The First Order

"What's the matter?" Luo Lan saw Ren Xiaosu pondering with his head lowered like he had caught onto something he said.

"Are you sure that the Qing Consortium has only given their nanomachines to the Zhou Consortium, the Northwest, and me?"

"Of course, I was the one who personally made the arrangements to send them to them," Luo Lan said.

This time, Ren Xiaosu seemed to have figured many things out.

Some nanosoldiers had suddenly appeared in Stronghold 61 and attacked Jiang Xu.

At that time, Ren Xiaosu was wondering if it was Zero or the Qing Consortium behind that attack. But now, two more organizations were added to the list of possibilities.

A small portion of the nanomachines sent to Luoyang City by Luo Lan were now in Ren Xiaosu, while the rest were given to Wang Yuchi and the others. Ren Xiaosu firmly believed they would not participate in the killing of Jiang Xu.

For the batch of nanomachines that were sent to the Northwest, Ren Xiaosu also firmly believed that the people there would not do something like that. The nanomachines sent there by the Qing Consortium would surely be placed under heavy guard, so if someone had secretly stolen a batch, they would definitely have found out about the missing nanomachines.

Of course, Ren Xiaosu still had the Great Hoodwinker confirm whether those nanomachines were fully accounted for.

So then, the only suspect left was the Zhou Consortium.

The Zhou Consortium and the Wang Consortium had a long-standing feud. At the beginning, the Wang Consortium used trade to drive many of the Zhou Consortium's refugees into the mountains to secretly breed silkworms by purchasing their silk at high prices. Later, when Stronghold 61 recruited the refugees from their territory, many of the Zhou Consortium's factories were forced to shut down.

All the organizations in the Central Plains had the intention of annexing one another, so it was normal for them to guard against each other.

Seeing that the Pyro Company and the Kong Consortium were about to fall into the hands of the Wang Consortium, how could the Zhou Consortium possibly not panic in such circumstances?

The killing of Jiang Xu would inevitably set the entire Alliance of Strongholds against the Wang Consortium, which was something the Zhou Consortium wished to see happen.

Even though the Qing Consortium had given some nanomachines to the Zhou Consortium, the Zhou Consortium did not dare to let their important figures use it. Instead, they trained up nanosoldiers to go and assassinate Jiang Xu. If these nanosoldiers were discovered by the Wang Consortium during that time, the Wang Consortium would also start suspecting the Qing Consortium, deepening the animosity between them.

Moreover, if the blame for killing Luo Lan could be cast on the Wang Consortium, and the Qing Consortium ended up declaring war on them, the Zhou Consortium would be able to hide behind this conflict, making that the best deal in the world for them.

As the saying went, "If no mastermind or culprit is found after an incident, you should first suspect the person who benefits most from it."

So when Luo Lan mentioned the Zhou Consortium, Ren Xiaosu felt that everything made sense.

All the evidence gathered so far pointed to that logical possibility.

But even though it could be explained, Ren Xiaosu still decided to wait for Wang Yun's analysis.

Ren Xiaosu looked at Luo Lan and asked, "Since the nanomachines that were given to the Zhou Consortium had a backdoor program installed, can you find out about the whereabouts of those nanomachines using it?"

Luo Lan shook his head. "We usually don't activate the backdoor in case someone finds out about it, but we can do it. However, we can't track them as our military network has just been hacked by the AI."

…

Three days later, Zhou Yingxue arrived at Stronghold 144 with Wang Yuchi and the others by car.

On the day after they left Luoyang City, a secret group of troops suddenly intercepted them in the wilderness. However, the outcome was already determined, and they were all held off by Zhou Yingxue.

During the encounter, Zhou Yingxue had deliberately spared a group of enemy troops for Wang Yuchi and the others to practice on. She hoped they could get used to fast-paced battles as soon as possible.

In the end, a strange scene played out. The creeper vine rounded up all the enemies who were still alive for Wang Yuchi and the rest to practice their skills on. Meanwhile, Zhou Yingxue rooted for them outside the ring.

This made the enemies who had intercepted them feel like they were really dumb for attempting to come and kill these people.

How was this even a fair battle? They were simply being humiliated!

If it weren't for the fact that Ren Xiaosu urgently wanted the surveillance footage to be analyzed, Zhou Yingxue could probably continue torturing them for another two days. After all, where else could she find such outstanding sparring opponents?

Her lovely little brothers needed a sparring session like this!

As a matter of fact, Zhou Yingxue treated Wang Yuchi and the others really well, and it wasn't just the feeling of "kinship" that had developed when she was taking care of them. Zhou Yingxue thought that if her master took in another maidservant in the future, her younger brothers could stand on her side and speak up for her.

Although Zhou Yingxue felt that Ren Xiaosu was unlikely to take in another maidservant with Yang Xiaojin around, wasn't she just taking precautions?

When they arrived at Stronghold 144, Wang Yun, the Great Hoodwinker, and the others were already waiting at the city gate.

The Great Hoodwinker had helped Ren Xiaosu confirm that all the nanomachines given by the Qing Consortium were stored at Fortress 178 and everything was intact. This made Ren Xiaosu heave a sigh of relief. At the very least, they could rule out the possibility of a spy among their people.

Next, it would have to depend on Wang Yun's performance.

Three days ago, Ren Xiaosu had ordered the Great Hoodwinker to prepare a venue for Wang Yun to analyze the surveillance footage. After receiving the black boxes, they immediately made a trip to the military base near Stronghold 144.

A space had been vacated here to make room for a large conference room with countless screens mounted on the walls.

Zhang Xiaoman connected the ports with his men. When they were powered on, all the screens lit up and displayed different scenes.

Wang Yun stood silently facing the screens with his arms crossed. He burned all of the images into his mind as he watched them so he could analyze everything accurately late.

"Play the recordings back at triple speed." Wang Yun said, "Otherwise, it'll take a month to finish watching all the surveillance footage. Future Commander can't wait that long."

The upper right corners of the screens were marked with serial numbers. If Wang Yun needed to pause any of the screens, he would just say whichever number.

When the recordings were replayed, Wang Yun stood silently in front of the screens and watched. Meanwhile, dozens of the Northwest's intelligence agents assigned by the Great Hoodwinker surrounded Wang Yun and assisted him in his work.

All of them were all here to serve him.

Before this, Wang Yun watched the surveillance footage of Ren Xiaosu's battle in Luoyang City first and memorized the faces of all the hitmen who had appeared in the footage. As such, Wang Yun would definitely find any traces of the enemy as long as they appeared in the surveillance footage that spanned an entire month.

Suddenly, Wang Yun said, "Pause Screen A17. The man in A18 moved off and reappeared in A17 around ten seconds later holding a black plastic bag. In that short 12 seconds, someone must've interacted with him at the surveillance camera's blind spot. Take a screenshot of this man's appearance and send it to Future Commander. Let him find and interrogate this person in Luoyang City. Alright, let's continue watching. Replay all the surveillance footage from the cameras around A17. I want to find out who the suspect is meeting with!"

The Great Hoodwinker and the others were surprised as they looked at this sight of over a hundred screens in front of them.. Previously, they only knew Wang Yun had an amazingly good memory, but they did not expect it to be this terrifying.