Chapter Ninety-Two: The Pure Su Yunxia

The next day, Zhu Lan met the person he had been hoping to see.

“Sorry for troubling you to come all this way,” Zhu Lan said with a smile to the woman across from him.

The woman wore a troubled expression. Hearing him, she merely lifted her head and responded coolly.

“Who are you?”

“Let me introduce myself. My name is Zhu Lan, and I’m from Dreamtech,” he said.

“I don’t know you,” the woman replied flatly.

Zhu Lan could only shake his head with a helpless smile. “That’s all right.”

“If there’s nothing else, I’m leaving.” She looked as though she did not want to remain there, a feeling made all the more obvious by the clothes she wore.

She was very young, yet the garment on her body was a bleached, worn white, the color long since washed away by too many launderings.

“Miss Yan, please sit. Give me a few minutes, and then it won’t be too late for you to go.”

Su Yunxia was someone few people knew. Her family life had been far from good: both her father and mother had worked in factories for years and ended up with severe cancer. Su Yunxia herself had once been a lively girl, but the upheaval at home forced her to leave school early. The cruelty of society made her grow up fast.

Su Yunxia also had another identity: Cloud Song.

It was a name many feared, because Cloud Song was a hacker, a very famous hacker.

Hackers were exactly what Zhu Lan needed, especially skilled ones. Their understanding of networks could help him reverse-engineer the intelligent system quickly, or improve the performance of Kong Yan and Red Queen.

But after looking for many, Zhu Lan had found only people who were terribly proud, all of them sharing the same flaw: they knew no fear of heaven or earth. They always felt that, with their technical brilliance, they could lurk behind the world and toy with it.

Yet some people were different. Cloud Song was one of them. She possessed superb skill, but she did not let it change her life; day after day she shuttled back and forth, doing the hardest work in a tavern. Only on rare occasions did she use her abilities to earn a little money.

That was exactly the kind of person Zhu Lan wanted.

All along, Zhu Lan had had Kong Yan track them, but the two rarely went online. If they were not online, then no matter how strong Kong Yan was, tracking them was impossible.

Cloud Song was the first person Kong Yan had locked onto and confirmed by intruding into the local government network.

Since Zhu Lan happened to be in Lan City, he had asked Connor to bring her back.

“Dreamtech is dedicated to biomedical research. Gene optimization fluid is one of our products.”

At something she remembered, a glimmer lit Su Yunxia’s dim eyes, only to fade again at once.

“I know you, Cloud Song.”

Zhu Lan had identified Su Yunxia’s other identity, but she showed not the least surprise. Or perhaps she was merely numb, her face unreadable. Indeed, her skills were extraordinary, but she had never done anything that violated her own bottom line.

“I can save your parents,” Zhu Lan said quietly when he saw that Su Yunxia was unmoved.

“What?” At last, she was stirred. Her parents’ health worsened by the day, and Su Yunxia watched it with her own eyes, feeling the pain in her heart.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Your parents have cancer. With current medical methods, the success rate is at most thirty percent, and treatment costs running into the tens of millions are certainly not something just anyone can afford. But I can save your parents. The success rate can reach eighty percent, and there will be no side effects like chemotherapy.”

“What do I have to pay?” Su Yunxia already understood: if she wanted to save her parents, she would have to give something in return.

“Your skills. We need talent like you. We’ll cover your parents’ treatment for free. You need not worry about aftereffects, and the company will provide you with a room of your own, so you won’t have to keep living in that old house with your parents.”

“I agree.”

Yan Yunxia agreed at once, without even thinking.

Zhu Lan paused, then shook his head with a smile. “Good. In that case, my secretary will give you the contact details later. When you’re ready, call her, and she’ll arrange a plane for you.”

“Can I go now?”

Zhu Lan nodded.

“Am I a complete failure?” Zhu Lan sighed, looking at Kong Yan.

Kong Yan shook her head. “Boss, I don’t know.”

Zhu Lan let out a breath. “Let’s go.”

“You’re leaving?” Shangguan Qiaoning asked him, puzzled.

Zhu Lan nodded. “There are still many things at the company that I need to go back and handle.”

“Oh. When will you leave?”

“This afternoon.”

Shangguan Qiaoning said nothing more.

“By the way, Miss Shangguan, please tell your grandfather that I’ll contact you again once there is progress on that matter.”

Shangguan Qiaoning nodded. “I will.”

Zhu Lan said nothing else, and he did not ask Shangguan Qiaoning to see him off. Taking his people with him, he left Lan City.

“Boss!”

Once out of Magic City Airport, Cin Zan, who was in charge there, came forward to greet him.

“Mm. You’ve worked hard.”

“It’s nothing, really, nothing at all.” As a man stationed outside, he rarely had a chance to see Zhu Lan. What complaints could Cin Zan possibly have?

After arriving at the hotel where they were staying, Zhu Lan listened to Cin Zan’s report and, overall, was fairly satisfied.

“Why haven’t we recruited a designer yet?” He was very dissatisfied with the recruitment of designers.

Cin Zan gave a wry smile. “Boss, you may not know this, but by the time ship designers graduate, many of them have already been poached by other companies. Besides, the benefits offered to ship designers now are such that few would ever leave, so talent in this field is extremely scarce. We’ve been here more than a month and have barely found one applicant. The rest are all trying to apply with fake credentials.”

