Chapter 1523: Perilous Situation
The action team was shrouded in gloom, everyone’s face looked unpleasant, filled with anger.
This was because the surveillance footage brought back from the research institute had new findings, and they were significant discoveries.
This discovery was enough to render nearly twenty years of effort and dedication from the institute futile, and it could leave the action team sighing in frustration, as they seemed to have no room for action or even a place to utilize their skills.
This crisis meant that the enemy was only a step away from obtaining all the complete research data.
After Liu Anping’s death, the focus shifted to him, and the huge amounts of data stored in the surveillance footage could only be reviewed from back to front, with Yang Yan in the action team specifically assigned to watch these tapes.
Now, there was finally a major new discovery, but it was this discovery that left everyone unable to stay calm.
Li Tong locked onto two surveillance scenes, one showing Liu Anping copying the encryption key held by Liu Qianjin, and the other showing Liu Anping copying the key held by Shang Xiaoran.
There were a total of three encryption keys at the institute, held by Chief Engineer Li Dingguo, Deputy Chief Engineer Liu Qianjin, and Deputy Chief Engineer Shang Xiaoran respectively.
Shang Xiaoran was female and in charge of the intelligent system entirely, one of the institute’s three pillars.
The three pillars were naturally Li Dingguo, Liu Qianjin, and Shang Xiaoran.
"The situation is quite dire, the three keys relate to all the institute’s secrets. Only by gathering all three keys can the most core vault of the institute be opened, within the vault stores all the research data." Li Tong said with a solemn expression, "Each time entering the vault, it is with Li Dingguo, Liu Qianjin, and Shang Xiaoran together, others do not have the authority to enter here."
"As of now, two keys have already been copied by the enemy, meaning the enemy’s gains have greatly exceeded our expectations." Yang Yan explained, "If the enemy obtains the last key, then as soon as they enter the vault, they would be able to steal all the core data of the institute, by then, we would be powerless."
"The enemy is still acting now, meaning they have not gathered the complete keys yet. Even if they manage to collect all three keys, the enemy would find a way to enter the vault. Since we know this, we just need to strengthen our guards and we should be able to thwart the enemy’s conspiracy this time." Ye Fan was given the responsibility in times of crisis, ever since he joined this mission, he knew what problems he was facing; everything was unfamiliar, and the enemy had infiltrated for many years, wanting to gain an advantage temporarily was impossible.
This urgency was also felt by Ye Fan, constantly trailing the enemy, this was not a good situation.
However, wanting to reverse this unfavorable situation seemed to still have huge challenges.
"The surveillance of Liu Anping copying the keys was deleted by someone, it was hard to recover it, this illustrates that the security team of the institute has significant problems, otherwise this wouldn’t happen." Zhang Lu was furious with those who betrayed them.
"We can only proceed step by step now, no hurry, otherwise it will not be good if we mess up, the situation hasn’t worsened to an uncontrollable point yet." Ye Fan looked around calmly, "Even though this small figure Liu Anping was silenced, he left us many clues, enough for us to launch a fierce attack."
He picked up the communication record of Liu Anping’s phone, "This shows who Liu Anping was in contact with before he died, though there is one number that cannot be traced or tracked, showing an overseas number, there’s another number that should alert us, which is that Liu Anping was in contact with Han Zizhen before he died, this is also an important clue."
Han Zizhen was a professor at the institute, and husband to Shang Xiaoran, one of the institute’s three pillars.
"You suspect Shang Xiaoran and Han Zizhen actively cooperated, allowing Liu Anping to successfully copy the key in Shang Xiaoran’s possession?" Li Tong looked at Ye Fan and immediately expressed her doubt, "This is unreasonable, if Han Zizhen and his wife cooperated, there wouldn’t be this secret copying of the key by Liu Anping, just handing the key privately for Liu Anping to copy would suffice, why expose themselves?"
"No matter what the truth is, only through investigation can we make a decision." Ye Fan was very calm.
"What should we do?" Li Tong asked urgently.
"This supermarket receipt could help trace quite a few leads, this was found in Liu Anping’s clothes pocket." Ye Fan took out the receipt provided by Hao Min, addressing Yang Yan, "You go make a trip, bring back all the nearby surveillance from the supermarket, and check who Liu Anping was trading with."
Yang Yan immediately took action.
"Li Tong will oversee the action team. I’ll go with Zhang Lu to meet Han Zizhen and Shang Xiaoran couple." Ye Fan laid out the plans.
At the same time, Ye Fan handed Li Tong a secret task, which was to tamper with all members’ phones inside the action team to prepare for catching the insider.
Outside the institute, in a seating area, Ye Fan, Zhang Lu, Yang Shu, and Qian Weiguo were all present, along with one more person, Li Dingguo. Before meeting the couple Han Zizhen and Shang Xiaoran, Ye Fan arranged a secret meeting with Li Dingguo first.
"What’s happened again?" Li Dingguo asked first, knowing that if there was nothing wrong, Ye Fan wouldn’t be in such a hurry to find him.
"The keys held by Shang Xiaoran and Liu Qianjin have already been secretly copied by Liu Anping. Right now, these two keys have already fallen into enemy’s hands." Ye Fan stated without any disguise.
"How is that possible? This is impossible!" Li Dingguo’s face drastically changed, exclaiming, "Such important keys, anything involving secrets, are highly protected, Shang Xiaoran and Liu Qianjin are disciplined, how could they be so careless?"
Li Dingguo could no longer stay calm, he couldn’t imagine the situation had become this precarious.
"The evidence is irrefutable." Zhang Lu added, although Li Dingguo had already believed this fact, he was simply unable to accept it at once.
"What do I need to do?" Li Dingguo shifted his expression and pretended to be calm.
"Keep the real keys close, make a fake one just in case, if the enemy acts, allow them to copy the fake key over." Ye Fan said flatly.
"Lure the enemy into revealing themselves?" Li Dingguo immediately understood Ye Fan’s plan, agreeing, "Alright, no problem."
"These two people will protect you in the dark, if you encounter any emergency, you can contact them and trust them completely." Ye Fan introduced Yang Shu and Qian Weiguo.
"Understood." Li Dingguo glanced at Yang Shu and Qian Weiguo, nodding seriously.