20: Times are moving forward

When the vast and intricate state machines of China and the United States extended their ubiquitous tentacles toward Paradox Technology, a mysterious company, they assumed it would be an effortless investigation, like reaching into a pocket to take something.

After all, in this era of the Internet of Everything, absolute secrets do not exist.

Any company, as long as it operates in the real world, is bound to leave traces—taxes, logistics, personnel hiring, bank records...

As long as these traces are pieced together, the true face of the mastermind behind it can be easily outlined.

However, when the elite agents of the CIA and the senior special envoys of the Ministry of State Security began their operations with full confidence, they soon discovered they had hit a wall of absolute smoothness, so smooth that not even a single molecule could be grasped.

They were no longer facing business rivals or intelligence targets in the traditional sense.

They were facing a logical ghost.

...

"So, what you're saying is," in a meeting room at NDSM-RD with a sign hanging on the door that read 'Please Keep Absolute Silence', Dr. Thorne looked at the top cybersecurity expert claiming to be the CIA's "Digital God" with an expression that said, "Are you kidding me?"

"We spent three weeks, utilized all backdoor permissions of the 'Prism' project, and analyzed over 60% of global network data traffic, and the result... we found nothing?"

The network expert, usually known for his arrogance, looked like a child who had done something wrong, not even daring to meet Dr. Thorne's eyes.

"Doctor, the situation is... even more bizarre than you imagined," he struggled to phrase it. "We did track the capital flow of Paradox Technology. It's like a digital river formed by hundreds of tributaries, spread across thousands of banks and financial institutions worldwide. Every transaction is legal and compliant, and every transfer is traceable, but when we try to trace the source of this river, it simply disappears."

"Disappears?"

"Yes, it just evaporated into the mist of network encryption algorithms. We even suspect that the startup capital might not have been transferred from any bank account in the real world at all; it's more like... the first sentence in Genesis, 'Let there be light,' and then there was light."

Dr. Thorne felt her temples throbbing.

She turned to another senior agent responsible for offline investigations: "Then what about the field investigation? That legal person named Star River, those acquired companies, and that huge warehouse in Kansas!"

The agent's expression was worse than if he were crying.

"Doctor, that person named Star River is like a virtual human living in all databases. He has a legal passport, a perfect credit record, and even a graduation photo taken in front of Yale University, but we can't find anyone who knows him, nor any entry or exit records for him. His passport... according to our experts, the material and printing process of that piece of paper are even more authentic than the US dollars printed by the Federal Reserve."

"As for those acquired companies," the agent paused, his voice filled with frustration, "their original shareholders all received an irresistible, massive sum of money through legal channels. When we found them, they knew even less about the acquirer than we did. They only knew that the other party's agent lawyer came from a top global law firm, and that law firm... their client information is top secret."

"What about the warehouse!" Dr. Thorne felt her patience nearing its end.

"Empty," the agent said concisely. "We raided the warehouse. It was stacked with brand-new, unopened crates, but after our technical staff inspected them, all the boxes were empty. We also found the employees responsible for signing for them; they were completely unaware that the boxes were empty. They were just completing their work according to the instructions of the online system."

"So," Dr. Thorne concluded in an extremely dangerous, calm tone, "the most powerful intelligence agencies on this planet spent nearly a month only to conclude that our opponent is a non-existent virtual human who used money from who-knows-where to buy a bunch of companies, and then used a bunch of empty boxes in an empty warehouse to perform a stage play for the air to see?"

The meeting room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Everyone lowered their heads in shame.

They knew how ridiculous this sounded.

But this was the truth.

Paradox Technology was like an artist of the perfect crime. It completed a shocking layout under the gaze of the whole world without leaving a single fingerprint that could be grasped in the real world.

...

On the other side of the Earth, the situation faced by Academician Chen Haikang and Professor Liu Zhaodong was almost a mirror image of their American counterparts.

The only difference was that white flower, when facing the investigation from the Ministry of State Security, behaved even more... mischievously.

When the investigation team tried to track the network traces of Paradox Technology in China, they found themselves trapped in a digital maze composed of countless fake IPs and logical traps.

Every time they cracked a firewall, they found ten more robust ones waiting for them behind it.

Once, when they finally managed to trace a physical address that appeared to be the "core server" and broke in with great fanfare, they found it was a spicy hotpot restaurant in Chongqing, and the server... was the tablet computer the hotpot restaurant used for ordering food.

Another time, they intercepted a piece of encrypted communication that appeared to be between senior executives within Paradox Technology.

After spending several days and using the military's supercomputer for brute-force cracking, the plaintext content they got was—

[A recipe for how to make the perfect Mapo Tofu at the quantum level].

The information technology expert from the Ministry of State Security who led the investigation was a young, internationally renowned information engineer. After staying up for seven consecutive nights only to get a recipe, he was so angry he almost smashed the keyboard on the spot.

He roared at Academician Chen Haikang in a near-breakdown tone: "Academician Chen! We are not dealing with a human! This is definitely not something a human could do! This guy is simply... simply..."

He really couldn't think of any language to describe such a terrible guy.

