Artifact Report

Chapter 285 Jin Xueli: Brain Hacker

It was so strange, it seemed like the world had completely forgotten about her overnight.

Jin Xueli took a sip of the hot latte - in fact, it was no longer hot and had lost its aroma. The coffee slid down her throat lazily, leaving a cool and greasy feeling on her tongue.

After all, she had been sitting in the coffee shop for thirty minutes.

After finishing two desserts, she turned a page of her newly bought novel and then turned it back again - because when she read the second page, she had forgotten what the previous page was about.

There’s nothing fun about using the phone. All I do is scroll through the same few social media accounts. I open the chat app from time to time to check, but still no one has sent me any new messages.

...Jin Xueli was almost bored to death.

what happened?

Did the world also know that she had just made a social leap and no longer needed to risk her life in the lair?

Is this a signal from fate to her about retirement?

Although she was still nominally a contestant in the "Nest Domination Game", the past few days had been, to put it nicely, as peaceful as possible; to put it bluntly, it felt as if she was insignificant and had been left aside by the world.

Chai Si couldn't be contacted; Kai's family members were talking more tightly than her hands gripping her wallet when she passed by a luxury store.

After the lawyer completed the share transfer procedures, he became clueless and she has not even met the company's founder until now.

If she had received $9 million in cash, this situation wouldn't have mattered - she would have already boarded a plane for vacation and enjoyed life.

But what she got was shares, something that was neither good nor bad.

She had many doubts and questions that had no answers, and it felt like the matter was far from over; she was hanging in the air, not knowing the cause, unable to imagine the consequences, and not knowing where to go - but she couldn't even find someone to talk to.

Besides, the other players who dominate the game should also know that Jin Xueli is participating in the competition, right?

Do they think she has no target artifacts on her hands?
It's already - Jin Xueli picked up the phone, looked at the date, and slapped it back on the table - it's been four or five days, today is November 11th.

For several days, none of the other contestants came to disturb her life, which sent a signal of contempt for her from a distance.

Of course, she didn't want to be hunted or enter the nest; but as a hunter, her life shouldn't be so boring and idle, right?
Jin Xueli sighed and found that her eyes had lingered on the same line of words for countless times. Finally, she resigned herself to her fate and threw the book back into her bag.

Her whole mind is elsewhere, so naturally no entertainment can grab her attention.

Because she was bored, when her cell phone suddenly rang, Jin Xueli grabbed it like a hungry tiger - it didn't matter if she didn't recognize the caller number, even if it was a scam call, she could squeeze out a 20-minute heart-to-heart talk.

"Where's Chase Monroe?"

Before she could say hello, a strange man's voice asked.

In the past, Jin Xueli would probably have been impatient. She wasn't Chai Si's GPS, so how could she know where he was? But now, upon hearing someone was looking for the boss, her attitude suddenly straightened up: "Excuse me, who are you?"

"John Scott," the man said coldly.

The founder of Nulife Life Sciences? So there really is such a person?
What founder, what company, aren’t they just made up on paper?

"You—this—"

Jin Xueli hadn't expected him to suddenly approach her; all she had so many questions to ask was gone. "You know... you know the Kai family, right? Why didn't you go to them? What's your relationship with them..."

"Of course I know the Kai family."

The man was in a very bad mood. He complained to her, one sentence after another, as if he had been holding back his anger for a long time. "The Kai family refused to say anything. I repeatedly told them that my matter was urgent and important and that I had to see Chai Si immediately, but I still didn't get a positive answer. They just said that Chai Si didn't have time to explain everything clearly and went on to do other things. What were he busy with? He couldn't even answer his phone? He doesn't take Nulife seriously like this. It's really irresponsible! What's more, I just squeezed you into the company according to his instructions-"

He took a breath and cut himself off.

"Anyway, one of the reasons I agreed to give you shares was because Chai Si promised me that you could help. Otherwise, why would I give you such a large asset? Since you've taken the shares, you naturally can't just stand by and watch when something needs to be dealt with. Kai's family told me that you are also... you are also the 'Hunter', right?"

...Well, the other shoe has finally dropped.

It turns out that Chai Si’s money is not easy to get.

"Except for Shibashi, does no one else in Kai's family know about this?"

She herself is still confused.

Logically, when Chase disappeared, other members of the Kai family should have stepped in to take over the matter - no matter what Scott's problem was.

"Of course," Scott smiled coldly, "but he's dead. Can you believe it? It just so happened that the Kai family hunter assigned to me by Chase to be in charge of this matter died not long ago. It seems that he was attacked in the cemetery. Otherwise, I wouldn't have come to you."

"Then... what do you want me to do?" Jin Xueli was completely bewildered. "I don't have anything yet..."

"Where are you?" Scott interrupted her and asked, "What time can you come to my office?"

