Lu Zhou never expected that, after taking a short trip away from home, so much had happened.
Inside the room of Star Sky Hotel, Lu Zhou looked at his clothes and personal belongings that had been rummaged through. He sat by the bed, pinched his eyebrows with a headache, and said, “In other words… You guys thought I was taken away by people from the town hall?”
Wang Peng nodded awkwardly.
“That is the case…”
After organizing the thoughts in his mind, Lu Zhou tried to piece together the whole incident and continued, “Then, you didn’t find me at the town hall, so you went to the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Fund? But what does this have to do with the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Fund? Aren’t they just a business?”
“In the beginning, we thought so too, but we later discovered that their background is not that simple.” Wang Peng sighed and continued, “Remember the Aurora Borealis cruise ship?”
“I do, but that was all a hundred years ago.”
“Yes, it’s been nearly a hundred years.” Wang Peng continued with emotion, “The mastermind of that incident was a man named Gray Cloak, who was Gladstone.”
This sentence sounded a bit confusing, but with Lu Zhou’s logical ability, it was not difficult for him to comprehend. What he didn’t understand was that if he remembered correctly, the man named Gladstone should have been in his thirties, so it shouldn’t be possible for him to live for more than a hundred years.
“I know what you are thinking. In fact, I was confused too.” Wang Peng sighed and continued, “Gladstone does not specifically refer to a certain person, it is just an identity… or a title. The previous owner of this title passed it along with his account to Gladstone before the end of his life. And now, we have discovered the inner workings of their entire organization, and they know nothing about us.”
On the surface, the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation was just a chess piece of the foundation. In the eyes of most senior executives of the foundation, Gladstone’s identity was no different from the arrested Song Yangwei and Morinaga. They would never think that Gladstone was actually Grey Cloak, the “boss” of the foundation.
As per the saying, the most dangerous place was also the safest place. The more someone revealed themselves, the less likely it was for them to be suspected of being involved. Especially when it was uncertain if the foundation members were loyal, this was the safest way…
At least this was what Gladstone thought before being arrested.
“But why did… this absurdity turn into a civil war?”
Looking out the window, Lu Zhou couldn’t help but continue to ask, “Do you know? When I first came back, I was shocked by the holes in the streets. I thought that something like a meteorite fell in the city center. Later on, I learned that the Third Orbital Airborne Brigade had a fight with the Martian militia.”
“This is a long story. To be honest, we were actually quite surprised…”
Wang Peng smiled bitterly. After a pause, he continued, “In fact, signs of a wish for independence appeared in Tiangong City. We were aware of it before, but we did not expect that this kind of thinking had penetrated into the top level of Tiangong City management. We never imagined that Xiao Hong’s plan was not only the independence of Tiangong City but also to gather other colonial cities on Mars together to establish a ‘regional alliance’ belonging to the Martians.
“They developed their own weapons in the asteroid belt by cooperating with space pirates and used this to threaten the military forces of regional alliances such as the Pan-Asian Cooperation. At the same time, they used this as a bargaining chip to threaten the Pan-Asian Cooperation on the basis of independence and wish to have a certain number of starships. They planned to rebel a long time ago.”
Lu Zhou: “But why now—”
“Because of you.” Wang Peng looked at Lu Zhou with a baffled expression on his face and continued, “The Qinling has achieved faster than light travel. Considering that Tiangong City was granted a certain level of autonomy because of its distance from Earth, once the problem of faster than light communication is solved, they would sooner or later remove the autonomy of Tiangong City. Under such circumstances, launching a civil war was his only choice, and taking the lead in installing a warp drive was the only bargaining chip for them to defeat the First Fleet.”
Lu Zhou: “So the invitation to the academic conference…”
“Seems like you already know. Yes, Europa was just a cover. Their real intention was to establish a permanent and secret space base on the asteroid belt. The academic conference has had no progress despite many days of discussion…” Wang Peng shrugged. “I’m guessing it may be deliberate, but the purpose was to hold you back, to buy time for the Mars industry to master warp speed technology, and perhaps be able to directly coerce you to hand over the technology if necessary.”
