Ling Lan thought for a second then ordered, "Little Four, you make the decision!"Was letting Little Four take charge correct? It was the first time Little Four received the power to make a decision. He didn"t hesitate and rushed into the circuitry to help his Boss resolve this issue.
In the Li family"s booth:
The a.s.sistant responsible for bidding in the auction saw that the price he bidded was raised by his compet.i.tor. He didn"t even think for a second, he entered a new bid and sent it out.
"Sending…" After a while, another round had pa.s.sed, but it didn"t actually show their bid. The a.s.sistant knew something was wrong. He immediately raised his head and yelled, "Boss, I think something malfunctioned."
The representative from the Li family from who was originally half asleep immediately opened his eyes. He coldly asked, "What happened?"
"The bid I had just entered was not received by the auction house. They didn"t show our bid." It was clear that his bidding price was the highest in that round.
The representative from the Li family"s expression changed slightly and immediately ordered, "Contact the auction house and have them resolve this issue as soon as possible." After saying that, he could help but swear under his breath. It he didn"t successfully acquire the data of the ATOMIC BEAM BAZOOKA today, his big boss would not let him live it down.
He knew clearly that his big boss wanted to use this data to his advantage by acquiring another bargaining chip in competing for the position of master in the faction… After thinking about the outcome of his failure, sweat began to drip from his forehead. He had lost the composure he had in the beginning and a hint of anxiousness began to show in his expression.
"Boss, I have already requested for help from the auction house," the a.s.sistant responded immediately.
The representative from the Li family nodded his head. He endured the anxiousness and waited for the auction house to resolve this issue.
In the booth of the Ye family:
"Boss, our bid wasn"t received by the auction house." Similarly, the a.s.sistant responsible for bidding saw that the new round of bids did not have the one he had sent in. He immediately reported this to his Boss.
The representative of Ye family frowned. He knew the underground auction house on Aoqi very well. Although it seemed like a black market on the outside, it was actually controlled by government officials. It was just that the items being auctioned were considered smuggled goods and the auction house could not explain their origin to the countries bidding for it. Thus, it went from public to private and changed these items into black market goods.
However, the auction house"s defense system and military force was top tier on Aoqi. It was impossible for a malfunction like bids not being received to happen… The representative from the Ye family"s first thought was that the auction house was being attacked?
"Major Lu, the anti-hacker barrier we borrowed doesn"t have any issues right?" The representative from the Ye family asked the astute young man standing beside him with an imposing look. The representative was thinking whether if the attack was by a group that was hostile towards the Federation, the military and the Ye family.
"There won"t be any issues. Even imperial level hackers wouldn"t be able to find an opening." Major Lu said without hesitation. The anti-hacker barrier was something that was created by a group of imperial level hackers from the military. It wasn"t something that one or two imperial hackers could easily crack.
The representative from the Ye family had a grasp of the situation. He turned around and spoke to the bidding a.s.sistant, "Contact the auction house and ask them to resolve this issue immediately." Since the situation was playing out like this, they could force the auction house to give them an explanation. Secretly, the representative even hoped that this problem would persist and continue until the auction ended. This way he would be able to have the auction house to give him a copy of the weapon data for a lower price. Using the least amount of money to get what they wanted was something he very much wanted to do.
The merchant with the surname Jiang had also discovered this problem. He showed a faint smile on his face. Similarly with the Ye family, he also patiently waited for the auction house to give them an explanation.
Although the top three compet.i.tors were out, the other compet.i.tors didn"t care. These other compet.i.tors were enthusiastically bidding for the data of this weapon that used a new energy source. Aobu Ruoya had said that this weapon could change the fate of the entire universe. The price of the data rose to a shocking sky-high price…
"They"re all crazy!" Ling Lan saw the auction and speculated that the only reason this universe constantly had wars was completely because humans were too selfish and didn"t want to give up on their own agendas. This was what caused the universe to be tainted by war.
However, waiting would not give them any results. Little Four had cut off all communications from all three booths and Brother Xu, who was responsible for monitoring the booths, only saw what Little Four allowed him to see on his screens. In the auction house, everything was perfectly fine. It showed that there were no bids coming from the three booths.
Although the auction house felt something was off, they didn"t suspect any foul play. After all, not bidding was a right the client had and the auction house had no right to intervene.
Of course, if they had suspected a little bit more and compared the images in all three booths, the auction house could have found a flaw in the surveillance footage. That was because the surveillance footage were actually on a loop. However, Little Four had split the video clips apart. If the person watching wasn"t a top expert, they wouldn"t be able to tell the difference.
"How come they"re still not here?" Seeing that the amount of people bidding decreasing, the auction house did not notify them and didn"t even send a staff member to their booth, the representative from the Li family couldn"t wait any longer.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.
The guard standing at the door turned to the keypad after his Boss gave him the order. He inputted a string of numbers and was getting ready to open the door of the booth.
