Chapter 188: That’s It?

Xue Yang was actually more nervous than anyone, and more than anyone, he wanted to take out Li Ye.

After all, he was just a chef before becoming a Time Traveler.

Strictly speaking, his act of taking a Demon Qi and severing his connection to the Demon Suppression Tower was desertion.

Although he had used the Demon Qi to rise to a high position in this world, he lived in constant, deep-seated fear of the Demon Hunting Bureau. He was terrified that an agent from the Bureau would show up one day and eliminate him.

Xue Yang had been lucky.

When he arrived in this world, he never found the Demon Qi he was supposed to suppress.

He had peacefully built up his own power base with his Demon Qi, right up until the Flat Pan awakened, severed its connection with the Demon Suppression Tower, and revealed to him some secrets millennia old.

He and the Demon Qi reached an agreement. The two of them would cooperate to escape this world, which was sealed by the Daoist Law, and expand into the vastness of the universe.

During this time, the Demon Hunting Bureau sent two more Time Travelers. Those two were far unluckier than him; they materialized in the Ruins and were killed by Mutant Beasts almost immediately.

Even so, it took Xue Yang a long time searching the Ruins to find the two Demon Qi they had left behind.

But the Demon Qi he had failed to find from the very beginning remained a thorn in his side.

Xue Yang guessed that particular Demon Qi must have landed somewhere deep within the Ruins.

In the past five years, he had become incredibly powerful, but every time he tried to explore the depths of the Ruins, a sense of dread, a palpitation in his heart, would overcome him.

That feeling of dread kept him from going deeper, from exploring the true mysteries of the Ruins.

Li Ye was the first Time Traveler Xue Yang had to face in a real sense. One could even say he was the first real Demon Qi Xue Yang had ever confronted.

This gave him a profound sense of crisis.

After all, Li Ye’s methods were far too polished.

In just over ten days, he had torn a hole in the iron-clad empire Xue Yang had built.

And to think, when Xue Yang himself first arrived in this world, it had taken him over a month just to blend in…

At this moment, Xue Yang cursed the fact that Demon Qi couldn’t track each other.

If they could…

…he would have gone in for the kill at the first opportunity. He wouldn’t have just let his opponent run wild like this.

But Xue Yang didn’t dare enter the Ruins to investigate personally.

The Ruins were too vast, and he was afraid of falling for the tactic of luring the tiger out of the mountains.

Xue Yang knew the rules for Time Travelers. With every new world, they started over with a new Demon Qi, and they had to guard against being possessed by it.

A Time Traveler had only one year to adapt to each Demon Qi, whereas he had possessed his for five years.

Theoretically, he had a massive advantage in strength.

As long as he defended his stronghold in the Federation, his opponent could cause all the trouble he wanted without being able to do any real damage.

The best-case scenario was that his opponent would lose patience and charge into the Federation for a final battle.

The next-best outcome was that his opponent would mess around in the Ruins for a year and return empty-handed.

The final possibility: his opponent would venture deep into the Ruins, run into the Demon Qi that Xue Yang himself dared not face, and either be consumed by it or end up in a mutually destructive fight…

Xue Yang could accept any of these outcomes. Things couldn’t get any worse than that.

As for the other corporations investigating the Flat Pan Group, that was just minor squabbling. Xue Yang paid it no mind. He was waiting for the Time Traveler to make his real move.

“…General Manager Xue, we’ve found it. The person was using He Fei’s identification. Here are the full statements from He Xu’s five-man group. The Ruins Base is clearly trying to pin the blame on us…”

Xue Yang sat in his office, listening to his secretary’s report and flipping through the compiled documents.

The more he read, the more he wanted to vomit blood.

‘That bastard. He hasn’t even left the Ruins, and he’s already managed to frame me.’

‘What a real piece of work!’

Thankfully, he had found He Xu’s group first.

Otherwise, if the other corporations had found He Xu first and exposed the situation, the accusation would have stuck whether it was true or not.

