18: Deceiving the heavens and crossing the sea

(This chapter is intended to fix some bugs in the previous chapter. It serves as a world-building chapter, explaining the process of transporting these high-end devices back to the country and the terrifying capabilities of "white flower" in the virtual world. Readers who don't care can skip it.)

In the world of ordinary people, Paradox Technology, established half a year ago, is an extremely mysterious yet real multinational technology company.

It rented an entire floor of an upscale office building on Fifth Avenue in New York as its North American headquarters; in London's Financial District, its name appeared on the plaque of a historic building; in Tokyo, in Singapore, in Frankfurt... you could find the shiny, high-end offices of Paradox Technology everywhere.

There were real employees in these offices.

There were financial analysts in professional suits rushing about; software engineers wearing glasses hunched over code; and local employees responsible for handling daily administrative tasks.

Every day, they handled tasks issued from a non-existent "Global Headquarters" located in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

These tasks were concrete and trivial: analyzing the K-line chart of a certain stock, writing a piece of irrelevant code for a virtual project, processing financial statements that looked compliant and legal...

All of this was completed online through a collaborative office platform called "WhiteStar," personally created by "white flower".

The platform automatically assigned tasks based on each employee's ability and position, and communicated in an encrypted manner.

The employees had never met their direct supervisors, nor had they ever attended any offline group meetings.

But every month, they received a salary that was far higher than the industry average on time.

For most of them, this was the perfect company with slightly peculiar rules, but generous benefits and a relaxed workload.

They did not know that they were just flesh-and-blood "NPCs" used for camouflage in this massive phantom empire.

All the data they processed every day was "noise" generated by "white flower" to confuse the outside world, while their own existence provided the most solid alibi for the shell company that was Paradox Technology.

...

In the middle of a vast cornfield in Kansas, USA, stood a huge storage center.

This was the core logistics and R&D base in North America that Paradox Technology publicly promoted.

Over the past few months, heavy trucks bearing the Paradox Technology logo had been driving in one after another.

They carried expensive and precise industrial equipment purchased from all over the world.

Second-hand optical lens sets from the Dutch company ASML were marked on customs clearance documents as "for astronomical telescope research."

Multi-axis linkage precision machine tools from the Japanese company FANUC were noted in the purchase contracts as "for automotive mold production."

Heavy-duty industrial robots from the German company KUKA had their purpose described as "automated logistics sorting."

After each batch of equipment arrived at the warehouse, employees wearing Paradox Technology badges would sign for acceptance.

They would meticulously check the equipment list, inspect for any damage during transport, and then upload the signed delivery notes to the "WhiteStar" system.

Every process was perfectly reasonable, compliant, and flawless.

If an FBI agent or corporate spy were to sneak into this warehouse at this time, they would find it piled high with huge crates, and the labels on the crates would perfectly match the purchase list.

But if they possessed X-ray vision and could see through those thick wooden boards and sheet metal, they would discover a chilling fact—

All the crates were empty.

This costly storage center, this nominal North American R&D base, had been nothing more than a huge, carefully constructed stage for a performance from the very beginning.

And the real "protagonist" had long since completed a brilliant escape, a deception as perfect as a cicada shedding its skin, on the Pacific Ocean thousands of kilometers away.

...

The Pacific Ocean, near the International Date Line.

A giant cargo ship flying the Panamanian flag was sailing eastward at a steady speed.

Its shipping records showed its destination was the Port of Los Angeles, and what it carried on board was precisely the new batch of precision equipment that Paradox Technology had purchased from Europe.

When the cargo ship sailed into a stretch of the high seas with no radar coverage, the plan of "white flower" entered its most critical phase.

The captain's encrypted satellite phone suddenly rang.

On the other end of the line was a voice that had been processed through multiple voice changers and could not be traced.

"Plan initiated. As agreed, turn off all AIS transponders and external communications, change course to coordinates XXXX. 'Scavenger Bird' will be waiting for you there."

The captain did not hesitate at all.

He was a "cleaner" who made a living on the dark web, specializing in taking on all sorts of shady transport jobs.

