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"I’m just a history enthusiast, there’s no need to drag me onto a ship of thieves like this..."

After learning of Wang Ye’s ultimate goal, Hou Jie wanted to cry but had no tears. Had he known earlier, he wouldn’t have shown off so much at the beginning.

He truly hadn’t expected the other party to be someone who acts without any hesitation or concern, but now that he thought about it, it made sense; after all, the other wasn’t from this world, so what if they turned Digital City upside down?

"Brother... Although that place has been abandoned, we simply won’t be able to find it," Hou Jie said with a wry smile in an attempt to persuade, revealing an embarrassed smile to an old man who was now being taken hostage.

The old man’s surname was Jin. He wasn’t part of the ten major families that govern the Federation, but he was from the same camp as the number one person in the Zhuxian District: the Elder.

After the opening of the New World, the Elder and others were among the first to enter, while he, as one of the seniors maintaining the Zhuxian World, was left behind.

Nowadays, everyone’s attention is on the New World. This group of seniors who were once under the Elder’s command has become less noticed during this time, but Wang Ye had set his sights on them early on.

In the past six months, Wang Ye had made the acquaintance of many seniors through various social means, marking them all, and after confirming with Hou Jie that they wouldn’t be recorded, he chose the senior before him.

However, both Hou Jie and the old man were exceedingly embarrassed at this moment.

"Command center..."

"Mister Wang..." Elder Jin tried his best to keep his tone calm.

In the Zhuxian World, he was the head of Dragon Peak at the Green Cloud Sect.

On normal days when the Elder was absent, he acted as the Sect Leader, fulfilling the role of a senior who stabilized the morale of the army.

Even with the absence of the Elder from this world, he was still able to stabilize the situation in the Zhuxian World.

He was a revered figure respected by both the Elder and the current high ranks of the Federation, and held an extremely high status.

But now, he had no choice but to humble himself before this young man who seemed like a rookie soldier.

The reason was simple: the other party was very strong!

Just by intuition, he knew that in the current world of the Federation, even if all the seniors of the Green Cloud Sect and the elite of the Federation Special Guard were called upon, they would all be killed by this young man before him, without any exceptions.

Damn it, how could the Federation allow such a person to stay in Digital City for so long? Were they serious?

Just look, now there’s trouble.

"The command center may have been abandoned, but its functions haven’t been dismantled. I know you must not want to do anything harmful to Digital City. You are a kind person..."

Wang Ye suddenly laughed with a faint smell of blood emitting from his mouth.

He didn’t know why, but everyone who came in contact with him thought he was a kind and righteous person, yet inside him was a demon, a bloodthirsty demon.

Chen Qing believed in himself, so why did many people think he was gentle and kind?

Even including his own master...

But it didn’t matter.

"I have some doubts that I need to find the people in the command center to resolve."

"Mister Wang, I can answer your doubts as well," Elder Jin hurriedly said.

"You cannot answer them..." Wang Ye shook his head.

He had already thoroughly investigated the background of the senior before him.

People like those from Elder Zhang’s Camp who rose in the Zhuxian World didn’t have deep roots.

Even though they possessed strong combat capabilities, they had always been marginalized within the Federal Governing Council and rarely held core positions.

These people couldn’t possibly know the affairs of the past, nor could they be the manipulators behind the scenes.

The operation of power requires people to fulfill it.

It’s not the same as individual strength.

It’s a collective trait that no one can accomplish alone.

Whether it was secretly ushering the original designers into the game or manipulating the chess game from behind the scenes, they required people with high authority to perform it, otherwise, it would be impossible to do so quietly.

There must be a mole for those people within the high levels of the Federation!

Who it is, I can’t confirm right now. Being an outsider, completely unaware of the existence of the Federation’s power structures, it is impossible to clarify the whole story while being guarded against. Now that there’s no news from Chen Qing’s side and even after sending out the information about Mister Tianji’s disappearance without any response, it means there are troublesome matters afoot, and I’ll have to take a risky move.

