in the post of prime minister. But because his partner in the affair was a j.a.panese person suspected of espionage, the Huaxia citizens couldn’t tolerate this at all.
And that’s why even the old grandpas and grandmas who didn’t go online often followed their grandsons and granddaughters to cast their votes online.
“Shaoheng, do you see this? Even our military and Senate cannot ignore the support that these kinds of posts are receiving.” General Ji spread his palms. “Old Long already called me this morning and we discussed it for an entire two hours.”
When General Ji said this, Huo Shaoheng knew that these two bosses had certainly already reached a certain agreement.
“General Ji, please tell me, I’m listening. If you need me to do anything, I’ll be sure to do it right away.” Huo Shaoheng expressed his unconditional acceptance.
“Very well.” General Ji nodded. “So, Old Long called Tan Dongbang this morning and hoped that the action he could take in the best-case scenario would be to acknowledge his mistake and resign.”
Huo Shaoheng raised a brow. “And he refused?”
“Ha, you know Tan Dongbang well after all.” General Ji smirked. “Yes, he refused. He said he was framed, that the entire video was fake and someone is setting a trap for him. He refuses to resign.”
Huo Shaoheng pursed his lips, holding the mouse in his hands to open programs on his computer one by one. “And then?”
“Old Long said that since he refused to acknowledge his mistake and resign, they have no other choice. Today, which is right now, the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament will be holding an emergency meeting to vote on the issue of dissolving the Cabinet and restarting the emergency general election.”
Huo Shaoheng was a bit taken back. “Dissolve the Cabinet? Restart elections? Is there enough time?”
“Regardless of whether or not there’s enough time, we cannot allow someone with an image like Tan Dongbang’s to take the position of prime minister. Don’t forget, according to our nation’s const.i.tution, the prime minister is the actual head of the nation.” General Ji’s voice was very solemn. “Has your Special Operations Forces received any information?”
Huo Shaoheng had received the news yesterday that Tan Dongbang’s short video had been downloaded by the media and intelligence agencies of countless countries.
“Just like I mentioned earlier, I don’t believe Prime Minister Tan’s short video is a state secret. Even if it has been obtained by foreign intelligence agencies, it’s not something we consider worth using our field personnel to take action against.”
Huo Shaoheng couldn’t hide the contempt in his tone.
General Ji nodded. “Very well, he won’t be our prime minister much longer.”
Just as the two men were speaking, Secretary Cao suddenly walked in. He bent down beside General Ji to quietly say something to him.
General Ji beamed happily and said to Huo Shaoheng, “Alright then, both houses of Parliament just pa.s.sed the unanimous decision to dissolve the Cabinet and restart the elections. I think that Bai Jiangcheng is going to become the prime minister this time!”
Because the election was being unexpectedly restarted, there weren’t many people eligible to run. Bai Jiancheng had just lost to Tan Dongbang, so he was certainly going to be a popular candidate.