163: Chapter 163 Take it, this is your new God

"This gun is for you, keep it as a souvenir. After all, for the sake of these patents, you almost triggered a local war in Country K."

Garrison stared fixedly at the gun on the table, his throat emitting a wheezing sound like a bellows.

Just a minute ago, he had received a call from his illegitimate son—the child was fine, but had just received an expensive "personal accident insurance" policy, with Chen Mo's name filled in as the beneficiary.

"You are a devil..." Garrison squeezed these words out from between his teeth.

Chen Mo straightened his cuffs, stood up, and looked down at the vice president, who had been completely drained of his spirit.

"No, Mr. Garrison, I am a businessman. And I am a man of my word. As long as those patent data files are transmitted to my server within two hours, your son can drive his Ferrari to pick up girls, instead of feeding the sharks in the Caribbean."

Chen Mo turned and walked toward the door; Nightingale had already opened the door to the private room.

When he walked out of the shooting club, the sunlight outside was somewhat dazzling.

Jack Martin was leaning against the door of the bulletproof lincoln, holding a tablet, his expression as animated as if he had just won the Powerball jackpot.

"Boss, you are simply a madman, and a genius!"

As soon as he got into the car, Jack shoved the screen in front of Chen Mo, his spit flying.

"In order to stop their losses, Raytheon Dynamics just had to cooperate with us and issue a technology-sharing announcement. This reverse operation is absolutely godlike! We shorted the stock first, then reversed to go long, and combined with the patents we pried out of Raytheon's mouth... I just calculated it, and after deducting the money spent on acquiring Ares, we made a net profit of this amount in the secondary market."

Jack held up three fingers and shook them.

"Three hundred million? Dollars?" Nightingale raised an eyebrow and started the car.

"It's cash flow! Net profit!" Jack slapped his thigh excitedly. "This is much faster than robbing a bank! Financial Tyrant—Boss, Wall Street will definitely give you that nickname tomorrow!"

Chen Mo leaned back against the seat and unbuttoned his collar, his expression calm.

"Is three hundred million a lot? For Ares Industries, which is about to be restructured, this is just start-up capital. For what we intend to build, this money will only last us a few months."

The smile on Jack's face froze, and he immediately adopted an expression of looking at a god.

The convoy passed through the congested streets of Washington and headed straight for the Ares Industries headquarters.

Inside the Ares building, the air was thick with an atmosphere of despair.

Employees in the hallways hurried about, none daring to speak above a whisper.

The roller-coaster performance of the stock market, combined with the purge of the former management, had left everyone here in a state of constant panic and anxiety.

The top-floor conference room.

Chen Mo now sat in the seat that had originally belonged to Robert Rockefeller.

Across the long table, an old man with gray hair and thick-rimmed glasses was nervously rubbing his hands.

He was the current Technical Director of Ares, Walter Cohen.

An honest man who had spent his entire life studying fluid mechanics, only to be marginalized due to corporate infighting.

"Dr. Cohen." Chen Mo tapped his fingers lightly against the table.

"I've reviewed your resume. Seven years ago, you proposed a design concept for a vector nozzle, but the board of directors rejected it on the grounds that the R&D cycle was too long and it was better to simply buy Raytheon Dynamics' outdated products and rebrand them, correct?"

Cohen gave a bitter smile and took off his glasses to wipe them. "That's all ancient history, Boss. With the company in its current state, the capital chain is broken, and we still have to pay breach-of-contract penalties. Even if I have ideas..."

"Who said we have to pay?"

Chen Mo pulled a folder that still smelled of fresh ink from his briefcase and slid it across the smooth tabletop to Cohen.

"Take a look at this."

Cohen opened the folder with a puzzled expression.

The first page was the core authorization document from Raytheon Dynamics. The second page contained the detailed parameters for the high-temperature alloy formula used in the F35 engine.

The third page featured the complete set of aerodynamic layout blueprints for the vector nozzle he had dreamed of.

The old man's breathing instantly quickened, and his hands trembled as if he had Parkinson's. He jerked his head up to stare at Chen Mo, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

"This... this is Raytheon Dynamics' core secret! S-Class top secret! How could they possibly..."

"How I got them isn't important." Chen Mo cut him off. His voice wasn't loud, yet it echoed through the conference room.

"What matters is that they now belong to Ares. You are the Technical Director, and I will only ask you one question: with these in hand, can you build the new engine we need within a month?"

Cohen stood up abruptly, his chair toppling over with a loud crash.

He didn't care about his lack of composure; he clutched the document with both hands as if it were his own life.

"I can! I absolutely can! As long as I have this alloy formula, the combustion chamber temperature issues are solved! The previous design bottlenecks no longer exist! Boss, I am confident I can increase the thrust by another 15%!"

The old man's eyes turned red; it was the ambition of an engineer, suppressed for half a lifetime, finally igniting.

"Very good." Chen Mo pointed toward the door.

"Go to work. You'll get whatever personnel and funding you need. Apart from this engine, suspend all other projects. In one month, I want to see the prototype take flight at the Yuma Proving Ground."

"Yes, Boss!" Cohen rushed out of the conference room, clutching the documents, his stride as vigorous as a twenty-year-old's.

Before the conference room door had even fully closed, the sound of high heels approached.

Ava Rockefeller walked in, carrying two glasses of whiskey.

She was wearing a well-tailored professional suit today, and her previous look of a down-and-out heiress was gone, replaced by the radiance of power.

"You were truly charming just now." Ava placed the glasses beside Chen Mo, her eyes burning with undisguised desire.

"You even managed to tame an old stubborn mule like Cohen. Raytheon Dynamics suffered such a massive loss, yet they actually swallowed it."

"They had no choice but to swallow it." Chen Mo didn't touch the glass; he simply turned the ring on his thumb.

"When you hold a gun in your hand and have a grip on the other party's Achilles' heel, so-called commercial barriers are nothing but scrap paper."

"To celebrate the rebirth of Ares, shouldn't we..." Ava's fingers rested lightly on Chen Mo's shoulder, heavy with implication.

"I don't have time."

Chen Mo stood up, avoiding her touch, and walked straight to the massive floor-to-ceiling window.

Deep within his pupils, a light-blue system interface was flashing frantically.

[Warning: High-energy residue detected.]

[Location: Basement level 3, Zone D, Ares Industrial Park.]

[Energy signature match: Remnants of the Ouroboros biological laboratory.]

"What is Zone D?" Chen Mo looked out at the somewhat dilapidated factory area outside the window, his voice turning cold.

Ava paused, clearly unaccustomed to Chen Mo's sudden shift in state, but she answered quickly nonetheless.

"That was the former special materials warehouse; it was later abandoned due to environmental issues. When Robert was in charge, it was a restricted zone; only his private security team was allowed in."

"Private security team." Chen Mo chewed on the words, a cruel sneer forming on his lips. "It seems that although Robert is dead, the dogs he kept haven't all been put down yet."

He took out his phone and pulled up the factory's internal surveillance footage.

On the screen, a middle-aged man in a security uniform was furtively avoiding the main path, swiping open a rusted iron door, and slipping into Zone D.

Chen Mo recognized that figure. It was Miller, the head of security at Ares—a "loyal veteran" who had worked at Ares for twenty years.

"Notify Jack to cut off all external network access to Zone D, under the pretext of line maintenance."

Chen Mo put away his phone, pulled a silver folding scalpel from his pocket, and twirled it around his fingertips.

"Where are you going?" Ava felt a chill run down her spine.

"Spring cleaning." Chen Mo pushed the door open and stepped out. "Some trash has to be cleaned out by hand to truly be gone."