Chapter 299: Mai Er’s Identity
Ross 154 planetary system, hidden base.
Under Fan Ren’s operation, Dan Qin resigned from her identity as Intelligence Department Minister and led a group of core personnel here to establish the Fox Pirate Group intelligence team.
Over these years, under her leadership, the intelligence department’s work has achieved remarkable results. Through embedding accompanying personnel in the Foreign Affairs Department, these intelligence agents continuously feed back high-value intelligence to the headquarters through their personal capabilities.
Especially in the collection of intelligence on the current state of the Hans Civilization, this intelligence team has fully demonstrated their value.
“Mai Si Prime Minister did not oppose our proposal, but there was also no clear response. However, he proposed arranging a face-to-face meeting with Mai Dao and Mai Er, with the location to be decided by them.”
Dan Qin reported the response from Mai Si’s side with a cold face, her expression showing no fluctuation, which made Fan Ren feel very uncomfortable.
“Reply to them that we agree to their request. Set the meeting location at the starfield market on Sirius Prime Star, where we can guarantee absolute safety for both parties.”
Fan Ren lowered his head, not wanting to meet her gaze, and said so.
“Alright, do we need to make arrangements for Mai Er’s personal safety?”
Hearing this, Fan Ren frowned and pondered for a moment, then said: “A’dai, implant a logic judgment program in Mai Er’s brain chip that involves our own sensitive information. Once these sensitive information are triggered in his conversations, it can execute a self-destruct program.
By the way, this part can be directly told to Mai Er to prevent him from betraying us out of ignorance of death. Although currently, his value is second only to making Mai Si believe in our existence, keeping his life might have other uses in the future.”
“Got it, Boss.”
At this point, a hint of doubt flashed in Fan Ren’s eyes as he asked: “By the way, is Mai Er’s identity really just an ordinary nephew of the Mai Family as he claimed?”
Hearing this, Dan Qin’s bright eyes showed a moment of contemplation, then she nodded uncertainly: “All the information we have obtained about Mai Er so far comes from public sources, and his resume and background match his previous self-description without any discrepancies.”
After speaking, Fan Ren looked up at her, his brows slightly furrowed: “Only public information?”
“Yes.”
“But in fact, Mai Er himself does not possess outstanding military command abilities. According to Mai Si Prime Minister’s governing style, although there were many cases of nepotism during his tenure, those people basically had the corresponding job capabilities.
Moreover, as an Expeditionary Force Commander, a position that ranks in the top 10 in the Hans Civilization, and an important Ministry of War official, his performance after being captured… how to put it? He was too afraid of death.”
Fan Ren propped his chin with one hand, his gaze gradually losing focus, and continued pondering: “I understand the Fox being afraid of death; he can be said to be the last seed of the Fox Civilization. This guy must have other secrets, but that’s not important to us right now, so I understand his fear of death.
But since Mai Er is an Expeditionary Force Commander and from the Prime Minister’s faction, the fact that the Expeditionary Force was completely annihilated actually serves their interests.
But Mai Er’s performance doesn’t seem to match his identity.”
“According to your reasoning, this is the most fitting reaction for his identity. After the fleet was completely annihilated, he betrayed the Hans Civilization to survive. What’s wrong with that?”
Dan Qin subconsciously interrupted Fan Ren’s muttering to himself; she was a bit dizzy from Fan Ren’s inconsistent reasoning.
Fan Ren looked up at her and slowly shook his head: “During the interception battle, he had a chance to escape, but he chose to resist to the death until the small flagship aircraft carrier he was on was captured by us, before completely giving up resistance. For this, we lost fewer than 500 Punisher Battleships at the time.
This act of resistance does not align with the choice someone from the Mai Family background would make. The total annihilation of the Expeditionary Force was itself the best outcome for the Mai Family.”
“Ah! This…”
Fan Ren’s eyes lit up slightly, not interrupted by Dan Qin, and continued: “He had a chance to board a high-speed frigate on the small aircraft carrier flagship to escape, but he didn’t. Why?”
“Why?” Dan Qin’s eyes showed some confusion as she subconsciously asked.
