WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 267: Valley of Death (13)
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Part of the negotiation team came to see Gyeoul. The team leader, Liliana Green, was an attractive woman. Her age surprised Gyeoul. He had expected someone more seasoned and mature.
Green seemed to notice, and one corner of her mouth lifted faintly.
“You look surprised.”
“I’m sorry if I offended you. You’re much younger than I expected.”
“Oh. Offended? Not at all. Nobody hates being told they look young.”
She actually was young, though.
She wiped away the smile that had been no more than an act.
“To be honest, I was surprised I was picked too. The higher-ups wanted that man to look down on me a little. Generally speaking, the superiority complex of blockheads like that hangs between their legs.”
One of the men who had come with her shot Green a look and cleared his throat, his expression stiff. His face was flushed, and he was sweating cold. Perhaps he was nervous before the talks, because his shoulders looked terribly rigid.
“Use this to wipe off the sweat.”
When Gyeoul held out a handkerchief, the man took it in a fluster. He opened his mouth as if to thank him, but no sound came from his choked throat, and panic showed on his face.
“Will this person be all right in the negotiation room?”
Green answered Gyeoul’s doubtful question in a flat voice.
“Don’t worry. He’s only nervous because he’s in front of you, Major. He’ll be fine on site.”
“......”
Judging by her attitude, the man seemed to be a superior disguised as her subordinate. Rank aside, they looked fairly close.
After taking back the damp handkerchief, Gyeoul said to Green, “I’ll say this just in case, but Shangjiang Yang Yongbin isn’t someone who will look down on an opponent because she’s a woman.”
Green nodded readily.
“I think so too. We just want him to think we’re trying an obvious trick. If he starts underestimating us, his guard will start to crumble as well. Whether that helps or hurts us is the question, though......”
Then she held out the reason she had come.
“Would you look this over?”
Gyeoul accepted the Operation Fair Strike report. Although the print date stamped on the cover was today, the hand-touched edges of the thick document were badly worn. Every clipped section was covered in careful underlines and notes.
Someone whispered into Green’s ear. One hour and forty minutes left. She nodded and said to Gyeoul, “The latest information we have on Shangjiang Yang Yongbin consists of your testimony, Major. Since he holds a minister-level rank, places like the CIA and DIA do have information related to him, but none of it really gives us an understanding of Yang Yongbin himself. He’s unusual for a Chinese general in that he has no faction.”
“No faction?”
Gyeoul asked back, somewhat surprised. In China, faction was not something that mattered only to gangsters. Hadn’t Lieutenant General Xieru stressed her own fence in the same way? According to her, China was a fence too vast to care for individuals. Each person had to find their own way to survive.
Green gave an ambiguous confirmation.
“Yes. He was originally part of the first generation of princelings, but for some reason, we believe he fell out with his former comrades. His becoming commander of the army seems to have been a neutral compromise among the factions. After taking office, he showed a tendency to use people without regard for faction.”
We believe. Seems to have been a compromise. Neither was certain.
“Anyway, that’s why we came for one last check. Whether anything is missing from the report, what the general’s expression, tone, and gestures were like...... Things too inappropriate or too insubstantial to put in an official report. Anything else we can use for reference would be helpful too.”
She nervously rubbed her stomach. The burden on her seemed much heavier than it looked from the outside.
Gyeoul recalled the meeting held at sea.
“At first, his attitude was very gentle and mild.”
“Did you feel any authority from him?”
“No. If he hadn’t been wearing a uniform, he wouldn’t even have looked like a soldier.”
“Your legs must hurt. Come sit for a moment.”
Green offered Gyeoul a chair, sat down very close beside him, and picked up a pen.
“How accurate do you think the conversation recorded in the report is?”
Before Gyeoul could answer, she calmly added, “I’m not doubting you, Major. But human memory tends to blur and distort. Especially with a record of a fairly long meeting. Some degree of inaccuracy must have been unavoidable.”
To Gyeoul, though, she was doubting him. The reliability of the report was tied to the issue of the miracle of Hawthorne. That doubt, then, was closer to professional consideration. An understanding that anyone in Gyeoul’s position would have no choice but to feel pressure. Without that understanding, there could be no accurate testimony. It was likely wisdom gained through experience.
Gyeoul scanned the document and answered, “It may not be perfect, but most of it should be accurate. I’m fairly confident in my memory.”
