Chapter 1335: Takeda Pharmaceutical’s Servers
At the entrance of the New Otani Hotel, guests with flamboyant appearances left one after another.
Many people were euphoric because they had signed a big deal, while many people were disappointed that Jiang Chen left too early. Under the streetlight outside the main entrance, Hiroto Mitsui stood beside a black car like a sculpture, his eyes narrowed as he followed the direction Celestial Trade’s convoy left in.
His bodyguard opened the door for him and stepped aside respectfully.
Hiroto Mitsui’s a.s.sistant with black frame gla.s.ses, who stood behind him, stepped aside and reminded his boss softly.
“President, the car is ready.”
The silence continued until the few car lights disappeared at the end of the street. Mitsui Hiroto seemed to have made up his mind and nodded slowly.
“Mhmm.”
…
The CIB?
A look of interest appeared in Jiang Chen’s eyes.
What is the reason for the CIB to waste resources on the eldest son of a consortium? Although the Sumitomo Consortium had cooperated on the Global Grid Plan, it was purely an economic exchange. He didn’t think there was anything worth investigating.
“Go on,” Jiang Chen quietly said as he leaned back.
Sumitomo Kenichi took a deep breath and sorted out the words in his head.
“Remember the tragedy two and a half years ago?”
“Of course,” Jiang Chen smiled and said softly, “I’m afraid no one in this world will forget the tragedy that day.”
Two and a half years ago, an explosion occurred in s.h.i.+nagawa, Yoto. Tens of thousands of people were directly or indirectly infected by the T virus and were turned into the living dead. It was the second tragedy that happened in the world after what happened in City K, and panic was once again set off worldwide.
It was also from that time that the term Takeda Pharmaceutical along with the Nippon authorities were pushed to the midst of controversy. Abe, who was still seeking re-election through const.i.tutional amendments, was also forced to step down because of this, and a year later, he went to jail. The speech made by the leader of Kurofune, Tanaka, made the whole world aware of the word Kurofune and made this word surpa.s.s the word Taliban to become the world’s number one terrorist organization.
Later, that incident, the previous City K Tragedy, and the later Finnish Mother Nest, were generally regarded as three unpleasant contacts between earth civilization and extraterrestrial civilization. To a certain extent, it indirectly promoted the establishment of the Earth Defense Alliance.
“What I want to talk about is exactly that,” Sumitomo Kenichi looked at Jiang Chen with a solemn expression, and narrated the complete story, “Just two months ago…”
This is what happened.
Just two months ago, one of Sumitomo Group’s cargo s.h.i.+ps that was about to set off from Nagasaki Port to Los Angeles, was detained by customs at Nagasaki Port. The detainment was on the grounds that prohibited items were suspected to be on board. At that time, Sumitomo Kenichi, who was in charge of handling this matter, felt it was very strange. Sumitomo Kenichi had been the president of Sumitomo s.h.i.+pping for many years and this was the first time his s.h.i.+p had been detained by customs for transporting embargoed items.
It was not until later that he went to the scene to understand the situation and realized the seriousness of the problem.
“What exactly was in the container in question?” Jiang Chen asked while he tried to piece everything together.
“It’s just a bunch of obsolete servers, but the problem lies with these servers,” said Sumitomo Kenichi with a dumbfounded expression. “Those servers were the a.s.sets sold by the bank when Takeda Pharmaceuticals went bankrupt. Based on reliable sources, these servers came from a laboratory code-named ‘Dark’. I believe you don’t need me to say more for you to know where that is.”
“The birthplace of the T virus?” Jiang Chen raised his eyebrows.
“That’s right.” Sumitomo Kenichi nodded.
When Kurofune issued a declaration of war on all of mankind, in order to prevent Takeda Pharmaceutical from creating an antidote based on his research results, Tanaka formatted all the servers in the laboratory after he took the virus samples.
At that time, due to the mismanagement of the Yoto government and the resignation of the ruling party, after Takeda Pharmaceutical was seized, these servers were inexplicably labeled as auction a.s.sets together with other a.s.sets. They were purchased by an export trade company two years ago, then they disappeared.
Sumitomo Kenichi never expected these servers would appear on his s.h.i.+p.
“But why are the CIB people after you?” Jiang Chen frowned and asked.
“At that time, I thought that I should avoid trouble, so I bribed the customs. Before the customs reported the involved goods, I switched the container with brand new servers, and I was ready to destroy the old servers. But I didn’t expect…” At this point, Sumitomo Kenichi’s smile was bitter, “I escaped prosecution by customs, but I didn’t escape the eyes of the CIB.”
After Jiang Chen listened to Sumitomo Kenichi’s description, he became deep in thought.
Strictly speaking, these servers were definitely harmless. After all, all data had been formatted. However, there was still a hidden risk. People could use special techniques to restore the deleted data from the server with a probability to successfully restore the data.
And now, someone attempted to smuggle these servers on Sumitomo Group’s s.h.i.+p to Los Angeles, which made this situation even more intriguing.
The Kurofune became small independent units that fought on their own. They were like rodents that feared the light with the constant pursuit of agents around the world. Jiang Chen did not imagine they could have the ability to use the legacy left by Tanaka to revive the organization.
As for another possibility…
This batch of servers, that should have been sent to Los Angeles, was the work of the CIB.
“Where are these servers now?” Jiang Chen asked.
“They’ve been taken away by the CIB,” Sumitomo Kenichi squeezed out a bitter smile, “I thought it would be fine if they took the server, but it didn’t take long before my bodyguard found trackers in my bedroom and on my car. I don’t know what they want to do, but I dare say they are not up to anything good…”
“Yes,” Jiang Chen laughing and said jokingly, “I bet if you were just a n.o.body, you would have now been fished out from a sewer ditch by the police.”
“That is not a funny joke,” Sumitomo Kenichi said with an ugly expression.
“I’m not joking with you,” Jiang Chen shrugged and said with a smile, “If I were the CIB, you may have been silenced… Then, is there any other clue?”
“When the bug was first discovered, I hired a private investigator to trace the source of those servers. I wanted to know who smuggled those things into my container. However, in the end, I found something unexpected.”
“What did you found?”
“Rokawa Electronics, the supplier for these servers,” Sumitomo Kenichi took a deep breath. “The private investigator I hired found out that they are funded by—”
“The Mitsui Consortium, right?” Jiang Chen grinned.
Sumitomo Kenichi’s eyes widened as he looked at Jiang Chen in disbelief.
“Jiang Chen, you are—”
“You want to ask me how I knew, right?” Jiang Chen smiled and shook his head, raised his chin, and gestured to him in the direction of the rear-view mirror with his eyes. “Don’t look at me as a businessman. I have experienced a lot. I think my counterintelligence ability is quite strong.”
Mitsui Hiroto dared to follow him?
As Jiang Chen spoke, he opened the holographic screen of his watch, edited a short message, and sent it to Gill, the person in charge of Ghost Agents in Nippon. Then, he said to the uneased Sumitomo Kenichi, “Beginning tomorrow, I will send someone to secretly ensure your safety. As for other things, I don’t need you to do anything for the time being. When I need you, just cooperate with me.”
“Thank you.” Sumitomo Kenichi said gratefully.
“You’re welcome,” Jiang Chen smiled and said softly, “Where are you going, if it’s not far away, I can ask my driver to drop you off. Of course, if I were you, I would get off immediately.”