“As for The Spirit of The Universe Foundation…” Wang Peng hesitated and continued, “Although we don’t know what they want to do, they seem to be eager to get their hands on the warp speed technology.”
Because of the interest entanglement between all parties, this civil war that broke out had evolved into a battle of the three forces.
No one thought that the disappearance of Academician Lu was a misunderstanding from the beginning. He was not in the hands of the town hall or The Spirit of The Universe Foundation at all. He was not protected by the Security Bureau like Mayor Xiao had guessed. He just left Tiangong City to take care of some personal matters.
Wang Peng was still confused about what exactly did Lu Zhou do when he left Tiangong City during this period. However, Lu Zhou didn’t seem to want to answer this question. After saying that he “went to meet an old friend”, he stopped giving any further explanation. It was inappropriate for Wang Peng to continue to ask questions, so he had to give up.
Wang Peng had a tilted expression on his face. Lu Zhou, who finally figured out what had happened, was baffled.
I left for a short trip… and became the reason for a civil war?
“It seems like… I offended a lot of people this time.”
“Not offend. Just advanced certain events.” Wang Peng scratched his head while looking at Lu Zhou, who was a little ashamed. He explained, “Your sudden disappearance made Xiao Hong mistakenly think that we have noticed his plan, so he decided to preemptively set off this time bomb. It is difficult to say whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that this war broke out ahead of time.”
Lu Zhou: “It would be nice if others could think the same way.”
“Don’t worry about this, I believe no one will blame you for this matter.” Wang Peng continued after hesitating, “I still don’t understand one thing, perhaps you could answer my confusions.”
Lu Zhou: “We’re all friends. Don’t be so polite, just ask if you have any questions.”
Wang Peng: “You said that after you left the hotel, you drove directly to the exit of Tiangong City, but how come when we searched for surveillance throughout the city, we didn’t find you?”
Wang Peng still did not understand this matter.
Not only Wang Peng, but also Mayor Xiao, Gladstone, and the others. They didn’t understand how Lu Zhou managed to slip away from everyone without them knowing it.
Normally speaking, due to his popularity, it would be impossible that no one had seen him along the way. Not to mention that there were cameras everywhere in Tiangong City. Using the city’s surveillance system, it would only take five minutes to find all footage of a certain target. And in less than one minute, a model of the target’s paths and destinations in Tiangong City would all be mapped out.
However, Wang Peng discovered during the investigation that, in addition to the days he disappeared, even during the period before the disappearance, Lu Zhou was not captured by even one frame of footage on the Tiangong City surveillance cameras.
It was almost like…
The footage was deleted.
Lu Zhou: “Are you saying that no cameras captured me?”
Wang Peng nodded and continued, “This is so strange.”
“It’s nothing strange.” Lu Zhou smiled and continued, “In my opinion, my friend was probably worried about my safety, so they did something without telling me.”
Wang Peng: “…?”
“Enough about this.” After thinking for a moment, Lu Zhou changed the topic. “Speaking of which… I am curious about some things.”
Wang Peng said immediately, “Please speak!”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “You don’t need to be so serious… According to you, Gladstone was at the top level of The Spirit of The Universe Foundation. Then what would happen to the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation?”
The Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation had created a financing fund for themselves.
If Lu Zhou remembered correctly, these guys had issued 10 billion credit points of corporate bonds and received a huge sum of investment credits from Pan-Asian Cooperation and even around the world.
Perhaps…
The bankruptcy of this company would develop into a new time bomb, leading to a financial tsunami that would be worse than the impact of Tiangong City’s civil war.
“Probably they will go bankrupt… My colleague is already cooperating with the staff of the AIIB to liquidate its assets.” Wang Peng thought for a while and replied, “After all, putting aside Gladstone’s identity, we cannot simply let go of the funds sent to the town hall.”
Also, since the Alpha Centauri Foundation was involved with that cult, the Security Bureau would never let them get off scot-free.
“So…” Lu Zhou nodded thoughtfully. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly said, “Can you introduce me to him?”
Wang Peng was taken aback for a moment. Confused, he then looked at Lu Zhou and asked, “To who?”
“The person in charge of the asset liquidation for the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation.” Lu Zhou continued after a pause, “I want to talk to him about some things.”