It was both his genuinely good memory and the correction from 「Memorization」.
‘A lot of that correction has been erased now, but it wasn’t like that right after I returned to the Pequod.’
The delay caused by the low-grade correction, meaning the time it took for the contents stored through 「Memorization」 to come to mind, had not interfered with writing the report. It corrected errors in memory and filled in the blanks. The report, therefore, was extremely close to the truth. Green, who had been studying Gyeoul with the eyes of an intelligence worker, moved on naturally.
“Good. Then until what point was the general gentle? Was he the same all the way to the end, by any chance?”
“No.”
“Could you mark it here?”
Gyeoul took the pen and marked the emotional sections on the transcript.
“Hmm. The misery of a life spent living merely to stay alive. So his emotions spiked here.”
It was not Green’s voice. Over Gyeoul’s shoulder, the man who had been drenched in cold sweat until a short while ago was staring hard at the report in Gyeoul’s hand. Once the man began concentrating, he changed into a completely different person. Green added a question.
“What was the general like when he said this?”
“He felt hollow. He was smiling, but he looked like someone who wanted to cry.”
Cognitive dissonance over a vanished homeland. The type who knows the truth but deceives himself anyway. Green muttered that and narrowed one eye. Gyeoul knew the feeling too. Few things were as solid as a lie told to oneself.
When Green and her superior heard the testimony that the general had seemed cheerful when announcing the nuclear missile launch, they again showed restrained displeasure.
How much longer did that exchange of opinions, almost like counseling, continue?
“Haa.”
Green checked the clock and rose from her seat. There was nothing more to tell, and the appointed time was approaching, so the negotiation team prepared to leave.
“Thank you for your cooperation. It helped a lot.”
Gyeoul accepted the handshake she offered.
“I hope all of you return safely.”
“......”
Nobody in the negotiation team seemed to expect success. They were setting out for a negotiation certain to fail only because they could not ignore the faint, nearly zero possibility that Shangjiang Yang Yongbin’s sample was real, because the lives of the hostages were at stake, and because explosive public opinion was pushing them forward.
Soon, those who had left appeared on screen. Escort Humvees took position in front of and behind the armored vehicle carrying them. The split screen showed the convoy moving from multiple angles in the sky and on the ground. Chinese troops emerged from the power plant to receive the negotiation team. Surprisingly, Shangjiang Yang Yongbin had come out personally to greet them.
[Welcome. I apologize for the poor preparations to receive guests.]
[It is an honor to meet you, General. I never imagined you would come out in person.]
Green’s voice, carried over the radio and coming through the speaker, sounded very different from when Gyeoul had heard it directly.
The old general, like a neighborhood grandfather, answered with the same mildness Gyeoul remembered.
[It is not as if you have the ability to do anything to me.]
Yang Yongbin had not brought out a sample, and the hostages were inside. There was no need to hear the omitted words. They did not even search the negotiation team. In truth, the general must have wanted video and records to remain as well. This was the war being carried out.
The negotiation took place in a tent set up outside the power plant. It was a trace of the independent company that had originally been stationed there. The camera attached to Green’s suit button showed Shangjiang Yang Yongbin.
[Now, neither side has much time to spare, so I’ll ask directly. What have you prepared?]
Green returned the same question to the general.
[Then what do you want, General?]
[What do I want......]
The general looked lost in thought. Gyeoul wondered whether that was truly an act. Since the purpose of the negotiation was provocation, there was no way the general had prepared reasonable demands.
‘Maybe he really came out without thinking anything through.’
There was no measuring a mad person by reason. Even if that madness was rational.
[First, I would like territory ceded.]
[Where do you want?]
[The border area of Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska would be good. There should be two wind farms on the Colorado side. I would like that entire area handed over. Let us draw a square one hundred kilometers by one hundred kilometers. Ah, let me say this in advance. From the moment I make this demand, everything on that land must come over exactly as it is.]
At that, on the screen showing the White House, the president frowned after hearing a whisper from an aide. What the whisper contained could be understood from Hunt’s sneer nearby.
“A nuclear terrorist is asking for nuclear missiles.”
With a slight delay, farms and wasteland near the power plant were projected onto the large screen at the front of the situation room. A ballistic missile silo sat out of nowhere beside an unpaved road running between wheat fields. It was scenery familiar to Gyeoul too. He had wandered near that area in a world that had already disappeared.
