Having died over 10,000 times and suffered severe, crippling injuries tens of thousands of times enabled Zhang Heng to accumulate combat experience that would quite literally scare the sh*t out of all those so-called hardened top-notch combatants and fighters out there. All that hellish training that he had undergone honed his reflexes considerably. His current reflex speed had even reached 0.02 seconds.
Some would wonder what 0.02 seconds would mean in this case.
Reflex speeds of regular people were estimated to be somewhere between 0.2 to 0.4 seconds. The speed of handgun bullets was usually somewhere between 300 to 400 meters per second, making it so that there was no way regular people could track bullet trajectories. However, since Zhang Heng’s reflexes were 10 times that of regular people, handgun bullets would look like they were traveling at speeds of around 30 meters per second to him. Such a reflex would be more than enough for him to see and evade bullets as they leave the muzzle.
Not only was he able to hone his reflexes in that virtual space, but he was also able to hone his will. At present, pain from having his bones broken and shattered was no longer sufficient to deter him. It had even gotten to the point that he would only frown seeing his chest being cut open.
Zhang Heng didn’t slack in his training in reality as well. His T-Virus-enhanced body held massive potential. He was able to raise his jogging speeds by running every day, and his sprinting speed had gotten from 100 meters in nine seconds to only eight seconds. Such speeds had vastly surpassed that of the human limit.
Intelligent life-forms like humans had inherent lazy tendencies. Individuals could have performed better but were held back a lot of times from reaching their fullest potential, due to exhaustion, fear, and many other reasons.
Things were different with Zhang Heng, as he had the strictest and most precise coach in the world training him who was able to use severe pain and death to motivate him. As such, Zhang Heng had no choice but to muster all of his innate potentials to reach where he was at the moment.
With that said, there was simply no way his training could be replicated elsewhere.
Zhang Heng took a break for several days after clearing his first class, before entering the second stage of his training.
The second class that Corona designed was to develop his familiarity with all kinds of firearms. Due to Zhang Heng’s frightening speed and power, his effectiveness in combat armed with a bayonet would almost surpass that with firearms, but the fact that guns were the most effective way of killing his enemies nonetheless remained. Proficient use of firearms would allow him to take out his opponents without having to exert himself.
The training consisted of having him familiarize himself with all models of handguns, automatic rifles, and machine guns and how to use them. The training was a lot simpler compared to his combat training. Due to foundations laid by that insane combat training, his reflexes had gotten equally insane. He took less than three days to completely pass Corona’s requirements for clearing gun training.
His next phase of training would be to prepare himself to take on the Alien plane.
…
He heard someone knocking on his door one day when he was just about to get ready for the third stage of his training.
He was about to open the door without thinking much about it before hearing a warning from Corona in his mind all of a sudden. “Commander, two men are standing outside the door, and they are hostile.”
He paused just when he grabbed hold of the handle and frowned. “Hostile? Who are they? Could you read their most recent memories?”
“Memories read. Both of them are Japanese nationals. One of them is named Miyamoto Tahara and the other, Endo Shino. Both of them are base members of the Aioukai serving under the Yamaguchi-Gumi assigned to Haizhou. They are suspected to be armed. Threat level: Mild.” Corona had the innate ability to read human memories and create hallucinations; therefore, it was a common thing for her to do so. Due to having gained the highest access, Zhang Heng had made use of Corona’s abilities as he fancied.
Zhang Heng had gotten more curious after hearing Corona’s report. He didn’t recall having run into the Japanese Yakuza before. But then again, he simply took a deep breath and prepared himself for what was to come.
The heartbeats of three humans were clearly picked up by his very sensitive ears, with one coming from himself and the other two from the uninvited guests standing outside his door.
The enhancement that the T-Virus brought about to his body was comprehensive, which naturally included enhanced hearing. He was able to hear the heartbeats of the two standing outside being very steady, which was an indication that they had no intentions to fight him at once. So he simply turned the knob and pulled the door of his room open.
Two middle-aged men, wearing black suits and ties, stood outside of his door. The one who looked to be the older of the two flashed a friendly smile seeing Zhang Heng opening the door, before speaking in impeccable standard Mandarin, “Good day, sir. Are you Mr. Zhang Heng, the legal person representing Stellar Biotech?”
“I am.” Zhang Heng nodded. If it hadn’t been for him having known the identities of the two men from Corona reading their memories, there was simply no way he would have been able to tell that the two, who were capable of speaking such fluent standard Mandarin without foreign accents, would have been Japanese. “How may I help the two of you?”
“Sorry to bother you, sir. We are from the Huaguang Finance Company, and our boss would like to talk to you about business. Do you have a moment to spare?” That man took out a business card from his wallet and handed it to Zhang Heng with both hands as he lowered himself.
“I’m sorry but I don’t remember having made any appointments with your boss.” Zhang Heng shook his head and refused to take the business card. “Please leave if you have no other business with me.”
The two of them didn’t seem surprised hearing what Zhang Heng said. They shot a look at each other, and the older man continued with a gentlemanly smile, “I take it that you aren’t clear about what is going on at the moment, Mr. Zhang. Have you heard of the Huaguang Finance Company, sir?”
“A branch company in Haizhou set up by the Japanese Aioukai. You guys are as famous as it gets.” Zhang Heng cut them off and continued plainly, “But I truly do not remember having had any connections with your organizations. This is Huaxia, not your turf back in Japan.”
Zhang Heng was no longer who he was back then. Regardless of the fact they were Yakuza members, he could have stood around unfazed even when meeting with the Japanese prime minister face to face. That was utter confidence derived from knowing what he was doing.
