Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Completion
November 27, 2017.
The Kalaqua Islands in Luzon were still scorching hot as personnel from a professional inspection company completed the final acceptance of the laboratory.
Finding no major issues, Li Qingye had Fang Xincheng pay the completion fee to Xinhai Company. However, according to the contract, a final 5% retainer was still outstanding.
This was standard industry practice. The final payment would typically be settled a period of time after the facility was officially put into use.
The contract between Homo Sapiens Company and Xinhai Company stipulated that if no major problems arose within 18 months of official commissioning, the final payment would be settled.
Upon returning to Kalaqua Island, Li Qingye convened a meeting with his management team.
"The company’s penaeid shrimp and pomfret farming only profited 420,000 US dollars this year. It’s not much, but at least we didn’t take a loss. Zhaxi, you’ve worked hard."
Zhaxi flashed a wide, toothy grin and said, "The weather was good this year. We got lucky."
Li Qingye turned to Li Jinglan and instructed, "Jing Lan, discuss with Zhaxi about giving the aquaculture base employees some bonuses."
Li Jinglan, who had paused her note-taking, nodded. "Okay, I’ll arrange it as soon as possible."
"Now for the second item on the agenda." Li Qingye’s expression turned serious. "You all should understand that the company can’t go on like this. We have to find a new line of business, or we’ll go bankrupt sooner or later."
Li Jinglan and the others deeply agreed.
The taciturn Kang Nan, worried his department would be downsized, rarely spoke up, but he did now. "Boss, how about I take the ships south to check around the Solomon Islands?"
Li Qingye waved his hand dismissively. "There’s no need. I have other plans for the fleet."
Hearing that Li Qingye had a plan, the others fell silent and waited for him to speak.
"You all know that wild fishery resources in the Pacific, especially in the Northwest Pacific Ocean Region, are becoming increasingly scarce. Deep-sea fishing is a dead end. Therefore, the new direction is to pivot to aquaculture."
Li Jinglan, who had again stopped taking notes, had done her homework and understood Li Qingye’s line of thinking perfectly. The only problem was that aquaculture wasn’t an easy path either.
After all, Homo Sapiens Company was already farming penaeid shrimp and pomfret. These were low-tech, common species that could, at best, only earn them a modest living for their hard work.
Li Qingye continued, "The shrimp and pomfret don’t have much potential for growth. We’ll just maintain the status quo. The species our company will develop next is this..."
A slide projector behind him immediately displayed the image of a fish on the screen.
"Eels?" Zhaxi’s brow furrowed, and he blurted out, "Boss, the cost of eel farming is extremely high. Plus, the catch of eel fry has been declining in recent years, so it’s very difficult for us to buy large quantities of them."
Kang Nan also chimed in with a reminder, "Boss, Zhaxi’s right. Eel fry can only be caught in the wild; they can’t be artificially bred. Our company has tried fishing for them near the Luzon Trench before. There are just too few wild eels now."
But Li Qingye was full of confidence. He smiled and retorted, "It’s precisely because they can’t be artificially bred that they’re worth the investment. Otherwise, did you think I invested fifty million US dollars in a laboratory to build bioweapons?"
"Er..." Li Jinglan instantly understood. A biological laboratory with such a massive investment was obviously meant for some kind of research.
"I plan to research artificial eel breeding techniques. If we can produce eel fry at a low cost, we’ll capture a huge market.
Did you know? At its peak, global eel consumption was 220,000 tons. The average price per kilogram was 15 to 30 US dollars, for a total market value of 3.3 to 6.6 billion US dollars. And that isn’t the limit of the eel industry; it’s a restriction caused by the depletion of wild resources. If we can achieve low-cost artificial breeding, this will absolutely be a ten-billion-dollar industry."
Hearing the grand vision Li Qingye painted, the others felt their breath quicken. The eel industry was indeed a massive prize.
"Furthermore, I’ve spent the better part of this year researching materials on artificial eel breeding. I found that people in East Japan already have the technology, but their production costs are quite high. What we need to do is find a technique for low-cost mass production, and I already have some ideas on that front."
At this, Li Jinglan immediately expressed her support. He’d laid it all out, and besides, it was Li Qingye’s company. If the investment failed, the worst that could happen was she’d have to find another job.
No one else had any objections.
Next, Li Qingye began assigning tasks.
First, he had Li Jinglan take a team to Min Nan Province in Huaguo to purchase a batch of semi-mature or mature farmed eels and transport them back to Kalaqua Island.
Zhaxi was to free up six of the penaeid shrimp ponds and convert them into an eel farm.
Kang Nan would take the fishing boats to the vicinity of the Luzon Trench and attempt to catch some glass eels (the juvenile stage of eels).
As the tasks were assigned one by one, the entire company buzzed with activity.
This was also Li Qingye’s goal. After all, with such a huge investment, it would be far too strange not to have any overt research projects.
Of course, this eel research project wasn’t just a front; he fully intended to turn the act into a reality.
On one hand, it was to conceal the true purpose of the biological laboratory; on the other, it was to find a profitable venture for Homo Sapiens Company, lest they burn through all their cash.
Inside the research base.
After passing through layer after layer of security, he didn’t immediately start his experiments. Instead, he re-examined the base’s computer systems.
After pulling up the computer system’s low-level data, Li Qingye adjusted his glasses. ’Just as I expected.’
The system was riddled with backdoors, some of which could even make the computer proactively transmit signals, covertly sending out information via nearby cell phones or laptops.
These backdoors were most likely secretly installed by the computer manufacturers themselves; it was possible that even Xinhai Company was unaware of them.
He re-edited and modified these backdoors, but instead of completely sealing them, he created a fake database. Even if the backdoors transmitted information, it would only be false data.
Meanwhile, he reconfigured the servers, designating one small server as an obvious honeypot. He completely sealed the vulnerabilities on the remaining servers and air-gapped them entirely.
He even locked the cooling fans to a few fixed frequencies, cutting off any possibility of transmitting signals externally.
In addition to the computer systems, he also carefully checked the operating systems of other equipment several times. He found quite a few backdoors there as well—some for stealing secrets, others designed to make the equipment fail "a little sooner."
Thinking about the ulterior motives of these scientific instrument manufacturers, he was extremely thankful that he had completely destroyed the data storage devices and computers from the Jiangcheng Laboratory.
If he hadn’t been extra cautious, and the equipment from the Jiangcheng Laboratory had been recovered or carefully inspected by those manufacturers, it was highly likely that some data about the Jianmu Factor would have been leaked.
He recorded the devices where he had found issues and quickly eliminated the backdoors. Only now could he conduct his experiments with peace of mind.
However, the thought that many of those same manufacturers were also suppliers of computer and cell phone components reminded Li Qingye of the problem with phones and laptops.
He had Chen Jianxiong, who was in charge of security, adjust the security measures both inside and outside the research base.
For instance, they had originally planned to use walkie-talkies for internal and external communication, but now Li Qingye felt even those weren’t secure.
He had someone go to Huaqiang North in Peng City to purchase a batch of loose electronic components so he could DIY a wired telephone system and lay an internal phone line on Kalaqua Island.
As for radios, cell phones, and the like, they could only be used in the dock area. Before entering any other zone, these communication devices had to be handed over to security personnel for safekeeping.
By completely preventing cell phones and similar devices from getting anywhere near the research base, and with such tight security, information leaks from within the base could be almost entirely prevented.
Of course, these measures still weren’t enough.
Because in this world, there was another way to steal secrets: a "brute-force attack."
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