Chapter 588: Entering the Medical Field
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Caron_
At the signing of the peace agreement, Jiang Chen saw Aquino's comical face. From the puffy dark undereye circles and white hairs, his face was mixed in with some tragic colors.
Under the flashing of the reporters' cameras, Aquino walked up and shook the hand of the muscular Santos.
Santos gave him a smile, but he replied with a smile more ugly than upset.
Finally, the cameras hovered on the two pairs of hands holding the peace agreement. They both signed their names on the agreement and declared the conclusion of the civil war to the world.
Outside the view of the cameras, the actual facilitators behind the peaceful negotiation, Jiang Chen and Reston, were witnessing the historic moment from afar.
"I hope this is the last time." Reston stared into Jiang Chen's eyes. "You already reached our bottom line. Do you want to know the percentage in favor of war?"
"I don't want to know." Jiang Chen shook his head with a smile. "But you should know my bottom line as well."
One pistol, regardless how many bullets it contained, was still a gun when held in a baby's hands. Or rather, because it was held in a baby's hands, it was more dangerous. As long as the baby wasn't too greedy, everyone could still coexist peacefully.
Reston gave Jiang Chen a long and deep look.
"Also, CIB's agents will arrive at the MLL Islands to search for the missing fighter pilot, Gordon. I hope your people will cooperate."
"You should tell that to Santos - he's the actual owner of the island. But I think if you don't do anything sneaky, you won't be turned away by them."
...
Jiang Chen had already ordered people to search for that pilot. Moro sent out a team to search through the mountainous forests in MLL Island too, since a UA pilot would be an important chip on the bargaining table. Unfortunately, neither Celestial Trade nor Moro discovered the whereabouts of the pilot.
Optimistically, the unlucky guy may have been blown into the volcano on the island.
Reston scoffed. He lit up his own cigar and got into the car that came to pick him up.
Jiang Chen stood at the ceremony for a while, gazing at the olive branch on the flying United Nations flag and a contemptuous smile appeared on his face.
Before the applause started, he turned around and left.
…
The war was over, and Moro owed Celestial Trade a total of 1.25 billion USD. Frankly speaking, if it wasn't for the infectious situation in City K raising his alarm, he would've wanted to drag the war on for longer. The more money Moro owed to Celestial Trade, the more control Celestial Trade would have over them and the more Moro would depend on Xin.
MLL Island was previously Country F's poorest southern area; there was no way they could pay out 1.25 billion dollars. The money could only be paid back in rich, undeveloped mining resources and fertile soils. These things were what Jiang Chen wanted the most.
The resources and land were critical to Xin. Currently, Xin and the apocalypse's mining resources and farm products were mostly imported from Australia. Although Xin had a good relationship with them, it wasn't the best to depend on someone else.
But currently speaking, Australia had no comments on the situation at Country F. They didn't want to offend Xin with a great economic outlook for Country F. Australia was in the midst of isolationism, no different from UA in the 90s.
Because of the peace agreement coming into effect, Celestial Trade withdrew the deployed frigate and the thousand Marines on MLL Island, leaving only 100 soldiers in City K for the purpose of maintaining local security in tandem with the local forces.
Yes, they were no longer called the guerillas. After the peace agreement came into effect, they became a sovereign country recognized by the United Nations. Their forces would naturally be called the government forces.
Three days after the peace agreement.
"Currently, there are over 100,000 zombies in the east of the city. Our plan is to use the Scorpion Tanks captured from Country F and form a tank battalion to recapture the five bridges that span across the river. Then we will use barbed fences to create a separation zone and gradually recover the area in the east…"
Moro 11th brigade commander, Chen Zhitian, was standing beside Jiang Chen, discussing the zombie problem in the city.
"No need to go to such trouble." Jiang Chen shook his head.
Chen Zhitian looked over at Jiang Chen with questions in his eyes while waiting for him to continue.
"T-virus - this is what our scientist named the virus. Based on clinical experiments, the virus' ability to withstand UV is extremely low, and the duration of time the virus can survive outside the body is short. As long as we maintain the quarantine in the city, the possibility of the infection spreading is low. As for the zombies… just wait for them to starve to death."
"Starve to death?" Chen Zhitian looked at Jiang Chen in shock.
"That's right." Jiang Chen nodded.
The zombies in City K were inherently different from the zombies in the apocalypse; the differences were mostly reflected in the infection mechanism. One was a viral infection whereas the other was a bacterial infection. While the former destroyed the human nervous and immune systems, it didn't resolve the zombie's energy problem. The latter was a mutated bacteria used to cleanse radiation. After finding a host, it could use the host for photosynthesis.
Any creature without food intake would die.
Even zombies couldn't escape the law of nature. As long as the zombies didn't eat each other, they would last for a month at most before they turned into dried flesh. Jiang Chen would just need to prepare a few more burners to get rid of the dead corpses.
The only problematic thing was that since the zombies had no immune system, their bodies were starting to decompose. Without containment, there was a risk of a plague erupting in the city.
Doctors from international aid organizations had already entered the safe zone and started to examine the survivors there. This included researchers from international pharmaceutical companies. Everyone wanted to understand the secret behind the virus in order to create the vaccine that could protect against it.
Under Jiang Chen's recommendations, Santos pushed out a strategy completely different from the Aquino government and didn't prevent international aid organizations from entering the city of Kejia, since Moro was too poor to fully contain the plague.
At the same time, a subsidiary of Future Group, Future Biology, held a news conference suggesting its expansion into the medical field while they sent a research team into the city of Kejia to participate in the research of T virus. The CEO of Future Biology, Tao Ming, also suggested that the researchers of Future Biology would conduct work independently without cooperation with other international medical teams.
Jiang Chen had been planning to enter the medical industry, and the infection Future Biology was working on only sped up his plan.
The T virus that shocked the world was the perfect opportunity to enter the market. Future Biology would use people's fear of the virus to make its mark in the industry. At the same time, to prevent this virus from spreading in their own country, all countries would, without a doubt, pay for the vaccine.
After the researchers in the modern world scanned the DNA of the virus, Jiang Chen went to the apocalypse and left everything to Lin Lin, who had nothing to do because of the heavy snowfall. Based on what she said, it wasn't a big deal to take care of the virus at all.
Just like that, time quickly passed to the tail end of January.
The previous virtual reality MMORPG planned for launch at the beginning of January was postponed to the end of January because of the president's air crash. There were around 100 million Phantom users around the world eagerly waiting for the launch of Godly Land.
But just then, a piece of news caught Jiang Chen's attention…