Volume 3, Chapter 86 – Interlocking

Thanks to Aurora’s cooperation, Bai Xiang and Aray’s group were treated as honored guests in Diming City.

Under Aurora’s direction, Starwater Company secretly executed “the overly reckless General Walker” and “Xibo, who had privately sold client data.” They even brought the men in front of Bai Xiang to carry out the executions.

“This is to keep you from suspecting…” Aray whispered to Bai Xiang, “suspecting that any video we sent you was fabricated.”

Bai Xiang did not care about this kind of thing. She gave Aray two hours to get his family affairs arranged, while she and Aurora holed up together in one of General Walker’s villas, lying back in a chair and browsing through that research data.

“If you are willing, we would like Mr. Aray to be the new mayor of Diming City.”

Aurora piloted her wheelchair over to Bai Xiang’s side.

This wheelchair was a condensed showcase of many technological achievements. It could even levitate when it encountered obstacles too difficult to cross, a full display of the Star Tower Group’s attainments in mechanical and military engineering.

“Don’t ask me about that.” Bai Xiang kept her eyes on the documents. “Talk to him yourselves.”

Two hours was enough time for Aray to send his family away.

As for where they were being sent… of course back to Great Yu, back to Maozhou. Guo Rongzhi would arrange everything properly for them.

On this point, she had to acknowledge Starwater’s sincerity. They had rolled out a “buy one, get one free” policy here. Not only did they agree to handle this matter, they also helped Aray’s younger brother Fei Ming rescue his “sweetheart.” The girl named Shuma and her mother were sent out together as well.

When capital felt a mortal threat and obediently bowed its head to work, Bai Xiang had to admit she approved of this level of efficiency.

She also realized that her previous understanding of giant companies like the Star Tower Group had been off.

Yes, the Federal Union was loose, and each regime and its interests were calculated independently. But from that soil had grown monsters like the Star Tower Group and Laidi Life Sciences, transnational capital whose power and jurisdiction even surpassed some of the Federations themselves.

For example, in what she was seeing now: Starwater Company was only one branch under Star Tower’s umbrella, yet in Diming City it was the real local earth emperor, a hidden emperor above the throne. Even Prince Saiwei’s influence here could not compare to theirs.

This was what a “giant” was. Its power had already surpassed that of most state machines, a monster-level capital that could only appear in a cyber society.

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“We have already had a preliminary talk with Mr. Aray.” Aurora nodded. “Mr. Aray neither agreed nor refused.”

Which meant he was tempted.

From Aray’s perspective, he had a clear sense of his own ability and proper scope of authority. Before meeting Bai Xiang, he had only been a manager at Mingfei Airlines. His understanding and his work were all focused on Diming City. Once he left Diming City, those abilities would lose their foundation.

He could continue to be trained, of course, but Bai Xiang had already said she would only stay in Luohou for one week.

What could you train in a single week.

So he had likely weighed the pros and cons and concluded that, since Starwater urgently needed to build a “bridge of friendship” between itself and Bai Xiang, him staying in Diming City to play that role was probably the best choice for all parties.

“Do as you like.” Bai Xiang nodded, which counted as accepting the girl’s suggestion.

She really is extraordinary.

Watching Bai Xiang’s expression from the side, Aurora found it hard to imagine how someone so young could be this steady and seasoned.

At most, Bai Xiang was eighteen this year. Calling her a “girl” would not be an exaggeration. Yet from her, Aurora could sense something she had only ever felt from her father before, a kind of “mysterious authority.”

That too was thanks to her own ability. For ordinary people, this “mystery” was hard to pin down. Aurora, however, could analyze it concretely through pheromones. She had discovered that Bai Xiang’s ability in this area might be stronger than her own.

In other words, with every move Bai Xiang made, with her body, even with the way her gaze shifted, something hormone-like, pheromone-like was surging outward at a wild, rapid pace, like a black hole drawing other people’s eyes toward her.

Aurora was certain it was under this influence that she had said what she did earlier.

Same-sex “entertainment” had long since become commonplace in the Federations, but normally she had no interest in such things.

Bai Xiang clearly disliked being disturbed. Seeing that she did not respond, Aurora maneuvered her wheelchair back.

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A light-screen popped out from the armrest, the caller ID marked [Dear Dad].

