Super Invincible Battleship

87  Chapter 67: Deep Sea Monster

Ryoko threw the weight-loss cookies at Manager Xiang and cursed angrily, "Our Oogawa family went through so much trouble to steal the manufacturing process for these weight-loss cookies from Dream Foods Company, and you're telling me that you can't produce them? Are you an idiot?"

Manager Xiang kept bowing and apologizing, but besides his apologies, he dared not say anything else.

It seemed Manager Xiang organized overnight to restart the production, but the results were not satisfactory; they still couldn't produce a qualified product.

Jo Oogawa said from the side, "Ryoko, don't be angry. Manager Xiang, go down and check again to see if there is anything that you have overlooked."

Manager Xiang, as if given a reprieve, bowed repeatedly and backed out, leaving the room.

After Ryoko had finished venting, she sighed and said, "Igawa has already confirmed it on their end; they said that the person had handed over all the stolen data from Dream Foods Company to me, there's absolutely no omission nor copy. They think that my distrust is an insult to them, so they want me to go back to Japan to apologize to them."

Jo Oogawa said, "If there's no problem on Igawa's end, and there shouldn't be any problems on our production factory's end either. Then there's only one explanation, and that is the data Igawa obtained is fake."

Ryoko nodded and said, "That's the only possibility. Dream Foods must have used some visual obfuscation technique to deceive all the producers and even the Igawa family, so what they got is what someone else wanted them to have; the real core data is still in Dream Foods' hands.

Jo Oogawa said, "I think so too, so the person who holds the core data is most likely Lu Pingping. Since we've reported the matter back, let's continue to wait for the family's decision."

Just like that, the two of them sat motionlessly in the office, discussing some family and corporate secrets. An hour later, the office fax machine rang, and a fax was transmitted; Jo Oogawa picked up the fax. Yan Fei quickly scanned the fax and saw it was full of incomprehensible symbols and gibberish, utterly unable to understand what it said.

Jo Oogawa glanced over the content and said, "The family has agreed to your plan and will send a family expert tomorrow night to Shanghai, to capture Lu Pingping. At the same time, they've decided to capture Yan Fei, the owner of Dream Foods."

Ryoko, seeing her plan approved, breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Since the family has decided to take action, I'm relieved. But those people from the family are really cautious, even capturing that useless Yan Fei."

Jo Oogawa laughed and said, "The family is just being careful. In case Lu Pingping refuses to comply, we can still threaten her with Yan Fei. Look at how she left everything in Beijing to help Yan Fei set up his company – it shows that their relationship is not ordinary."

Ryoko said, "I actually overlooked their relationship. The family sees further than I do. By the way, when will they take action?"

Jo Oogawa looked at the mysterious text on the fax and said, "Sometime around 11 p.m. tomorrow night, the family expert will enter Shanghai from off the coast. They are expected to carry out the capture around midnight. What we need to do now is to confirm where Lu Pingping and Yan Fei will be tomorrow night."

Ryoko said, "I understand. I will confirm their location as soon as possible and then pass the intelligence back to the family."

The two went on to discuss the benefits they could gain within the family once they captured Lu Pingping. Yan Fei was indifferent to this family strife. Later, seeing there was no more intelligence, he left Wangde Food. He did not act against these two people, as he intended to play the long game to net bigger fish. If these two were to run into any trouble, the Oogawa family might change their plan, making it unpredictable.

Yan Fei aimed not just to thwart their kidnapping plan but to eradicate it entirely. If he only stopped them, the other party might continue to send people. Without precise intelligence, he couldn't ruin their operations. This was also one of the reasons Yan Fei temporarily spared these two Japanese. However, once he knew their action plan, Yan Fei could devise a targeted battle plan to catch everything in one go. With the powerful Drone Avatar at hand, he was confident he could wipe out the opposition in one fell swoop. Defeating sufficient numbers of the adversary's forces might discourage them from planning another kidnapping.

Upon returning to his hotel, Yan Fei fell asleep immediately. He checked out at 8 in the morning and brazenly drove away from Hang City, heading back to Shanghai. Three hours later, he returned to Shanghai. Then, citing work arrangements, he called Lu Pingping over to start a behind-closed-doors discussion.

First, Yan Fei shared the intelligence he had gathered with Lu Pingping, but he deliberately left out the information that Wangde Food was a Japanese enterprise and that the Japanese were planning to kidnap both her and him. After all, he didn't want Lu Pingping to worry too much, and he also had the power to annihilate the adversary's personnel. That's why he chose to conceal this matter.

Meanwhile, Yan Fei had used a high-definition camera to capture explosive video evidence. As long as these videos were uploaded to the Internet, the Oogawa Family would be finished in China. Even the dealers who collaborated with the Wangde Food Company would not escape unscathed. In other words, with these videos, Yan Fei and Lu Pingping had already secured an invincible position.

After learning about the mastermind behind the trouble, Lu Pingping immediately discussed countermeasures with Yan Fei. Quickly, the time reached around seven or eight in the evening. For safety, Yan Fei left Lu Pingping at the Company and stayed by her side the whole time, never leaving her alone. The security personnel also split into two shifts, one guarding the food factory and the other stationed at the Company headquarters. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Yan Fei had originally wanted to take Lu Pingping away from Shanghai to evade the storm for a while. However, he knew that Ryoko's informants were monitoring the movements of both him and Lu Pingping. He feared that any change on his part might alter the Oogawa Family's course of action and cause him to miss the chance to catch them all in one go, which was why he risked leaving Lu Pingping in Shanghai. As for why he did not seek help from the Chinese government and use government power to deal with the Japanese, the main reason was that he had too many secrets to risk being exposed through such cooperation. Besides, he had absolute confidence in the killing power of the Drones; he believed that with just himself, he could eliminate any enemies that came, and thus he did not alert the Chinese government.

