175: Chapter 175 Cutting off the fuel supply at the root, destroying everything in the process.

Six in the morning. The data control room on the second floor of the Chenguang Factory. The room was filled with the smell of cheap tobacco.

Wu Dong slammed the Enter key on his keyboard.

The workstation tower emitted a hum of overload. On the large screen covering the wall, the frantic stream of green code came to an abrupt halt.

Two bolded English notices of forced delisting popped up simultaneously, occupying the center of every monitor.

"Boss. It's done." Wu Dong's voice was completely hoarse, his eyes bloodshot. "The last two. The world's largest rare earth giant and the leading precision smelting company. Both forcibly delisted. One hundred percent of the control belongs to us. We didn't spend an extra cent; we've even hollowed out their foundations."

Lu Chen sat on the worn-out sofa. He raised his hand and extinguished the half-smoked double happiness cigarette.

"Well done." Lu Chen stood up, picked up the plastic lighter on the table, and shoved it into his pocket. "From now on, when we make things, we won't have to look at anyone else's face. Whoever dares to choke us, we'll twist their head right off."

The door was pushed open. Old Zhou walked in with big strides, holding a chipped enamel tea mug.

Tucked under his arm was a thick stack of English property rights certificates. The documents had just been spat out by the dot-matrix printer, the edges of the paper still hot.

"Factory Director. The documents are all out." Old Zhou slapped the stack of paper onto the coffee table, took a large gulp of strong tea from his mug, and grinned broadly. "So satisfying. We've smashed the pot the Americans use to eat. Now we've even taken the pieces of the iron pot back to smelt into steel. I want to see what they have to act tough with from now on."

Lu Chen glanced at the equity confirmation document on top.

"Go notify Old Wei." Lu Chen turned his head to look at Old Zhou and instructed, "There are enough materials. Before dawn, have the brothers install the new system on all two thousand frames. Not a single one can be left out."

"Old Wei has taken the blueprints you gave him and is already working his heart out downstairs." Old Zhou nodded repeatedly. "Da Biao is leading the men in the warehouse, taking inventory of the materials that were just brought in. No one is sleeping today. The whole factory is running around the clock."

"Tell the brothers below to eat well and work hard. Everyone's salary for this month will be doubled." Lu Chen's tone was cold, hard, and decisive. "Whoever slows down the work for me today can get out of the Chenguang Factory immediately."

"Understood." Old Zhou acknowledged, turned, and ran out the door to make arrangements.

With this, the entire upstream core material supply chain needed for the mass production of the Exoskeleton had been completely swallowed by the Chenguang Factory. The era of foreigners choking China by the throat ended physically tonight.

At the same time, on the other side of the ocean, at Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, New York.

Outside the window, a thunderstorm raged. Heavy rain pelted against the explosion-proof glass, making a pattering sound.

Inside the intensive care unit, Anderson opened his eyes.

He convulsed violently. His chest heaved dramatically. His hands gripped the pure cotton bed sheet tightly, veins bulging on the backs of his hands, tearing several long rips directly into the fabric.

"Boss." Smith stood by the bed. He was soaked through. His expensive haute couture suit clung to his skin, and water dripped down from his chin. He kept his head lowered, his face deathly pale, not daring to look directly at Anderson on the bed.

Anderson ripped the oxygen mask off his face and threw it onto the floor.

"Jiangcheng." A wheezing, hoarse sound came from Anderson's throat. "How is the situation with the Hive?"

Smith's hands were trembling. He took out a waterproof document bag from his front. He pulled out two top-secret battle reports. He held the first one out with both hands.

"Total annihilation." Smith's lips trembled violently. "Twelve Hives. In less than three minutes. They were smashed to pieces by those rustic security guards from the Chenguang Factory using scrap steel from the construction site. They couldn't even be put back together."

Anderson felt a jolt of panic. He snatched the report.

"Are you playing with me?" Anderson roared, his neck turning bright red. "That was the ultimate weapon Freemasons spent tens of billions of dollars to create. Twelve of them. They could tear armored vehicles apart with their bare hands. What did they use to block them?"

"Exoskeleton." Smith swallowed hard. "Lu Chen created a heavy-duty single-soldier hydraulic Exoskeleton. It has full titanium alloy armor protection. And... they cut out the micro-reactors and neural interface components from inside the Hives on the spot. They took them to use for themselves."

Anderson was stunned. His mind buzzed, instantly going blank. He had wasted twelve ultimate biological weapons, and on top of that, he had gifted the core technical blueprints to the enemy.

"What is the second report?" Anderson pointed to the remaining sheet of paper in Smith's hand.

