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"Do you plan to keep guarding me like this forever?" In the meeting room, Wang Ye looked helplessly at the other party.

"Just killing time..." The woman sipped her tea, leisurely saying: "I’ve already given the orders that needed to be issued, and the operations that needed to begin have started. What I need to do now is wait for the results and prevent anyone from causing trouble."

"Have you executed it?" Wang Ye looked at her, curiously asking: "You all have been hiding in the shadows, afraid to show yourselves openly for many years, there must be something very formidable that you fear, so not all families are under your control, right?

How can you instantly take control of the Federation? "

"What do you think?" The woman smiled, looking at him, eager to see how far this fellow, reputed in the intelligence reports to have an almost full score in IQ, could reason.

"Deterrence..." Wang Ye sipped his tea as well, having gotten used to the inferior quality tea over the year he’d been here.

"That’s the only possibility. If you could openly control Digital City, you wouldn’t have stayed hidden.

Since you remained hidden and suddenly surfaced to control the situation, it could only be done through methods of deterrence.

And for the high-ranking members of the Federation, mere strength as a deterrent wouldn’t be sufficient; you must have demonstrated something else. "

"Such as?"

"Such as.... authority!" Wang Ye smiled: "The biggest difference I feel between people here is authority.

In our world, the power of people is intangible, but here it can be elevated through some technique to something tangible, openly using authority to limit the status between people, which is quite a unique characteristic here.

As far as I know, the higher the official, the higher their authority.

Thus... the best form of deterrence would be having an authority even higher than theirs! "

"This Digital City has always been constructed with some form of technique, similar to the Techniques of our era. If the foundational layer of the Technique was designed by you, then you should possess the highest authority, and perhaps... even directly override the President’s authority.

Only such deterrence could shock them into submission in a short time, obeying your commands. "

"Not bad, not bad..." The woman couldn’t help but burst out laughing: "The intelligence reports weren’t exaggerated, you’re really smart, smarter than I imagined."

A man from ancient times, only here for a year, yet had fully adapted to the logic here and even used this logic to instantly analyze the situation—his adaptability and responsiveness were truly remarkable.

But probably only a data lifeform could achieve this, as a powerful data lifeform possesses powerful computational abilities, and their capacity to absorb and reason about things naturally surpasses that of ordinary humans.

Data life is not about clinging to existence, but about the evolution of all people. What we did back then was not wrong.

If one confines oneself, humanity can only ever mark time; at most a billion years later, Earth will be depleted, and humanity will go extinct, unable to escape the energy limits of planetary civilization.

Only data life can breach this limit, only data life can lead humanity out of the planet, and make the Human Race eternal.

"There aren’t many of you, right?" Wang Ye suddenly interjected with a grim tone.

"Oh?" The woman narrowed her eyes upon hearing this: "How did you reach that conclusion?"

"The authority to block the President’s access—if many people possessed such a thing, it wouldn’t have been possible to keep it a secret for so many years.

Only when the internal ranks are completely united, absolutely obedient, could it be possible to go without a single incident of chaos for hundreds of thousands of years.

Therefore, the people holding this authority must not be many. "

"But if it’s a cooperation, if you have the authority and I don’t, it will inevitably lead to conflict. In this pattern, those who continue to retain authority must be extremely important, irreplaceable among you. The rest should have been eliminated internally by now, am I right?"

"What you’re saying..." The woman’s smile faded, and she said coldly: "Sounds like you’ve seen it with your own eyes."

"Some things don’t need to be seen." Wang Ye shook his head: "From history, so many people participated in that experiment back then, the world war must have been propelled by considerable energy, definitely involving many people. But after confirming the era of data, it wouldn’t have been possible for your internal structure to accommodate that many people in power.

Only by purging most, could this model continue. "

"Then what?" The woman scoffed: "Even if only a few of us were left, so what?"

"Few... how few?" Wang Ye smiled: "Enough to control everyone? Aren’t there any small maneuvers?"

"Do slight maneuvers change the overall situation?" She smiled back: "What sort of small actions do you think can change the current situation? Especially with you being controlled."

"Am I that important?" Wang Ye looked at her: "Your opponent... is it Chen Qing?"

The smile on the woman’s face stiffened for a moment, but she quickly regained her composure with a smile: "Did you receive a message from Chen Qing?"

"Indeed... has he been controlled by you?"

"You aren’t stupid..." The woman nodded: "Chen Qing was an accident back then and our biggest vulnerability. If it wasn’t for him, the new era... would have already dawned."

"New era..." Wang Ye nodded: "I said it, Chen Qing is no ordinary person, was his identity back then not simple?"

"Have you heard of Pu YunChuan?"

"I have." Wang Ye nodded: "The Creator of our world."

"Sort of, and even more so... the creator of the entire data era."

"Oh?"

"He was the first data lifeform, and the first existence linked to a supercomputer, hence he is very special...."

"Special enough to be a threat to you?" Wang Ye felt he was grasping the truth: "And he indeed posed a threat, didn’t he?"

"Yes..." The woman laughed: "Back then, he revolted, joining forces with a particularly troublesome person, it was very dangerous, and we almost got completely wiped out."

"I see..." Wang Ye nodded: "I suppose it’s because of that scheme that you haven’t been able to openly rule both realms till now, right?"

"What else can you guess?"

"Can’t guess..." Wang Ye shook his head: "There’s too little information, I have a question to ask."

"Go ahead..."

"Is Chen Qing... Pu YunChuan?"

The woman paused upon hearing this, then laughed: "Why would you want to know that?"

"Curiosity..."

The woman thought for a moment, then ultimately looked at Wang Ye and said: "No..."

"I see..." Wang Ye closed his eyes, rapidly thinking.

Many things connected together, he roughly guessed what had happened those years, and also roughly guessed... what these people had been schemed against.

If he wasn’t wrong...

Pu YunChuan... is still alive!!!

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"Uncle... I’ve arrived!"

"How many times have I told you, use the formal title during work."

"Yes... President!"

"Now, I will restart the command center and also grant you that authority, whether to shut it down again, you decide!!"