Chapter 34 Clue: The Li Family Toy Factory

The carnival at the Israel Ministry of Defense Command Center turned into an unusually deathly silence.

Under the immense shock and fury, the Ugly Country immediately made the strongest response. A top-level directive from The Pentagon was swiftly transmitted to all its military bases and intelligence stations in the Middle East region.

...

Twenty-four hours later, under the aerial cover of the Ugly Country's most advanced "Global Hawk" high-altitude strategic reconnaissance aircraft and several F-35 fighter jets, a joint investigation team composed of Israel special forces and Ugly Country technical Experts, riding several "Black Hawk" helicopters, risked their lives to land on that desert, known as the "Steel Graveyard."

The moment the cabin doors opened, a hot wave of stench mixed with diesel, gunpowder, and the peculiar smell of burnt protein rushed at them, causing several young technical Experts who were on the battlefield for the first time to bend over and retch violently on the spot.

The experienced veterans had grim expressions; they held their guns, quickly forming a defensive perimeter around the helicopters in tactical formation to provide protection for the Experts' survey work.

The tragic scene on-site was far more shocking and terrifying than what had been seen in the aerial footage.

Tank turrets that had been blown off were half-buried in the sand, their thick composite armor covered in honeycomb-like tiny penetration holes; beside armored vehicles burnt into hollow shells lay carbonized, unrecognizable human remains; twisted metal parts and shattered electronic equipment were everywhere, and the entire battlefield was so quiet that only the sound of the wind and the "crackling" of metal debris under high heat could be heard.

"My God..." an Ugly Country technical Expert wearing a white protective suit looked at everything before him, murmuring in a dry voice, "This is simply an industrialized massacre."

His name was Mike, and he was a weapons analysis Expert at the Ugly Country Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as the famous DARPA. His resume was filled with constant dealings with all kinds of the most cutting-edge, most lethal weapons. From electromagnetic railguns to laser weapons, he had tested them all personally. But the scene before him still exceeded his cognitive scope.

"All explosions came from top attacks... and were small-caliber shaped charges." He wore gloves, carefully removed a fragment of armor from a tank wreck, and examined the perforation on it with a portable microscope, "The attack accuracy is ridiculously high; almost not a single shot missed. This is definitely not something conventional artillery or missiles could achieve."

...

Another Expert was inspecting the wreckage of a completely destroyed command vehicle, and his discovery was even more astonishing.

"The communication module here was completely melted, but the detonation method was very restrained; it just happened to destroy the core chip without triggering a larger-scale secondary explosion of the fuel tank. This shows that the attacker can not only hit with precision but also control the power of the explosion. Their purpose is very clear."

The members of the investigation team scattered, like a group of archaeologists searching for a lost civilization in this huge graveyard, carefully searching for any valuable clues.

As time passed second by second, the data collected by the Experts increased, but their brows furrowed tighter and tighter.

Because they could not find any large wreckage of the attack weapons.

There were no missile boosters, no artillery shell casings, not even slightly larger pieces of metal debris could be found. It was as if the ones who launched this attack were a group of ghosts from another world, and they had vanished into thin air after completing the slaughter.

"We must find something!" The leader of the joint team, a Lieutenant Colonel of the Ugly Country Marine Corps, roared anxiously into his communicator, "The generals at The Pentagon are waiting for our report! They need a target to vent their fury!"

Just then, the team Mike was in finally made a breakthrough discovery.

Among a pile of twisted, charred drone wreckage, an observant Israel soldier discovered a relatively intact component.

It was a palm-sized battery cover plate, which seemed to have been thrown dozens of meters away by the huge impact force at the moment of the explosion, luckily avoiding the subsequent burning, just covered with a thick layer of sand and soil on the surface. Its material looked very ordinary, just the most common engineering plastic.

Mike walked over carefully, squatted down, took a small soft-bristled brush used for archaeology out of his pocket, and gently brushed away the sand and soil on it.

As the sand was cleared away bit by bit, a line of exceptionally clear text etched by laser appeared before his eyes.

"Li's Toy Factory"

Mike looked at these familiar English letters and froze for a moment.

Li's... Toy Factory?

What the hell is this? A bad joke?

He frowned and continued cleaning. Below the English, there was another line of square characters he couldn't understand at all.

He immediately took dozens of high-definition photos of this small cover plate from different angles and shouted into the communicator: "I have a major discovery here! Repeat, a major discovery!"

...

A few minutes later, the photo of this cover plate with the logo, along with other high-definition pictures taken at the scene and a preliminary analysis report, were swiftly sent via the highest-level encrypted satellite communication network to the Ugly Country, Virginia, The Pentagon.

At the end of the report, it was specially marked in bold red font:

"The attack weapon demonstrated a 'decentralized cooperative combat' capability far exceeding our current active level, and the technical source is very likely to point to an Eastern Country entity named 'Li Family Toy Factory'. However, the specific situation of the target unit has not yet been ascertained."

"Recommendation: Immediately initiate the highest-level intelligence analysis and background investigation on this entity."

This report was like a depth charge dropped into the center of world power.

A storm targeting "Li Family Toy Factory" began to brew crazily, without everyone—especially Li Jiajun himself—knowing anything about it.