Chapter 1702: I Want to Run for Chairman of the Sangede Alliance

Xin Yu asked, "It's been confirmed that Professor Wu was poisoned by Blue Blood?"

Xia Qing shook her head. "His range of activity was too wide, and he came into contact with too many people. There's no way to investigate them all."

The fact that the tiger could be confirmed as poisoned is because what it was poisoned with was a synthetically produced toxin, and it had a fixed territory. The source of the poison was brazenly stuck right on the tree bark, making it easy for the waist-breaking wolf to discover.

Wu Chengyu went back and forth every day between home, the research institute, and the helicopter production and maintenance plant. The poisoning could have happened at any point along the way, so there's simply no way to verify it.

Xia Qing continued sharing the intelligence she had gathered with her close friend. "After Professor Wu was diagnosed with a rare cancer and judged untreatable by Lanyi Hospital, Blue Blood quickly extended an olive branch to him. The day after Professor Wu went to Northern Zone One to seek help from Sange, two batches of invaders headed for the tiger's territory. So I think these two things are connected."

Although Xin Yu had recently focused most of her attention on organic fertilizer production and the Sangede Alliance's developments, she was also constantly gathering all kinds of intelligence. She immediately seized on the key point in what Xia Qing had said. "The second batch of invaders in Mountain Zone Thirty-One has been found?"

Xia Qing nodded. "Through video analysis, the technicians confirmed that the speed-evolved spear falcon I shot and killed in Mountain Zone Twenty-One was a domesticated bird. Based on the time and direction it appeared, yesterday they located where the second batch of invaders was hiding, and confirmed they had retreated from our base's evolution forest to the Huiwu Base evolution forest. By tracking the footprints of the first batch of invaders, they also confirmed they came from Huiwu."

Xin Yu asked, "Can the identities of these people be confirmed?"

Xia Qing continued her briefing. "Disaster-elimination personnel carefully examined the remains of the first batch of invaders and discovered a residue of a special agent. Zhu Xin, who was inspecting Territory Seven, confirmed it was an improved version of Yiye, recently developed and put into production by Blue Blood, and supplied only to Blue Blood's internal personnel. Experts investigating the 1223 explosion at the Hui-Three Safe Zone also conducted a detailed examination of the remains and confirmed they were evolvers directly under Blue Blood."

Xin Yu understood, but was also puzzled. "Blue Blood didn't kill the tiger early, didn't kill the tiger late, but chose to kill it precisely when Professor Wu went to find Sange. Why does it feel like they're exposing themselves, proving the tiger's poison was theirs? Are the people at Blue Blood's Huiwu branch just that stupid, or is there a mole inside their organization?"

Xia Qing had also thought of this point. "If Blue Blood's people were rational enough, when our base sent Lei Sha to Mountain Zone Twenty-One to search for the invaders, they should have ordered the invasion team to withdraw. That way, even if the tiger was exposed, there'd be no direct evidence proving Blue Blood poisoned it."

Xin Yu nodded and returned to the main topic. "Yu Dongming is the chairman of the Sangede Alliance, but the real person in charge of the Sangede Alliance is my grandfather. No matter how tight the security, there's always a slip somewhere. Poisoning is far easier than assassination."

Her grandfather really might have been administered a targeted poison by Blue Blood!

Seeing the worried expression on Xin Yu's face, Xia Qing pressed her lips together.

Maintaining the operation of the massive underground organization that was the Blue Blood Alliance required an incomprehensibly vast amount of funding.

Zhang Tao, a core member of the Blue Blood Alliance, was the first chief base commander of Hui City. During the five years before he was taken down after the exposure of the underground laboratory beneath Hui-One at the end of the fifth year of the Calamity, he was the undisputed power in Hui City.

During those five years, how many people in Hui City, under the pressure of his power, became members of the Blue Blood Alliance or indirectly served Blue Blood?

The leading industrial enterprise of Hui City, the Sangede Alliance Group, with an annual output value of nearly ten billion, must certainly have been a target he had his eye on and was actively trying to recruit.

The true founder and power-holder of the Sangede Alliance Group—Xin Yu's parents—were bitten by poisonous insects during the massive insect tide of the third year of the Calamity and died one after the other. Was that really all Yu Dongming's doing?

Xia Qing had met Yu Dongming once and didn't think he had that kind of capability.

Then, could Zhang Tao and the Blue Blood Alliance he led have been pulling strings behind Yu Dongming?

In this poisoning incident, what role did Xin Yu's grandfather Yu Yaoying play? Was he a target the Blue Blood Alliance wanted to eliminate or recruit, or… a core member of the Blue Blood Alliance?

If it's the former, how did he withstand Zhang Tao's pressure during the first five years of the Calamity?

That doesn't quite add up either. During the first four and a half years of the Calamity, it was Xin Yu's parents who withstood Zhang Tao's pressure on the Sangede Alliance. After Xin Yu's parents passed away, Yu Dongming took over as chairman. How did he and Yu Yaoying, hidden in the shadows, deal with the Blue Blood Alliance?