What could Zhu Lan say to that?

No matter what, the War Club would be established. Of that, Zhu Lan was certain. Even if the military truly refused in the end, he could simply produce something that would tempt them, and the club would be approved without difficulty.

Since the matter of the War Club was more or less settled, Zhu Lan began considering other things.

The War Club was not merely a project to probe the military’s bottom line; it was also Zhu Lan’s first step into space.

Ship designers were a crucial link. In the future, they would bear the task of designing spacecraft. Zhu Lan could not possibly find many such designers in a short time. They would have to be cultivated slowly. The naval elements of the War Club were the training ground he had prepared for them. From ordinary warships to aircraft carriers and battleships, the designs would allow them to accumulate a great deal of experience. Though simplified, they were still based on real designs.

Cultivating his own designers was a very important part of Zhu Lan’s plan. During the third stage of recruitment, he specifically had Lan Tianxin choose someone reliable to come to Magic City to recruit ship designers. Online, Kong Yan was also searching for well-known designers who had withdrawn from the field for one reason or another. But there were simply too few of them. Even now, Kong Yan still had not found a suitable candidate. Kong Yan was not omnipotent. With more than seven billion people in the world and trillions upon trillions of pieces of information, this was not something she could solve at a glance. It would take time.

“Is there really no one suitable?” Zhu Lan refused to believe it. Magic City was one of the most important shipbuilding centers in the country. Not only were more than half of the nation’s warships built here, but a great many civilian vessels were also designed and completed here. Added to that, it was an economic center in its own right; there was no way there was no talent in this field.

Cin Zan nodded helplessly. “There are a few, yes, but none of them are people we can invite. They’re all old hands now, professors teaching at the National Shipbuilding Academy.”

Hearing that, Zhu Lan could only sigh inwardly. The National Shipbuilding Academy was a key institution the military heavily supported. Back when the nation’s navy was its weak point, the country had poured out its resources to establish many projects, and the National Shipbuilding Academy had been founded in that era.

From the beginning, it carried the dream of a blue-water fleet. It had certainly not disappointed the central government. During the years of Soviet assistance, it absorbed a great deal of Soviet experience. After the break with the Soviets, it could only grope forward slowly. Then, during the warm period of relations with the Americans, it learned advanced European shipbuilding methods and constructed warships that satisfied the central authorities. Later, training intensified further. By now, the National Shipbuilding Academy had become, in effect, a naval military academy. To enter it was, in essence, to join the army.

“Boss, if you go there, you might just get something out of it,” Cin Zan suggested, quite willing for Zhu Lan to try his luck at the National Shipbuilding Academy. After all, many people at Dreamtech knew about Zhu Lan’s connections with the military.

Zhu Lan shook his head. “No need. Keep recruiting.”

With that, he sent Cin Zan away.

Cin Zan shook his head, and seeing Zhu Lan’s resolve, he had nothing more to say. “Then, Boss, I’ll head out for now. Call me anytime if you need anything.”

Zhu Lan naturally understood what he meant. Indeed, if he personally stepped in, he could probably find several ship designers. The naval side of the War Club would surely be tempting, and a warship’s design-to-construction cycle was far too long. If they used scaled models for design, things would be much simpler, and that was what both the National Shipbuilding Academy and the military would like to see.

But Zhu Lan’s goal was to cultivate his own ship designers, not to rely on the military’s connections for the work. He knew that if he revealed such intentions, what awaited him might be enormous trouble.

So the matter of ship designers absolutely could not involve military people, not even those with ties to the military.

If he did not dislike using foreigners, the ship designers would already have been in place.

When it came to hiring, Zhu Lan always tried to use Chinese people whenever possible. Even for the mercenaries he recruited, he asked Kong Yan to favor Chinese. As for whites and blacks, forget it; just looking at them made him uncomfortable.

“Boss, do you need something?” Yu Dangdang walked in and asked respectfully.

“Go get my computer.”

Yu Dangdang nodded and went into Zhu Lan’s room, retrieving the computer from his bag.

Zhu Lan took it, waved him out, and opened a file. Looking at the contents, he flexed his hands and began typing on the keyboard.

Outside the hotel, amid the busy crowd, several people in oversized jackets carried a box and moved into the throng, edging toward the distance. They dispersed separately, and even if one looked closely, nothing unusual could be seen.

In the living room, Connor and Yu Dangdang sat resting on the sofa.

“Brother Nuo, how did you get hired?”

Connor removed his sunglasses and rolled his neck. “Nothing much. My email got a job notice, so I came. Anyway, the pay is not less than what I earned in Africa, and it’s not nearly as dangerous.”

“I really envy you. I trained for so many years, and after all that, I was discharged before I ever even set foot on a battlefield, apart from simulated combat.”

“You’ll have your chance.” Connor naturally understood the makeup of Dreamtech. Quite a few people there had served in the Chinese army, but while they were fine at training, they fell short in actual combat. It was not that Connor looked down on them.

There is a saying on the battlefield: ten years of training are no match for one month at the front.

The test between life and death is the finest training of all. Faced with death, you will forget everything. If, in that instant, you come to your senses, congratulations: you have officially become a soldier. If you do not, then I am sorry, you can report to the underworld. Sometimes, that is how cruel the battlefield can be.