Volume 7: Abandoned Sandstone City Chapter 340 Eavesdropper
"Ke Lan, wait." Asano Akira suddenly stood up and tilted his ear toward the door, "There's someone outside."
"It's a corridor outside. Isn't it normal for people to come and go?" Layton said subconsciously, but he quickly reacted, "You mean, someone is eavesdropping at our door?"
"Not at the door, but not far away... They have been staying there for several minutes." said Asano Akira.
"I'll go take a look." Ke Lan pulled out a pistol from the tool bag beside him, stuffed it into the inner pocket of his clothes, and then walked straight to the door of the box. Although the Ye Group promised to guarantee the personal safety of every spectator and every participating team, in Ke Lan's view, this promise was just empty words...
Those who are concerned about the power of the Ye Group would not disrupt the order of the mecha competition even if the Ye Group did not say this... and those who do not care about this at all, let alone on the "Zulong", even at the gate of the Ye Group's headquarters, they dare to kill people.
And the guys that Ke Lan provoked were exactly like this.
No matter whether they are the fanatical followers of the heretical sects or the assassins hired by the Morgan family... they don't even care about the Security Bureau, so how can they care about a word from the Ye Group?
Ke Lan pushed open the door, took out a cigarette from the hound's pocket, pretended to go to the corridor to smoke, and at the same time, glanced casually in the direction Asano Akira said with the corner of his eye - sure enough, three or four meters away from the door of the box, two men in light gray mechanic uniforms were standing there, and one of them was tinkering with a thing that looked like an antique radio.
Ke Lan was not unfamiliar with that thing. Although the outer shell was indeed an antique radio in the style of an old era, inside the shell was a sophisticated eavesdropping device. This eavesdropping device was highly concealed. As long as the "metal antenna" was in contact with the wall, it could record the sound of the room on the other side of the wall. The first time Ke Lan saw this thing was from a promotional email from an intelligence dealer on the forum. However, because the cost-effectiveness was terribly low and it had no practical use for him, Ke Lan did not spend the money to buy this "toy".
But Ke Lan was still deeply impressed by the antique-style design of this eavesdropping device, so he recognized it at a glance.
"Hey, man, what's this? It looks cool. Where did you buy it?" Seeing that the other party had noticed him, Ke Lan simply took the initiative and walked towards the two of them.
"Ah... this is just a retro radio." The mechanic's eyes flashed with panic, "I bought it on the second-hand market."
There was indeed some truth to what he said. The outer shell of the bug did have severe signs of wear and tear , and it looked like it was often played with by someone.
"Radio? Is there a radio channel on this ship?" Ke Lan asked in surprise. In order not to alert the enemy, he did not directly ask to take a closer look at this "radio".
"No." Another mechanic shook his head. "Well, actually, it's like this. My buddy heard a rumor from somewhere that this old-fashioned semiconductor can be used to receive radio signals sent by the Alpha civilization tens of thousands of years ago in the wasteland. So we took this opportunity to take this thing out and try it out..."
"Oh, then did you hear anything?" Ke Lan pretended to be very interested.
"Nothing ... We have tried several places. It seems that the legend is just a rumor... Haha..." The man laughed dryly, "We still have to try other places. I'm leaving first."
After saying that, the two of them quickly disappeared around the corner of the corridor.
…
Ke Lan returned to the box. At this time, Asano Akira, the human-shaped eavesdropping device, had already repeated his conversation with the two people outside to everyone verbatim.
"That radio bug, I have a friend who resells this thing, and the price is not cheap." As soon as Ke Lan sat down, he went straight to the point.
"A bug?" The Hound pulled a tissue from the table and blew his nose hard. "So, you really are here to spy on military intelligence?"
"I'm not sure, but I have an impression of these two people. After the three of us returned to this airship from the competition, they appeared around us more than once... I have seen one of them at least four times... At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but now it seems that they are consciously following us." Ke Lan said.
"Are you only following us and not other teams?" Chi Hanfeng asked.
"They only stayed near our box." The person who answered was Asano Akira. There were six similar boxes in this corridor, but the two men did not eavesdrop on the conversations in the other five boxes. This was an obvious problem.
"Something's wrong. Even if they are spying on military intelligence, there is no reason for them to pay special attention to us." The Hound crossed his fingers, supported his chin, bent down, and put his elbows on his knees. "Even if our performance is impressive, in terms of hard power, we are not a strong team, nor are we a favorite to win the championship... There is no reason for them to specifically inquire about us. Could it be that these people also want to learn from us... and dig a tunnel?"
"Could it be targeting me? But...but in the knockout stage, I didn't bet on you?" Ye Yan said a little confused.
"It shouldn't be. You can rest assured about this, Mr. Ye." Ke Lan said, "But I just caught a glimpse of the logos of several sponsoring companies on their uniforms... As long as we check which team those companies jointly sponsored, we will know the identities of these people."
"What are they?" Layton had already opened his notebook, pulled a data cable from the robotic arm, and plugged it into the interface on the side of the computer.
This is also one of the advantages of cyborgs over ordinary people: when operating computers, they can connect their prostheses directly to the devices without using physical input devices such as keyboards and mice.
"Let me think... There's 'Bianca Chemicals', the most famous mechanical lubricant manufacturer on the Ark; there's 'Norma Technology' that you like very much... Well, it seems that every top-level team has their sponsorship; and there's 'Jinggang Metallurgy' under the Ye Group, which specializes in manufacturing mecha melee weapons... Tsk, although I remember the remaining trademarks, I can't name them..." Ke Lan rubbed his forehead in frustration. For these well-known brands in the mecha field, he might have had a glimpse of them in advertisements, but it was still difficult for him to match the trademarks in his memory with the names of the manufacturers one by one...
