Chapter 177 Victoria's Suspicion

"It is not the sole cause of the system's collapse, but it is an accelerator," Mu Xin explained.

"The formal medical system is too expensive. The lower-class population uses fentanyl as a substitute for painkillers, which effectively means a portion of public healthcare has been hollowed out."

"Wage growth in the formal job market can't keep up with inflation. Some young people find that the income from street distribution networks is three to five times higher than legal work, which means a portion of the labor force has already been siphoned off by the gray economy."

"If those with agendas on Capitol Hill really wanted to cut off the flow of funds for contraband, border enforcement should be accompanied by financial investigations, but they haven't done so."

"Because financial investigations would lead back to their own people, the safest option is to do nothing," Mu Xin sighed.

"So you're not worried about Oxford Town having one more public security threat; you're worried that fentanyl has already taken your legal economic system as its host."

"It isn't your competitor; it's parasitic—living on your construction sites, in your employee dormitories, and within your supply chain."

"It feeds on your workers, spends the wages you pay, and then sucks that money into a gray network you have absolutely no control over," Victoria continued.

"A single dollar is simultaneously paying property taxes while being laundered through the cartel's underground banks."

"These two identities exist simultaneously in every purchase a person makes. You pay out clean money, but the direction that clean money flows has already taken root in someone else's territory."

"If this state of affairs continues, sooner or later, everything we do in Oxford Town will become the packaging for the fentanyl economy."

"On the outside, it will look like a normally functioning modern town, but on the inside, it will have been hollowed out. By the time we fight back then, the cost will be incomparable to what it is now," Victoria said very seriously.

"So you won't openly declare war on the contraband? At least not until John and Vinny have mapped out the supply chain, right?" Jessica asked.

"Correct. Openly retaliating is what fools do. The web of interests behind the contraband is too large and too dense. Rather than swinging a club and having it bounce back to hit my own face, it's better to first figure out what this small capillary in Oxford Town looks like."

"Who is selling on the construction sites, which secondary distributors they are getting the goods from, and whether the upstream of those distributors intersects with the gray network Derek left behind."

"Once John and Vinny have investigated all of this clearly, I will decide where to make the cut and perform a precise excision," Mu Xin said decisively.

Jessica and Victoria both breathed a sigh of relief—not because a solution to the contraband problem had been found, but because Mu Xin was not acting impulsively.

What they feared most was Mu Xin jumping out on a whim, declaring that he would eradicate all contraband, only to be slapped back by the invisible, massive web of interests behind it.

The decisiveness and ruthlessness he displayed in front of Derek let them know they had followed the right person, but it also added a layer of worry every time they encountered an enemy greater than Derek.

They feared he might act on impulse, using the same methods he used against Derek to deal with an opponent a hundred times more troublesome.

The Mu Xin of today was no longer the person who would want to change America just because of a watermelon.

He was seeing things more calmly: some things could not be severed by throwing money or force at them.

When Jessica stood up, Victoria also stood up, and the two walked toward the door, one after the other.

When they reached the door, Victoria suddenly paused—a subtle pause, an unintentional slowing of her pace for a half-beat while walking.

She looked back at Jessica. Jessica was standing next to Mu Xin's desk, tidying up documents with her usual efficiency.

But today, her skin looked a bit different. The luster wasn't something that could be explained by foundation alone; it was as if her skin was exuding an indescribable radiance from within.

Victoria frowned. Her gaze lingered on Jessica's face for about two seconds, then slid to the side of her neck.

There was a very faint red mark there, hidden at the edge of her shirt collar. If Jessica hadn't leaned over to put away the stapler earlier, causing the collar to shift slightly, no one would have seen it.

It wasn't a wound, nor was it an insect bite. It was a mark left on the surface of the skin after capillaries had slightly ruptured under a prolonged low-pressure environment.

"Did you change your skincare products?" Victoria's tone was casual, but there was no smile in her eyes.

Jessica looked up, her expression motionless. "It's the same brand as before. Why?"

"It's nothing." Victoria slowly turned back. The corners of her mouth tightened imperceptibly. She didn't speak, just pushed the door open and walked out.

The sound of their footsteps in the hallway followed one after the other—one slightly faster, one normal.

Victoria felt a bit irritated, but she wasn't the type to wallow in her emotions. When she was at Morgan Stanley, her boss had taught her a phrase:

"When a variable cannot be quantified, set it aside for now and return to draw a conclusion once the data is sufficiently complete."

She didn't have enough data right now—only a faint red mark and the luster of someone's skin.

Now, she suspected that Jessica was sleeping with Mu Xin, but she had no evidence, so she could only wait a while longer...

...

John and Vinny's investigation lasted nearly two weeks. When the two appeared at the door of the office on the third floor of the Morris Building, Mu Xin was reading the construction progress report for the new employee dormitory building sent by Robert.

The additional beds wouldn't be ready for delivery until the end of January next year at the earliest, at least three weeks behind the original schedule. The reason was the weather; temperatures of twenty to thirty degrees below zero made it very difficult to increase the pace of construction.

Winter, workers, construction schedules, contraband—all these problems were tangled together.

John opened the first page of the folder. It was a hand-drawn organizational chart, drawn in four layers from bottom to top.

Next to each layer were annotations for the person in charge, the scope of control, and armed forces. John had created it using the standard format for military intelligence analysis.

"Let me state the conclusion first: the fentanyl appearing on the Oxford Town construction sites is not the spontaneous behavior of individual retailers. It is the terminal link of a complete contraband distribution network extending from Cincinnati to Oxford Town."

"The upstream of this network is in Cincinnati, the middle stream is around Hamilton County, and the tentacles of the downstream have reached into Oxford Town over the past two months."

"It covers at least four construction sites, two worker residential areas, and temporary rental housing districts."

"There are currently seven people selling fentanyl in Oxford Town."

"Seven?" Mu Xin frowned. This number was higher than he had imagined.

"Two are locals—two young people from Oxford Town who used to work at gas stations. They started getting goods from the upstream six months ago."

"The other five are from the riverfront district of Cincinnati. They aren't remnants of Derek's forces, but the channels they use overlap partially with the gray network Derek left behind during his lifetime."

John's finger slid down the organizational chart. "These seven people are all bottom-level retailers. They earn about one dollar for every fentanyl pill. The money from sales is turned over once a week to their superior, a secondary distributor in Hamilton."