Chapter 344 Investigation of An Wuping
Chen Ming soon turned his attention to the motherships stained by the blood of the Zerg units.
The gray-green blood was the trace left by the Zerg fleet desperately trying to get past the battleship's shield.
The Zerg blood, like everything else controlled by Chen Ming, can provide him with vision as long as Chen Ming wants to, and can also mark the location of the mothership.
He can even use the Zerg blood to send the Afterglow Core, which is a mechanical structure.
It's self-evident what this means.
But so far, Zerg blood has only infected four motherships.
Only less than half of the number of motherships that Chen Ming speculated the machine race had.
If he did things early, Chen Ming felt that he might lose some things that he could have obtained.
Moreover, he did not find the fleet assistance from the foreign mechanical race that should have appeared.
The three capital ships used by the Machine Tribe to ambush him and the other fleets that followed did not look like external reinforcements.
Maybe it was because he acted too quickly and there were too many Zerg fleets, so the reinforcements from the mechanical race didn't come out in a hurry when they realized something was wrong.
So since the foreign mechanical race has not been exposed yet, Chen Ming really does not need to be so anxious to control those motherships.
It goes without saying which one is more valuable, four ships or ten ships.
He continued to observe in secret.
After just finishing the sweep of the Zerg fleet.
For some unknown reason, the four motherships started their jump engines again and dispersed to four different galaxies within the mechanical race star field.
Chen Ming speculated that they should be maintained.
Although they did not suffer much damage, they must have consumed a large amount of combat readiness supplies after destroying hundreds of thousands of Zerg cruisers, and maintenance was a necessary process.
But the specific situation is somewhat different from what Chen Ming had thought before.
They did not jump again or enter hyperspace back to the giant shipyard.
Instead, they directly found a planet in the galaxy where they jumped to and landed on it.
Through the Zerg blood remaining on the mothership, Chen Ming could see that the planets where the mothership landed had one thing in common, that is, there were large-scale mechanical buildings on them that looked very similar in appearance.
It looks like a factory.
The mothership landed in the center of these factory-like buildings on the planet's surface.
These similar colonial buildings on different planets all have large areas empty inside.
Just big enough for the mother ship to dock.
And just after the mothership landed.
Immediately, logistical machines came from all directions to repair the hull and replenish supplies.
It seems that these places are like maintenance centers specially designed for the mothership, and then work part-time as factories when the mothership does not need maintenance.
There should be such buildings scattered in many places throughout the star field, making it easier for the mothership to land at any time for repairs. It no longer has to be returned to the giant shipyard for repairs.
Chen Ming felt a little pity.
He would be happy if he went directly back to the giant shipyard.
But it's okay, at least such a place is still valuable. After all, it is a factory that can be used to repair battleships, and there should also be some preservation of technology related to battleships.
Chen Ming has started to move towards a higher level after learning the skills of cruisers some time ago.
So the technology in this factory is also valuable to him.
After confirming that there were no devices detecting psychic fluctuations near the factory, Chen Ming sent some iron atoms to the mothership through psychic energy.
These iron atoms were completely undetected.
Some of them moved forward easily and went underground.
And when these iron atoms reached the depths of the underground, Chen Ming continued to use spiritual energy to send several insect eggs there.
The queen immediately took over the eggs and began a new round of hatching and breeding.
Since the flesh and blood of the Zerg can send iron atoms to the battleship under the influence of Chen Ming's spiritual energy.
Then the metal can also send the flesh and blood of the Zerg here under the same conditions.
This operation of evading the eyes of all the mechanical tribes will soon give him an advantage that the mechanical tribes cannot imagine.
The remaining iron atoms are scattered to different corners of the entire maintenance center.
Chen Ming planned to go back and find an opportunity to control the maintenance center and its entire colony.
However, he planned not to directly control the four motherships, nor to control the mechanical units in the facility.
Mainly because the mechanical units he controls will turn into abnormal sub-individuals and be easily discovered by the mechanical units.
