499: Chapter 499 Cooperation Agreement Signed in Phnom Penh Without English

"Let's talk about consumption first."

She handed over the first folder.

"Three members of the Lin Xiao Squad were lightly injured and will return to their unit within a week. Nine men from Zhao Yuxun's vanguard battalion died in action — their names are in Old K's report."

"Points." Zhang Cheng didn't flip open the folder.

"One million three hundred and seventy thousand were spent. The pool is now hugging the red line — the launch of the System 3.0 technology diffusion subsystem requires a baseline of one million, leaving us with only one million and three thousand."

Zhang Cheng picked up his enamel teacup and took a sip of tea. The tea was Dianhong, and the brew had already steeped to a dark hue. Across the rim of the cup, he looked at the urban skyline of Naypyidaw outside the balcony — in the distance was the newly built semiconductor industrial park, with a huge advertisement for "Dawn MX-7" painted on the exterior wall of the factory, and the parking lot below the billboard was densely packed with employees' electric motorcycles.

"Points aren't meant to be hoarded until they rot." He placed the teacup on the railing, "What did we get in exchange for the ones we spent?"

Li Lanzhi pulled out the second document. It was the summary of battle achievements she had prepared in advance.

"The entire territory of East Malaysia — Sarawak and Sabah — has been fully incorporated into Myanmar's sphere of influence. The pro-American faction in the Malaysian Sultanate and Parliament has been purged following Rashid's coup, and the military, economic, and diplomatic sovereignty of Anwar's new government substantially relies on our security commitment. This is the geopolitical victory."

"The eastern mouth of the Strait of Malacca — from the Straits of Johor in Singapore to the open waters off Tawau in Sabah — the complete shipping lane is under the joint patrol coverage of Senior Colonel Lin Haisheng's fleet and the Longguo Southern Theater Command, and the strait's navigation data is monitored in real-time by the Vega System. This is the strategic channel victory."

"Third — " She turned the page to the section marked "Intelligence Cache", "The core layer of Council of Elders has basically been wiped out. Barrett is in The Hague, Haskins is on the extradition plane, and Abramovich is in a detention center in Brussels. The list of all personnel at MI6's Kuala Lumpur station has been exposed, forcing London to withdraw its entire Southeast Asia intelligence network. After the serial numbers of the French Foreign Legion's Milan missiles were made public, Paris is facing a European Union arms embargo investigation. This is the victory of destroying the enemy's will."

"So spending one million three hundred and seventy thousand points was not unjustified. The quantum decryption module cost forty-two thousand, which is expensive — but MI6's backdoor is worth that price."

Zhang Cheng walked to the edge of the balcony and rested both hands on the railing.

"Now the pressure shifts to Africa. The Mozambique energy corridor — the transit station for cobalt mines and rare earths, the upstream lifeline of Myanmar's chip industry. Although Barrett is in The Hague, the chess pieces he planted earlier won't rot away on their own."

"João's daily briefing was updated this morning." Li Lanzhi's fingertips swiped across the tablet, "Phase one of the port expansion in Mozambique's northern province is seventy percent complete, and the railway branch line has been laid to the edge of the mining area. Council of Elders' original plan to implement a blockade in the Mozambique Channel was shelved after the DF-17 test launch, but although Barrett has been arrested, not all of the chess pieces he planted beforehand will disappear."

Zhang Cheng walked back to the desk and brought up the database of the Technology Pioneer module on the system exchange interface. The holographic projection unfolded before him into an arched light wall, lined with hundreds of customized Nobel Prize-level expert avatars and resumes — condensed matter physics, quantum computing, biomedicine, new energy materials, with three to five optional Advanced Death Soldier templates in each field. Below each template was marked the points required for exchange: ranging from eighty thousand to four hundred and fifty thousand.

"The technology diffusion subsystem of System 3.0 can provide a permanent efficiency bonus for long-term infrastructure and technology projects — but the startup condition is that the points pool reserves must not fall below one million. We are currently stepping right on the red line."

