The late summer heat wrapped the city in a gauzy veil of humidity, but Lin Feng's mind was colder than ever. He sat in the private lounge of a newly leased Apex Council operations hub—a modest heritage villa in the old French Concession—surrounded by files, notes, and shifting real-time intel reports displayed across wall-mounted OLEDs.
Unlike the flashier moves his enemies had made, his next steps needed to be precise, invisible, and irreversible.
Across from him, Shen Yinyin stood with her arms crossed, scanning a dossier on Keller's recent media patterns. "It's subtle, but deliberate. Keller's interviews are timed with social unrest spikes. He's making himself the soothing voice of reason—charming, diplomatic, but always guiding conversations away from accountability."
"And people are buying it," Lin Feng said, tone flat. "He's not attacking me directly. He's disarming the very frameworks that allow criticism. Undermining skepticism itself."