Anyway, the iron atoms have been left on the planet now, and the insect eggs have developed underground.
Unless the machine race has the ability to inspect every inch of land and every atom of the entire planet, it is impossible to erase his influence.
The influence cannot be erased. Sooner or later, the mothership and the colony of this mechanical race will be his.
And for Chen Ming, the importance of the mechanical family's mothership is quite high.
Since it is unlikely that he will come into contact with the two giant shipyards of the Machinery Clan in a short period of time.
Controlling these maintenance centers can be regarded as a substitute. Controlling the maintenance centers will give you more opportunities to contact more mechanical battleships and more mechanical motherships.
If you hold back, you will gain more pieces.
Of course, the premise is that the mothership needs to enter the port for maintenance. Chen Ming cannot affect the mothership that does not enter the port for maintenance through the maintenance center.
As a battleship, the mothership of the Machine Tribe is different from the battleship of the Imperial Afterglow.
The mothership of the mechanical family also plays the role of a mobile factory to a certain extent.
It can use factories to manufacture combat readiness supplies and various mechanical families, and it can also use factories for self-repair.
As long as the supplies are sufficient, the mechanical clan's mothership can operate outside for a long time without the need to frequently return to port to replenish combat readiness.
Unless they run out of supplies or suffer major damage that is difficult to repair themselves, they generally will not return to the giant shipyard or repair center.
The reason why the four motherships landed this time is because Chen Ming's hundreds of thousands of Zerg cruisers allowed the mechanical race to fight until the supplies were almost exhausted.
Therefore, Chen Ming had to create more opportunities to force the mothership to take action.
Not to mention the problem of material consumption, if the number of battles between the mothership and the Zerg increases, Chen Ming will have a greater probability of affecting the mothership through the blood tissue of the Zerg.
The way to force the mothership to take action is very simple, to create a situation where only the mothership can solve the problem.
Chen Ming opened the star map on the console at the highest point in front of him.
Compared to the last time he looked at the star map, there were a few more things on the star map in front of him. Some marks marked the important land surfaces that Bai Quan had told him before.
Among them, the ten most obvious signs are the mechanical clan's psychic signal generator, two giant shipyards, and seven star gates.
These ten galaxies are the most important information to the mechanical race.
If you want to force the Machine Clan mothership to dispatch, it should be easiest to go to these places to cause trouble.
And it just so happened that these places, whether they were star gates, giant shipyards, or generators for the mechanical clan to release psychic signals, were all valuable things in Chen Ming's opinion.
Especially the stargate and the giant shipyard.
The former is of great significance to Chen Ming's colony.
After all, the location where Chen Ming's colony will be built in the future is absolutely far away from the empire, and the existence of the Star Gate can shorten this distance.
And as long as both ends of the Star Gate are controlled by his hands, the distance can even be shortened in one direction.
Although the star gate has problems such as high energy consumption.
But for Chen Ming, energy is the least important issue.
With the existence of the Zerg, he can completely use the planet as fuel and convert it into energy crystals.
Make up for the shortcomings of using star gates.
As long as he is given the opportunity to contact the Star Gate, he can directly steal the entire Star Gate.
As for the latter's giant shipyard, as a production base for capital ships, there is nothing to say about its value.
After experiencing hundreds of thousands of Zergs, the cruise fleet chose to fight to the death against the three battleships. However, the biggest result in the end was that the remaining lower fleets following the three battleships were completely destroyed, and the three main battleships Only a small part of the ship's armor was damaged.
Chen Ming's desire for capital ships has gone from coveting them to being something he must acquire.
A giant shipyard capable of producing capital ships, not to mention.
Although he had a blueprint, what he obtained was an early blueprint, and the technology was relatively backward.
What's more, the cost of manufacturing is not as low as the cost of robbing.
Why build it if you can rob it?
However, these important places on the star map are all within the mechanical race star field.
