85: Chapter 85 The Thoughts of the East City

"Snap."

A black card was slapped onto the table.

Lei Qianjue stood with his hands behind his back, looking at Li Zhengyang.

"The Pojun Black Card, hold onto it."

"From now on, all the material reserves, military supply mobilizations, and classified intelligence networks of the Northern Territory Branch of the Pojun Division can all be accessed with this card."

Li Zhengyang reached out and pinched the card, flipping it over twice; it felt cold to the touch.

"Can I use it to pay?" Li Zhengyang asked casually.

The corner of Lei Qianjue's mouth twitched, and his chest felt tight. "The defense line still needs to operate! Don't you dare do something like emptying out our assets to resell them!"

"Am I that kind of person?" Li Zhengyang stuffed the black card into his pants pocket.

"I don't know if I'm a person, but you are definitely not a person."

Lei Qianjue retorted irritably, then his expression turned grave. "I am going into seclusion for a while. It will be at least half a month, or maybe a month at most. I keep feeling that the bottleneck is vaguely loosening."

He turned and walked toward the secret door of the conference room, but stopped halfway and looked back.

"I'm leaving the mess in the Northern Territory to you. Keep a close eye on those scattered Demon Men. If there is any large-scale unusual activity, use heavy firepower immediately."

Lei Qianjue pointed at Li Zhengyang. "Also, behave yourself. Don't tear down the Northern Territory while I'm gone."

The secret door closed, and Lei Qianjue was gone.

Li Zhengyang curled his lips and turned to walk toward the core office reserved for the director.

A spacious chair, a holographic projection console, and an entire wall of special glass offered a view that looked directly down over the entire Northern Territory Branch plaza of the Pojun Division.

Assistant Chen Feng followed him in, the wound on his right arm already having been given emergency bandaging.

He was holding a stack of electronic files with one hand, his eyes filled with awe.

"Director." Assistant Chen Feng placed the files on the table.

"We're brothers, just sit wherever."

Li Zhengyang pulled out a chair, sat down, and propped his legs up on the desk. "Have the casualty statistics been calculated yet?"

A trace of sorrow flashed in Assistant Chen Feng's eyes, and he nodded.

"The count is finished. One hundred and thirty-seven killed in action, forty-two severely injured. More than half of the logistics sequence has been wiped out."

Li Zhengyang didn't speak.

He fished the Pojun Black Card out of his pocket and tossed it in front of Assistant Chen Feng.

"Go to the warehouse, take out all the best Bone-Regenerating Pills and Pulse-Renewing Pills, and use them for the brothers who are severely injured."

Li Zhengyang tapped his fingers on the table. "Distribute the pension for the brothers who died in battle at five times the military district standard."

Assistant Chen Feng was stunned.

The military district's pension was a fixed amount; five times that? That was a significant sum, and it would be very difficult for the branch to allocate that amount from the books.

"Director, this is against the rules… If the higher-ups audit the accounts…"

"I am the rules."

Li Zhengyang interrupted him. "I'll take the heat if anything happens. Also, take thirty percent from this batch of captured spoils, convert it into cash, and divide it equally among all the brothers who participated in the battle."

The Pojun Division had always rewarded based on military merit, with strict discipline.

But Li Zhengyang's simple and brutal way of handing out money was exactly what resonated most with these people who lived their lives on the edge.

"Understood! I will handle it immediately!"

Assistant Chen Feng stood straight and turned to make the arrangements.

Li Zhengyang put his legs down.

He didn't care about the money; as the director, it was only reasonable to pay out more in pensions.

He would never mistreat the people who risked their lives following him.

Picking up the electronic files on the table, Li Zhengyang swiped the black card.

"Beep!"

The highest level of authorization was unlocked.

The holographic screen unfolded before his eyes, revealing a massive amount of data.

Li Zhengyang directly searched for the keywords: "Demon Men," "blood soul orb," and "Blood Demon Clan."

It had been mentioned by the Demon Men that the blood soul orb was refined by extracting the blood and qi of human martial artists.

This thing could absolutely not be conjured out of thin air.

To obtain such a large scale of human blood and qi outside the wall, by relying on catching those veteran soldiers of the Pojun Division who licked blood off their blades on the front lines? That was simply unrealistic.

The people of the Pojun Division were tough as nails; even if they died in battle, they wouldn't just obediently let their blood be drained.

Behind this, there must be a secret supply chain of living subjects.

The data on the screen scrolled rapidly, and various data models were automatically filtered and compared.

Five minutes later, Li Zhengyang's gaze locked onto a data curve.

[Statistical Report on the Disappearance Rate of Martial Artists in Inland Cities Over the Last Half Year]

On this report, the disappearance rate in several border cities of Great Xia had remained stable, but the data for one inland city had shown a strange surge over the past three months.

