124: Chapter 125 A Great Nation's Weapons Cannot Be Deceived in the Dark!

As the heavy mahogany door behind him emitted a dull "click" of the lock, the last remnants of noise from the outside world were completely cut off.

In this high-security conference room, it was so quiet that one could almost hear a person's heartbeat, and the air was filled with an invisible, almost tangible sense of oppression.

Shen Du raised his head, his gaze crossing the dark red Persian rug to look straight ahead.

Behind that wide, unadorned solid wood desk sat only one person.

The highest helmsman who controlled the entire economy and political lifeline of Shanghai, the Shanghai Party Secretary, Secretary Shen Hai.

However, the moment Shen Du clearly saw the other person's face, his heart, which had been as calm as an ancient well, skipped a beat without any warning.

A strong, almost chilling sense of weirdness instantly swept through his entire body.

Although the two had a vast difference in age, and although Shen Du had seen images of this big figure countless times before in official news and on front-page headlines, at this moment, when the two were truly in the same space under the cold light, staring at each other without any cover...

Shen Du keenly discovered that the other person's cold, stern facial contours, deep eye sockets, and even the corners of his mouth that were inadvertently pressed slightly downward, actually bore a startling sixty percent resemblance to his own!

That sudden sense of familiarity did not stem from any mere nod of acquaintance in a social setting; it was an illogical yet incredibly accurate intuition.

A mysterious pull, hidden deep within their bones and blood, was creating some kind of indescribable synchronized resonance between their veins.

"Could it be..." An absurd and crazy thought flashed through Shen Du's mind like lightning.

But he immediately bit down hard on his teeth.

Relying on the terrifying composure forged in cruel business wars, he forcibly extinguished this thought in its cradle.

What a joke!

Sitting opposite him was the dignified top leader of Shanghai, a person who truly stood at the pinnacle of power!

And he himself, even if he was now worth hundreds of millions and held countless cutting-edge technologies, absolutely could not have the slightest transgression in front of this person.

The chasm of status and class between them was like a natural moat.

This absurd "bloodline association" was absolutely a fatal distraction in an occasion that could decide the life and death of Jiyuan Technology at any moment.

Shen Du silently took a deep breath of the cool air in the conference room.

With terrifying self-control, he quickly forcibly suppressed and sealed off all the palpitations and strangeness in his heart.

Afterwards, with his expression back to normal, he took steady steps.

He walked to the huge desk, pulled out a chair, and sat up straight in front of Secretary Shen Hai.

Their gazes met.

Facing Shen Du, who was sitting opposite him, Secretary Shen Hai did not use any of the usual bureaucratic pleasantries, nor did he offer any polite small talk from an elder to a junior.

He leaned forward slightly, his bottomless eyes locking onto Shen Du like a hawk.

Then, he raised his right hand.

With a "slap," he threw a kraft paper file bag stamped with the red words "Top Secret" heavily onto the wide solid wood desk between them.

"Shen Du." Secretary Shen Hai's voice was low, cold, and highly penetrating. He threw out a trump card at the very beginning without any warning: "Currently, I am very interested in the project you are working on in the laboratory under Sheshan. I wonder if you could give me a brief introduction?"

Hearing the four words "under Sheshan," Shen Du's eyelids twitched violently, though almost imperceptibly.

But before he even had time to organize any defensive wording in his mind, Secretary Shen Hai's rapid-fire "list of ingredients" turned into a storm, crashing down on him.

"I am very curious about the high-pressure cold plasma generator components you went to great lengths to get in.

And the Superconducting magnetic interference array component that you had your subordinates route through several black markets, secretly ordering them from underground channels in Germany and Japan.

As well as that batch of silicon-germanium-carbon superlattice mixed materials, refined to the extreme purity..."

Every time Secretary Shen Hai recited an obscure and sensitive technical term, his long fingers tapped heavily on the tabletop. The dull thumping sound struck directly at Shen Du's tense nerves: "What exactly is the purpose of piecing together these top-tier instruments and materials that are strictly embargoed by the West?"

Speaking of this, Secretary Shen Hai's gaze suddenly became as sharp as a blade, as if to pierce through Shen Du's soul: "And also, what is the current status of the high-pressure testing in the server room for that batch of 'mysterious wafers' that you secretly transported to a southern foundry a while ago and just finished physical packaging?"

It was a trump card right from the start!

No probing, no detours.

He didn't even give Shen Du a single second to catch his breath or make excuses, clearly and unambiguously overturning all of his cards!

Hearing these equipment names, which were so precise that they made his scalp tingle, a layer of fine cold sweat instantly oozed from Shen Du's back, and an uncontrollable, bone-chilling coldness rose in his heart.

He had to know, in order to procure this batch of top-tier instruments capable of overturning the existing technological tree, he had spent a fortune of one billion, and had Xu Hao use every underground black market channel and overseas shell company he could possibly mobilize.

He had pushed confidentiality and physical isolation to the absolute limit that a private enterprise could achieve!

But at this moment, Shen Du finally deeply understood what it meant to be under the "gaze of the state machine."

In the face of that terrifying intelligence network at the national level, which could cover the sky and sun and penetrate every nook and cranny, his "secret channels" and "backroom operations" that he had been so proud of were simply as ridiculous as running naked under a searchlight; all his actions were completely unable to escape detection.

The heavy machinery of a great power cannot be deceived in the shadows.

All the top secrets of Jiyuan Technology under Sheshan had long since been completely stripped bare by the authorities!

Since his cards had been overturned by the authorities so thoroughly that not even a shred of his underwear was left, Shen Du completely put away the slickness and camouflage he used to deal with business rivals.

After a brief moment of shock, Shen Du quickly adjusted his breathing.

He looked directly into Secretary Shen Hai's oppressive gaze.

Relaxing his body slightly, he leaned back in his chair and decided to just lay everything out and break it down.

"Since the Secretary has investigated my background so thoroughly, I won't play dumb anymore."

Shen Du's tone was unusually calm, even carrying a touch of straightforwardness: "Those devices are indeed under Sheshan.

But what we are doing is merely closed research and high-pressure environment testing.

We have absolutely not done anything to endanger national security or violate domestic laws."

Shen Du paused, the corners of his mouth curling into an undisguised arrogance, as he directly exposed Jiyuan Technology's true "transgressive" actions: "If you really want to be pedantic and say I did something illegal, then the only red line is that I ignored the set of bullying international patent laws established by the West."

"I did not obtain authorization or consent from any major international semiconductor manufacturers.

I simply took their proud underlying server chip architectures and graphics card architectures.

I carried out a thorough physical 'magic modification' and re-packaging.

Then, treating them as black boxes, I forcibly inserted them into my own server room for grid-connected testing."