One’s position or status was gained from the same amount of power one held. While it was true that Zhang Heng was someone of high status, he nonetheless had made himself into a walking lethal weapon and took pride in himself for having done so—all that hellish training he had undergone made it so that he could take on and defeat even a whole squad of special forces personnel.
The two of them shuddered suddenly after Zhang Heng said what he said. That was quite a quirky feeling as if it were something that resulted from instinctive fear when someone inferior stood before someone superior. Both of them looked at Zhang Heng with shifty eyes and were actually at a loss for words.
“Well then, please do not interrupt my day any further.” Zhang Heng had no intentions of making things more difficult, and after seeing that he had successfully intimidated the two of them, he went on to close the door.
Zhang Heng’s expression turned gloomy right after he closed the door and gave an order without a moment’s hesitation, “Corona, keep an eye on those two for me. Crank it up to Level Two or even Level Three states if you have to. I wanna know everything they’re about to do next.”
“Understood, Commander.”
The two Japanese men stood at Zhang Heng’s door feeling dumbfounded. The younger of the two then frowned and said, “Mr. Miyamoto, do you sense something?”
“There was something, no doubt about it.” The older of the two nodded. “The man reeks of blood, and that scent is just as thick as the boss’.”
“That’s not all. My sixth sense tells me that if we’re to do anything right here, we’d probably be the one getting floored.” The younger man shook his head. “I didn’t expect someone who had developed an anticancer drug would be someone in our line of work. Looks like we’d need to be a lot more careful with the kidnapping. I’d report to the boss right away.”
Both of them left the hotel in haste after speaking to each other in Japanese for a bit. They wouldn’t have expected Zhang Heng to hear everything they said right there and then. With the aid of Corona’s powerful calculations, she was able to translate every single line they spoke into Chinese.
“The Aioukai is here for the T-1 after all.” Zhang Heng walked to the window and looked down at the two of them leaving the hotel. He only got away from the window after seeing them leaving in a black car.
“According to conversations, the government would keep the T-1 top secret after I handed it to them. They would not announce anything about it before getting to the bottom of the T-1 completely. There is nothing about the drug going on out there at the moment. I didn’t expect the Yakuza would be the ones to know the existence of the drug instead. Worse still, they even knew that I was the one who developed it.” Zhang Heng analyzed and continued, “With that said, if it hadn’t been my classmates leaking info about the drug, the culprit would definitely be some high-ranking staff from the Li Group.”
Zhang Heng came to somewhat regret having so many people learn about the existence of the T-1 back then. While there was no way that the government ordered for all who had witnessed the T-1 at work to keep what they knew to themselves, there was still no doubt that there were simply too many who knew about the drug. There was just no way knowledge of the existence of the drug could be kept completely under wraps.
Then again, if he did not make the existence of the T-1 public back then, there would have been no way he would be able to cling on to something as huge as the Li Group, which meant that he wouldn’t have acquired his starting capital of four billion yuan in the first place.
With things having gotten to such a point, Zhang Heng deemed it pointless to think about who was it who leaked the T-1 to other parties. He was long psychologically prepared to deal with such troubles. It was that he never anticipated that the first external parties who came knocking would be the Yakuza.
Zhang Heng seemed to have realized something and asked, “Corona, could you locate the boss of this Aioukai?”
“Impossible. There is no information regarding the boss of the Aioukai’s whereabouts in the memories of the two. Would you require me to search the Internet instead?”
“You’re permitted to do so.” Zhang Heng nodded. Corona was a quantum neural supercomputer and boasted a data processing capacity far exceeding that of the most advanced of the world’s supercomputers. Corona could get into any corner of the Internet so long as there was a connection. It had no trouble finding someone on the Internet at all, given that not even firewalls employed by even the US National Security Agency, knowing to be most secure in this regard, could keep Corona from getting inside.
It took Corona only three seconds to fetch the answer to Zhang Heng’s question. “Target located. The name of the current boss of the Aioukai is a man named Fujiwara Tsubasa, 49 years old, born in Kobe City. His current location is at No. 476 of the Sannomiya Center Street of Kobe City. GPS tracking through communication satellites is now employed.” Corona then fed the image of a stern-looking middle-aged man with a mustache into Zhang Heng’s mind.
“Could you check his communication records?” Zhang Heng asked.
“I could. He received a call an hour ago from the number XXXXXX. The call came from the Gaoqiao District of Haizhou. The caller was confirmed to be a man named Takegawa Mahiro, the person in charge of the Aioukai’s branch in Haizhou. Records show that Miyamoto Tahara and Endo Shino contacted Takegawa Mahiro multiple times.”
“Noted.” Zhang Heng breathed a sigh of relief right away. “So it was the boss of the Aioukai who gave the orders then. Now I wonder if it’s the boss of the Aioukai himself who issued the operation, or he was doing it on behest of some higher up in the Yamaguchi-Gumi.”
“Would you require that I expand the search to include the members of the Yamaguchi-Gumi and their communication records with the boss of the Aioukai?” Corona asked again.
“You may do so. But I’d assume that that would be a lot of data to handle, right?” Zhang Heng asked.
“I would be searching through communication records, email correspondence, online records, and so on between all of the members of the Yamaguchi-Gumi and the boss of the Aioukai. I shall then filter the data from what I find. Due to physical restrictions, the search would require about half an hour,” Corona said.
“Very well, take your time then.” A cold smirk was seen on Zhang Heng’s face. “Get me a passport and a plane ticket to Kobe, Japan, while you are at it. Looks like it’s time I put the results of my training to the test.”