196: Chapter 196 The Fourth World

"Su Mingyuan? Who is he?"

"I don't know." Michael Chen shook his head. "The informant didn't explain. They only passed along this name and then cut off contact. It might be that the situation was urgent and there was no time to say more."

"Investigate." Davis slammed the note onto the table. "Investigate now."

Michael Chen had already opened his laptop, his fingers clacking rapidly on the keyboard.

"Hacking into the Great Xia citizen database... searching for 'Su Mingyuan'..."

The search interface popped up on the screen.

The progress bar ran for three seconds.

The results came out.

[Input error, please re-enter]

Jason's hand stopped.

"What's wrong?" Davis asked.

"No results." Jason said.

"What do you mean by no results?"

"It means... nothing at all." Jason turned the screen around for everyone to see. "Household registration System, this person doesn't exist. Social security System, none. Educational records, none. Mobile phone real-name registration, none. Bank accounts, none. Entry and exit records, none."

He tapped the keyboard a few more times.

"Full-platform search on social media—Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, Zhihu—all zero. The search engine is also blank, without a single piece of public information related to 'Su Mingyuan'."

Everyone in the conference room stared at that blank search result page.

"This isn't right." Jason muttered. "Great Xia has a population of 1.4 billion. It's impossible for the name 'Su Mingyuan' not to have duplicates. Even if we only search the name, hundreds or thousands of results should pop up."

"Unless." Michael Chen's voice came from behind. "This information was manually erased."

Everyone turned to look at him.

Michael Chen stood up and walked to the front of the screen.

"To completely erase a person's information from all public databases, do you know what that means?"

No one answered.

"It means it's not some local government protecting him, nor is it some military region protecting him." Michael Chen extended a finger and pointed upward. "This level of information clearance can only be ordered by the highest level. The Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Public Security, the Cyberspace Administration, the military intelligence System... all departments linked together can achieve such cleanliness."

He turned around and looked at Davis.

"There's a saying in the intelligence community—the more tightly a person's information is protected, the more important that person is. And to be able to make Great Xia mobilize its entire state apparatus to protect a person's identity information..."

He stood up, picked up the cup on the table, and drank it in one gulp.

"This is the best news I've heard in the past half month."

After a moment of silence, he looked around.

"Listen up, starting now, mobilize all personnel. Your investigation target is only one—Su Mingyuan."

Meanwhile, inside Su Mingyuan's exclusive office at Tianmen Base,

The final plan for the Zombie raising project was placed on Su Mingyuan's desk, thirty-two pages long, with Professor Zhou and Academician Zhang each writing half.

Professor Zhou's part was written like a business plan—production forecasts, schedules, input-output ratios, with every number followed by projections under three different scenarios.

Academician Zhang's part was written like a suicide note—worst-case scenario projections, writing all the way from Level 3 zombies to the hypothetical Level 5, with the last paragraph being "If all the above situations occur, it is recommended to initiate the nuclear strike contingency plan to carry out a destructive clearance of the entire feeding zone".

Su Mingyuan read both parts and signed them— "Approved, Su Mingyuan."

Twenty-four hours later, the first batch of Zerg corpses was transported to the Zombie World through the portal.

With a total weight of four hundred tons, packed in special sealed containers, they were transported by heavy trucks to the isolation zone two hundred kilometers north of the Forward Base.

The isolation zone was the location chosen by Tao Zhe.

Surrounded by mountains on three sides and a cliff on one side, there was only one road in and out.

Along the road, two combined-arms brigades, eighty 155mm howitzers, two hundred 99A tanks, plus two mechas were deployed.

Li Yunlong personally oversaw the Forward Base and reported once every twenty-four hours.

"Group Leader Su, this is the first day's feeding report."

The technician handed over the document.

Su Mingyuan opened it and looked at it for five minutes.

Monitoring footage of the feeding zone showed that after four hundred tons of Zerg corpses were dumped into the isolation zone, they were completely divided up by nearby zombie hordes in less than twenty minutes.

The number of zombies was about three thousand, with no abnormal evolutionary individuals appearing, and the estimated crystal core recovery value matched the model's prediction.

He closed the folder.

"Just give me a brief report every week. Report any abnormalities at any time."

"Yes."

After the technician withdrew, Su Mingyuan turned around and looked at the huge data screen in the middle of the Tianmen Base square.

On the screen, real-time operating data of the three portals was constantly refreshing.

The numbers jumped quickly, changing every second.

[Zombie World portal]

Daily cargo throughput: 280,000 tons.

Cumulative transportation: 5.5 million tons.

Delivered citizens: 1.785 million.

[Giant World portal]

Daily cargo throughput: 350,000 tons.

Cumulative transportation: 4.4 million tons.

Delivered citizens: 1.1 million.

[Zerg World portal]

Daily cargo throughput: 200,000 tons.

Cumulative transportation: 1.4 million tons.

Delivered citizens: 300,000.

Adding the three worlds together, the delivered population was 3.185 million.

Su Mingyuan stared at these numbers, picked up his teacup, and took a sip.

Still too slow.

Every world was demanding people.

The Forward Base of the Zombie World had just completed its phase-two expansion. After the raising plan rolled out, every single link was demanding people—feeding, cleaning, crystal core recovery, data recording, not a single process could be skipped.

The road network in the Giant World had barely been built for less than a hundred kilometers; the three thousand kilometers in the plan hadn't even reached a fraction, and the mining of skyfall steel was stuck there unable to move. Without roads, the ore couldn't be transported out.

The Zerg World was even harder. Radiation cleanup after the nuclear strike had just started, and the construction of the phase-one base was being pushed simultaneously. The two matters bit together, and the personnel shortage was boundlessly huge.

In a few more months, the layouts that needed to be made would be almost done.

By that time, there would be no need to hide the matter of the portals from the citizens.

Just at this moment, a few lines of text appeared before Su Mingyuan's eyes again.

Semi-transparent, suspended in the air, only he could see them, exactly the same as the previous three times.

[Hint: The next teleportation will lead to a new world]

[portal duration: Permanently fixed]

[Countdown: 167 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds]

The fourth world, still permanently fixed.

One hundred and sixty-seven hours. Su Mingyuan mentally calculated—about seven days.

The teacup stopped mid-air.

The three worlds had already stretched Great Xia's entire logistics System to its limit—steel, cement, mechanical equipment, fuel, food, medical supplies, with a consumption of nearly one million tons every day.

Now there was one more.

He closed his eyes for a moment, picked up the encrypted phone, and dialed out.

After ringing twice, the other party picked up.

"Elder Qin, there is a new situation."

The other end of the phone was silent for two seconds. Elder Qin probably heard something from his tone.

"What new situation, speak."

"Seven days later, the fourth portal will open, and it will be permanently fixed."

This time the other party was silent for even longer.

Su Mingyuan could hear a clock ticking on the other end of the phone, the sound of the second hand ticking one by one.

"What do you need?" Elder Qin asked.

"People." Su Mingyuan said. "A large number of people. But they can't be ordinary people."

"Why?"

"The experience of the three worlds is right there." Su Mingyuan leaned back in his chair. "The environment in the Otherworld is harsh, and battles could break out at any time. Ordinary folks going in not only can't help, but we also have to split forces to protect them. What I need are—people who are disciplined, can endure hardship, obey orders, and can pick up guns when necessary."

"What kind of people do you want?"

Su Mingyuan spat out two words: "Soldiers."

He paused and added a sentence: "Veterans."

On the other end of the phone, Elder Qin didn't answer immediately.

But Su Mingyuan knew that this old man was already considering it.