Although Yan Fei's real body was at the Company headquarters, he was covertly controlling a Drone Avatar operating on the seabed off the coast of Shanghai. The Quantum Radar of the Drone activated a wide scan for sea vessels every five minutes, monitoring all ships entering Shanghai. Upon encountering a suspicious vessel, it would covertly approach the ship's underside to investigate until it was clear of suspicion before letting it go.

Having already known of the Oogawa Family's impending moves against both him and Lu Pingping, Yan Fei had naturally made the relevant preparations. His plan was to intercept the Oogawa Family's people in the seas off Shanghai and take them out at sea. With the Drone's terrifying combat power and its phenomenal ability to operate both in the sky and underwater, he believed no one could escape his assault at sea.

Time quickly advanced to eleven at night. Yan Fei, who appeared composed in the office, was actually focusing all his attention on the Drone Avatar. The maximum scanning radius of the Drone Quantum Radar in the water was only 100 kilometers, but this was enough for it to detect the enemy from afar.

Yan Fei had essentially sealed off the shipping routes to Shanghai, but strangely, despite it being past eleven, he hadn't detected any abnormal ship activity. Had he misheard the time that day? Or had Ryoko and Jo Oogawa realized that he had eavesdropped, deliberately deceiving him with a fake time?

While Yan Fei was pondering, the Quantum Radar of the Drone sounded an alert. On checking, he saw that a large object had appeared 20 kilometers east of the Drone Avatar on the seabed. He had been focusing on the sea surface all along, neglecting the seabed, so the Quantum Radar's scan was only for the surface. If it were not for this object nearing the radar's alert range, he might not have detected it approaching.

Yan Fei hurriedly directed the Quantum Radar's scan into the seawater and discovered that the large object approaching him was an enormous Submarine. As Yan Fei had not previously paid attention to Submarines, he couldn't determine the nation to which it belonged based merely on its appearance. Since it was in China's offshore waters, it could be a Chinese Submarine conducting deep-sea training. But Yan Fei didn't take any chances; while keeping a close watch on the Submarine, he controlled the Drone Avatar to approach it stealthily.

It took only ten minutes for Yan Fei to close in on the Submarine. The seafloor was pitch-black, but the "eyes" of the Drone were exceptionally powerful. Even in the dark abyss of the sea, it could still discern details with just a hint of faint light.

This Submarine was enormous; Yan Fei roughly estimated its displacement to be over three thousand tons. It had a streamlined shape but wasn't of the traditional curved form. Instead, it was smoothly connected by various flat surfaces, looking slightly different from other Submarines. A large white number, 508, was written on its conning tower.

Now that the Drone was over one hundred kilometers away from Shanghai, the Quantum Radar could not connect to the Internet, so it couldn't determine the nationality of the Submarine. However, back at the Company headquarters, Yan Fei immediately turned on his computer and started to search for "Submarine, 508". The omnipotent search engine quickly yielded relevant results.

It turned out that the Submarine discovered by the Drone Avatar wasn't a domestic Chinese one, but belonged to the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. The Submarine was of the Soryu-class, stemming from Japan's robust "16th Year of Heisei Submarine Program," known as 16SS, the most advanced type of active-duty Submarine in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force.

The Submarine 508, named the Red Dragon, began construction in 2013, was launched in 2015, and officially entered service in 2017. It was 84 meters long, 9.1 meters wide, and 10.3 meters high. The standard displacement was 2950 tons, equipped with a Sterling air-independent propulsion system (AIP) and associated auxiliary machinery. The hull used "high-tensile steel" for strength, boasting two diesel engines and four Sterling AIP engines, significantly enhancing the Submarine's performance. Moreover, it was outfitted with a high-performance Sonar device, providing strong search and stealth capabilities.

The fully loaded displacement of the Red Dragon reached 4200 tons. Its primary armament included six 533 millimeter Torpedo tubes capable of launching anti-ship/anti-submarine Torpedoes and anti-ship Missiles. It was the first Submarine of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force to adopt AIP propulsion and is among the largest conventional-power attack Submarines in active service worldwide, a veritable deep-sea monster.

After examining the data about this Submarine, Yan Fei was amazed. Except for the propulsion system not being nuclear, all other specs seemed on par with those of a nuclear Submarine. Japan, being a defeated nation from World War II, was unable to produce nuclear Submarines yet had put considerable effort into conventional Submarines, turning out a monster on par with nuclear Submarine combat power.

Yan Fei discovered an image of the Red Dragon Submarine online. Comparing it with the one in front of him, he realized they were identical, confirming that this Submarine was indeed Japan's Red Dragon. But why was this Submarine of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force heading toward Shanghai? Could the vessel he had been unable to find, the one transporting the Oogawa Family's experts, be this very Submarine? If that were the case, then the Oogawa Family's influence in Japan was terrifying indeed; they could even mobilize military Submarines to transport their personnel.

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