102: The prelude to negotiations

"Quiet."

Chen Feng raised his hand. His voice wasn't loud, yet it seemed to carry a certain magic, instantly dousing the near-boiling euphoria in the conference room.

The people who had just been cheering looked at each other, their smiles frozen on their faces.

Chen Feng calmly surveyed his core team. His deep eyes showed no relaxation; instead, they were more profound than ever.

"What are you celebrating?"

"Celebrating that we've put a knife to our own throats and handed the handle to a butcher we know nothing about?"

His icy words caused the temperature in the room to plummet once more.

The flush of euphoria faded from Reno's face, replaced by a mix of awkwardness and gravity. Su Li straightened up again, adjusted her glasses, and resumed her professional demeanor as chief operating officer.

"The battle has only just begun," Chen Feng's voice carried an undeniable seriousness. "Now, we need to prepare our ammunition for this fight."

He gestured to Su Li.

Understanding his meaning, Su Li immediately pulled up the meeting interface. On the holographic screen, only that brief, cold message remained.

"Three days later, 13:00 Greenwich Mean Time, Abyss 777 anonymous channel. Sincerity."

"Su Li, Reno," Chen Feng's gaze fell on the two of them. "Share your thoughts."

"'Sincerity'," Su Li spoke first, her words rapid-fire. "I don't believe this refers to mere funds. Our 'credit deposit' has already proven our financial capability. This 'sincerity' here is more likely pointing to a unique, valuable 'chip' that could pique the interest of someone at 'Raven's' level."

"Something he himself would have great difficulty obtaining, or would incur enormous costs to acquire," she added, hitting the nail on the head.

"I'm more concerned about this," Reno said, pointing at the other words on the screen, his brow furrowed. "'Abyss'? 'Anonymous channel'? This sounds like black market jargon. How do we guarantee our safety negotiating in such a place? What if the other party attacks us in the virtual world?"

He was accustomed to solving problems with guns and cannons. This intangible, virtual game of chess made him feel the agitation and helplessness of a beast trapped in a cage.

"Your concern is valid, Reno," Chen Feng nodded, acknowledging his vigilance. "But this is the norm in high-dimensional warfare. On the information level, we are like primitives wielding clubs. So, we must understand the opponent's weapons and rules even more clearly."

The meeting lasted two hours, continuing late into the night.

In Chen Feng's office, only he remained.

He pulled up the Interstellar Exchange System interface. Instead of browsing goods, he activated a rarely used function—[Behavioral Pattern Simulation and Deduction].

He input the codename 'Raven' and all the information he knew—the flippant tone, the mockery of the 'King of the Junkyard,' the emphasis on 'sincerity'—into the system.

A torrent of information streamed before Chen Feng's eyes like a waterfall as the system attempted to construct a psychological model and interest profile for 'Raven.'

However, what finally appeared on the screen was a glaring blank space and a line of cold, red text.

[Target information domain contains ultra-high-level encryption barriers, analysis impossible. Warning: Further attempts may trigger reverse tracking.]

Chen Feng's pupils contracted slightly.

An existence even the Interstellar Exchange System couldn't parse? This Raven was even more inscrutable than he had imagined.

Knock, knock.

A knocking sound came from the door.

"Boss, I brought you something to eat," Reno pushed the door open and placed a steaming nutritional meal on the desk. He glanced at the blank screen in front of Chen Feng, hesitated for a moment, then couldn't help but speak up.

"Boss, I still feel uneasy. Just waiting like this, handing our fate over to someone we don't even know is human or ghost?"

"How about I take a team and go directly to that... Tartarus Free Port you mentioned? Drag him out and talk face-to-face! At least that way we'd have the initiative."

"And then what?" Chen Feng didn't look up, countering the question. "Then we'd be torn to shreds by Port Master Hecate's fleet, or become a joke to Raven's network of informants across the universe, telling all our potential enemies that Hanhai Trade is a bunch of reckless fools who don't understand the rules?"

Reno was left speechless.

"Reno," Chen Feng's voice softened a bit. He picked up the synthetic steak from the meal tray and took a bite. "I understand your thinking. But you must remember, sometimes, the lethality of a single piece of intelligence is far more terrifying than an entire fleet."

"Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. Before we figure out what Raven truly wants, any rash move is suicide."

Reno stood in silence, seemingly digesting Chen Feng's words.

Just then, the office door was pushed open again.

Su Li walked in. She looked as if she hadn't slept all night, but her eyes were unusually bright.

"Boss, I've compiled all the legends about 'Raven' and the thirty-seven recorded transactions over the past century that are suspected to be related to him."

She projected a report into the air.

"The conclusion is," Su Li's voice carried a hint of awe, "first, his intelligence has never been wrong; second, his fee structure far exceeds the norm. He often demands not money, but certain key strategic resources, lost technological blueprints, or even... 'ownership' of a planet at a specific time."

Chen Feng's gaze fell on the words 'key strategic resources.'

A flash of insight struck him, connecting Su Li's report with a lead he had mentally marked as 'pending' in his mind.

He pulled up another file—the very one Su Li had discovered earlier—the exploration report about 'high-energy radiation anomalies' in a certain region of Ashen Earth Star.

"Su Li, Reno, look at this," Chen Feng's voice carried the excitement of having found the prey's trail.

He pointed at the anomalous energy waveform graph in the report.

"This isn't ordinary radiation. Based on some fragmented data I've obtained from the Exchange for comparison, this unique energy waveform is referred to as 'Law Resonance Material' in the alchemy of certain high-dimensional civilizations. It's the catalyst... for stabilizing high-dimensional alchemical reactions."

"This is our 'sincerity'," Chen Feng looked at the two of them and made his final decision. "This is what Raven wants."

Early the next morning, the core team gathered once again.

Chen Feng calmly announced his negotiation strategy and core bargaining chip.

When he mentioned preparing to use the 'high-energy radiation anomaly' vein Su Li had discovered as the exchange chip, everyone was stunned.

A sharp glint flashed across Su Li's glasses, yet her expression remained a professional smile, as if rapidly calculating the gains and losses of this deal.

Reno simply widened his eyes in disbelief, scratching his head.

"Boss... our 'sincerity'... is a pile of rocks?"

He had originally thought that the so-called 'sincerity' would at least be a few warships or a batch of the latest weapons.

Using a pile of unexcavated ore to exchange for intelligence crucial to the company's fate?

This was beyond his comprehension as a soldier.

Chen Feng looked at him and smiled.

"Reno, you need to get used to it."

"At the real card table, the most valuable thing is never the guns and cannons, but what the other party wants most and you happen to possess."