As Meng Chao spoke, he poured another cup of water for Drizzle. He dripped two drops of faint green liquid into it, causing the tea to have a crystalline texture. He brought it to Drizzle's mouth and said, "Do you feel a little dizzy now? Do you want me to feed you?"
Drizzle stared at the teacup and smiled wanly. "You already have your answer. Why do you still want to feed me more truth serum?"
"This isn't the poison of a Hallucinogen Lizard. It's an extract from the skin of a Red Arrow Frog. It can counter the poison of a Hallucinogen Lizard and negate the effects of the truth serum," Meng Chao explained.
"Of course, if you don't believe me, you don't have to drink it. You can rest here for half an hour. It'll be the same."
Drizzle thought about it for a while before he drank the faint green liquid. He asked in puzzlement, "And then?"
"There's no then," Meng Chao said.
"I already have my answer. You can leave now."
Drizzle was a little stunned. "That's it?"
"What else?"
Meng Chao asked. "You said it yourself. In your line of work, the most important thing is to walk a line between morality and law.
"You might have broken the law by exposing the case beforehand, but I'm not a judge. I'm not interested in arguing with you.
"Intensifying the conflict between the biochemical modification faction and the runic symbol machines faction might be an abomination, but I can't just kill you to vent my anger, right?"
Drizzle frowned and stared at Meng Chao seriously. He thought about it for a long time before he said, "Then, how will you vent your anger?"
"I'll do my best to use all the connections I can and cut off all the cooperation between the major companies and Drizzle Studio," Meng Chao said faintly.
"You can naturally forget about Superstar's business. I also have some influence over Yan Organization. I'll do my best to persuade Yan Organization to stop working with you. Also, Soul Breaking Saber Luo Wu, White-haired Ghostly Hands Ning Shewo, and Sky Pillar Corporation …
"My personal strength is naturally weak, but Agricultural University is known as Monster University. Our influence in Dragon City is second only to Dragon City University. Our alumni are from all walks of life, and we've set up a lot of companies. Once the news of Drizzle Studio fanning the flames in the dark spreads, how many people do you think will work with you?
"All those in the biochemical modification faction will kick all of you away like you're a piece of sh * t.
"Then would the 'Runic Machinery Faction' thank you? That won't happen. It's precisely because of the storm of public opinion that you've singlehandedly stirred up. After the truth was revealed, the 'Runic Machinery Faction' was put on the spot and lost a few large orders, leaving a bad impression on the general public. These few days, even the students from the University of Technology's Mechanic Faculty were so dejected that they couldn't even lift their heads up in Nine Sands University City.
"I'm thinking that if the news of you stirring up a storm of public opinion under Xie Xiaolei's instructions were to spread to the 'Runic Machinery Faction,' there wouldn't be many companies related to runic machinery that would want to work with your 'Drizzle Workshop.'
"All in all, I'm going to completely smash your rice bowl. I won't feel the slightest guilt for a guy like you who instigates internal conflicts and increases his exposure in shameless ways when a great enemy is right in front of him."
Drizzle sat back on his chair.
He stared at the empty teacup in silence and was stunned for a long time before he asked, "What do you want?"
"I want to know the details. What did Xie Xiaolei tell you? Why did you agree to do something so dangerous and troublesome? Don't you know that if you add fuel to the conflict between the biochemical modification faction and the 'Runic Machinery Faction', there's a high possibility that you'll end up in trouble, and something like what happened today will happen?"
Drizzle's face was yellow, and he asked feebly, "Will you keep it a secret if I tell you everything?"
Meng Chao said, "That depends on whether what you say is valuable or not, and whether you yourself are valuable or not."
"Humans die for money, and birds die for food."
Drizzle was silent for a while before he sighed and said, "Drizzle Studio might occasionally do some shady business, but we always have a sense of propriety. Something as sensitive as the case of murderous pets in Blessed Paradise is something that we would never touch, but it's not something that we should do.
"But Xie Xiaolei offered us … a price that we couldn't refuse. I-I had no choice."
"How much?" Meng Chao asked.
Drizzle gave him a number.
It was a number that made Meng Chao suck in a sharp breath.
"Xie Xiaolei is really going all out. Is there a need for that?"
Meng Chao mumbled to himself. "Have you been working with Xie Xiaolei for a long time? Has he always been this generous?"
"No way."
Drizzle smiled wanly. "President Xie of Spirit Creation Creatures is a very smart person. No one can think about taking advantage of him. We've been working together for around five years, and every year, we do two or three deals, so we can be considered as old clients. Otherwise, he wouldn't have asked me to do this, and I wouldn't have helped him do it.