Although Chen Ming can rely on his spiritual power to carry out jump raids into the interior of the Mechanical Tribe's star field, he can also use his spiritual power to retreat if he is pursued.
But if he fails to achieve his goal in the first raid, and his goal is discovered by the Machine Tribe, the Machine Tribe may concentrate its efforts on protecting those important landmarks, which will make subsequent operations more troublesome.
Therefore, Chen Ming's goals can only be placed on those galaxies close to the border of the Mechanical Race Star Domain for the time being.
Use attacking these places as a means to attract the mothership's attention.
Anyway, the mothership is also one of his targets.
As long as his actions can attract the mothership, it will be considered as not in vain, just keep doing it slowly.
Chen Ming's eyes scanned the star map in front of him.
Soon he chose a star area on the edge of the mechanical race's star field and also located in a small nebula.
This star area in the nebula is rich in mineral resources.
Not only are there various asteroid mineral resources in space, but most of the planets in this nebula have rich mineral distribution on their surfaces and underground.
These galaxies are important resource producing areas for the Mechanical Clan, and can also be said to be an important guarantee for the Mechanical Clan’s logistics.
At the same time, those mineral veins can also become an important source of energy for the Zerg.
After determining the goal of the next action.
Chen Ming moved his gaze to the Insect Queen.
The Insect Queen is still on the Insect Hive Planet that is about to start exploiting the resources at the core of the planet.
And this insect nest planet has now been greatly reduced.
A larger Zerg fleet than before is waiting quietly in orbit.
It feels like it won't be long before the entire planet will disappear into the universe.
It's not important.
Anyway, there are countless planets in the universe that have no development value, and there is no use in themselves.
For the Zerg, these planets with no development value are treasure troves containing endless energy that no one or anything can get their hands on.
Just when Chen Ming asked the Zerg fleet to start its next move.
Something suddenly happened over An Wuping's side.
"It's really here."
Chen Ming said secretly. Instead of rushing to let the Zerg fleet set off again, the Zerg Queen began to reorganize the fleet.
After something happened over An Wuping's side, there was no need to stay on the insect nest planet that had been mostly mined.
The insect queen needs to go elsewhere to find the next...or the next hundred insect nest planets.
Maybe it's near the mechanical tribe's star field, or maybe it's near Chen Ming's pioneering land.
After arranging the tasks for the Insect Queen.
Chen Ming transferred his main consciousness to An Wuping, who had lived peacefully for a period of time.
An Wuping just opened the door to his room under the control of part of his consciousness.
Standing outside the door were Liang Fei and Li Wei.
Both of their faces were very solemn, and they seemed to be worried about something.
Specifically, Chen Ming felt that An Wuping was the one he was worried about.
After all, although his main consciousness has never been here, part of his consciousness has been paying attention here, and has been controlling An Wuping to do what An Wuping should do.
For example, while Chen Ming's body and other prostheses are working hard, he can travel around and enjoy delicious food to relieve mental stress.
and new relationships with colleagues and friends.
Of course, the people who got along best with An Wuping were Liang Fei and Li Wei, who had a fateful friendship on Yunluoxing.
In particular, the relationship between Li Wei and An Wuping is even closer. After all, Li Wei was able to leave Yunluoxing alive because An Wuping saved his life with his spiritual power.
So now, after Chen Ming took the initiative to leak information related to the Zerg, and the An Wuping incident happened, the two of them behaved like this.
However, Chen Ming still pretended to know nothing and asked: "What's wrong?"
"Someone is looking for you."
"What happened?"
"I don't know. It seems that the minister of an independent supervision department of the empire in our government department was arranged by someone very high up. Please pay more attention."
"Okay."
Chen Minggang agreed.
His terminal received a call.
It was Liang Fei's boss, who could also be considered An Wuping's current boss, who called and asked Chen Ming to go to a place in the government office building.
Chen Ming nodded to the two people in front of him and set off immediately.