“His identity is problematic; he’s absolutely not just a simple ordinary Mai Family disciple.” Fan Ren stated affirmatively, then ordered A’dai: “Make sure the logic chip in Mai Er’s brain functions normally, and closely monitor all his actions for corresponding analysis to determine if he has any disguising or misleading behavior.”
“Minister Dan, you continue to handle the contact with Mai Er. Still agree to the meeting with Mai Er as before, location unchanged, but we must have accompanying personnel present.”
“Understood!”
Regarding Fan Ren’s doubts, Dan Qin only puzzled for a moment before giving up on further investigation.
She is the leader responsible for the entire intelligence collection work and doesn’t need to waste too much personal energy on verifying the truth of such personal behaviors or other actions; leave those issues to ‘A’dai’.
Perhaps previously, due to not paying attention, Mai Er wasn’t particularly monitored.
Now, after Fan Ren’s order, she knew ‘A’dai’ would definitely allocate part of the computing power in the opponent’s brain chip to closely monitor the opponent’s behavior and judge their reactions.
This is far more useful than their baseless guessing here.
Fan Ren’s earlier thoughts require confirmation of Mai Er’s real identity before deciding on arrangements, which also needs to wait for feedback from ‘A’dai’s surveillance results.
“On other fronts, continue strict monitoring of all Hans Civilization garrisons. The internal struggles between the Prime Minister Group and the Imperial Family in the Hans Civilization are intensifying, which actually provides your intelligence department with certain advantages, but don’t take it lightly.”
Dan Qin listened to Fan Ren’s steady and heavy lecture, her expression suddenly becoming a bit strange.
“Ahem, that’s it for now. Anything else?”
Noticing the awkward atmosphere, Fan Ren’s face changed slightly as he hurriedly stopped.
Hearing this, Dan Qin glared irritably at the serious Chairman in front of her, then without responding, turned and stomped ‘thud thud thud’ on the metal floor as she walked out.
“Chairman, my sister has this personality; she has no bad intentions. Don’t take it to heart.”
Behind him, Dan Wu always had that unnoticeable demeanor, and at this moment, he couldn’t help but softly explain a sentence for his own sister.
Fan Ren smiled awkwardly and shook his head, not minding.
He knew that from their first meeting, Dan Qin disliked Zeng Yingying’s irresponsible attitude toward work. Later, to ease this relationship, he forcibly transferred her to Jin Qiaoying’s side, which at the time essentially negated her work.
The grudge between the two was formed at that time.
Not just that; their relationship seemed forever unable to bypass Zeng Yingying.
Fan Ren’s differential treatment toward Jin Qiaoying and Zeng Yingying further displeased Dan Qin.
This woman has a straightforward temper, and over time, she always faced Fan Ren with a cold demeanor, never giving him a good look.
Thinking of this, unknowingly, Fan Ren’s eyes held some inexplicable emotion.
It had been nearly 50 years since Zeng Yingying’s last hibernation until now.
He knew this was wrong.
Zeng Yingying’s hibernations were always done without her knowledge, sent into the hibernation pod by Fan Ren without any reaction.
This included Zeng Yingying herself; everyone strongly opposed it.
But Fan Ren was extremely stubborn on this matter and wouldn’t listen to anyone’s opinion.
A ‘knock knock knock’ sounded at the door. Hearing it, Dan Wu behind him tiptoed out quietly through another door without Fan Ren noticing.
Fan Ren looked up at the desktop display panel, where Jin Qiaoying was standing outside the door.
‘Click’, he pressed the door open switch.
Now, Jin Qiaoying wore a tight black nano-coat that outlined her proud figure very attractively.
Fan Ren’s gaze fell on her body, slightly lost in thought.
If there’s the person he felt most guilty toward, it might be this woman in front of him whose face was gradually showing wrinkles.
Jin Qiaoying was now over 170 years old.
Fan Ren knew she was very particular about facial upkeep, and during an intimate moment, she had thrown her first ‘not small’ tantrum in front of him about the wrinkles on her face.
Yet, this beauty-loving woman, from joining Xinghai Technology until now over a hundred years later, had never entered a hibernation pod even once.
