Darkstone Code

The chairman of the Conservative Party Committee was a very mild-mannered old gentleman; he was a bit taller than the short Progressive Party Committee chairman and looked a bit more serious, though in fact he was not all that intimidating.

"Are you going to resign?", he took off his coat, walked into the room with a smile, and asked, looking at the President.

If this scene were exposed in front of the public, they might... actually they wouldn’t feel anything at all, because most of them, or rather the overwhelming majority, didn’t know anyone in this room besides the President.

Unless someone carefully introduced each of these people to the public, they wouldn’t display any overly "shocked" emotions.

The fact that the core figures of the two parties could sit together so harmoniously—what would those supporters think, the ones who stand on different party lines and fight each other to the bitter end every election cycle?

In short, all that blood was spilled for nothing.

The Conservative Party Committee chairman’s question, tinged with a hint of teasing, drew a wry smile from the President. "This is the worst outcome, and I accept it."

After they sat down, the Conservative Party Committee chairman sighed lightly. "This is only the worst outcome; it doesn’t necessarily have to happen. We still have many ways we can try."

"For example, before the matter fully blows up, we can throw the Duncan Clan issue directly out there. We are all trying to buy more time and support."

His mood was... actively optimistic. It couldn’t be helped: he was, after all, the Conservative Party Committee chairman. If the President really resigned to take the blame, that would absolutely be good news for Conservatives.

No matter how the next President is arranged, at the very least it would dilute some of the negative impact of the previous President’s resignation to take responsibility.

It wouldn’t just be us who performed badly; our opponents would be in the same boat!

Besides, next year was an election year, and it was very likely the President would not be able to win another term. The development of certain situations once again became uncertain.

However, on the matter of taking down the Duncan Clan, both sides still stood firmly on the same front.

The short old man nodded. "That’s also an option, and it can help to shape him into an unlucky hero..."

If the two sides went straight to knives, the President would still have a considerable advantage. His advantage lay in the fact that he had only... cheated, had engaged in some intimate contact with someone other than his own wife.

The Duncan Clan, by contrast, was involved in countless serious crimes. Any one of the members of their family might be a criminal with an actual record!

Moreover, the problems that had befallen the President were themselves part of the Duncan Clan’s strategy; they had tried to use this method to change the outcome.

Yet the President would rather resign to take responsibility than let this evil family remain hidden and would instead expose them and see them brought to trial. People would accept the setup of a tragic hero.

Even if in the end the President really did have to resign, he would not be the kind who slinks away from the presidency in disgrace and disgust.

This would not inflict any vile impact on his family or on other members of his clan who were engaged in politics.

It might even, in some respect, turn out to be a bonus.

By this point, everyone understood very clearly that if the Duncan Clan really refused to turn back and those materials were thrown out, then no matter how well things were handled, in the end the President would still have to leave his position.

Because he had touched on some of the Federation’s most laughable rules—such as no cheating, and no wrecking other people’s families.

In the Federation, these things were not criminal acts. No one would say that cheating is a crime that must be prosecuted, just as wrecking someone else’s family is not a crime, and no one would demand prosecution for such people.

But they involved moral issues. Federation Society was a distorted society: everyone hoped that they themselves would be the exception to the moral yardstick, yet they wanted every other person besides themselves to be immaculate!

Once someone violated these rules, they were usually finished; society as a whole would not permit such people to hold important government positions.

In fact, in companies, and even within government, such things were too numerous to count. In any big company in Bupen, the conference rooms, offices, and even some corner of the open-plan floor might bear traces of certain residual bodily fluids.

People’s lives were that chaotic, yet they refused to tolerate similar chaotic behavior in others.

This double standard of morality was something people in the Federation mastered perfectly.

I Can smoke, I Can drink heavily, I Can get into fights and do bad things, yet in essence I am a good person.

But if anyone other than me does these things, then they must certainly be bad people!

What everyone was actually discussing now was a question of dignity—whether the President could leave office with dignity, rather than being impeached or resigning to take the blame.

Next year was election year. With this scandal, it would be hard for the public to cast their votes for him anymore; they would vote for someone else, and that would be a dignified exit.

He wouldn’t resign to take responsibility, and he wouldn’t be impeached; he would merely fail to win re-election because his approval ratings were not high enough. At least that was dignified: he wouldn’t fall under the category of leaving office due to a mistake.