However, he wasn’t worried about Li Ye’s strength.

It was child’s play for a Time Traveler, transformed by Demon Qi, to awaken all 365 Life Stars. It hadn’t taken him long to light up all 365 of his own.

He breathed a huge sigh of relief, especially after confirming that Li Ye’s Demon Qi was an Erhu.

The difficulty in a confrontation between two Demon Qi lay in not knowing your enemy. Now that he knew his opponent’s Demon Qi was an Erhu, dealing with it would be simple.

An Erhu was a musical instrument. To spread its influence, it had to use the internet, which was under his strict control. As long as his opponent dared to show his face, Xue Yang was confident he could root him out.

Without the internet to spread its power, its strength would be limited, no matter how great.

‘This is a sure win!’

Xue Yang let out a soft breath and ordered, “Send people into the Ruins. Find out what happened there.”

“General Manager Xue, should we debunk the rumors?” his young secretary asked.

“No need,” Xue Yang said with a smile. “The Genetic Transformation Liquid was a fabrication to begin with. The innocent need no defense. A deliberate refutation will only make the situation spiral out of control. Just have some people muddy the waters.”

Having risen from the bottom, Xue Yang knew how ordinary people thought.

The more official the denial, the more people would believe the rumor.

Conversely, if he had a few people stir the pot a little, a bunch of “smart” people would jump out to help him disprove it.

As long as the foundation of Flat Pan wasn’t harmed and his opponent didn’t use the internet to promote the Erhu, everything would be fine…

“The Genetic Transformation Liquid is totally fake. Visibility in the Ruins is less than ten meters, so how could such a clear video get out? Who hires a dedicated cameraman while fighting a Shock Explosion Tiger?”

“A tier-five fighting a tier-seven can only mean one thing: either the Shock Explosion Tiger was already seriously injured, or there was a tier-nine providing Control Field on site.”

“It’s staged. Definitely staged. You can clearly see traces of special effects in the Star Skills he used.”

“To this day, has anyone even seen what this Genetic Transformation Liquid looks like? Forget lab personnel, not even a single residue has been found. It’s all just hearsay, and a bunch of you are being played for fools.”

“Then how do you explain what happened to the executives from the major corporations?”

“Chu Zhongyue from Star Map Group was investigated early on and personally released the announcement about the Genetic Transformation Liquid. If he was with the Ruins Base, there would be no reason for him to do that. And if he wasn’t with the Ruins Base, how did he escape and get back? In short, this whole farce is full of holes. There’s definitely a conspiracy, but it’s absolutely not about some Genetic Transformation Liquid.”

“It could also be that a real Genetic Transformation Liquid is about to be released, and this is just a dress rehearsal jointly conducted by the major corporations. Maybe in a little while, the real thing will come out, and after all this hype, its price will only be higher, not lower…”

Li Ye was perfectly aware of what was happening on the internet.

‘Idiot!’

‘The Ruins have already moved on to version 2.0, and you’re still fighting me with version 1.0 tactics.’

‘You deserve to be led around by the nose.’

Li Ye didn’t know if Xue Yang had entered the Ruins.

He could only gauge his opponent’s personality through his reactions. Judging by Xue Yang’s current countermeasures, he was a conservative and cautious person.

Until he figured out Li Ye’s abilities, it was highly unlikely his opponent would enter the Ruins.

But he would definitely send people into the Ruins to test the waters.

‘However, anyone who enters the Ruins is mine for the taking.’

Nan Shuyun asked, “Mr. Mu, He Xu and his group were taken from the school under the pretext of special recruitment. They must have fallen into Xue Yang’s hands. He’s also the one muddying the waters on the internet. How should we respond?”

“Have someone start spreading rumors about the Flat Pan Group’s food quality,” Li Ye said.

