Big Data Cultivation

Feng Jun returned to Xiajing, and the Big Boss was still nagging. It sounded a bit disgruntled, "The reason I punched him in the stomach was to make him grab a gun and kill himself. Do I need you to teach me that? I almost failed because of you!"

"I didn’t mean anything else," Feng Jun had to apologize. After all, he treated the Big Boss like a fool. "I just thought this might be an opportunity to seize... A dead end might lead to a new game."

"You’re underestimating me," the Big Boss couldn’t help but complain again before asking, "What does a dead end leading to a new game mean?"

"It’s just..." Feng Jun was a bit curious, "Haven’t you ever played Go?"

There was Go in Tianqin, and Chess Sect, which wasn’t on good terms with him, mainly played Go.

To Feng Jun’s surprise, though the Big Boss understood strategy, it really didn’t know how to play Go. It delved into Dà Yàn Zhī Qí, a kind of three-dimensional strategy game, which Feng Jun was quite interested in. The two finally found a good way to pass the time.

That night, Ninth Brother’s men finally completed the conversion of the energy stones, transferring the energy blocks to the warehouse above ground in the middle of the night. By tomorrow evening, the Chen Family members would come in scattered groups to collect some energy stones; they always did it this way in the past.

After moving the energy blocks, Ninth Brother felt a bit uneasy: he wondered whether those goods would arrive before dawn?

He knew the other party could deliver the goods quickly, but... do they know I’ve already emptied the warehouse?

Yet, no matter how curious he was, he wouldn’t have anyone monitor the underground warehouse. He simply left a sliver of the door open and then called everyone to withdraw.

When dawn broke, Ninth Brother, who hadn’t slept all night, yawned as he arrived, only to see the warehouse door closed. His spirit lifted, and he walked up to knock on the door and enter the warehouse.

As expected, the warehouse was full of boxes, making it almost impossible to walk through the entire underground warehouse. Ninth Brother was taken aback for a moment before he muttered under his breath, "Could it be...they transported all 240,000 tons of goods over?"

Initially, he had arranged with the other party to deliver the goods in two batches.

Then Ninth Brother turned around, called people over to guard the warehouse, and then contacted Sister Qin.

Sister Qin had been having a difficult time lately, waiting anxiously for this batch of goods to solve her crisis. Though she had fallen asleep late, upon receiving his communication, she was invigorated and drove straight to the metal recycling station.

By the time she arrived, Ninth Brother had roughly estimated the goods, saying this shipment was almost complete. How do you plan to transport it? If it’s not moved quickly, I can’t guarantee it won’t be damaged.

Sister Qin had already thought of a method. With a call, twenty trucks arrived, filled with various scrap metals, looking just like they were dealing in scrap.

When the trucks left, they put up tarps, though the patrol officers had already noticed this convoy when it came, so no one paid attention on the return trip.

A new guy on the job wanted to stop them for a check, but a seasoned team member immediately stopped him, "Don’t make trouble; it’s almost broad daylight. Keeping traffic smooth is the most important thing."

Narrowly escaping trouble, Sister Qin transported twenty truckloads of goods back. Due to the weight, they only loaded a thousand tons, but even just that amount was enough to keep the market running for a few days and even allowed them to give some focus back to old clients.

That night, the mall’s vehicle went again to sell scrap metal, and finally, someone couldn’t resist stopping them to check what they were transporting.

However, Sister Qin’s people were also very astute. They placed some ammunition in the outermost boxes, claiming they used scrap to exchange for ammunition, as the mall consumed a lot of ammo, and Chen Jiu provided this service.

As for why they put up tarps, who wouldn’t take precautions when transporting ammunition?

This reason was powerful enough that night; this inconspicuous fleet of twenty trucks made at least ten trips back and forth without anyone keeping an eye on them.

That night, Feng Jun wasn’t idle either. He once again infiltrated the military department, continuing to impersonate Salina to download data.

He also knew that milking one cow dry was not a proper approach, but he had no other choice: there was no one suitable other than that woman in the military department.

That night he spent another three hours selecting a batch of maintenance data to continue taking back. Although using the terminal to copy was slower than using "nearby data," the advantage was he didn’t have to worry about materializing it.

Moreover, when he used "nearby data" to copy, there needed to be a physical or obsidian-like medium, and if he wanted to copy electronic versions, he still had to download them to a terminal; otherwise, he would have first to locate the server hosting the related data.

In any case, the best option at the moment was to borrow the terminal to take away and copy.

This was already Feng Jun’s second time copying, and he hadn’t encountered that troublesome person from before, and there was another good piece of news. Although the remaining data would take four to five more sessions to complete, the permissions required were relatively low.