"The command room was a very important department of the Federation back then, controlling the life and death of the entire Digital City. What do you, Mister Wang, want to find by reopening it? And you know, the reason that command room was shut down was to trap a very dangerous character. Are you not afraid that this dangerous character will come out if it’s reopened? "

"He has already escaped," said Wang Ye indifferently.

Before Tianji disappeared, Chen Qing sent a message indicating that the King of Qin had used a cloning backup method to successfully escape with the help of Otherworldly Demon Statues.

In the time he had been here, Wang Ye had also caught up with a lot of modern knowledge.

To be honest, he couldn’t understand how the King of Qin managed to do it.

But if the King of Qin was now in the New World, the one in Digital City must’ve already been obsolete.

And at this point, he couldn’t bother with the King of Qin anymore.

"Do you have evidence?" the old man furrowed his brows.

The person that was imprisoned back then was a madman wanting to shut down Digital City. His escape would be a major event; how come there has been no whisper of it?

"There’s no time to display evidence now..." Wang Ye looked at the other party: "The situation is extremely dire..."

"Why not report this to the Federation?" asked Elder Jin, puzzled.

"There’s an inner traitor..."

"An inner traitor..." Elder Jin frowned, "How is that possible?"

"Have you never suspected that the group of Adventurers who went to the New World, how they managed to settle so smoothly without any support from people here?"

"I admit the ambition of the elders was quite large later on, wanting to restart the New World. But what about before that? The New World has always been open, still consuming a huge amount of electricity, who has been secretly supporting that place all this time?"

"The shutdown of the New World has always been an important topic. It hasn’t been closed for so many years because of historical reasons..." the old man said softly: "Every time the council wanted to shut it down, there would always be some accidents..."

"Always?" Wang Ye smiled, "Once or twice can be accidents, but multiple times? That’s too coincidental. Over the ten of thousands of years, I’ve seen Federation records, because of resource constraints, resolutions to shut down the New World project were proposed no less than ten thousand times. Almost every decade it would be brought up again, but not once was it successful, not a single time. Don’t you find that normal?

Even from the standpoint of probability, that’s not normal, right? "

"So Mister Wang is saying... all of this has always been secretly manipulated?" Elder Jin frowned.

"That’s the only possibility. And those behind the scenes have a powerful background that might be beyond your imagination. Perhaps they are the true power behind the Federation."

"Mister Wang, your claim is too much like a conspiracy theory..."

"Whether it’s a conspiracy theory or not, we’ll know when we open it."

"Why would we know by opening it?" Elder Jin asked, not understanding.

"The people in the command room are all the elites from the major Noble Families. The general used as bait back then was an heir of a family, right?"

Elder Jin nodded, "Yes..."

"Those people should know something... Of course, I’m just speculating, but this is my only way of understanding the truth. Anyone else in the family could be lying, but those people who’ve been abandoned are the most likely to attract the Noble Family offspring."

"But they’re already dead!" Elder Jin said, not understanding, "The data life that was shut down, once restarted, will not return to normal. Experiments have been done before, though banned by the Federation, but it’s a widely recognized fact..."

"Widely recognized..." Wang Ye chuckled, "What if those experiments were all a show? What if... it was just to make you believe that data life cannot return to normal after being shut down?"

"Uh... what’s the point of that?" Elder Jin was stunned.

"There’s one thing I’ve been thinking about.

.." Wang Ye took a breath and said, "How could such ancient people hide for so long, whether in Digital City or in the New World? Ideally, after so many years, there should be some trace of them. After all, if they were to be reborn, no matter how powerful they are, it’s easy to be discovered. "

"But they weren’t discovered. If they didn’t go through reincarnation, then it’s the top-level Ancients, who are even less likely to go unnoticed.

The more powerful the Ancient, the larger the hibernation site needed, the more resources required, the harder it is to hide. But what if... they were shut down?"

Elder Jin: "......"