“Will that even work?” Nan Shuyun asked. “The Flat Pan Group is powerful. A topic like that would probably be banned the moment it’s posted. Everyone’s attention is on the Genetic Transformation Liquid right now. Even if we bring up food safety, it won’t make much of a splash.”

“I know. The point is to make Xue Yang underestimate us,” Li Ye said with a casual smile. “Just arrange for it to be done. Don’t worry about anything else. I know what I’m doing.”

“Understood,” Nan Shuyun replied and turned to leave.

“Do you know how to do it?” Li Ye called out, stopping her.

“Just say that Flat Pan’s food failed quality inspections,” Nan Shuyun said.

“No, start with the additives,” Li Ye said. “List the additives by their chemical names. Then, correlate that with the increase in hospital cases over the past few years to hit the Flat Pan Group with a heavy blow. You can exaggerate the number of cases a bit…”

“You Think You’re Eating Nutrients, But You’re Actually Swallowing Nine Deadly Additives”

“Three Meals a Day Could Mean Dozens of Additives Entering Our Stomachs…”

“Five years ago, the steamed buns we ate would get moldy in a few days. The ones made by the Flat Pan Group can last for half a year.”

“Excessive Additives Affect Metabolism, Increase Burden on Liver and Kidneys”

“Is It Really Okay to Eat Dozens of Additives a Day?”

“Who Will Be Responsible for Our Children’s Future?”

“The Flat Pan Group’s pre-made meals are all ‘chemistry and hardcore additives’—the most unscrupulous company in history…”

“Food is the staff of life. When our food is controlled by capital, what do we have left?”

In just two days, news about additives and food safety suddenly dominated the trending topics, fiercely competing with the Genetic Transformation Liquid for headlines and quickly igniting public opinion.

“FUCK! I never knew I was eating so many additives every single day!”

“I’ve been saying it for a while, the Flat Pan Group’s food smells unnaturally fragrant.”

“Fucking heartless bastards. I knew it! My checkups these past few years have shown all sorts of abnormal indicators. It was from eating Flat Pan’s food…”

“Now that I think about it, I haven’t cooked a meal for myself in almost two years.”

“Boycott Flat Pan! Boycott Xue Yang…”

Driven by an army of paid posters, a wave of boycotts against Flat Pan and pre-made meals swept across the internet in just a few days.

Even the Flat Pan Group’s official website was taken down by hackers.

But very quickly, the well-prepared Flat Pan Group immediately released videos of their production lines, their production bases, and even the food served daily in their corporate cafeterias.

There were also videos of cows grazing on prairie farms, chickens running freely in the mountains, the Flat Pan Group’s own agricultural lands, and footage showing that all their additives were extracted from natural foods…

The Flat Pan Group proactively invited people from all walks of life to visit their production and cultivation bases and provided authentic medical data from major health institutions.

One promotional video after another precisely dismantled all the rumors about the Flat Pan Group.

By filing lawsuits against the rumor-mongers, the Flat Pan Group further demonstrated that they had nothing to hide.

The advertising slogan, “Our food is cleaner than you think,” echoed throughout the Federation.

Not only did the rumors about additives fail to destroy the Flat Pan Group, but they actually boosted Xue Yang’s reputation to a new level. In the process, he was also cleared of the slander that the Flat Pan Group was the mastermind behind the Genetic Transformation Liquid.

“Is that all he’s got? Just a wet-behind-the-ears kid. He’s only capable of those little tricks from Earth…”

Xue Yang watched the farce on the internet with contempt, his disdain for Li Ye reaching its peak.

He had started as a chef, so he naturally knew that food safety was paramount.

From the very beginning of the Flat Pan Group’s establishment, he had prepared countermeasures for this exact scenario.

Lies and falsehoods will always be exposed, but the truth will not.

After Li Ye appeared, Xue Yang had anticipated that his opponent would target the Flat Pan Group’s food safety and had already prepared the videos to clear his name.

From the very beginning, he had never intended to use official power to take down the trending topics…