"But in the past, when we worked together, the amount of money was normal. We never did something this big."
Meng Chao nodded with a contemplative expression. "Did you help him control public opinion in the past?"
"I didn't."
Drizzle shook his head. "Most of the work we do with Spirit Creation Creatures is to create a rather normal image and advertise them. At most, we get some ghostwriters online to write some advertorials and filter through the comments. There's no way we do this every day."
"Then, how did he contact you this time?"
Meng Chao asked. "Do you remember … how he was at that time? Did he do anything strange to you? Anything, as long as you found it suspicious."
"Sometimes, I go to Spirit Creation Creatures, and sometimes, he comes to our studio. Since he's really good at advertising, he always does all the work personally," Drizzle said.
Drizzle said, "However, for some of the more sensitive business deals, he would contact me through the Deep Web's Traceless Chat Software. The transaction amount would also be transferred to a Deep Web account. This time, he used this method."
Meng Chao nodded.
He knew that there were a few traceless chat apps in the deep web, and it was very difficult to track down the identity of the person who talked to them.
There were even more ways to do a large amount of secret transactions.
The simplest method was to open a rare material safe in the Supernatural Tower and store a certain amount of high-purity crystals or valuable treasures inside. Then, they would send the password to the other party for them to retrieve it. That way, they would be able to transfer a large amount of money without anyone noticing.
If they were worried about being monitored in the Supernatural Tower, there were plenty of banks and cultivation centers in Dragon City that provided similar services.
For example, to protect the cultivation privacy of superhumans, cultivation centers usually did not install any CCTVs in the cultivation rooms.
"If you're talking about abnormalities, there's nothing strange about it. President Xie's tone was a little strange. It seemed colder and harsher than usual, and it made me shudder. But since something so major happened, it's understandable that he's not in a good mood," Drizzle said.
"The traceless chat app we used has a voice-changing function. It can even interfere with voiceprint identification, so his voice became shrill and shrill. There's nothing suspicious about it."
"Then, he packed up all the information and gave it to you so that you could stir up public opinion?" Meng Chao asked.
"That's right."
Drizzle nodded. "In the beginning, I was naturally shocked, because President Xie asked me to stand on the side of the runic symbol machines faction and refute the biochemical modification faction. He especially wanted me to focus on the fact that biochemical modification technology has a higher possibility of giving rise to artificial intelligence that humans can't control. He wanted me to criticize them until my blood was spilled. But isn't he part of the biochemical modification faction?
"But the customer's request was very clear, so it wasn't convenient for us to get to the bottom of it. That's how you saw everything online."
"Oh?"
Meng Chao tapped the tea table lightly. "There's an article that's ten thousand words long. It's pretty good. Even though you intentionally imitated the immaturity of a university student, there are plenty of places where you have real insight. It points out the drawbacks of biochemical modification technology. I didn't expect that you would have such a deep understanding in this area."
"I don't know anything about biochemical modification technology."
Drizzle smiled wanly. "President Xie wrote the outline, and I polished it up."
"Is that so?"
Meng Chao was a little stunned. "Was Xie Xiaolei satisfied with your performance after it was done?"
"I don't know," Drizzle said.
"President Xie said that it was an important and sensitive matter. He only contacted me once and told me not to contact him if I didn't have anything important in the next few months.
"But I believe that he should be satisfied, because he split the contract into two parts. He paid half of it first, and the other half arrived in time. Also, since the truth behind the case of murderous pets in Blessed Paradise was revealed, Spirit Creation Creatures obtained a huge deal for Subway No.20. I saw that President Xie attended quite a number of events over the past few days. His face was glowing, and he seemed to be in high spirits. His voice was also completely different from the one I heard from Traceless."
Meng Chao blinked quickly. "So, you're saying that you never went to Spirit Creation Creatures and never met Xie Xiaolei in person? Is that normal?"
"Well … there's nothing abnormal about it," Drizzle said.
Drizzle said, "Of course we have to do this kind of thing without anyone knowing."
Meng Chao frowned and said, "That's not right. If we really wanted to do it secretly, it would have been best for us to meet in a hidden place.
"Even though he's known as Traceless, there's a possibility that all forms of online chatting will leave behind clues. The simplest way is that he can't control whether you're recording the conversation. Even if you can't tell that it's his voice, it'll still be quite a scandal if it gets out.
"Wait, the person who contacted Drizzle Studio and Spirit Creation Creatures is Xie Xiaolei himself?"
"Yes."
Drizzle nodded. "Over the years, I've always contacted President Xie directly. I don't even come into contact with his assistant or secretary."
"Call him."
Meng Chao looked at Drizzle. "Talk to him about this."
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