The meeting room was quiet.
They had only gone through half of the scheduled agenda, but the Finnish officials had already left early. Sergei, who stood up, didn’t know if he should sit or not. He eyed the assistant behind him and the latter immediately walked up to help him clean up the things on the table.
When the documents were sorted and chairs began to move, the Russian officials also began to pack up.
Even half of the expectations weren’t reached, yet the meeting was over.
Jiang Chen, who stood in front of the satellite map, put down the marker and walked toward the door. When he came, he only brought himself, so there was nothing to pack up. When he left, he called Ayesha and asked her to help arrange a dinner at the front desk.
He just wanted to have a hot dinner now. The last time he properly ate something was already twenty-four hours ago.
Last night, he was on the helicopter. After he arrived in Murmansk, the first thing he did was call Hilton to book a room. After he returned to the hotel, he didn’t even take off his clothes before he slept until the afternoon. Then Russian Security Director Barth called him to remind him about the meeting.
It was already 7 o’clock in the evening. Before the meeting, he only drank a fruit-flavored nutrient supply, and his stomach had begun to protest.
Just as he left the government building, Barth waved at him. Barth walked to him hastily, patted him on the shoulder, and grinned.
“Do you want to have a meal together? There’s a very good restaurant nearby—I’ll treat you.”
“I’ve already booked dinner at the Hilton Hotel, so let me treat you.” Jiang Chen gave Ayesha a call and asked her to speak to the front desk to change the location to the private room at the restaurant and add another serving.
“Well, then.” Since Jiang Chen was already making arrangements, Barth didn’t reject the offer. He took out a car key from his pocket. “My car?”
“Please.” Jiang Chen smiled.
Unlike Defense Minister Sergei, Barth didn’t have a driver and traveled by himself, perhaps because of a need for work. Jiang Chen didn’t know the brand of his car; it must’ve been a local brand.
Right after the car started, Barth’s expression was bitter.
“Man, you’ve caused us a big problem.”
Jiang Chen glanced at him, dissatisfied.
“Why are you like the Finns, tossing everything onto my shoulders when something goes wrong? If your Alpha Special Forces killed Carmen, then there wouldn’t be all this trouble! I heard there were 500 meters between them, and you could’ve shot him. But instead, you thought about blowing up the ammunition depot?”
Barth frowned.
“What can one person do?”
Jiang Chen sneered, leaned against the seat and closed his eyes. “You can give him a chance to evolve in the next ten years. Maybe he can turn Russia into that dead zone.”
“What now?” Bart asked.
“Wait.”
“Wait?”
“Once NATO encounters the same problem, they will naturally think of us.” Jiang Chen laughed.
“Do you think NATO can’t solve this problem? It’s just a few bugs.” Bart argued.
In his view, NATO didn’t need to deal with this, as even the Russian border guards could easily crush the little bugs.
Jiang Chen laughed after he heard such a naive point of view.
“Just a few bugs?”
Holding the steering wheel, Barth was silent for a while.
Right as Jiang Chen was about to fall asleep, he said, “Allow me to be honest—why are you so sure? Don’t misinterpret me; I don’t mean anything else… I’m just curious as you seem to understand this situation? It was the case when the T-virus happened, and now it’s the same case for the X2 bacteria.”
His intuition behind years of intelligence work told Barth that these seemingly irrelevant events were connected.
Jiang Chen’s left eye opened slightly and examined Barth in surprise.
Just as he was just about to make an excuse, he suddenly thought of the Golden Apple that flowed from the factory controlled by Rothschild. It was also those Golden Apples that made him change his mind.
Perhaps now was the time?
After thinking for a moment, Jiang Chen suddenly smiled and said,” “Yes, I do have knowledge. I also know how Carmen got these things. Want to know how?”
“If it’s convenient.” Although the expression on his face was nonchalant, Jiang Chen could clearly feel that Barth’s tone was very concerned.
“Let’s talk when we eat.”
Jiang Chen didn’t answer and closed his eyes again to meditate.
It was still a half-hour drive from the Hilton Hotel. Before he disclosed the secret, he had to think about how he should structure the conversation.
Frankberg was in the middle of a revolution. It was definitely impossible to send troops to support their allies. The aircraft carrier was too far apart, and it didn’t seem realistic to move a fleet from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea, and it would stimulate the fragile nerves of the Russians.
It was the United Kingdom, who had already left the EU, who stepped up to help.
However, the British apparently underestimated the danger of the “nest”. The country only sent a mechanized brigade that deployed in northern Finland through heavy transport aircrafts.
They might’ve kept Jiang Chen’s suggestion in mind. The Finnish government sent engineers to chop trees along the “infected area” and dug out a 50-meter-wide zone. Immediately after, the British Army fired 20 white phosphorus munitions at the “nest.” They were planning to physically sterilize the area before entering the infected area.
However, the results were unexpected. The white phosphorus munition did burst into a splendid spark, but soon after, the flames seemed to be “frozen” and were extinguished in midair. The spores that had been burnt dropped to the ground, but the empty holes were soon filled by more spores from under the ground.
Realizing that something was wrong, they extracted a part of the spore from the infected area and found that a single cell would quickly consume itself in a high-temperature environment, secreting a special high-temperature resistant liquid. The fire would be wrapped by the liquid and extinguished.
A cell with a fire extinguisher!
This incredible discovery shocked the biologists into disbelief. They were invited to test the spores in infected areas. Even with their decades of experience, they didn’t understand what happened.
It didn’t surprise Jiang Chen at all.
Bugs were going to evolve.
If they were capable of interstellar navigation, how hard would putting out a fire be?