However, the door didn"t open. Now, everyone knew something had happened.
They first used their communicators to contact the people outside, but discovered that their communicators didn"t not work too. They were like a rat in a hole, unable to contact the outside world. Everyone"s expressions changed instantly and suspected this act was the auction house purposefully going against them.
After the Li family"s representative gave the signal, the guard was ready to take out his beam gun to take the door down by force. Right when he was about to do that, the a.s.sistant who was staring at the screen the entire time shouted, "Boss, take a look at this."
The representative from the Li family immediately jumped over. The screen showed a savage skull. The skull"s mouth cracked open and a string of words flew out, "The data of the ATOMIC BEAM BAZOOKA only belongs to me! I will definitely not let you people meddle with it! If you all obey, I will let bygones be bygones. Otherwise, I will be very very angry and then I"ll…
The other two booths also had this image pop up. After this string of words appeared, another image appeared. The images were the large palace-like mansion of the Ye family and the residence of the people backing the merchant with the surname Jiang. These images suddenly exploded and turned to dust in a raging inferno.
"Completely destroy them, so don"t make me angry okay?"
"Finally, please regard me as the Son of G.o.d!"
After saying that, all the images vanished. The screen returned to the image of the auction. The bid for the data of the Atomic Beam Bazooka had already gone past five billion credits. It had set the record for highest ever bid in the auction house.
"It"s hackers!"
Seeing the images, the representatives from the three booths understood the situation. They were at ease temporarily, but smiled bitterly right after. Now, they definitely couldn"t acquire the data of the Atomic Beam Bazooka.
They knew very well that Aoqi"s organization would station three imperial level hackers for this auction specifically. However, an existence that even three imperial level hacker could not track was definitely a G.o.d-level hacker for the imperial hackers to not be able to find out the problem.
However, G.o.d-level hackers were a country"s last line of defense and would never step out of the country. Who was this G.o.d-level hacker? He named himself as the Son of G.o.d. Could it be that he actually thought he was a descendant of a G.o.d like deity?
The three of them from the booths thought deeply for a while. Then they ordered their subordinates to not publicize this incident. They knew that the government of Aoqi probably wouldn"t be able to do anything if a mysterious G.o.d-level hacker had a made a move. Aoqi would definitely not be able to find any problems and would even suspect them deliberately causing a disturbance. Pestering the organization might also expose their own background.
The representative from the Ye family thought about his plans with regret. At that moment, they were more in a hurry to return to the Federation and contact the only G.o.d-level hacker within the Federation. He may know which G.o.d-level hacker had made a move. After all, only an expert of the same caliber would be able to find the details.
Not long after, the data for the ATOMIC BEAM BAZOOKA was won by booth #91.
As the bid for the data had ended, the government of Aoqi also declared that the auction had ended.
After all that, those who were in the three booths could finally communicate with the outside world.
These people didn"t hesitate and contacted their forces in the outside world. They ordered their forces to dig up all the details of the people in booth #91. Since the people from that booth had won the bid, then the Son of G.o.d definitely had a connection with them. The Son of G.o.d could have been invited by those from booth #91.
After auction ended, the people from the three booths didn"t stay at the auction house. After they paid the organizer for their items, the three parties quickly left the location. Not long after, the starships that belonged to all three parties all flew out of Planet Aoqi.
Since they left in a hurry, they didn"t get to know the string of events that happened on Planet Aoqi afterwards. Those events almost crippled Planet Aoqi"s economy to the dark ages.
Because of the Li family, Ye family and merchant Jiang"s concealed the information, Aoqi"s organizer didn"t know that a hacker had presented himself. However, Aoqi wasn"t completely off the hook because the Babu scepter caused some friction between them and their allies.
As for the Babu scepter, it was originally going to be won by the Balaya Kingdom with a high price. However, the person who won the bid for the Babu scepter wanted Balaya to buy it from him. Although the bidding price for the scepter was very high in the end, it had not reached half of the amount the person had requested. This fiasco made Aoqi blame their allies for giving up early.
Their partners of course felt very wronged. They blamed Aoqi for sending them a message to tell them to stop. Aoqi"s government of course thought their allies were spouting nonsense and asked their allies for proof. Their allies were originally very confident, but when they searched through their messages, they couldn"t find that specific message. Their allies instantly understood that they had fallen into Aoqi"s trap. They fully believed that Aoqi had silently betrayed them and sided with the Federation.
The two sides criticized each other. Aoqi"s government also suspected that their allies were preparing to throw Aoqi out as a scapegoat. The perfect relationship between the two parties instantly had cracks formed between them. Even after the country, Caesar, had comforted both sides, the two parties still couldn"t control their anger. On the outside it seemed as though they were just as friendly as before, but the relationship between them could never return to what it once was. Both sides now held grudges against each other.
