"Please hold on. Searching for a suitable landing point."
Silas's gentle voice rippled through the cabin like waves, while outside, the gray-smoke-shrouded ground continued to scroll across the ship's screen. Lin Sanjiu, clutching a hot cup of coffee, curled up in a large chair, her eyes fixed on the drifting smog and earth displayed on the monitor. Her thoughts, however, were miles away.
Throughout the journey to the Old Sea's Crest, she kept mulling over what exactly Pete, the short man, had ant.
"Are you talking nonsense?" she said instinctively after Pete finished speaking. "What Shark Nexus... what investees? How co I've never heard of them?"
Pete leaned against the inner wall of the glass cup, seated on the ground. Despite being trapped, a faint air of superiority crept onto his face. "You're not from the Twelve Worlds Centrum, are you?"
"No," Lin Sanjiu replied, frowning. "You'd better watch your tone."
In the past, she wouldn't have cared about such trivial matters; she rembered this. But now, being irritated by sothing as minor as soone's tone was enough to annoy her, and that in itself was aggravating.
1
Pete quickly cleared his throat. "No, no, I an... even people from the Twelve Worlds Centrum might not know what Shark Nexus is. They don't engage with the general public, nor are they like the Twelve Organizations that need to recruit, run businesses, or maintain bases. Naturally, few people have heard of them. I don't fully understand what kind of organization they are, either. When they contacted , they simply told that Shark the Nexus is a venture capital group. Besides , quite a few others have received their investnts."
Lin Sanjiu could hardly believe she was hearing the term 'venture capital' in a post-apocalyptic world. The last ti she'd co across that phrase felt like a lifeti ago.
"So you're... a startup?" she asked, the unfamiliarity of the term making it feel strange, as though her tongue tripped over the words. "People in the Twelve Worlds Centrum haven't heard of Shark Nexus, so how am I supposed to believe you're telling the truth?"
"I can't make you believe ," Pete said with a defeated expression. "After all, who in their daily work goes out of their way to docunt everything as evidence? All I can say is that it's absolutely true. Ask any details you want, and I'll answer them all. I don't make up stories, and I wouldn't be able to invent sothing so elaborate on the spot."
Lin Sanjiu remained silent, half-doubtful. Pete's combat strength wasn't impressive. In the Twelve Worlds Centrum, he would at best rank as upper-mid-tier. Yet he had access to one rare item after another; the mory pocket dinsion alone was invaluable. Any portable pocket dinsion was extraordinarily precious, and even that projection device he used to trap soone had been powerful enough to confine a Veda.
If those items were provided to him by soone else, his story made more sense.
"Start from the beginning," Lin Sanjiu said, her brows furrowing. "Are you telling people can still set up companies in the Twelve Worlds Centrum?"
"I was born after doomsday, so I only vaguely know that we're different from pre-doomsday companies," Pete explained. "Those companies needed to register and be certified by the gov—governnt, right? Here in the Twelve Worlds Centrum, we just call them groups or organizations. They have guiding principles, divisions of labor, goals, and systems for profit-sharing. Oh, and in so areas, they even have to pay activity permit fees to a superior organization."
That was just an unlicensed company.
"Tell about the investnt process," Lin Sanjiu said, more curious than anything else.
"Before I actually received the investnt, I had to et two rounds of Shark Nexus investors, three people per round, so six in total," Pete began. As he spoke about securing the venture capital, a faint trace of pride crept onto his face, as if he were savoring the mory. "I had to present my ideas, progress, action plans, and all of that. They called this process a 'roadshow.' It's apparently a term from before doomsday. Sounds strange, doesn't it?"
1
If given enough ti, a human society blending pre-apocalypse ingenuity with post-apocalypse creativity, thriving in a new world, could evolve into sothing entirely unprecedented.
'I wonder what it would look like,' she thought. Just for a mont, she felt a glimr of her old self again. But the feeling was fleeting, and her attention shifted back to Pete.
"In the first round, if two out of the three investors decided I was worth advancing, I'd move on to the second round," Pete said earnestly, sighing. "I can't even tell you how much effort and ti I spent researching and preparing, waiting for their response. I barely slept through those nights. When I finally earned approval from the second-round investors, I was allowed to start my project."
"This investnt... it's mostly just Special Items and money, right?"
"And necessary manpower support," Pete added. At this point, he seed to rember sothing and cast a wary glance at Lin Sanjiu. "Of course, there's also personal protection."
That last part sounded like a bluff.
"I got unlucky; the second project I started brought straight to you," Pete said with a bitter smile. "I don't understand. We've got no grudge against each other, so why are you so determined to make things hard for ?"
Lin Sanjiu turned a deaf ear. "I don't get it. Aren't Shark Nexus investors worried that you'll just take the resources and run?"
"First, they're not widely known. Unless soone is really motivated to work on sothing, they probably haven't even heard of Shark Nexus, let alone tried to scam them. Second, they conduct thorough background checks and surveillance on every candidate. For example, I didn't even know I was on their radar when they started investigating ."
Pete continued, "Third, Shark Nexus clearly has significant resources, or they wouldn't be able to offer so much. That shows they're powerful. Who'd risk crossing them and possibly losing their life? Fourth, investnts always carry the risk of losses."
Lin Sanjiu bit her lip and paced in circles, her thoughts tangled and overwhelming. The situation was infuriating. She couldn't release Pete, couldn't kill him, and keeping him in her hands was like holding a hot potato.
Pete seed to sense her dilemma.
"I have a suggestion," he said cautiously. "I'm willing to enter the mory pocket dinsion. You can erase all mories of us eting, then let go. Problem solved, right? If you want so of the items I have, I can even give you a share. As for the glass cup, listen, the Twelve Worlds Centrum has all sorts of specialized services. I'm sure you can find soone to unlock it."
As if that wasn't tempting enough, he added, "You seem really capable. If a group like the Shark Nexus backed you, you'd definitely beco a big na in the Twelve Worlds Centrum. How about it? I'll introduce you to them. What do you say?"
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