Chapter 410: The Current State of Eden

Rolls‑Royce drove east along the main thoroughfare of Jiang Hai City.

Shen Wanshan changed clothes. The custom suit from the signing ceremony was neatly folded into a suitcase, replaced by a deep‑gray high‑collar thin shirt, so low‑key that no one would glance at him even in a crowd.

The driver did not use a navigation system.

He had run this route at least forty times; every curve, every surveillance blind spot, even which second a traffic light would turn red at each intersection, was etched into his mind.

After forty‑seven minutes, the car entered the Yunhu Technology Industrial Park in the southeast corner of Jiang Hai City.

The gate, the fence, the 24‑hour surveillance network, the independent power system—all bore a sign reading "Huan Yu Heavy Industry Seventh R&D Center," with all paperwork in order, taxes compliant, and even the annual fire inspection passed on the first try.

Anyone who investigated would find no problem.

The vehicle slowed down.

Two hundred meters ahead stood an inconspicuous gray factory deep within the park, its exterior painted with a faded corporate slogan, the gate half‑ajar, the interior a black void where nothing could be seen.

Shen Wanshan's pupils contracted briefly.

Because he saw the two guards stationed at the entrance.

Both wore ordinary security uniforms with the park's property badge on their chests, yet their stances exuded a murderous aura that seeped into the bone. The guard on the right bore an old scar on the back of his hand, stretching from the web of his thumb to the wrist—a callus from years of gripping cold weapons. The one on the left was even more striking—when his eyes caught the Rolls‑Royce's license plate, a faint crimson glimmer flickered along the edge of his iris.

Anomalous Operative.

The two Anomalous Operatives stood guard at the gate, as if they were merely watching the door.

Shen Wanshan showed no extra expression. He retrieved a coin‑sized black token from the inner pocket of his chest and affixed it to the car window.

The guard on the left glanced at the token's pattern and subtly stepped aside.

The car entered the factory.

The interior of the factory was empty; the floor was covered with a thick layer of industrial dust, and a few scrapped lathes were piled in the corner. Yet the Rolls‑Royce did not stop.

The driver steered the car straight toward a cement wall at the deepest part of the factory.

When the car was less than three meters from the wall, a silent vertical fissure opened in the center of the wall and slid outward.

It revealed a downward‑sloping ramp.

The width was just enough for a single vehicle, with dark‑red guide light strips embedded in the walls on either side. The ramp descended at a fifteen‑degree angle; Shen Wanshan looked out the window and saw sensor arrays spaced every twenty meters along the concrete wall—infrared, thermal imaging, acoustic, and a device he could not name, rumored to detect fluctuations of Weird energy within the human body.

Any intruder without a token would not survive past the second layer.

The ramp turned three corners.

At each bend stood a person. Not in security uniforms—but in black Tactical Vests, half‑face masks covering their faces, and at their waists hung not ordinary firearms but heavy Weird suppression weapons that even the Investigation Bureau had not catalogued.

Their eyes reflected a faint glow not belonging to normal humans the instant the car lights swept past.

Shen Wanshan counted.

Three bends, twelve people. At least four of them were Anomalous Operatives.

This level of security force, if deployed on the surface, could wage a small‑scale battle. Yet it is buried beneath a bankrupt tech park, and even the surrounding residents have no idea what lies beneath their feet.

The car stopped.

Three underground levels.

When Shen Wanshan pushed open the door and stood up, the space before him made his Adam's apple roll slightly—though he had been here many times before.

It was a massive hollowed‑out underground cavity, at least the size of three standard football fields. The dome rose nearly twenty meters high, and hundreds of cold‑white industrial tubes illuminated the entire space with razor‑sharp clarity.

In the exact center stood a circular console, arranged in three tiered levels, with at least fifty holographic screens of varying sizes floating mid‑air, each pulsing with real‑time data streams.

Dozens of technicians sat before the console, their rapid, delicate keystrokes filling the air.

No one looked up at him.

Everyone knew exactly where they should look and where they should not.

Shen Wanshan adjusted the collar of his high‑collar shirt and walked toward the deliberately dimmed area behind the console.

There was only one chair there.

It was high‑backed, deep gray, its material indistinguishable as metal or something else, its surface bearing a muted, almost somber matte finish. The chair faced all the screens, allowing anyone seated there to take in the entire control room's information at a glance.

The back of the chair faced Shen Wanshan.

He stopped five steps away from the chair.

Then, the man worth hundreds of billions, who had just been bantering with the Director of Federal Weird Investigation Bureau in a global livestream, bent his right knee and knelt on one knee.

The sound of his knee hitting the floor echoed muffled in the cavernous underground space.

"The Academy Project has been fully approved."

Shen Wanshan lowered his head, his voice pressed down to a whisper.

"The locations for the three branch institutes have been confirmed, the first batch of funds disbursed, and the Federation has granted us full permissions for infrastructure and non‑core operations."

He paused for two seconds.

"The education system and the lifeline of troop recruitment… we've secured our entry ticket."

The chair did not move.

