Chapter 30: The Electronic Murder Weapon Reappears

Chapter 30: The Electronic Murder Weapon Reappears

The three items were normal projects. On the surface, none threatened anyone.

Du Changfeng called me partly to help find who’d harmed him and prevent it happening again. Partly to pull me back into the group.

As for my relationship with Du Xinlang, anyone with eyes understood. It was just that I had not sorted out my own thinking, so I had never intended to return to the group.

Saving Du Changfeng’s life accidentally raised his trust to its peak. From Du Xinlang’s hints, her father wanted me to inherit his business now.

Absolutely not something I wanted.

My business management skills weren’t remotely sufficient. And an outsider inheriting the Du family enterprise would require formal status.

I didn’t want to get married.

I hadn’t found Grandma yet.

Besides, my future would be filled with crises. Starting a family too early would shackle me and endanger everyone around me.

Each agenda item had a project team.

Since the meeting was high-level decision-making only, no technical details, the project leads weren’t present.

First item: a state-funded vertical project, developed by the group research institute. The meeting just introduced progress and provided decision support for problems. Nothing difficult.

Second item: a horizontal project funded by CWP, involving highly classified content. The board made project decisions only, no technical discussion.

Third item: the real focus. A self-developed project, investment entirely company-funded.

The project had been proposed because of an encounter Chairman Du once had.

A UFO.

Yes. Unidentified flying object.

On a business trip, Du Changfeng personally saw an extremely clear UFO. Not one—five. Flight paths and speed beyond human capability.

For hundreds of years, countless UFO sightings worldwide, all seemingly avoiding humans. Either blurry, too distant, or too fast to capture clearly.

Du Changfeng’s encounter was accidental.

The plane he was on should not have encountered cumulonimbus clouds in the stratosphere, but for some reason it entered a thick cloud layer. Violent jolting followed, then a rapid descent, just in time to meet the UFOs flying over from behind at close range. Du Changfeng happened to have his phone open and snapped a picture.

Later he mentioned it to technical staff, sparking enormous interest.

Based on Chairman Du’s photos, after data analysis, technical staff confirmed: intelligent flying craft, definitely not natural.

Decoding intelligence was Du Group business already.

The Du Group possessed original advanced algorithms. Before the Human–Machine War, they’d been applied to Malken’s AI. Later hijacked by AI robots, causing tremendous disaster. Now technical staff wanted to use the algorithms to develop the Deep-Space Intelligence Detector. They’d proposed a complete technical solution.

To avoid AI hijacking again, the technical core adopted human genetic augmentation.

As IT architect, Xuanhong understood the algorithm engineers’ route. If realized, this would change humanity’s understanding of space, solve centuries-old UFO mysteries. If paired with CWP’s research into cracking integrated-component replication technology, it could very likely change humanity’s mode of travel and lay a foundation for fully understanding outer space.

But as soon as the item was proposed, three people led by Vice Chairman Cai Xueli fiercely opposed. He believed it was a bottomless pit, would likely be rejected by CWP. Most importantly, they couldn’t retread the AI disaster path.

They rejected the safety measures technical staff proposed.

Fierce argument around the topic.

I didn’t participate. Instead, using my new penetrating-wave modulation, I saw a secret directly inside Cai Xueli.

Someone had planted a gu in him. Not a witchcraft insect but a microelectronic device, like the “electronic worm” in Du Changfeng.

I could vaguely see it installed on a node of Cai Xueli’s neural center. He’d been…