If he couldn’t hold out until then, his departure would inevitably be undignified.

Unless they could somehow ensure that Jeruno didn’t spread those materials.

"Is that woman under control?", someone asked.

The President shook his head. "Not yet. Is it necessary to control her?"

"Just keep her from shooting off her mouth. You know, once someone decides to sell you out, he/she/it loses all bottom line."

"They can pin some things on you that they never actually did themselves, just to gain other people’s trust and make them take decisions that harm you."

"If I were you, I would get that woman under control—at the very least, she mustn’t be allowed to say whatever she wants."

"Unless they make a move first."

After listening, the President was slightly taken aback, then rose to his feet. "I’m going to make a call."

He remembered something else: during his ’relationship’ with Chris, she had always hoped that he would arrange a job for her husband, and he had agreed.

This could also become a handle for the Duncan Clan to attack him, and it already touched on misconduct in office—a classic case of using official power for personal gain.

Even though this "gain" was nothing more than simple personal enjoyment, he had still broken the law.

With a moral lapse, at worst he would resign to take responsibility, and Congress would be unlikely to intervene.

But once it involved a crime, Congress would definitely intervene.

He knew that quite a few Members of Parliament would be purged next year, and these people might not be so willing to be swept out just like that.

If they saw no hope, they would completely throw in their lot with the Duncan Clan, at least raking in a big haul before their political careers ended.

They would initiate impeachment, and the public’s attention would increase, which would make his exit far less dignified.

If he could wrap all this up in a dignified way by failing to win re-election, he was willing to pay a certain price for that—but not impeachment!

He walked into the adjoining room, picked up the phone, and while he talked about this matter, the short old man in the main hall shook his head slightly.

He could see that the relationship between the President and that woman was probably not just about simple desire; it also involved other issues.

This was precisely the type of temptation Federation politicians continually encountered. There was always someone trying to lure politicians into crimes with all sorts of things, then seize the leverage and turn it around to exploit them.

That was how the capitalists corroded the political arena; yet the society itself, through the development of these years, had already taken on the shape of capital, making it hard to reverse.

He rested his arm on the chair’s armrest, supporting his chin, and looked at his "old rival" beside him. "What’s your view?"

The Conservative Party Committee chairman countered, "Which aspect do you mean?"

"The candidate." The short old man shook his head slightly. "Their partners within the Conservative Party are more numerous. If we let them hang on into the next term, it may not be a good thing."

For a case that in future would be prefixed with "the century case," its judicial process would be extremely long!

How long?

It might stretch on for two or three years, or even longer, because evidence had to be collected, and the validity and value of that evidence had to be confirmed.

Cases of this scale had to be adjudicated through judicial channels. This was to highlight the importance of the judiciary within the whole system of Federation Society, to make the public understand the sanctity of the law.

This in itself was a political act.

But if it dragged on too long and allowed the Conservatives to come to power, the Duncan Clan’s connections within the Conservative Party were far more extensive than their ties in the Progressive Party, and that could trigger some unpredictable troubles.

For the top-tier politicians, the Duncan Clan’s influence was too great and too malignant.

Yet for mid- and lower-level politicians, the Duncan Clan was undoubtedly a good partner.

They didn’t have to pay too high a price to get an extra, stable, and safe stream of income from the Duncan Clan.

They didn’t even have to do anything in return, so who would hate them?

In this world, those with decision-making power are always a minority, but decision-making power must be grounded in a vast base of mid- and lower-levels. That is a fact that cannot be changed.

This made certain matters dangerous. They had many ways to interfere with things—for example, procedural issues in the legal process, problems in evidence collection, or even arranging for a few family members to "jump off a building."

There were many methods.

The Conservative Party Committee chairman also had a headache over this, because the Conservatives had held continuous terms in previous years, so the Duncan Clan’s penetration of the then—or rather, the earlier—ruling party had been somewhat deeper.

He couldn’t guarantee that the mid- and lower-levels would always remain in tight alignment with the Conservative Party Committee’s stance. Take the recent leak at FBI Headquarters: it had already reached the mid-high ranks, people with a bright future, and yet they still chose such a terrifying way to leak information—that was utterly unexpected.

"What if we let your people stay on?", the Conservative Party Committee chairman floated an idea he didn’t much like.