Lantai

Lantai (literally "Orchid Tower", Simplified 兰台, Traditional 蘭臺) officially the Qin Siming State Security Center (named after the first Minister of Interior Security), is the headquarters for the Interior Security Ministry, the Sensitive Affairs Bureau, and the State Council Research Office. It was constructed early in the reign of the Huifu Emperor, with the original building standing eleven stories tall, and was originally built as a new headquarters for the Thousand Eyes Directorate. It is known there are at least three basement levels, but some speculate there may be more beneath these. The building has seen numerous expansions to add multiple new wings, as the Songhua intelligence and security apparatus has expanded greatly into modern times. Several outlying buildings have also been built nearby that are included in the State Security Center campus, and the complex has its own small underground rapid transit loop.

Lantai also has at least two basement levels devoted to holding cells, which have a fearsome reputation, as dissenters, political opponents of the regime, and high-level criminals who are arrested and sent there typically leave in body bags or on trains to maximum-security prisons or labor camps. Reportedly, on several occasions (such as the Great Purges after the 6-6 Crisis), the Dongjing municipal authorities have complained to the State Council about the amount of blood flowing out of Lantai's pipes into the Lai River. Conspiracy theories also exist that special garbage trucks that service Lantai have been seen going to the nearby Xi Qishan Power Plant, a coal-fired plant, and bring bodies there to be cremated.