Shen Wanshan knelt on the ground, a dark patch of cold sweat soaking the back of his high‑collar shirt. He deliberately breathed lightly and slowly, but the chill from his kneecap reminded him—the floor was at least ten degrees cooler than his skin.

About half a minute later.

The chair turned.

The lighting from the side outlined a man's silhouette.

His hair was meticulously slicked back, his jawline carved into a cold, hard curve; his seated posture was upright yet relaxed, with his long legs casually crossed.

His left eye was a normal deep brown.

The right eye was not.

The right eye socket housed a deep‑red pupil that seemed to contain a slowly rotating vortex.

Dominating Demon Eye.

Chen Shao did not look at Shen Wanshan.

He was looking at the hovering holographic screen in front of him. He lightly tapped the handrail twice with his right index finger, and the largest screen switched to a world map.

The map was densely packed with countless light dots.

Red dots represented targets already infiltrated. Blue dots represented those in progress. Gray dots represented those not yet contacted.

Red light dots accounted for nearly seventy percent.

The coverage spanned four continents—Federation homeland, North American Union, Western European Economic Community, Southeast Asian Free Trade Area.

Mining, military industry, logistics, finance, medicine.

Behind each red dot was a corporate group worth over a hundred billion, and the actual controllers of these groups had all been visited, one after another, over the past few months.

Visited by a pair of eyes that could rewrite human will.

Shen Wanshan was just one of them.

He was among the earliest batch.

"Wei Gong arranged a person to enter the academy and keep an eye on me," Shen Wanshan added, still not raising his head, "identity currently unknown. But I can confirm that this person reports directly to Wei Gong."

Chen Shao's gaze finally left the screen and fell on Shen Wanshan's head.

"It doesn't matter."

Two words. The voice was neither high nor low, as if saying the weather was nice today.

"The academy is a cage, and the cage holds the Federation's future." Chen Shao's fingers unconsciously tapped the handrail, "Wei Gong let a few watchdogs in, showing he isn't completely stupid. No matter how many watchdogs, the key to the cage is in whose pocket; his word doesn't count."

Sweat that had gathered at Shen Wanshan's temples dripped down.

"Yes."

Chen Shao stood up.

He walked to the largest holographic screen, hands behind his back, staring at the dense red dots on the map.

Light shone from directly above, stretching his Shadow long and covering the kneeling Shen Wanshan behind him and half of the console.

Six months ago, "Eden Garden" was only a hidden guerrilla unit of the Federation Investigation Bureau—fewer than twenty members, surviving by hiding among ruins.

But Chen Shao never intended to hide forever.

After the Blood Moon, global order collapsed, and countless cracks appeared in the old power structures. The cracks were disasters for ordinary people, but doors for him.

He used the Demon Eye to knock open the first door.

Shen Wanshan, president of Huan Yu Heavy Industry, worth 140 billion, controls the Federation's largest military‑industrial supply chain. His mental defenses are unusually strong; ordinary hints are insufficient—Chen Shao spent a full forty minutes of high‑intensity mental intrusion to carve his command into the deepest layer of Shen Wanshan's consciousness.

Then the second. The third. The tenth.

Conglomerates, arms dealers, logistics giants, telecom oligarchs.

Everyone the Demon Eye "visited" appears normal on the surface—meetings held, banquets attended, families harmonious, social life ordinary.

Yet deep in their brains a absolute command has been added.

Swear allegiance to Chen Shao.

Not blind loyalty, not puppetry. The Demon Eye's control does not erase the target's intellect or judgment; it preserves all their business acumen and social skills. They remain the shrewd, capable Shen Wanshan, the calculating Qian Hongguo—only now all their cleverness and scheming serve a single youth.

Eden Garden is no longer a guerrilla unit.

It has parasitized the Federation's economic bloodstream, quietly absorbing nutrients, quietly expanding, so quietly that no Weird Detection Instrument can capture its existence.

Because it is not Weird.

It is capital. It is contracts. It is fully compliant commercial activity within the legal framework.

The Investigation Bureau can contain Weird, can kill the Qiu Ce Yuan, but it cannot contain a signed investment agreement.

Back to the present.

Chen Shao admired the data, the invisible spiderweb he had woven across half the globe.

Wei Gong wants Qiu Ce Yuan to cultivate a new generation capable of countering Weird.

Very good.

Those trainees will grow, train, graduate within the Federation's system, then be assigned to various frontlines. They will never know that every Reinforced Steel Bar buried in the academy's foundation, every training round used in class, every grain of rice in the Cafeteria flows through Eden Garden's accounts.

By the day they realize it, it will already be too late.

Chen Shao sat back down in the high‑back chair, propping his right hand on his temple, watching the still‑unlit gray dots on the map.

The Federation has an Investigation Bureau, has Qiu Ce Yuan, has nuclear weapons.

But the Federation has nothing that can deal with him.

Because he does not seek destruction.

He seeks the whole board.

No smile on his lips; the Demon Eye's pressure spread silently, freezing the backs of the two nearest technicians in the control room for an instant.

Chen Shao did not notice this.

He was thinking of Chen Yao, his sister.

—There is no place in this world that is safe.

Not the Investigation Bureau, not the school, not any country.

Then he will create one.