In short, Feng Jun had taken most of the weighty data, and what was left—the "throwaway papers"—could be copied as much as possible with little risk of significant omission.

However, when Feng Jun returned the next night, not only did he sense something was amiss, the Big Boss also issued a warning. At least eight additional surveillance cameras had been installed in the room, along with two sprayers.

It was obvious that the sprayers were capable of releasing anesthetic gas. The Federation’s preferred method for capturing criminals involved using anesthetic gas, which was often colorless and odorless, making it effective even against insects, let alone humans.

Feng Jun couldn’t help but ask the Big Boss, "Where did we get exposed?"

"I don’t know," the Big Boss was baffled too, but it didn’t find the situation entirely unexpected. "Exposures are not surprising, considering the length of time spent here. Frequent visitors to riversides are bound to get their shoes wet."

"So are we just leaving like this?" Feng Jun pondered for a moment before feeling a bit unwilling. "We should at least give it a try."

"I suggest we don’t try," the Big Boss, although fond of excitement, disliked failure. "It wouldn’t hurt to switch to another military base."

"I’ll try posing as Gobaf," Feng Jun wanted to draw out some deeper reasons, and Gobaf was an engineering corps member who followed the Insect God Cult, "Even if it fails, it won’t matter."

"Switching to someone else is viable," the Big Boss’s curiosity was piqued, "But are you going to capture him now, or temporarily leave him?"

Capturing now means no future involvement, regardless of the outcome; temporarily leaving him means retaining the option for future use.

"Let’s capture him first," Feng Jun had a clear understanding of today’s operation, "This attempt is sure to fail. I’m just looking for reasons, so there’s no need to keep him around."

The Big Boss didn’t stop him but merely murmured, "Hopefully."

Gobaf was merely a private; as an engineer, he didn’t need to be at the forefront, but he was stationed on the outer fringes of the military base, whereas Salina operated in its core areas, a location Gobaf didn’t have direct access to.

However, this posed no challenge for Feng Jun and the Big Boss. There were quite a few officers outside with direct access to the core of the military base, and some had already perished, yet their passes hadn’t been reclaimed.

Of course, merely not reclaiming them wasn’t sufficient; what if the passes fell into Insect Race hands? Thus, the passes ought to be part of the officer’s belongings, which the military finds difficult to swiftly retrieve.

For the Big Boss, overcoming this issue was trivial. It quickly locked onto a pass belonging to the sixth grandson of the ninth figure in the Xingzheng Star military base. This officer was a captain who had perished two days ago during a defensive battle.

Ninth Brother, overwhelmed by the tense conflict, had been hospitalized for over a month. Among his many grandchildren, some fell in battle, and others retired from the military; the sixth grandson was exceptionally valued — he was on the verge of being promoted to major.

Such dire news was not to be directly delivered to Ninth Brother in the hospital. The intent was to relay the information slowly, allowing him to gradually come to terms with it — no feedback or direct contact hinted for him to infer something.

This captain possessed a pass granting direct access to the core region, kept on him unused mostly, but no one dared suggest it be invalidated.

Under the Big Boss’s scrutiny, Feng Jun located this pass, secured it without hesitation, and proceeded to find Gobaf.

Gobaf lived in a private dormitory with twelve other soldiers — not due to poor accommodation conditions; Xingzheng Star covered a vast area, but the military-protected zone was limited, so soldiers must maintain appropriate density.

Gobaf normally avoided standing out, seldom staying out overnight, but he frequently stepped out for an hour or so — being a follower of the Insect God Cult, he couldn’t worship daily, but surely once every two days.

Yet none in his room ever suspected him because engineers never had fixed work hours; repairs might be needed any moment during battles, and during wartime intermissions, they could be suddenly summoned — unexpected breakdowns were exceedingly common.

Indeed, it’s a challenging role, though not stationed at the frontlines, frontline warriors might not toil harder than them.

So Gobaf often wasn’t around, and others didn’t care, seldom asking him, "Where are you off to?" — Conflicts harbor abundant untold stories and seeking them unnecessarily entangles oneself.

Today, Gobaf set out again, garnering remarks like, "Gobaf, payday was yesterday, are you planning to sleep in today?"

Gobaf glanced at him, "I’m not heading to those places you speak of. How about... you come along with me?"

The joking soldier wouldn’t dare follow him; the military dictated avoiding nosiness — absent specific orders, querying others’ intentions was unwise.

Another teased, "Gobaf, I’ll come along; I fancy ladies with broken legs... no need to hold them up."

Gobaf slammed the door harshly, "Then you might want to tell your wife, see if she’d consent to having a leg broken!"

"Certainly seems not one to joke around," a soldier in the dormitory chuckled softly, "This guy’s temper has certainly surged lately!"