Perhaps, after handling the Hans Civilization incident, it was time to give this woman, who had made outstanding contributions to him and Human Civilization, some tangible reward.
However, Fan Ren knew one thing: Jin Qiaoying didn’t care about these.
And that was one of the reasons for his guilt.
The woman in front of him glanced at him, then as if long accustomed to it, walked to the desk, tidied up his messy desk one by one, including the ashtray full of cigarette butts, spending considerable effort before wiping the fine sweat from her clean forehead and sitting down in front of him.
“What are you looking at?”
Noticing that since she entered today, the man’s gaze in front of her had been fixed on her without leaving, Jin Qiaoying was somewhat puzzled.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Fan Ren didn’t know how to respond to her, his tone carrying a hint of guilt.
Hearing this, Jin Qiaoying was stunned for a moment, then instantly revealed a charming smile on her face.
She stood up, strode over with her long, slender legs, circled around the desk to Fan Ren, and without any shyness, straddled his lap. Then she leaned forward, her arms wrapping around the back of Fan Ren’s head, gently pressing close.
“So how will you repay me?”
Between his earlobes came the warm breath unique to Jin Qiaoying’s clear oral fragrance, along with that tone suddenly turning coquettish from mature.
In an instant, Fan Ren nearly lost his composure and hurriedly said seriously: “Talk business.”
Jin Qiaoying’s face resting on his shoulder suddenly flushed slightly. Feeling the hands that had already slipped inside her clothes, her lips trembled slightly: “Sales of warp engines have completely stalled, causing our current revenue to drop significantly. I’m worried this will affect our provision of war reserve materials later.
After all, right now, among what we have, only the high-efficiency nuclear fusion solution is a major profit earner; the other products are still catching up to the universe average level.”
“What do you think?”
Fan Ren’s hands unconsciously roamed over that smooth area, his mind pondering along with Jin Qiaoying’s words.
As mentioned before, due to the huge demand for warp engines, overall production capacity allocation was insufficient, ultimately leading to intentional regional sales divisions in the sales end by the starfield market.
This caused the most direct problem: according to their market division, it exactly covered the vast area from the Sirius Prime Star starfield to the Centauri α starfield.
The purchasing power in this area was actually quite limited.
After they sold for a while, it reached saturation, and now with sufficient production capacity, there’s even price reduction happening.
In this situation, they faced only one choice.
“Have our foreign trade personnel go to various starfields of the Galactic Alliance under personal identities to list for sale, but there’s one problem.”
“Transportation!”
“Yes, warp engines are controlled materials, unlike others. For such controlled materials sales, there must be goods reserves in the starfield market where the listing is made.
And if we do this, we must transport these warp engines intended for sale to each listing starfield; otherwise, we can’t perform the operation.
This makes transportation the biggest issue.”
“What about Interstellar Logistics?” Fan Ren’s face was somewhat grave, but his hands didn’t stop.
Jin Qiaoying’s body trembled slightly, but she endured the ‘discomfort’ and said: “Currently, what we’ve confirmed is that goods carried by Interstellar Logistics won’t be detained or inspected by local customs, but that’s with a prerequisite.”
“Listings must specify goods origin before transportation and provide proof.”
“Yes, if we use Interstellar Logistics to transport our warp engines, how do we provide these proofs without raising suspicion?”
After she spoke, her breathing became somewhat rapid.
Fan Ren, however, was different; in this state, his thoughts became very clear.
Interstellar Logistics’ rules are like this: transporting goods requires providing origin and related proof documents.
And obviously, their warp engines cannot be made public.
Not only that, they also need to conceal as much as possible that they themselves are the manufacturers of warp engines.
After all, this is a product only a fourth level civilization can produce; having it on them is too shocking.
Now it seems they must take down the Hans Civilization as soon as possible.
After all, in his plan, the Hans Civilization is the best white glove solution for their future high technology weapon sales.
Thinking of this, he slowly shook his head: “We can’t let Human Civilization take risks. War reserve materials preparation can wait; our current preparations are already at the usage limit for this fleet. Future materials are just for the reserve Punisher Battleships still under construction, which isn’t urgent for now.”