And this time, his employer was the most generous and mysterious entity he had ever encountered.

A huge sum of cryptocurrency, enough for him to retire early, had already been deposited into his anonymous account.

The cargo ship deviated from its established route on the nautical chart and sailed into the dark deep sea like a ghost.

A few hours later, at the designated coordinates, another modified cargo ship with no identification markings emerged from the darkness.

This was the "Scavenger Bird."

Over the next dozen or so hours, a tense and efficient cargo transfer began under absolute radio silence.

Huge cranes hoisted those heavy crates and containers from one ship to the other.

Meanwhile, "white flower" was conducting a much larger and more precise "deception" across the global network.

In the US Customs database, it forged a perfect set of customs entry records for the cargo ship that was supposed to arrive in Los Angeles—from electronic customs declarations to quarantine certificates, and even tax payment vouchers. At the system level, the ship had successfully arrived and unloaded, completing all legal procedures.

In the servers of the logistics company responsible for land transport, it created fake transport orders, dispatched a non-existent truck fleet, and even generated in real-time a complete transport data chain for these trucks en route from the Port of Los Angeles to the Kansas warehouse, including GPS trajectories, refueling records, and toll payment information.

And in that empty warehouse in Kansas, it even hacked into the local weather monitoring system to ensure that during the few hours when the "cargo" was supposed to arrive, the surveillance satellites over the warehouse would be unable to obtain clear images due to "thick cloud cover."

After completing the transfer, the real cargo ship quickly resumed communications and sailed toward a port in a small South American country to be legally scrapped.

The modified cargo ship codenamed "Scavenger Bird" hoisted fake ship registration and identification, then quietly turned around and sailed toward China.

The entire world had been completely deceived by this seamless digital illusion constructed by "white flower."

From beginning to end, no one realized that the top-tier industrial equipment that was supposed to be shipped to the central United States had completed an incredible "swap," and was now crossing half the globe, sailing toward its true owner.

This was no longer just simple hacking technology.

For Earth's civilization, this was a capability for global information manipulation that bordered on being "godlike."

...

Tianqiong City, suburbs.

A huge, slightly dilapidated factory building had regained its vitality after lying dormant for many years.

On the factory gate hung a brand-new sign—

【Leidian Special Steel Co., Ltd.】

The company's legal representative and sole shareholder was a young man named Lei Wen.

He was a senior student at an ordinary first-tier university in Shanghai, having just completed the procedures to take a leave of absence.

In the archives of the Tianqiong City Administration for Industry and Commerce, the registration process for this company was completely legal.

Lei Wen had used his own real identity, along with a sum of money remitted from overseas through legal channels—nominally "research awards and investment income from his parents"—to buy the abandoned factory outright.

The company's external business was very clear and singular—using atomic-level material synthesis technology to produce various types of special steel to supply the domestic high-end manufacturing industry.

This identity was a protective color that Lei Wen had carefully chosen for himself.

It was ordinary enough not to attract any unnecessary attention.

"Steel is the backbone of industry." A special steel company needed to purchase large amounts of ore and energy, and needed to have huge factory buildings and power supplies; all of this seemed perfectly reasonable.

Most importantly, it perfectly explained why this factory required the highest level of physical security and information isolation—after all, the formulas and production processes for special steel were considered commercial secrets that needed to be strictly kept confidential in any country, or even strategic resources.

As for why a university student would master such technology...

Originally, Lei Wen had thought of a bunch of reasons to explain it, but when the leaders of the Market Supervision Bureau and the local government heard his parents' names, they would always show a thoughtful expression, then nod in sudden realization and approve his registration application.

Lei Wen himself felt very puzzled by this, but at least it solved a rather troublesome matter, and he didn't dwell on it afterwards.

When the "Scavenger Bird" cargo ship, through the customs and logistics channels completely opened up by "white flower," quietly transported its loaded equipment to this factory, the final piece of Lei Wen's plan was finally completed.

He stood in the office on the second floor of the factory, looking down through the huge glass at the forest of steel below, which was being rapidly assembled by intelligent robots and shimmering with the light of the future.

It was time to do something big.

Lei Wen thought to himself.