Li Lanzhi turned to the budget page: "João's side has already overspent on the port expansion. The funding for the deployment of quantum nodes—"

"So the next step is an economic war and a technological war. What I want is to strike another blow in the financial fields they are best at — in US dollars, in chips, in data. Can't Barrett read The Wall Street Journal's financial reports in his holding cell in The Hague? Let him read it. Let him see what the world without him is turning into."

Li Lanzhi turned the tablet toward him. On the screen was an image just intercepted by Vega — a screenshot from the surveillance camera of the detention center in The Hague. Barrett sat by the cement bed with a crumpled Financial Times spread out before him, the ink printing a blurred letter B on his thumb. The stack of lawyers' letters at the head of the bed remained unopened.

Zhang Cheng lowered his head to glance at the screenshot, then picked up the enamel teacup. The tea had cooled completely, and tea scum had formed a dark brown ring at the bottom of the cup.

"Leave the reconstruction of East Malaysia to Anwar. The African energy corridor must be accelerated — tell João that within thirty days I want to see the first batch of cobalt concentrate loaded from the Port of Nacala."

Li Lanzhi typed this instruction on the tablet.

"Before the system points reserves recover to one point five million, suspend all non-essential equipment exchanges. Legion training and border patrols will switch to conventional ammunition and ordinary equipment. Tell Old K to reduce Vega's non-wartime electromagnetic suppression power to thirty percent, and save the energy quota for monitoring MI6's backdoor — although Council of Elders' intelligence network in Southeast Asia has been wiped out, their residual nodes in the Middle East, Africa, and South America are still operating."

He placed the teacup on the railing and tapped his knuckles twice on the teak wood.

"Barrett is not here, but the chess pieces won't disappear on their own. Keep an eye on them."

A marker popped up in the lower right corner of the tactical screen — Yucatan Peninsula, Mérida Manor. The system automatically refreshed the satellite imagery.

Li Lanzhi received the mission on the balcony of the Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw. After approving João's cobalt concentrate production schedule, Zhang Cheng handed the tablet back to her and said that the holographic projection array in Phnom Penh needed on-site debugging — "You are the person who has seen the installation of the array in The Hague with your own eyes, go and supervise it." She boarded a hypersonic transport plane overnight, landed at 4:00 AM, and entered the signing hall in the east wing of the Peace Palace at 5:00 AM.

Three days later. Phnom Penh, Peace Palace.

The water level of the Mekong River rose to the ankles of the embankment, and patches of water hyacinths drifted over, their leaves curling up in the muggy heat before a rainstorm. The golden spire of the Peace Palace was darkened by the pressing rain clouds, but outside the palace gates, four national flags on the flagpole — Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia — fluttered and snapped simultaneously in the hot wind.

Li Lanzhi stood in the signing hall, directing the staff to make final adjustments. Twelve sets of laser arrays had been concealed behind the gilded wood carvings of the dome, and the projected image could form a two-meter-high real-time three-dimensional picture in the exact center of the signing table. This was Zhang Cheng's second time using holographic attendance in Phnom Penh — the last time was to sign the Phnom Penh Peace and Good-Neighborliness Treaty》, which forced the Cambodian army's offensive to a halt and drove Hun Sen into exile. What needed to be signed this time was much bigger than a truce agreement.

The long tables in the signing hall were arranged in an arc, and the white linen tablecloths were laid without a single trace of a wrinkle. In front of each chair lay documents printed in five languages: Cambodian, Burmese, Thai, Malay, and Chinese, with the cover stamped in gold with Phnom Penh Framework for Regional Cooperation in Southern Asia》 — without an English version.

Srettha sat on the left side of the long table. This former Minister of Finance, who had been fished out of an underground bunker by Night Owl during the coup, was now wearing a dark gray suit. The fountain pen was prepared for him by Erica, with its barrel engraved with the dual imprint of the Thai Royal Family emblem and the baobab leaf logo. Beside him was Anwar, whose complexion was much rosier than when he signed in Kuching, wearing a newly-worn tin ring on his left ring finger — a gift presented by the Sarawak Indigenous Council of Elders at the reconciliation preparatory meeting. Somsak sat on the right side, with the Cambodian version of the document in front of him, the Khmer text on the cover curving like vines.