184: Chapter 184 Open Cards

Qin Ce stood at the barracks entrance, looking at those people—the smiles on their faces, the light in their eyes, and the straightness of their backs.

Then he turned and walked toward the Wuji Army mission hall.

People were coming and going in the Wuji Army mission hall.

Qin Ce’s expression remained calm as he walked to the mission counter.

Behind the counter sat a civilian officer—bespectacled, tall and thin, with a very pale face.

Seeing Qin Ce approach, the pen in his hand paused, then he lowered his head, pretending to write something.

Qin Ce placed the Yinpinglu mission token on the counter.

"Turning in the mission."

The civilian officer put down his pen, picked up the mission token, and scanned it into the system.

His movements were slow, as if he were stalling for time, waiting for something, or perhaps fearing something.

"One-star mission, clearing the Red-Scaled Earth Lizard pack. Completed." His voice was flat, like he was reciting a textbook. "One hundred and twenty basic military merits have been credited to the Seventh Squad's account."

Qin Ce did not leave. He stood there, looking at the civilian officer.

"The difficulty of a one-star mission is incorrect." Qin Ce’s voice wasn't loud, but in the now-quiet hall, everyone heard him clearly. "The scale and level of the Red-Scaled Earth Lizard pack in Yinpinglu far exceed the one-star standard. The intelligence was severely inaccurate. I request a change in mission difficulty and additional military merits based on the actual completion status."

The air in the hall seemed to freeze.

Sweat began to bead on the civilian officer's forehead. He took off his glasses to wipe them, put them on, took them off again, and put them back on. His lips moved several times, as if he were organizing his words or perhaps gathering his courage.

"This... Captain Qin, the mission difficulty was set according to the data provided by the intelligence department. If the intelligence was wrong, there's nothing we can do. Besides, you have no evidence to prove that the level and scale of the Red-Scaled Earth Lizard pack exceeded the one-star standard..."

Qin Ce looked him in the eye.

The civilian officer's voice grew smaller and smaller, finally sounding like the buzzing of a mosquito.

He didn't dare look into Qin Ce’s eyes, keeping his head down and staring at the mission token on the desk as if there were something extraordinary on it.

"Yinpinglu is less than twenty kilometers from here." Qin Ce’s voice remained steady. "There were at least four groups of scouts following us that day. From the Wuji Army, the Wang Family, the City Lord's Manor, and some from unknown origins. You're telling me you aren't clear on what they saw?"

Sweat flowed from the civilian officer's forehead to the tip of his nose, then dripped onto the desk—patter, patter.

"Your scouts saw it too," Qin Ce continued. "A Gold Rank Pterosaur flew in from the southern ridge and attacked the Seventh Squad. The corpse of that Pterosaur is still buried under the mountains of Yinpinglu. Are you telling me you don't know?"

The civilian officer's body was trembling. His fingers traced unconscious patterns on the desktop, leaving behind streaks of sweat.

"Captain Qin... this... I really can't make the call..." His voice carried a hint of a sob. "This was the order from above..."

Qin Ce didn't press him on who "above" was. He didn't need to ask; he had known for a long time.

He just stood there, looking at the civilian officer for a long time.

So long that the people in the hall began to feel uneasy, so long that some people quietly started to leave, and so long that the civilian officer wished he could shove his head into the desk.

Then Qin Ce turned his head and looked in another direction.

The Wuji Army Commander's Office.

That building wasn't far from the mission hall. Through the window, the lights upstairs were visible.

The lights were on, but the curtains were drawn, hiding everything from view.

Qin Ce’s gaze moved from the window toward the North.

That was the direction of the Wang Family main base. It couldn't be seen from here, but Qin Ce knew where it was. It sat nestled among the mountains in the North, occupying the best location, the best resources, and the best fortifications. Its walls were twice as high as the Wuji Army's camp walls, its garrison was three times larger than the Wuji Army's, and its weapons were a generation more advanced than the Wuji Army's.

Qin Ce nodded.

The movement was very slight—so slight that unless someone had been staring at him, they wouldn't have noticed it at all.

