"What do I need to write?"

Xiaoyun was sitting alone in his office, the window blinds behind him drawn tightly against the deadly laser called the sun.

The pale overhead light barely illuminated the blank sheet of paper resting on the desk, his hand holding a pen just above the page.

It wasn’t that Xiaoyun lacked ideas on what to write. If anything, there were too many things to start with.

Every passing second gave birth to another thought, another possibility, each one crowding the next before he could set a single word down.

"Fuck, sitting at home really did rot my brain."

Unable to make a decision, Xiaoyun started to note down every single idea he had one by one.

After just five minutes, the whole page was filled with bullet points.

"A simple introduction. Then add this lighthearted joke? No, no, no, not fitting for something so serious like this." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Looking through all the possibilities he had written, it only makes his indecisiveness even worse.

"But everyone views me as a young guy straight from college. All the young people want me to feel relatable as per usual, right?"

After sitting in his seat for another ten minutes, he finally circled the five things he was satisfied with as the starter.

"Okay, now for the actual speech... Wait, how did I write my speech in the past?"

As Xiaoyun tried to dig through his past memories, the only thing that he could come up with was speeches made on the spot.

From mid-autumn celebratory speeches to going on TV, to even the press release he had just done earlier.

All of them had little to no script, or went off script completely, depending on how he wanted to talk in the moment.

His mouth had always just repeated the information he knew and his own opinion that could persuade people to his side.

The only thing that remotely came close to an actual formal speech was the military parade back in April, but that itself was mostly just legal jargon.

"There’s no way this is good enough. People grow up over time, and I should, too. Maybe I need to think further back..."

Closing his eyes, a flood of memories started to hit him. Things that were going as far as when he was still Songming.

"Formal public speeches, public speeches... A company speech is too much about drawing the future."

Just as Xiaoyun was about to open his eyes in frustration, a strategy suddenly popped into his head.

He quickly wrote down the one word. Then another. Next thing he knew, he had filled the back of the paper completely.

There was now just one thing he needed to do to combine current relatability and old persuasiveness into one speech.

"Time for the computer to do its magic trick."

After turning on the monitor, Xioayun quickly typed his username and password. Past the home screen, he moved his mouse to the secured browser.

"Please enter your ID access code."

The sudden loud noise made Xiaoyun flinch. He quickly muted his computer as he entered his personal ID.

"Please wait, the server is currently too occupied... You can’t be serious."

Xiaoyun rolled his eyes as he waited for the temporary access page to change. A minute later, it finally refreshes.

The home page of the census department, where the search bar and catalog were in the middle of the screen.

"Thank god they installed this connected to my computer... Now, where do I find the things I need?"

After thinking for a bit, Xiaoyun clicked on the sort by option, then checked the opinion surveys.

Within seconds, thousands of different studies pop up at once. Next, he typed in his own name into the search bar, narrowing it down to a single page.

"Favorability of me? When did they do this survey?"

Out of curiosity, he clicked on the study, which immediately brought him to an extremely bare-bones article that only had a single paragraph and a table.

It was a thousand-person anonymous yes or no survey asking one question. Conducted exactly a year ago.

"Do you approve of the mayor’s work... 94% approval rating? I really have that many people approving of me before?"

After reading through the entire thing, Xiaoyun didn’t put much thought into it and went back to the search page.

Next, he picked a survey conducted by a third party, Luoping Daily. One that was surprisingly given approval from the census department.

It was a study done to find how much the people knew about him, ranging from when he became the governor to more personal facts like his age.

"Someone really gave approval for this? Who’s responsible for this? No way someone thought this through."

Scrolling down to the bottom, Xiaoyun soon found the person who granted approval to be Yuqi out of all people.

"Really?"

He quickly scrolled back to the top, finding the study to be done last month as he began to read it line by line.

"95% people know my name... Who the hell is the 5% who doesn’t know who I am? And how has only 60% people seen my face?"

The more Xiaoyun read through the study, the more surprised he felt. He was well-known in public, but not in the direction he wanted.

An overwhelming majority, or as in the absolute majority of 100%, knew of his marriages to multiple women, more than knowing his full name.

More people knew of his personal affair than of his past military achievement from Luoping to Guangzhou to Foshan.

If it weren’t for the recent news story of his solo entering the red fog in Shenzhen, the survey respondent wouldn’t even know him as the Commander-in-Chief.

The only positive thing he found out of all these negative, targeted questions was the record level of people describing him as a hero.

Although considered a hero, there was a clear divide between the old and the new.

Older citizens were viewing him as a literal selfless human savior, with stories of personally rescuing and getting people out of the apocalypse.

It was almost borderline building a cult of personality, mythifying him as a god. The entrenched idea of him being perfect and could do no wrong.

Meanwhile, the newer citizens viewed him as a hero by the simple fact that he chose to let people in, rather than being an exclusive settlement.

There was never a rose-tinted glass for them. They had viewed him as a complete ’individual heroism’ who was willing to bend the rules for himself.

It just so happens that his selfish demands mostly align with the goods of the people. A selfish hero whose strong-ruled fist so happened to be needed in a desperate time.

"Hmm... Make myself a hero and incorporate strong imagery. A mic drop that makes people feel the aura?"

For a second, a thought popped up in his head. One that literally captured the definition of strong and aura at the same time.

"No way I’m going to do this. It’s way too cringe... But no single leader in the world had ever done this, right?"

After sitting there for five whole minutes, Xiaoyun crumbled the paper into a ball and threw it right into the bin.

Then took out his phone and dialed a number.

"Fei Tian, I need you to help me with something..."

---

As the morning flew by and evening approached, Xiaoyun was standing next to with what seemed to be an improvised helicopter.

It looked much better than the past homemade DIY helicopter, as it had a separate cockpit and transport area for three people to sit in.

"Commander, are you sure this is a good idea?" Fei Tian questioned as the two of them approached closer and closer to the helicopter.

"Name a single person who’s crazy enough to do this. This is the only chance I’ve got to show off in front of everyone."

"If you say so."

As the two of them entered the helicopter, Fei Tian quickly gave the instruction to the pilot, whose face looked a little dumbfounded.

"Sir, are you sure this is a good idea?" The pilot questioned as he looked back at Xiaoyun, who was sitting there in silence.

"Do you want to ask the Command in Chief yourself?"

"No, sir."

"Then fly a helicopter. Make sure it’s high enough. You can fly back down after the signal is given."

"Yes, sir."

The helicopter began to fly up higher and higher, going closer and closer to the cloud as both Xiaoyun and Fei Tian started attaching gears to themselves.

"Commander, we still can turn back right now. Are you really, really sure you want to do this?"

Fei Tian asked out loud as the wind and helicopter motor made it almost impossible to hear each other’s voices.

"How many times do I have to say yes? You won’t be in trouble if anything goes wrong! You can take my word for granted!"