Soon, he came to the government building where he had worked for a while, and came to a corner room that he had never been to despite working here for so long.
There was a man in a suit wearing sunglasses at the door. He nodded when he saw Chen Ming coming over, and made way for Chen Ming to enter.
Chen Ming took another look at him and felt that this man seemed to be from the empire.
But he said nothing and kept his hand on the doorknob.
His movements suddenly stopped.
Because he could feel that the door handle in front of him, the entire door, and even the wall next to the door, the entire room were made of silent alloy.
Do you need to be so serious?
Chen Ming frowned, but still pushed open the door of the closed room.
There was only a table, two chairs, and a lamp embedded in the wall above the head.
There is also a person sitting on a chair.
Nothing else,
"Hello, An Wuping, we must have met a few times during this time, right?"
The person sitting waved his hand towards Chen Ming, indicating that Chen Ming should sit down opposite him.
After Chen Ming sat down, he nodded and said: "Yes, Minister Hou from the National Supervision Department, do you have anything to do with me?"
Minister Hou pushed a few photos to An Wuping and said, "You take a look at these first."
Chen Ming took the photos and found that the ones above were the same photos that Chen Ming gave to Bai Quan before.
I can only say that the news spread a bit fast.
And the empire's reaction speed is also a bit fast.
Chen Ming thought this, making An Wuping look expressionless.
"Did you have any cooperation with Chen Ming? Did you work together to create those Zerg biological spaceships?"
Minister Hou said with a sincere look: "It's not that you can't cooperate in private, but Zerg-related matters involve all aspects."
"The Thorne Zerg were once enemies of the Empire, but now they have evolved the ability to compete with the Empire and have even begun to expand. Therefore, we must understand and have countermeasures."
"Personally, I absolutely trust you to be a good person based on what you did before."
"But not the Thrawn, and the Empire needs to know more"
An Wuping sighed and asked: "What do you think now?"
Upon hearing the word "you", Minister Hou immediately changed his attitude of pretending to be stupid and asked very decisively and quickly: "Do you know Chen Ming?"
Just as he asked this, his eyes were focused on An Wuping's face, trying to use his sudden attack to find out something from An Wuping.
Of course Chen Ming would not let him down, and he immediately performed a performance that caused some changes in An Wuping's micro-expression.
These changes told Minister Hou that An Wuping did know Chen Ming.
Therefore, even if An Wuping is silent now, it will not affect Minister Hou's understanding of some information that he thinks is correct.
Minister Hou continued: "As far as we know, Chen Ming has been using his psychic powers to expand externally, and he started a long time ago."
"And that insect nest planet is on the route he pioneered, and it's not too far away from the empire. As long as you go out and explore a little, you can easily find it, but..."
"He hid the existence of this planet, and even went out of his way to hide it."
"Even when guiding the fleet of the Fourteenth Legion to which he now belongs, he deliberately avoided it."
"Chen Ming is a psyker related to machinery and spaceships. We can't imagine the reason why he helped the Zerg hide the existence of this planet..."
"But we want to get the reason why he helped you hide it."
"Your psychic power will definitely allow you to be at home on that planet, and a powerful psychic who is homeless and unable to return to the empire is also worthy of Chen Ming's attention."
An Wuping suddenly lowered his head to avoid letting Minister Hou see the expression on his face.
However, the image of his hands intertwined under the table was quickly captured by the surveillance camera and brought to Minister Hou's eyes.
Minister Hou still said nothing, and just continued to tell his speculation: "Chen Ming definitely discovered this insect nest planet on the way to open up, and discovered you, or you discovered him, and the two of you had a friendly exchanges and reached cooperation.”
"He provides you with a spaceship, allowing the Zerg to evolve the same capabilities as the spaceship to help you return to the empire."
"And you agreed to some of his requests or conditions."
"Joining the Psychic Society should be one of them."
Ah this...
Chen Ming was a little embarrassed. It seemed that An Wuping's decisive agreement to join the psychic association had aggravated the people in the empire's suspicion of the relationship between An Wuping and himself.