John Scott is a man who cares a lot about his appearance.

He was over fifty, but his hair was still thick and neat; although his facial features were ordinary, his skin, body, and shirt were as clean as a piece of white paper, carrying a faint masculine scent.

Aside from the fact that he smelled good, Jin Xueli couldn't think of anything else to say nicely about him. Scott's small eyes, perched high on the top of his nose, drooped down to look at her.

"Are you a hunter?" He emphasized the word "you", as if he didn't believe it.

"……Correct."

"You're quite young... in your twenties?"

"You're in your seventies or eighties and can't be a hunter," Jin Xueli replied.

The world of hunters has a wonderful fairness: regardless of your origin or gender, as long as you have the ability to bring back a pseudo-image from the nest, you are a qualified hunter.

She almost forgot that outside the hunter circle, almost every one of the many labels she bore represented a flaw and gap between her and the standard.

"I'm not interested in prying into your private affairs. But if this is indeed the case, we must make it known to the public first so that we can cooperate in the future. So you and Chai Si... well, Chai Si is your..."

Whatever he wanted to ask, Jin Xueli could smell it from five miles away.

"Boss," she said with a straight face, "He's not my boyfriend, and I'm not his lover. We don't have that intention between us. We're just partners. I got a share of the company by risking my life, not because I slept with him."

She didn't want to pay for meat she didn't eat.

Scott frowned at her choice of words, then nodded several times in a tolerant manner, as if this could ease the awkwardness.

"Of course, of course. Then, you should be familiar with our...operations, right?"

This question stumped Jin Xueli.

She had no doubt that according to Chai Si's original plan, he would tell her the inside story of the matter after she got the shares - but perhaps it was because the situation on Han Liuyue's side was different?

There had been no news since Chai Si had gone to see the mayor. He hadn't even had time to say a single word of what he was supposed to tell her.

She only knew that the last whereabouts of Chai Si and Han Liuyue were that they returned to Kai's house, and after that, the two disappeared from the world.

"You don't know anything?" Scott frowned deeply. "Then how can you help?"

Jin Xueli shrugged.

"To be a qualified hunter, you must have the ability to grasp the clues and follow them all the way to the bottom until you find your prey. If you want to know how I can help, you must first let me know what problem you are facing."

It can be seen that the problem Scott faces is something he will never talk about unless it is absolutely necessary.

Even in his own office, he still nervously drew the curtains, opened the door several times to make sure no one was in the waiting room outside; he even picked up the phone to listen, and asked Jin Xueli to turn off the phone.

After pacing for several times, he finally sighed and fell into the chair.

"I don't know if this is considered desperate."

Scott gave a self-deprecating wry laugh, staring at Jin Xueli and saying, "Before I start telling you, remember, you also have shares in this company. Your lawyer told you, right? The company's valuation is around 300 million. But you should know that valuation is only on paper... Without VCs buying in, even a 3 trillion valuation means nothing."

He opened the drawer in a distracted manner - just when Jin Xueli thought he couldn't help but want to smoke a cigarette to calm down, he took out a cardboard box, hurriedly opened it, took out a small ampoule, unscrewed the neck of the bottle, and drank the contents in one gulp.

The carton was torn diagonally, and the crack pointed to a line of printed text: Nulife Biotech.

It is Scott's own product.

"The problem I face is also the problem you face. If you want your shares to be valuable and cashable, then we have a mutually beneficial relationship."

Of course she knows.

"What is this?" Jin Xueli raised her chin towards the cardboard box.

“That’s our biggest problem right now.”

Scott took a deep breath and said solemnly, "This product, containing my exclusive patented cutting-edge ingredient, has made this company a star product in a short period of time... It's what you see here, 'Brain Hacker'."

He knocked on the box.

“You must not spread what I say next.

"The core ingredient that makes Brain Hacker effective was provided to me by Kai's Tsai. However, due to an unforeseen situation... there's an unexpected shortage of that raw material. No, to be frank, it's gone. There's not a single drop left. The factory has shut down, barely surviving on inventory. At this critical juncture when VC valuations are expected, I can't maintain production."

Jin Xueli slowly opened her mouth and was stunned. Wait a minute——

Does Chai Si provide the raw materials? What raw materials can he provide?
Could it be——

"The whole world thinks the ingredients in my products are my exclusive inventions. Therefore, the fact that 'I have no control over the supply of the most important raw materials' is a secret that must be kept at all costs. If they find out... you can probably imagine the consequences. If it weren't for the fact that I couldn't find cheese and production had already stopped, I would never have let this matter slip from my lips."

Scott stared at Jin Xueli and said, "I need raw materials. You should have a close relationship with the Kai family and Chase... I don't know much about your hunters, but you should be able to take over and provide me with the next batch of raw materials, right?"

(End of this chapter)