Chapter 986 - A Terrifying Memory (1/2)

”What's the matter?” Luo Lan saw Ren Xiaosu pondering with his head lowered like he had caught onto something he said.

”Are you sure that the Qing Consortium has only given their nanomachines to the Zhou Consortium, the Northwest, and me?”

”Of course, I was the one who personally made the arrangements to send them to them,” Luo Lan said.

This time, Ren Xiaosu seemed to have figured many things out.

Some nanosoldiers had suddenly appeared in Stronghold 61 and attacked Jiang Xu.

At that time, Ren Xiaosu was wondering if it was Zero or the Qing Consortium behind that attack. But now, two more organizations were added to the list of possibilities.

A small portion of the nanomachines sent to Luoyang City by Luo Lan were now in Ren Xiaosu, while the rest were given to Wang Yuchi and the others. Ren Xiaosu firmly believed they would not participate in the killing of Jiang Xu.

For the batch of nanomachines that were sent to the Northwest, Ren Xiaosu also firmly believed that the people there would not do something like that. The nanomachines sent there by the Qing Consortium would surely be placed under heavy guard, so if someone had secretly stolen a batch, they would definitely have found out about the missing nanomachines.

Of course, Ren Xiaosu still had the Great Hoodwinker confirm whether those nanomachines were fully accounted for.

So then, the only suspect left was the Zhou Consortium.

The Zhou Consortium and the Wang Consortium had a long-standing feud. At the beginning, the Wang Consortium used trade to drive many of the Zhou Consortium's refugees into the mountains to secretly breed silkworms by purchasing their silk at high prices. Later, when Stronghold 61 recruited the refugees from their territory, many of the Zhou Consortium's factories were forced to shut down.

All the organizations in the Central Plains had the intention of annexing one another, so it was normal for them to guard against each other.

Seeing that the Pyro Company and the Kong Consortium were about to fall into the hands of the Wang Consortium, how could the Zhou Consortium possibly not panic in such circumstances?

The killing of Jiang Xu would inevitably set the entire Alliance of Strongholds against the Wang Consortium, which was something the Zhou Consortium wished to see happen.

Even though the Qing Consortium had given some nanomachines to the Zhou Consortium, the Zhou Consortium did not dare to let their important figures use it. Instead, they trained up nanosoldiers to go and assassinate Jiang Xu. If these nanosoldiers were discovered by the Wang Consortium during that time, the Wang Consortium would also start suspecting the Qing Consortium, deepening the animosity between them.

Moreover, if the blame for killing Luo Lan could be cast on the Wang Consortium, and the Qing Consortium ended up declaring war on them, the Zhou Consortium would be able to hide behind this conflict, making that the best deal in the world for them.

As the saying went, ”If no mastermind or culprit is found after an incident, you should first suspect the person who benefits most from it.”

So when Luo Lan mentioned the Zhou Consortium, Ren Xiaosu felt that everything made sense.

All the evidence gathered so far pointed to that logical possibility.

But even though it could be explained, Ren Xiaosu still decided to wait for Wang Yun's analysis.

Ren Xiaosu looked at Luo Lan and asked, ”Since the nanomachines that were given to the Zhou Consortium had a backdoor program installed, can you find out about the whereabouts of those nanomachines using it?”

Luo Lan shook his head. ”We usually don't activate the backdoor in case someone finds out about it, but we can do it. However, we can't track them as our military network has just been hacked by the AI.”

…

Three days later, Zhou Yingxue arrived at Stronghold 144 with Wang Yuchi and the others by car.