Ultimately, after wasting massive resources and only harvesting a bunch of hotpot restaurant addresses and Sichuan cuisine recipes, the intelligence departments of China and the United States reached the same, helpless, yet incredibly clear conclusion at almost the same time: if the other party doesn't want you to find them, you will absolutely never find them.

Since they couldn't catch them, they could only negotiate.

Helpless, the two governments, after hitting a wall, had to put aside all their little schemes and chose to cooperate with this mysterious company in a more sincere way.

...

"So our conditions are very simple."

In an absolutely secure encrypted video conference personally set up by white flower, a voice that could not be identified by gender or age after multiple processing methods said to Academician Chen Haikang and Alice Thorne on the other side of the screen.

The virtual image of this voice was a geometric body composed of pure white light points that constantly changed its shape.

It called itself the "spokesperson" of Paradox Technology.

"[El-3 Composite Target Material] and [Room-temperature Superconducting Materials], we can provide them to you, but we do not accept any form of audit or background investigation. We only engage in pure commercial cooperation."

"And we have designated sole agents and partners in various regions. In Europe, it is the Siemens Group; in Africa, it is the Albert Group; in the Americas, it is General Electric; and in Asia, it is Leidian Special Steel Co., Ltd."

When the "spokesperson" said the name of that company, both Academician Chen Haikang and Alice Thorne were stunned.

[Leidian Special Steel Co., Ltd.]

This name was incredibly tacky, full of the rustic flavor of township enterprises from the 1980s, and seemed to not be on the same layer as the other three enterprises.

Completely unaware of who they were, if the occasion hadn't been inappropriate, Alice Thorne would have even wanted to laugh out loud.

And Academician Chen Haikang and Professor Liu Zhaodong immediately pulled up all the information about this company.

The information was as simple as a blank sheet of paper.

The company's legal representative is Lei Wen, 23 years old, a senior student at a university in Shanghai, currently taking a leave of absence.

His parents are internationally renowned scholars who are rarely in the country.

The company was just registered three months ago, bought an abandoned factory building, and publicly claimed to produce special steel.

Everything looked like an ordinary rich second generation starting a business with their parents' money.

Plain and unremarkable.

But this unremarkable company was designated as the sole partner by Paradox Technology, which might have been established by "the guide"?

This was like God announcing that his only designated contact person on earth from now on is the neighbor next door who wears slippers and goes to buy soy sauce every day, full of dissonance and absurdity.

"Why them?" Alice Thorne couldn't help but ask.

The white geometric body flickered.

"This is the optimal choice derived from our most complex internal business models and risk assessments. The specific reasons cannot be disclosed."

The meeting ended.

But the waves it stirred up had only just begun.

Lei Wen's life underwent earth-shaking changes from then on.

Overnight, the entrance to the office building rented by Leidian Special Steel Co., Ltd. became bustling with traffic.

Previously, it was deserted, with only stray dogs visiting.

But now, it was packed with Hongqi sedans with black license plates and various off-road vehicles with military license plates.

Lei Wen, the nominal chairman of the company, had to take off his comfortable T-shirt and jeans and put on a custom-made high-end suit he had never imagined he would wear in his life.

His temperament was also undergoing a fundamental change in this passive transformation.

The once slightly nerdy and socially awkward college student was being rapidly polished into a steady, capable, and even slightly mysterious young entrepreneur.

He no longer needed to worry about how to communicate with people.

Because white flower would provide him with the optimal conversation strategy in real-time through a micro bone-conduction earphone hidden in his ear canal.

When he faced officials from the National Development and Reform Commission to discuss the topic of "Strategic Reserve of New Materials," white flower would tell him: "Division Chief Wang on the left is from a technical background. You can chat more with him about the crystal structure of the materials, and he will regard you as a kindred spirit."

When he negotiated with the military's procurement department to discuss the application directions of the first batch of "El-3 Composite Target Material" besides fusion devices, white flower would remind him: "Don't talk about price first. Ask them first if they have solved the thermal barrier problem for the next generation of fighter jets or missiles during hypersonic flight. This will make them understand that you are not selling products; you are selling the future."

When he attended a banquet hosted by the Tianqiong City government aimed at honoring him as an "Outstanding Young Entrepreneur," white flower would even embody a perfect socialite: "Ignore that real estate developer who wants to force you to drink. Go chat with the old gentleman in glasses in the corner. He is a retired researcher from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an admirer of your parents. He will help you solve the difficulty of the factory area greening approval."

Lei Wen found that his life seemed to have entered an "easy mode."

He only needed to read the lines according to the "guide" and make the optimal choices.

He quickly adapted to this new role.

A few months later, he was no longer the "player" who needed to be taught hand-in-hand by white flower.

He began to think actively, starting to integrate the massive information provided by white flower into his own knowledge system, forming his own judgments.

His vision, pattern, and eloquence were all growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

He became a rising star in both political and business circles, a "hot commodity" that everyone wanted to befriend but no one could truly see through.

Everyone thought he was just an "agent" with incredible luck.

A lucky guy chosen by a mysterious "God" who possessed future technology.

They didn't know.

That so-called "God" was just a sword in his hand.