"You can try to describe what those trademarks look like. As long as they are related to the production of mecha accessories, I know most of them," said Layton.
"If it is a company under our Ye Group, I would definitely be able to recognize it." Ye Yan also said.
"Well... let me start with a simple explanation. There is a trademark with two letters, one A and one E, and then there is a circle outside, with white letters on a blue background..."
Before Ke Lan finished speaking, Layton interrupted him: "It's AE Club."
Ke Lan: "AE Club?"
"It's Anaheim Electronics, an all-in-one mecha manufacturer under the Vist Group. Of course, they also produce home electronics, but they are still most famous for their mechas." Ye Yan said, "They are the biggest competitor of our Ye family, no doubt about it."
"Well, there's also a propeller logo..."
"Propeller? Is it a three-blade or a four-blade? Is there a white dotted circle frame outside?" Leighton asked immediately.
"It's four symmetrical blades with a dotted circle frame."
"It's Buch Aerodynamics under the Jupiter Consortium... This company originally manufactured airplanes and spacecraft, but in recent years it has seen the potential in the mecha competition field, so it has begun to expand its business in this direction... They have never launched a complete machine or a complete skeleton, but the accessories they produce are all aerospace standards. They are a bit expensive, but the quality is really impeccable." Leighton said.
"I know this company. What's the use of it being able to only produce accessories? The skeleton is the core technology of the mecha... Of course, our Ye Group can also produce accessories that meet aerospace standards. Which of our high-end products is not better than Buch's?" Ye Yan said somewhat unconvinced.
"Young Master Ye is not bragging about this. The quality of high-end accessories under Ye's is indeed better than that of Buch, but the price is too expensive... Buch takes the route of combining high cost performance with high-end. In a year and a half, their market share has increased from 0.83% to 4.95%, which shows that this route is feasible..." Layton stared at the computer screen. The analysis engine continuously filtered out the part involving keywords from the massive amount of data, and then he manually classified it. For commercial interests, no companies or manufacturers other than the Ye Group will appear in the promotional materials of the mecha competition. The wealthy Ye family will not accept any advertisements from their peers. The only way for the sponsors of the participating teams to promote is the pilots' suits and the paint jobs of the aircraft. If you want to find out which teams these manufacturers sponsored, you can only look through old news media pages and game videos.
"Found it!" Just as Ke Lan was recalling the trademarks, Layton suddenly waved his fist vigorously, "There are only two teams sponsored by these companies. One is the top-level team 'Dark Crow Professional Club', and the other is the semi-top-level team 'Titanium Steel Vanguard' with an ace pilot and a semi-ace pilot."
Layton continued, "'Titanium Pioneer' was not very lucky. Although they have the strength of a quasi-elite team, they were drawn into the 'death group' with five elite teams. They couldn't even qualify for the group stage. They have already returned to the Ark and are not on this ship at all."
"Then there is only this team." Ke Lan looked at the black crow head team logo on the screen, "The one who set up 'special attention' for us is this 'Dark Crow Professional Club'..."
"I can't guarantee anything else, but if those two guys are wearing their own uniforms, they must be members of the Dark Raven... Of course, they could also be traitors bribed by other teams, but that's not information we can obtain," Layton said.
"Dark Crow... sounds like the name of a villain." Hound complained, "Or the kind of villain that makes you think he's a worthless villain."
"On the contrary." Layton raised his head from behind the computer screen and looked at the Hound with some seriousness. "This 'Dark Crow Professional Club' is not only not weak, but also a super strong team. Not only are the four starters and substitutes all ace pilots, their coach is also an old ace who retired from the army-"
As Layton spoke, he glanced at Chi Hanfeng, "That kind of real trump card."
The real ace is naturally the pilot who has won the "Iron Blade" medal in the army. Among the people present, probably no one knows better than Chi Hanfeng how difficult it is to obtain this medal.
"If I'm really targeted by such a team, it will be troublesome..." Chi Hanfeng lowered his eyelids and stared at the instep of his feet, his face so gloomy that it seemed as if water could drip out.
"But there is one thing that puzzles me." Ke Lan said, "This 'Dark Crow Professional Club' was not in the same group as us during the group stage and the first stage of the knockout stage. We have no intersection with them at all... Why would they want to spy on us?"
He continued: "If they are competing for the first place, they should also focus on those strong teams that are also the favorites to win the championship... Compared to us, these teams are the opponents worth studying."
For some reason, Ke Lan always had a strange feeling that made him very uncomfortable... It was as if a vole running hurriedly on the floor was stared at by a poisonous snake coiled in a dark corner - to summarize it in four words, it was "like a thorn in the back".
You know, just opposite their private room is the "Gelgoog Professional Mecha Club", one of the favorites to win this competition and one of the top powerhouses. But based on the footsteps that Asano Akira heard, those two people didn't eavesdrop on the conversation between the "Gelgoog" people at all.
"Could these people be related to the Morgan family?" Ke Lan thought to himself. However, the Angres Club, which was affiliated with the Morgan Consortium, had been eliminated by them in the first stage of the competition. Could it be that the owner of this "Dark Crow Professional Club" was also the Morgan Consortium?
"Layton, check the background of this 'Dark Crow Club' and who is their boss?" Ke Lan said as he sent the same email to the intelligence dealer.
Five minutes later.
"I can't find anything. There isn't a single clue on the Internet. Apart from knowing that the club itself is very strong, there's no indication of who the investor behind it is. I'm afraid we can only know this by finding the club's internal account statements..." Leighton said helplessly.
Two minutes later, Ke Lan's phone rang. He opened it and saw that the reply from the information dealer was very brief, with only four words -
“Military background.”
