Homo Sapiens

In a discreet courtyard.

The name ”Wang Family” carved into the stone at the entrance was covered in moss, lending the courtyard a weathered feel.

The old man, wearing reading glasses, held a Chinese translation of a Yomiuri Shimbun article.

The two middle-aged men standing beside him looked constrained and worried.

”The younger generation is truly formidable. I never imagined he could still stir up such a massive storm.” The old man set the translated article on the stone table beside him.

One of the middle-aged men asked, wringing his hands, ”Father, what do we do now? There have been a lot of rumors lately, saying our family’s dealings are... are...”

”Hmph. You think I don’t know?” The old man shot his useless eldest son a contemptuous look.

”Stop overreacting. Right now, Li Qingye isn’t just our problem. He’s an enemy of the entire world.”

The more level-headed second son spoke up. ”Fortunately, the Homo Sapiens Company now poses a massive threat to the entire world. Given their methods, any nation with even a shred of self-preservation will avoid getting too close to them. You have no reason to worry.”

”That’s good, that’s good.”

Seeing his eldest son’s reaction, the old man’s face twisted in exasperation. ”You’d better get your own houses in order from now on. And recall our family’s children from abroad. Tell them to stop wandering around out there.”

”Yes, Father.”

”I’ll make the calls right away.”

He watched the backs of his two sons as they hurried away.

The old man picked up the translated article again, sighing to himself. ’Fail to pull up the weed by its roots, and it will just grow back in the spring.’

He wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he had let on in front of his sons. In fact, the Wang Family had already been proactively contracting its influence recently.

He had even made the Wang Family withdraw from the lucrative joint projects in Southeast Asia, all to appease those who were disgruntled with them.

The old man no longer viewed Li Qingye and the Homo Sapiens Company with the same contempt as before. Instead, he now saw them as a serious threat to be handled with extreme caution.

After all, in a sense, the more powerful Li Qingye and the Homo Sapiens Company became, the more internal and external pressure the Wang Family would face.

But the initiative was no longer in the Wang Family’s hands. It now belonged to Li Qingye and the Homo Sapiens Company.

...

「Rongcheng.」

The weather in June was very hot.

A light rain had just fallen, and the air was still thick with moisture.

The glasses-wearing man, who had returned from Hongsawaddy a while back, gathered with Fang Xinwu and the others at the same farmhouse restaurant.

The owner of the restaurant was the average-looking Old Zhang.

Old Ma, who previously ran a small restaurant in Dongzhi, picked up a handful of salted boiled peanuts. ”Another mission?”

Fang Xinwu, meanwhile, was by the window, leaning against the wall and smoking silently.

The glasses-wearing man put down the translated Yomiuri Shimbun article in his hand. ”Fate is a fickle thing. To think that guy is the secret boss of the Homo Sapiens Company.”

”The Homo Sapiens Company...” Old Zhang’s expression was complicated.

The man with glasses put down the article. ”Has it been decided?”

Old Zhang nodded. ”It’s decided. The directive came down in just sixteen characters: Maintain the status quo, be on high alert, strictly investigate contact, and strengthen infiltration.”

”Then their recruitment agencies on our side, should we...?” the glasses-wearing man asked, narrowing his eyes.

Old Zhang shook his head. ”Just keep a close eye on them. With the internet being what it is, it’s not like no one knows what’s going on over there. We can’t stop it.”

While still eating his peanuts, Old Ma chimed in with a wry smile. ”And how are we going to handle personnel selection for foreign deployments?”

He asked because of what happened during the big pullout a while back. Three of their deployed agents had caused trouble. After returning home, they secretly took their families and fled to Xiangjiang, where they were picked up by the Homo Sapiens Company.

As a result, many of their other foreign-deployed personnel were now compromised and couldn’t be used.

At the same time, the incident caused many people to lose face. Old Zhang, in particular, was almost fired.

The reason for this situation was very simple.

Even an old-timer like Old Ma, who had been in this line of work for decades, couldn’t help but feel his convictions waver in Hongsawaddy, let alone those green rookies.

Fang Xinwu stubbed out his cigarette. ”Let me give you a suggestion. Orphans we’ve trained long-term, or young people from wealthy families. Those from ordinary families can’t resist the temptations over there.”

Hearing this, Old Zhang looked resigned. He knew as well as anyone that only the orphans they’d trained long-term or the kids from wealthy families could resist the allure of the Homo Sapiens Company.

The problem was that the number of such long-term trained orphans was very small.

As for the young people from wealthy families, their families would be loath to let their children take such risks. Besides, those types were generally soft and coddled. Sending them into Homo Sapiens Company territory would be like serving them up on a platter.

Of Old Zhang’s five hundred-plus subordinates, over 90% of those who risked life and limb on the front lines came from ordinary families.

Now, they were all potential time bombs.

After those three defected, Old Zhang found himself in the awkward position of having no one he could deploy. He had hundreds of agents, but he didn’t dare use any of them.

Even Fang Xinwu was in a precarious position now because a distant cousin of his had married someone in Hongsawaddy. If not for Old Zhang’s trust, Fang Xinwu would not have been here today.

The glasses-wearing man was also at a loss about the current situation.

He was brilliant, no doubt—he’d been the one to flag Li Qingye early on—but he was only one man. He wasn’t the Monkey King; he couldn’t just conjure an army out of thin air.

Especially in their line of work. Every operative was handpicked and required years of specialized training. There was no way to rapidly scale up recruitment.

After a moment of thought, the glasses-wearing man offered his idea:

”We’ll have to take a two-pronged approach. First, we screen a selection of reliable candidates and have them apply for jobs at the Homo Sapiens Company. Second, we can operate inside Homo Sapiens Company territory disguised as employees of a foreign-funded enterprise.”

”Efficiency and accuracy might suffer,” Old Ma reminded him.

But the glasses-wearing man had a helpless look on his face. ”Safety first. We can’t just send a bunch of rookies over to get slaughtered, can we? We’re responsible for our subordinates’ lives.”

Old Zhang nodded. ”That’s the only way.”

”Honestly, I don’t think sending people into Homo Sapiens Company territory is very cost-effective. The risk of discovery is immense,” the glasses-wearing man said, his expression deeply worried.

Everyone present knew this perfectly well.

Given the Homo Sapiens Company’s model, the areas under its control were an absolute hellscape for foreign intelligence agencies.

After all, everyone inside Homo Sapiens Company territory was an employee. Anyone who wasn’t an employee was either a tourist or personnel from a foreign enterprise or country.

This created a clear and distinct separation between insiders and outsiders.

Meanwhile, the precision and intensity of the Homo Sapiens Company’s internal management were nearly omnipresent and all-encompassing.

A foreigner asking questions left and right or looking all around inside their territory would stick out like a firefly in the dead of night—blatantly obvious.

In truth, Old Zhang’s side had it a bit easier. After all, they were also East Asian, and a large number of ethnic Chinese worked for the Homo Sapiens Company.

America’s Black Ship, on the other hand, was facing a real headache. It was nearly impossible for their Black, white, or Latin American agents to blend in inside the Homo Sapiens Company. Only their agents of Asian descent, along with the East Japanese and Koreans, could even make an attempt.

As a result, the major world powers were all shifting their intelligence focus away from human infiltration and toward technical surveillance and deep analysis of open-source information.

For example, America was planning to launch several dedicated high-resolution reconnaissance satellites and was also secretly accepting bids to develop a type of remote-sensing satellite that could detect underground facilities.

These were all countermeasures born of desperation. Since infiltrating the Homo Sapiens Company was so difficult, they were forced to find unconventional alternatives.