Little Four didn"t know that his barbaric, unreasonable, and completely flawed move actually caused Aoqi and Caesar to have grudges against each other. In the future, the relationship between Aoqi and Caesar will completely break into pieces. Of course, all this was in the future.
This whole event had this kind of effect because Aoqi was confident in their hackers" capabilities. Of course, at the same time, Caesar was also confident in Aoqi"s hackers" capabilities. The people that could cause trouble during the auction could only be Aoqi… Thus, confidence was a good thing and an advantage, but too much confidence would create problems. Too much of anything would be a bad thing.
Ling Lan"s group didn"t know that Aoqi and their allies were at each other"s throats. They settled their bids with Aoqi"s auction house. They were lucky the account that was bound to the invitation card had enough money. They successfully acquired the three items they had bid on. They left the booth with the help of a staff member.
After getting to the elevator, Li Lanfeng smiled and said, "Thank you. We can go down from here ourselves. You don"t need to come with us."
The staff member politely said, "It is part of our job to take our customers to the front door. Please get into the elevator." The staff member ignored Li Lanfeng"s polite rejection of his services. He stood beside the elevator and asked Ling Lan"s group to enter the elevator as the doors opened.
Li Lanfeng smiled, shook his head and lead his group into the elevator. The elevator was so big. Out of habit, Ling Lan walked to a corner and leaned on the wall of the elevator with her head down as though she was thinking about something.
The others didn"t bother her. The rest of them stood there nonchalantly as they watched the number on the screen, waiting for the elevator to reach the first floor.
Right as the screen showed the number for the third floor and everyone waited for the next number to show up, all of the lights in the elevator suddenly turned off. At the same time, a draft of wind suddenly flew towards Ling Lan, who was at the corner.
"Bang!" The clash between blades caused sparks to fly within the darkness. Right after another sound was heard and something had hit the wall of the elevator with great force causing the entire elevator to shake.
"Bam!" The elevator was lit up once again as all of the lights lit up at the same time. At that moment it could be clearly seen that the staff member was lying on a corner lifelessly while Qi Long stood in front of him waving his arm. In the staff member"s right hand was a three inch military knife.
"You actually dare to ambush my Boss in front of me. You"re looking for a death wish!" Qi Long snorted coldly.
Li Lanfeng, who stood in front of Ling Lan, curled his finger. A short sword retracted into his sleeve. The person who had blocked the staff member"s sneak attack on Ling Lan was none other than Li Lanfeng.
The staff member spat out a mouthful of blood and said without any expression on his face, "You won"t be able to escape. The video feed would instantly be sent to the control room."
Ling Lan tapped on the shoulder in front of her that was seemingly weak and frail, but was actually full of strength. She meant for Li Lanfeng to move aside.
Li Lanfeng knew Ling Lan had something to say and moved aside without hesitation.
Ling Lan walked towards the staff member slowly. Seeing this, Qi Long automatically moved back and opened up a spot for Ling Lan.
Ling Lan stared at the staff member, bent down slightly and said, "There are 8 surveillance cameras in total with a 360 degree view of everything. Since I know you have that many surveillance cameras, then why would I turn on the lights in the elevator?"
The staff member"s expression changed instantly. He remembered that the plan was for him to turn on the lights after he succeeded in killing the six of them. Otherwise, the mission would be deemed as failed. However, his mission had failed, but the lights were turned on. He clearly knew that he was the only one who knew about the mechanism to turn on the light.
"You"re wondering how I knew right?" Ling Lan snapped her fingers and the elevator turned pitch-black once again. She snapped again and the lights turned back on.
"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" Elder Brother Xu said that this seemingly harmless young man was the strongest out of all six of them. At that time, the staff member didn"t believe that, but he still listened to Elder Brother Xu"s orders to attack this person first. However, he didn"t think that he wouldn"t even have a chance to get close to his target and was taken down by those around his target…
"Who am I? You probably guessed it haven"t you?" Ling Lan stood up and looked down at the staff member as if a giant looking down at an ant. This act made the staff member"s expression changed instantly.
"You"re very smart. Of course, since I turned on the lights, I of course have the ability to show the people in the security room a fake video feed. Even as we speak, the video feed they see is still pitch black. Then after a while it will show an image of you standing in the elevator and the six of us lying on the floor.
Ling Lan"s words were slow, but the staff member"s heart became heavier and heavier.
"Of course, if you were to fail, those at the security room would send a group of gunmen to the elevator door. If you were to succeed, those gunmen would become the people who gets rid of our bodies. The Babu scepter would be taken back to your side. Then your people would create the illusion that we had taken the scepter and run off in order to get Balaya"s attention…
The expression the staff member had as he looked toward Ling Lan was becoming more instilled with fear. That was because all Ling Lan had said was actually what they were planning to do afterwards.
