Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 131

Chapter 131 - A Tigers Claws

Having to bow out of their last night together was more than a little unfortunate, but Xiaoyi had gotten a good enough read on Eventus at this point to know that he was the type who wouldn't expect more than she directly offered. So while it was a shame to lose out on what would likely have been a pleasure filled last night together, that was decidedly less important than dealing with whatever idiots had decided to push today's overly aggressive approach.

Which was why she was currently at the local government offices in Jinhua, where for the last three hours she'd been calling in various favors that she'd been saving up to put an end to whatever political posturing was going on behind the scenes before it ruined everything she had actually managed to accomplish.

The door to the secure conference room opened, admitting the last, and only other in person, member of this particular emergency meeting.

“Bai.” She greeted the cross looking man as he walked in. 

Stalking over to the chair at the other end of the rectangular conference table, he settled into the chair and turned to her with a look of self-importance that she was going to enjoy watching collapse. “Shen.” He finally returned. “Shouldn't you be busy working to accomplish your assigned mission?”

“My assigned mission was to make sure the Ancient came away from this trip with a favorable impression of us.” Xiaoyi snapped, making sure her words were clear enough that the handful of listeners on the open conference line would have no trouble catching them. “A task all signs suggest I have succeeded in beyond expectations.”

And she had worked hard to make sure those expectations were the only ones officially resting on her just in case a need to burn her bridges like this with certain factions wanting more came up. 

Bai rolled his eyes. “Ah yes, the Ancient’s sudden desire to invest Yuan into our production studios. Such a daring accomplishment on your part that I'm sure will compare well to the American's new moon base.”

“And aggressively attempting to honeytrap him is so much more useful?” Xiaoyi shot back. “How good are the backgrounds you set up for those agents? Deep level?”

“Of course.” Bai confirmed, perfectly playing into Xiaoyi's hand. “Copies of their employment history were slipped into the studio's records, their personas were connected to dummy bank accounts, and we even set up one of those new Qzone pages for one of them.”

“So you're confirming you left a digital trail.” Xu Yongyue's voice echoed out angrily from the triangular speaker on the table.

The color rapidly drained from Bai’s face. “Min… Minister Xu…”

“Among others.” Xu confirmed with a humph. “Representitive Shen was just briefing us on the various successes and failures of operation Wan Hu.”

Xiaoyi offered Bai a smug smile while mentally rolling her eyes at the name choice. “And there have been a startling number of failures.”

Not especially, at least not yet, but what was important here was the perception that there had been a large number of failures.

Bai’s eyes snapped to her, and an ugly look flashed across his features before settling into a scowl. “I don’t know what Representative Shen might have told you, but so far the only failures have been connected to her sabotaging my team's attempts to get close to the Ancient.”

“Attempts to get close to the Ancient which were never authorized.” Xu growled.

The frown on Bai’s face was likely real, because they both knew those orders had absolutely been given. However it was clear that he was too low status to know the distinct difference between verbal orders and those that were handed down in writing. The only question now was whether the man had the sense to realize just what sort of position he was currently in.

“Ambassador Zhou and Minister Li were very clear with their orders, sir.” Bai insisted, answering that particular question in one of the more unfortunate ways.

“I certainly did not order that.” Li Zhaoxing’s voice joined in, an absolute lie Xiaoyi knew, but a person didn’t get a ministerial position without knowing how to climb to higher grounds when the tides began to rise around them. “The Ancient’s technical capabilities are far too great to risk drawing his in depth attention to that type of undercover agent.”

“Far too much of a risk.” Xiaoyi agreed sweetly.

Spelling out how Eventus’s tablet had been able to functionally ignore nearly every bit of digital security they had just because he had done the equivalent of a Baidu search for pictures of her in the Olympics had been something of a risk. Fortunately Minister Xu had been more concerned with the greater potential of that ability instead of the fact that she’d potentially drawn the Ancient’s attention to their less than clean Olympic history.

“As it is.” Xu angrily interjected. “We are going to have to completely scrub all records of the four Dongzhen agents and leave them permanently within the identities you’ve set up for them lest the Ancient later decide to investigate the ‘helpful serving girls’.”

Given everything Xiaoyi had seen so far, the only one of the four that Eventus might ever even think twice about was Lai Jun. But the petty annoyances she’d been subjected to the past three days had their price, and slightly exaggerating his care while suggesting a solution to the potential problem that left ‘Zou Fu’ in a ‘lifelong’ position she was sure to despise had been more than a little satisfying.

“A significant loss given the cost and time investment of training such agents.” She added in to twist the knife just a small bit more.

“Exactly.” Xu agreed, the word causing the angry glare Bai was shooting Xiaoyi to intensify in a way the woman knew meant the Supervisor had finally recognized that he was the one being set up to be the scapegoat in all this.

“Representitive Shen was heading the mission!” He nearly yelled. “She succeeded in plying her skills and seduced the Ancient on their first night together!”

“I’d say it was more of a mutual seduction.” Xiaoyi corrected in an overly prim tone that she was happy to see made Bai’s eye visibly twitch. “But as to heading a seduction mission, the only orders I received from Minister Li were to make sure the Ancient enjoyed his time here.”

“Representitive Shen has the lead position in dealing with Aliens because of how little risk the possibility of her being compromised represents.” Xu added in, the direct voicing of that long accepted fact making Xiaoyi flinch slightly.

“But Ambassador Zhou…” Bai began, only to pause as his look of quickly mounting panic slowly morphed into the wide eyed one of someone who had just realized they had at least one potential lifeline out of the deluge they’d found themselves in. “told me that the mission was a direct order handed down from Minister Li.”

That it had taken the man that long to clue in to the direction they were all leading him didn’t suggest good things for his future career prospects. But Xiaoyi supposed being relegated to filling out paperwork in a small office somewhere was better than spending the rest of his life in prison because he couldn’t read the room.

“Oh?” Li put forward with a tone of clearly overexaggerated interest. “So you’re suggesting that Ambassador Zhou attempted to claim my authorization for the attempted mission without actually possessing it?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Bai agreed with a series of rapid nods. “Will you need me to write a statement confirming that?”

“Yes.” Li confirmed, and the sound of shuffling papers momentarily came across the speaker. “You can send it in alongside Representative Shen’s.”

“Just hand it to the agent with the secure document bag waiting outside the door.” Xiaoyi told him, knowing the implied threat of that would be enough to keep the man from getting any second thoughts.

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Author’s Notes: Getting Minister Xu to back her against Minister Li like that cost Xiaoyi a lot of favors that she had been banking for her eventual exit from the land of politics. But the volleyball to the face was the last straw in pushing her towards going all in with her current gamble. And well, she is very good at her job.