“Dani.” On the screen appeared a stern-faced blond man. “You need to explain your actions.”

“Do you not understand me either, Dad?” The girl lifted her head and glanced at the sky, as if picking out that satellite from the darkening firmament. “Your daughter really did not have a choice.”

“I am not talking about you offering yourself to her as a hostage.” The man looked a bit angry. “I am talking about how you did not discuss any of this with me from beginning to end！”

“Oh, that. Well, things were rather rushed in the moment…”

“You had at least twelve hours to prepare this operation targeting her.” The man’s voice was low. “If you had been thinking clearly and come to consult me of your own accord, I could have given you timely intel. Twelve hours earlier, she had just fought a ‘terror-class’ powerhouse. A great deal of information suggests she at least did not fall behind.”

“‘Terror-class’?” Aurora paused, then, remembering Bai Xiang’s outrageous displays, slowly nodded. “So that is how it is…”

“Dani? Are you listening？”

“I can more or less guess the reason.” Aurora replied calmly. “It probably has to do with me being parasitized by a ‘puppet worm’.”

“Puppet worm?” The man’s expression changed at once.

Aurora recounted what had happened to her and Ramon, and at the end she still did not forget to sum it up. “It was probably still in its incubation stage, so it did not go directly into my brain. Even so, it should have been able to interfere with my thought processes to some extent. During that period, I undoubtedly made some stupid moves that were ‘completely unlike me’.”

“…Has everything been cleaned up？” The man asked the girl anxiously.

“I am fine.” Aurora smiled. “Dao Lord Bai helped smooth out my body. I also got to feel a cultivator’s qi. It was quite comfortable, actually, like a massage.”

“What about the company？”

“We have already done preliminary checkups. The results show no one else has been parasitized.”

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Once they had fully talked through this matter, the man finally relaxed.

“She is suspected to already be terror-class. You really stumbled into a big hit this time.”

“Yes, I also feel my luck was pretty good.”

Lifeforms at that level did not respond to threats.

If they wished, they could slip into any location without anyone knowing and do whatever they wanted. You could not trace them, could not lock onto them, and there was nothing you could do to them.

Most crucially, the Star Tower Group could obtain top-secret historical records from certain Federation governments. If some of those files were not fabricated, then even if they were directly struck by a nuclear bomb or a space-based weapon, a terror-class would still be fine.

Otherwise, why would they be called “terror-class”？

Impossible to define, impossible to understand. Humans naturally felt intense fear toward such beings.

It was very difficult to establish friendly ties with lifeforms of that level, because most of the time they had no interest in seizing benefits outside of Great Yu.

Bai Xiang was special this time. She happened to have a need, and Aurora happened to be able to conveniently help meet that need.

That was why she said she was lucky.

“People of Great Yu value their promises.” The man mused. “Her relationship with the emperor of Great Yu is poor. This is our chance. We have to seize it.”

“I know what I am doing.”

After giving Aurora a few more reminders, Lori-Aurora hung up.

He had to admit, his daughter had given him quite a few pleasant surprises.

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But there was some information he had not told her.

He tapped a few times on his office desk, and a projection screen unfolded in midair.

The projection showed a world map cut into segments. Each segment was enlarged at the cut, giving a close-up. Within the spiderweb of city veins, certain buildings were marked in red, with the surrounding areas all encompassed in red as well.

After a brief silence, the man reached out and dragged the map closer, zooming in on the terrain of the Luohou region and marking Diming City in red.

Then he thought for a moment, zoomed back out, and extended the red zone until it covered all of Luohou.

In the lower left corner of the screen was a line of white letters, which translated as [Puppet Crisis].

Below that was a line for recorded cases, with a number after it: [1128].

With his next operation, the number turned into [1129].

“Windstorms, tsunamis, demon disasters and wars, almost every case is accompanied by a large-scale catastrophe in the background.”

The man leaned back in his chair and gave a gentle shake of his head.

He did not think this was a good sign, but he had no idea what those monsters actually wanted.

Did establishing a line to a terror-class count as a turning point？

He could not say.

All he could say was that for the trouble that had crawled out of Great Yu’s abyss, if they wanted to settle it, maybe, perhaps, in the end they would still have to rely on the methods of the people of Great Yu.