In truth, America’s ballistic missiles had usually been deployed in that manner, and the land Shangjiang Yang Yongbin demanded was where nuclear silos were most densely distributed on the mainland.
The general continued listing impossible demands.
[And I must receive the cession of Fort Myer in Washington D.C. After all, peace without deterrence never lasts long. Once your country’s future mainland recapture is complete, hand over the port and hinterlands of San Diego. If the Panama region is secured, we must receive the canal as well. Thirty kilometers north and south. We will provide the garrison, so your country will bear responsibility for defense. Let us replace other costs with fees for using the port and canal. If you also permit freedom of passage within your country and hand over Chinese refugees, I believe that will be sufficient. What do you think?]
The intent to drive the negotiation into collapse was far too obvious.
But Green answered calmly.
[I see. We will review it positively. But before that, one condition must come first.]
[A condition...... What is it?]
[The sample.]
Green left a deliberate pause in her words for emphasis.
[Prove that the Morgellons prototypes you possess are real.]
[Is there a way to prove that?]
[There is. Hand over one of the pathogens first.]
[You make an impossible demand.]
As Green leaned forward toward the general, the screen’s focus dropped downward.
[Is that so? As you know, Morgellons is a complication caused by multiple pathogens in a symbiotic relationship. That means vaccine development is impossible with only one sample among them. Determining authenticity, however, should be possible. Until that judgment is made, my country cannot accept any negotiation.]
Green’s face could be seen through the camera of another negotiator sitting at the same table. She was more than calm. There was even a faint smile at the corners of her mouth. The general was just as relaxed.
[That will not do. Even a single component of the complex might provide great progress in preparing a means to destroy the Corpse Plague.]
[Show us the minimum sincerity, General. If only for the people suffering because of you at this very moment. The Chinese citizens under my country’s protection, and the American citizens who inherited Chinese blood...... Do you feel no guilt toward them? Wasn’t protecting them the duty of you, General, and of the People’s Liberation Army?]
She naturally knew there was none, but this was a question thrown out in preparation for the video’s release.
[None.]
Whether the general knew that or not, the answer was light.
[The basic premise of the people’s war doctrine for defending the homeland is the sacrifice of the people. It is even difficult to call it sacrifice. It is a natural duty. The duty to protect the homeland belongs to all Chinese people. The only differences between me and them are the presence or absence of a uniform, the presence or absence of training, and the presence or absence of weapons. And American citizens who inherited the bloodline of the Chinese people...... If the spirit of China does not remain in them, they are merely Americans.]
The general sat straight-backed and laced both hands together.
[And there are no innocent civilians. Those were the words your country’s general left behind when burning Tokyo.]
========== Author’s Note ==========
#There are no innocent civilians
Since it’s so famous, many of you probably already know this, but the person who said those words was General Curtis LeMay, who commanded the bombing of mainland Japan near the end of World War II.
Unlike what the general in the story says, that statement was made before the Great Tokyo Air Raid. And it’s not that Shangjiang Yang Yongbin doesn’t know that.
I’m mentioning this in advance in case anyone points out that it differs from the facts.
#Q&A
Q. Bug: @The current president probably wants to stop working, right? Isn’t Grayman going to assassinate him? If they give it to him, the country seems like it’ll collapse.
A. As expected, that’s a difficult question to answer. Please understand. T_T
Q. Calpis: @Evil forces, you say! Heil Skarlochen is truth! It is like the heart of Lady Solitaire, who gave chocolate to Solo Grand Marshal! All heil Skarlochen!
A. What a terrifying and dreadful thing to say...
Q. qgegegqe: @You wrote Crochen picking his nose, but not scratching his thing, right? How about scratching his armpit?
A. I won’t answer questions like this from now on. For real. Seriously...
Q. NoblesseBuffer: @Since Syngman Rhee’s trust level is 0%, I guess author’s trust level can be 1%!
A. Three-hit combo... There are no good readers in this novel...
Q. CocoIsChanel: http://sosull.com Did you know your novel is being used as paid content here?
A. I didn’t know. I think the publisher may have known. They say they’re proceeding with lawsuits all at once, so I’ll ask about it.
Q. A-eu Dongdongdari: @Does that mean zombies only strengthen or mutate when there is resistance? Then if some small island country was destroyed by ordinary zombies when there wasn’t even one mutant, it would only have ordinary zombies even later?
A. That’s right. Unless they spread from another region.
Footnotes:
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