"You probably also sent a group of people to a.s.sa.s.sinate the princess. Yes, I"m sure that with the way your organization does things, you will definitely send six people who have similar body types like us and pretend to be us. Then when the princess meets up with those six, they will suddenly attack the princess while the princess does not have her guard up… If they succeed, the blame would be put on our heads. If they don"t succeed, they could still cause the princess and the entire country of Balaya to use all their might to find us and kill us because we were greedy for the Babu scepter. Then your organization would no longer be a suspect in this case…"
Ling Lan half-smiled and said, "As expected, what a great plan!"
"You"re the devil!" Ling Lan"s words caused the staff member to lose all hope. He instantly opened his mouth and bit down hard, preparing to bite his tongue to take his own life. Qi Long, who was staring at the staff member this entire time, held the staff member"s jaw. After a hard twist, Qi Long broke the staff member"s jaw.
"That"s not enough!" Ling Lan focused her eyes and punched the staff member"s right cheek with great force. The staff member groaned and spat out a few teeth.
Before Ling Lan gave an order, Lin Zhong-qing went up and carefully examined the teeth. "I found it. One of the teeth is hollow. There"s a pill inside it. It"s probably poison."
"That"s right. In today"s world, who dies from just biting off their tongue," Ling Lan replied indifferently.
Li Lanfeng immediately took out a clean handkerchief and handed it to Ling Lan.
Ling Lan looked at him with an odd look, thinking in her mind why this man liked being clean this much and always had a handkerchief with him. In Ling Lan"s mind, an image of Li Lanfeng holding his hand out all lady-like and wiping his mouth made her uncontrollably shudder… Yes, she needed to make Li Lanfeng more manly in the future in case he becomes the second Luo Lang.
Ling Lan already felt that an oddball like Luo Lang in her team already made her felt she had sinned greatly. She couldn"t let herself create another oddball.
However Ling Lan didn"t refuse Li Lanfeng"s kindness. She took the handkerchief and wiped the back of her right hand, then tossed it back to Li Lanfeng. She used her actions to tell him that a man should use a handkerchief just like how she did.
Li Lanfeng folded the handkerchief that was crumpled into a ball and then carefully put it back into his own pocket.
Ling Lan saw Li Lanfeng"s movements and twitched a little. Could it be that Li Lanfeng had spent too much time with Luo Lang and was affected by that punk? Ling Lan didn"t like the idea and was prepared to give Luo Lang a ruthless beating when she returned. Man, it was fine if it was just him who was weird, but to also make his team members weird as well?
Luo Lang, who was so busy in the 23rd Division, suddenly felt chills throughout his entire body. He shuddered a bit and caused the comrades around him to worry for him. Li Shiyu didn"t care about Luo Lang"s protest and immediately pulled down Luo Lang"s pants. He injected a vaccine into his b.u.t.tocks to make sure he didn"t affect his other team members.
They were currently fighting against the commander, having one less capable individual was not allowed! Thus Luo Lang could only endure the pain and suck in his tears while Li Shiyu treated him.
"Ding" The elevator had reached the first floor. Ling Lan looked towards Qi Long. Qi Long instantly held up a staff member in front of him and stood at the door of the elevator.
The elevator door was open. What appeared in front of them was six to seven nozzles. These gunmen didn"t even look to see who was inside and emptied their magazines.
Zhao Jun and Li Yingjie, who hid on the roof of the elevator suddenly pounced towards the enemy. The two of them took down two people in an instant. Qi Long, who was standing in the middle, used the staff member as a shield. A slew of bullets all hit the staff member. Qi Long used the chaos to get out of the surrounding. Before the gunmen could react, Qi Long used a whirlwind kick to sent the lot of them to the ground.
Hidden behind the sides of the elevator, Li Lanfeng and Lin Zhong-qing was just a bit slower than the other three, following on their heels and struck down the two people Qi Long had missed.
In an instant, the seven or eight people at the door was taken out by Ling Lan"s group.
"It seems that our enemy wasn"t thinking of leaving anyone alive, including you." Ling Lan pa.s.sed by the staff member Qi Long had tossed to the side. The hateful glare he had before dying was full of vengeance. It still had a hint of sorrow from being abandoned.
"That"s why, you should not be a piece in someone else"s game. Instead, you should be the player." Ling Lan"s indifferent words echoed through the staff member"s ear. The staff member"s eyes showed a hint of regret and stared blankly towards Ling Lan. In the end, his expression was condensed into hate as he drew his last breath.
However, it wasn"t sure whether his hate was towards Ling Lan"s group or because he was abandoned heartlessly. In the end, he died without purpose. However, this had nothing to do with Ling Lan"s group. When the staff member decided to make a move on Ling Lan, he had already signed his death wish. It was just that there was a difference between dying at the hands of Ling Lan"s group or his own comrades.