But everyone in the hall was staring at him, so they saw him nod, and they saw the faint, meaningful curl at the corner of his mouth.

"You want to play." Qin Ce’s voice wasn't loud, but in the deathly silent hall, every word was hammered into the ears of everyone present like nails. "Then let's play for real."

Having said that, he turned and walked out of the mission hall.

Behind him, there was a dead silence.

Qin Ce returned to the barracks.

He didn't summon his squad members, hold a meeting, or assign any tasks. He simply told everyone to rest, then walked into his private quarters and closed the door.

The moment the door closed, the outside world was shut out.

Qin Ce pulled out the Wuji Army Commander Token from his robes.

The black surface was heavy, and there was a faint scratch on the edge where it had been chipped when he fell from the sky. His fingers brushed over the scratch, and then he injected mental energy into it.

Management permissions were still sealed, but intelligence permissions had been opened according to the Commander rank.

Qin Ce opened the Northern Intelligence Network.

He didn't look at the encrypted military reports, the mission records marked "Top Secret," or the combat documents that required layers of approval to access.

Looking at those things would be useless to him right now.

Since the management permissions weren't unsealed, he could only look but not act.

He clicked on another module.

Customs information for the Northern Eight-Border Ports.

This was administrative intelligence that could only be accessed at the Commander-level. It wasn't a military secret, so it wasn't defended, encrypted, or even required an application.

How many people entered and exited each port daily, how much cargo passed through customs, and how many military merits were posted—everything was recorded clearly and precisely.

Qin Ce’s pen tip touched the paper.

He picked up a pen and began to transcribe the customs data. He didn't copy everything; he chose selectively.

Which ports had abnormal volumes of certain materials, which time periods had abnormal customs frequencies, and which transportation companies had customs records that didn't add up.

Line by line, page by page.

Qin Ce’s movements weren't fast, but they were steady. His pen tip rustled across the paper as numbers were recorded and lines of data were rearranged.

Because this world was plagued by fierce beasts, the study of applied mathematics was still at a very rudimentary stage.

Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were the extent of daily use. Statistical concepts only lay dormant in the archives of the Federal Research Institute. As for econometrics, data mining, and network analysis, those things didn't even have names in this world.

But Qin Ce had them.

In his past life, he had been a laboratory researcher. Data was his livelihood, and models were his tools.

The secrets hidden behind those numbers, which appeared as a jumble of disorganized information to others, were a crystal-clear network in his eyes.

He first sorted them by time.

He pulled up all the customs records for the Northern Eight-Border Ports from the past year.

Which months had the highest volume of certain materials, which months had the lowest, and which ports' customs data showed obvious seasonal fluctuations.

Then he sorted them by material type.

Ores, medicinal herbs, fierce beast materials, armaments, grain, and daily necessities. He listed the volume of each material, its origin, destination, the handling transportation company, and the name of the merchant declaring the goods.

Then he sorted them by transportation company.

Which companies had the highest volumes, which had the lowest, and which companies had problematic records. The same batch of goods leaving from Port A and entering through Port B, but the quantities and item names on the customs declarations didn't match. The same transport vehicle appearing in the records of two different ports on the same day. The same merchant with a blank registration address and a disconnected phone number, yet with a large volume of goods passing through customs every month.

Qin Ce’s pen moved faster and faster.

Those abnormal customs records surfaced one by one like fireflies in the dark. He circled them, marking the time, location, goods, and company names, then connected them with lines.

One line, two lines, three lines.

Qin Ce drew the nested shareholder relationships into a tree diagram. He traced back layer by layer, stripping away shell companies, nominee agreements, and related-party transactions.

When he reached the fifth layer, his pen paused.

The light outside the window had dimmed.

A thick stack of papers piled up on the desk, covered in dense numbers, names, and lines.

In the dim light, those lines resembled a giant web. Deep within that web was the Wang Family.

This was a smuggling network.

No, it wasn't just smuggling.

Smuggling was merely the means, the channel, and the tool.

The true core of this web was a complete, hidden dark logistics system that had been operational for over a century.

...