But this can be considered a good thing. At least in this way, the possibility of An Wuping being Chen Ming is further reduced.
At least for now, no one in the empire except the boss would doubt this.
Who would have thought that Chen Ming, a person who is closely related to machinery, would suddenly be related to creatures like Zerg.
An Wuping continued to lower his head and said: "What exactly do you want to say?"
Minister Hou's tone became serious, but considering An Wuping's behavior all the time, he subconsciously softened his tone slightly and said: "I just want to confirm something, whether the Thorn Zerg is a threat to the empire."
"..."
An Wuping was silent for a while and responded: "It won't happen, at least not mine."
"Oh? The ones you control?"
"Tsk."
An Wuping raised his head and said, "Let me start from the beginning. I concealed some information last time."
"I am not just a worker insect on that insect hive planet, I actually established a spiritual link with the insect queen on that insect hive planet."
"I lived like a fish in water on that planet, but it was not a human planet after all."
Seeing that An Wuping's attitude was quite cooperative, Minister Hou immediately relaxed his tone and asked softly: "So what I just said..."
"Almost, but my bug had some conflicts with Chen Ming at the beginning. We didn't get to know each other until after the conflict was over. We don't know each other until we fight."
"After he learned about my abilities, he gave me a spaceship and asked me to use the Zerg to transform into a biological spaceship for him. Then he gave me the opportunity to escape from that planet and return to the empire."
"You can ask anything else you want to ask. I will tell you everything I can."
Minister Hou was very satisfied with An Wuping's attitude and immediately asked a key question: "Can Chen Ming's spiritual energy control the biological spacecraft?"
"Chen Ming originally asked me to build a biological spaceship for this purpose, but it didn't work."
"The biological spaceship just looks like a spaceship, but it is actually a super-large Thorn Zerg, so Chen Ming cannot control it."
"All the Zergs on that planet, all the Zerg biological spaceships, only listen to the instructions of the insect queen who is connected to my spiritual power."
"Wait a minute."
Minister Hou took the terminal to record what An Wuping said. When he heard the spiritual link, he immediately stopped and asked, "You have a spiritual link with that insect queen. Doesn't it matter to you now?"
"It's okay. Chen Ming and I have done a lot of cooperative experiments together before. We also tested it when the spiritual link was temporarily disconnected. Basically, we didn't have much of an impression. But I don't know what the queen will do if it goes too long."
As a member of the ruling party of the empire, Minister Hou happened to know some of the conflicts between Chen Ming and the Fifth Army.
After hearing that An Wuping and Chen Ming had conducted many cooperative experiments, I suddenly understood why Chen Ming had a conflict with the Fifth Army.
Chen Ming must have contributed to An Wuping's return to the empire.
And for An Wuping, a former commoner, to have such a great hatred for Zuo Jing, and to accurately find Zuo Jing's location after returning to the empire, Chen Ming must have contributed.
The relationship between the two is definitely not just as simple as partners, at least it has a closer relationship.
Therefore, when Chen Ming learned that what the Fifth Legion did might lead to An Wuping's death, of course he would be angry.
The situations before and after were connected, and Minister Hou believed that the facts were what he thought now.
Although Chen Ming himself is considered a dangerous person, it is his spiritual power that is dangerous, not him as a person.
Chen Ming's character has always been very good in the eyes of most people.
Except that the incident with the Fourteenth Legion last time was a bit violent.
But as long as they understand the reasons, most people will understand that the biggest problem is the Legion itself.
Although An Wuping is extremely violent and even suffered from mild mania some time ago, he is also quite a good person.
Therefore, it is normal for Minister Hou that these two people do not know each other without fighting.
The doubts he had always had about the relationship between An Wuping and Chen Ming were gradually disappearing as he asked An Wuping.
Of course, he disappeared again and again, but he still wouldn't forget the questions he needed to ask.
(End of chapter)