Most of those who disappeared were low-grade martial artists who had just awakened, or technical college students and freelance martial artists who hadn't been admitted to undergraduate programs and were struggling at the bottom of society.

The official investigation conclusion was: they had gone out of the city in groups to hunt low-level demonic beasts and met with accidents.

Who are they trying to fool with that excuse?

Li Zhengyang used his finger to zoom in on the name of that city.

Dongcheng.

It was exactly the place where he had attended the Martial Arts Technical College, and where he had previously borrowed a mountain of high-interest loans.

Li Zhengyang sneered and continued to dig deeper.

With full authorization, the details of local capital flows in Dongcheng were stripped bare.

An attachment named "Tax Audit of Local Financial Companies in Dongcheng" popped up.

At the very top of the blacklist was none other than "Speed Loan Treasure Financial Lending Co., Ltd."

The information showed that this shell company ostensibly engaged in campus loans and predatory lending, but behind it lay an extremely massive capital pool.

This capital chain twisted and turned, eventually flowing into several shell trading companies, and the businesses of these shell companies all overlapped with smuggling routes on the border.

Not only that.

Most of those who had borrowed money from Speed Loan Treasure and were taken away by debt collectors because they couldn't repay it were on the list of missing persons.

A hypothesis of a complete black industrial chain instantly formed in Li Zhengyang's mind.

"Manager Sun."

Li Zhengyang leaned back in his chair, rubbing his tactical watch with his fingers.

In his mind, he pictured that bald, short, fat man, as well as the three thugs who had been sent to collect the debt back then.

At that time, he had owed ten thousand yuan in naked loans, and those bastards had pushed him relentlessly to the brink of death.

Later, when his strength increased, he casually beat them up and extorted one hundred thousand back from them.

At the time, he thought it was just ordinary underworld lending.

Now it seemed that these guys were not as simple as they appeared on the surface.

This was no longer just a personal vendetta.

How huge a fortune was the money rolling through this industrial chain every day?

If it happened to be related to the Demon Men, then the implications were huge.

"Beep."

Li Zhengyang pressed the communication button on the desk and connected to Assistant Chen Feng.

"Deputy Division Chief Chen."

"Director, what are your orders?" Assistant Chen Feng's voice came through the speaker.

"Arrange a plane for me. Now."

Assistant Chen Feng was stunned. "Director, are you going on a field mission? How many people should I bring? Which defense zone are you going to?"

"Just me, and I'm not going to a defense zone." Li Zhengyang stood up and grabbed the dragon spear.

"I'm going to Dongcheng. Vacation, visiting relatives, and a secret investigation on the side."

"Dongcheng?"

Assistant Chen Feng was a bit slow to process this; the Northern Territory had just experienced a major catastrophe, and the new director was taking a vacation on his first day in office?

But he didn't dare to ask any more questions. Military orders were like mountains, so he immediately replied, "Understood, the pojun no. 1 special plane is on standby at the tarmac and can take off at any time."

Ten minutes later.

The internal tarmac of the Pojun Division.

An S-class supersonic fighter jet with a highly sci-fi aesthetic sat quietly there.

Painted on the fuselage were two crossed sharp swords, the exclusive emblem of the Pojun Division.

Li Zhengyang had changed into dry casual clothes and walked onto the plane.

...

One hour later.

Dongcheng International Airport.

The monitoring room was in chaos.

The air traffic controller stared at the red dot approaching at a terrifying speed on the radar screen, his throat feeling dry.

"Quick! Notify all civil airliners about to take off to hold their positions! Clear Runway No. 3!"

The supervisor roared into the walkie-talkie, "Highest-level military cross-regional flight path! No one is to obstruct it!"

A black fighter jet pierced through the clouds and landed on Runway No. 3.

The airport ground crew and armed guards had all pulled up a cordon a hundred meters away.

Everyone was craning their necks, wanting to see which big shot had descended upon Dongcheng.

The cabin door slowly opened.

Li Zhengyang, alone, walked down the steps one by one.

A few months ago, he was still in this city haggling with a bun shop owner over a few dozen yuan for breakfast, and being cornered in an alley by a group of thugs demanding payment.

Now, he was the Pojun Division Chief, sitting in the highest-level special plane, holding the power of life and death.

How things have changed.

Li Zhengyang was just about to reflect on this for a moment.

Suddenly.

His First-Grade Martial Venerable perception detected something unusual.

Li Zhengyang's brows furrowed tightly.

A scent permeated the air.

It was extremely faint, but it absolutely could not escape a Martial Venerable's perception.

He was too familiar with this scent.

In the Northern Wasteland ruins, this was the exact nauseating aura that emanated from Xue You.