If it's the latter, Sange said the state has been tracking down the Blue Blood Alliance, wanting to root them out. So why can't the state find any dirt on Yu Yaoying and Yu Dongming? Could it be that…

The high-level officials, or those tracking down Blue Blood, are themselves Blue Blood in disguise?

The more Xia Qing thought about it, the more she felt the Sangede Alliance Group was riddled with crises and traps at every turn. She no longer even thought it was a good idea to poach people from the Sangede Alliance to manage the precision instrument plant.

Xia Qing very much wanted to analyze the relationship between Zhang Tao and the Sangede Alliance together with Xin Yu, but she had promised Sange she couldn't tell anyone about Zhang Tao—not the wolves, not the bears, not the monkeys, not the sheep…

Xia Qing steadied her emotions and asked tactfully, "Have you considered another possibility regarding your grandfather's relationship with Blue Blood?"

Xia Qing's magnetic field had clearly fluctuated just now, and Xin Yu had of course sensed it. She leaned forward and asked in a lowered voice, "You have relevant intelligence? You're hesitating because the intelligence can't be shared?"

Class C magnetoceptive evolvers really are overpowered…

Xia Qing had already tried hard to control her emotions just now, but Xin Yu had still picked up on it, so she told the truth. "I do know some intelligence I can't share. It has no direct connection to your grandfather, and I can't confirm his relationship with Blue Blood either."

Xin Yu nodded and answered Xia Qing's earlier question. "I've thought about it, but I can't find any evidence. If my grandfather really is a core member of the Blue Blood Alliance, his staying hidden during this period might be because he's dealing with the Blue Blood crisis triggered by the leak of the tiger's gene-targeted poison."

Xia Qing handed the noodle bowl to Xin Yu, gesturing for her to eat first. "The intelligence we have isn't enough. I'll go to Hui-Two with you, and we'll deal with things as they come."

Just as Xin Yu was about to shake her head, Xia Qing spoke up. "Besides protecting your safety, I also want to meet your grandfather and inspect the production line at the Sangede Alliance Group's steel mill."

No matter what kind of instruments the precision instrument manufacturing plant produces, it needs high-quality metal raw materials. Sourcing stainless steel, titanium alloy, nickel-titanium alloy, and aluminum-titanium alloy from the Sangede Alliance steel mill at Hui-Two is the best option.

After silently finishing a bowl of noodles, Xin Yu spoke with a determined expression. "The Sangede Alliance Group is the company my parents founded. It can be given to Hui-Two, it can belong to the state, but it absolutely must not fall into the hands of the Blue Blood Alliance. If both Cao Ying and Zheng Jing fail in their bids, I'll sign up to run for Sangede Alliance director and take the position of chairman."

"Our Northern Zone One Alliance has grown stronger; I'm a very different person now. I'm your and Sange's ally, a shareholder in the Hui-Three pharmaceutical plant and the precision instrument manufacturing plant, a technical consultant for the organic fertilizer plant, and the sole proprietor of the fungal powder plant. If I become chairman of the Sangede Alliance, the Sangede Alliance can form a strategically complementary, strength-joining-strength alliance with the Territory Alliance's enterprises, achieving a win-win for everyone."

"So, the Hui-Two officials and most of the Sangede Alliance's core employees will support me. As long as I promise Cao Ying and Zheng Jing enough benefits, they'll stand on my side too. Even if my grandfather really has issues and votes against me, he can't stop me from being elected, and when the time comes he'll definitely show his hand."

Xia Qing also believed Xin Yu's bid would very likely succeed, but there was another possibility. "Is it possible that your grandfather is staying out of sight right now precisely to force you into becoming chairman?"

Xin Yu nodded. "That's possible, so I won't make my move unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm a Class C magnetoceptive evolver; my ability to avoid crises and traps far surpasses anyone else's. Even if I can't succeed this time when I go back, I can still return to the territory alive. You don't need to take the risk of coming with me."

Xia Qing had already decided to go and wouldn't change her mind. "Sange is developing a new medicine that's very effective for your headaches. Let's let Cao Ying and Zheng Jing fight it out for a few months first, and go back once the medicine is successfully developed."

Xin Yu couldn't help but laugh. "Developing a new medicine isn't that easy. I'd guess even Sange doesn't have as much confidence as you do."

Xia Qing solemnly assured her good friend, "With Sange's abilities, there's absolutely no problem. Just plan for half a year. By then, even if the new medicine can't be brought to market yet, it can still be trialed. Sange's medicine will definitely have fewer side effects than Hong-One's magnetoceptive pain-relief tablets."

When Xia Qing finished dinner and came out of Territory Eight, it was already past eight in the evening. The Northern Zone One territory was shrouded in thick fog, pressing down so heavily it was hard to breathe.

She pressed two blue buttons on the dashboard's mode-switch panel in sequence, activating the off-road vehicle's millimeter-wave radar and long-wave infrared imaging systems. After the snowy noise on the two screens to the left and right of the driver's seat gradually turned into clear images, she gripped the steering wheel, pressed the accelerator, and drove into the thick fog.