Smith took a half step back. His heel knocked against the leg of a chair.

"Speak." Anderson shouted, pointing at his nose.

"Ten minutes ago." Smith's voice shook violently, with a hint of a sob. "Our two upstream parent companies that were physically locked out on the NASDAQ have all been forcibly bought out in full by hidden Chinese accounts. They used the highest-level forced liquidation channel. The delisting notice has already been sent to the global network."

Anderson's pupils constricted. Two massive blows simultaneously shattered his mental defenses.

He sat up and ripped the intravenous line from the back of his hand. Blood instantly spurted out, splattering onto the snow-white bed sheet.

"How did they buy their way in?" Anderson pounded the metal railing of the bed frame frantically, creating a clanging sound. "I had people physically cut the network cables. The circuit breaker mechanism was also activated. A company worth over sixty billion US dollars. It changed hands in a few dozen minutes?"

"No financial institution can trace the source." Smith covered his face with his hands. "The underlying logic code had its permissions forcibly seized. We have lost. We have absolutely nothing left."

Anderson opened his mouth wide. A mouthful of black blood sprayed out, splattering onto the bedding. A glaring red-black.

Just then, on the hospital room wall, the internal encrypted communicator hidden behind a decorative painting suddenly lit up with a red light. With a crisp beep, the communication connected.

A mechanical synthesized voice echoed in the room. "Anderson."

Anderson froze. He didn't bother to wipe the black blood from the corner of his mouth. He scrambled off the bed, falling to his knees heavily in front of the communicator.

"Elder. I can still remedy this. Give me more time." Anderson looked up and pleaded loudly, "Mobilize the remaining sequence of the 7th Fleet. Directly blockade the entire Asian open sea. Cut off all their foreign trade routes."

"Shut up." The synthesized voice was cold, devoid of any emotion. "You have caused the organization to lose thirty full years of accumulated reserves. The Hive is gone. The entire industrial chain is broken. The Asia-Pacific region has completely collapsed. Our layout in China has become a complete joke. We've even had our underwear taken from us."

"I was schemed against by Lu Chen." Anderson desperately tried to defend himself, reaching out to grab the communicator's panel. "The technological reserves in Lu Chen's hands do not belong to this era at all. These Chinese people used cheating methods."

"A defeated general has no right to make excuses." The synthesized voice cut him off directly. "From now on, you are officially expelled from the organization. All your permissions have been revoked. Wait for your death."

"Don't. Please give me one more chance. Just one last time." Anderson screamed desperately, his voice hoarse.

The red light on the communicator flashed twice rapidly, then went out completely. The signal was cut off for good.

In the same second, the phone Anderson had thrown by his pillow vibrated continuously. All the offshore accounts and overseas trust funds under his name were forcibly zeroed out.

Smith stood to the side, watching Anderson slumped on the floor.

"President. We don't even have money for a plane ticket back." Smith muttered.

"Get out. Who allowed you to call me President? I am the highest executive of Freemasons." Anderson turned his head and cursed wildly.

Smith said nothing. He backed away slowly, turned, and pulled open the hospital door. He ran into the roar of the rain in the hallway without looking back.

Only Anderson was left in the hospital room. He breathed heavily. Blood dripped down his chin onto the cold hospital tiles.

Two emergency room nurses rushed in from outside the door. Seeing the blood all over the floor, they stepped forward quickly, trying to pull him up.

Anderson reached under his pillow and pulled out a handgun. He pointed it directly at the nurse in front.

The two nurses let out terrified screams and turned to flee the room.

Anderson was barefoot. Stepping in the blood, he stumbled toward the corner of the room's private bathroom. There was a hidden safe embedded in the brick wall.

He used his blood-stained fingers to press the keys, entering three separate passwords in succession. He lowered his head for the iris scan. With a click, the safe's metal door popped open.

Inside, there were no stacks of banknotes. No gold bars. Only a heavily worn black briefcase.

Anderson hugged the briefcase tightly in his arms. He walked back to the messy hospital bed and set it down. He pressed the latch, and the briefcase lid popped open.

Lying inside the case was a complex satellite launch terminal. In the center, there was a red button with a hard physical protective cover.

This was the last thing he had. It was also the absolute trump card the high-level members of Freemasons had given him for self-preservation. It was the initiator for the final "burn it all down" protocol.

A complete madness born of despair flared in Anderson's eyes. He gasped for air, his mouth curling up, his smile twisted and cold.

"Steal. You want to take everything, right?" Anderson stared fixedly at the red button. "Lu Chen. Since I can't live, then nobody gets to play. Let's go to hell together."