Improved Model

The wind howled noisily tonight.

South Manila was a bustling district, blazing with lights.

In a villa compound belonging exclusively to the Fernando family, several SUVs slowly pulled up in front of a large villa. The villa stood on a plot of land spanning hundreds of acres, with a garden, a swimming pool, a garage, and a wine cellar.

Garfield got out of the car. The butler at the entrance said respectfully, "Young Master Garfield, the master and the Patriarch of the Lopez family are in the living room."

"Is that so? They got here pretty fast." Garfield chuckled and walked through the villa's front door.

As the butler led the way, he quietly reminded him, "Young Master Garfield, the master is very angry about what happened tonight, and the Lopez family is under a lot of pressure too."

"Nuka, how many years have you served the Fernando family?" Garfield suddenly asked.

The question caught Butler Nuka off guard. He couldn't help grumbling inwardly, What's wrong with this kid? Has he lost his mind? At a time like this...

Although he felt Garfield had no sense of what mattered, Butler Nuka still replied with a smile, "This old servant has worked for the Fernando family for thirty-two years."

"Is that so? It's been that long already?"

As they talked, they crossed the long corridor and the garden, then arrived in the reception room, its floor covered with Persian rugs.

Two old men were drinking coffee on the sofa. When Garfield walked in, they both set down their cups.

"Garfield, what do you have to say for yourself about what happened tonight?" The speaker looked gaunt and old, but his eyes were like those of a venomous snake in the jungle, ready to devour its prey at any moment.

This was Garfield's father, Jacques Fernando, the current Patriarch of the Fernando family.

The old man beside him, on the other hand, looked prosperous and well-fed. The fat on his face squeezed his eyes into narrow slits, and he showed no reaction to Garfield's arrival.

Garfield walked over without a trace of respect and sat on the sofa opposite them.

"My father, you once taught me a lesson: when you do something, you have to see it through. Like a python in a swamp, you have to squeeze your prey tightly until it suffocates."

"Do you think you're strong enough to challenge me now?" Jacques Fernando asked calmly.

The smiling Patriarch of the Lopez family interjected with a reminder. "Garfield, I don't want to get involved in the affairs of the Fernando family. But you owe me an explanation for what happened tonight."

"An explanation? Don't worry. I'll make sure you're satisfied." Garfield smiled and glanced at his watch.

Eighteen minutes had passed since he entered the villa.

"Hm?" Dolittle Lopez heard a buzzing sound by his ear and noticed a few mosquitoes on his arm. He casually waved them away, then looked at Garfield.

But soon, he saw double. "What's going on?"

"Ugh..." Jacques also felt dizzy. He looked at his son in confusion. "You..."

Butler Nuka looked just as shocked, then slowly collapsed.

By now, dozens of bodyguards and servants throughout the villa, along with several of Jacques's wives and his three children, had all fallen unconscious.

Meanwhile, the soldiers who had come with Garfield quickly took control of the entire villa.

The other villas nearby were quite far away. After all, this was the richest part of the wealthy district, and the walls were built especially high. Neighbors could hardly see what was happening next door.

That gave the wealthy privacy.

Tonight, it also made Garfield's operation easier.

In the silent reception room, Garfield sat on the sofa as footsteps sounded behind him.

"You're here."

"Aren't you going to step out for a while?" The speaker was a short young man carrying a briefcase.

Garfield shook his head. "There's no need. Since I've decided to work for the boss, there's nothing to worry about. Bagheera, stop dragging your feet and wasting time."

If this had been the old Garfield, he would never have said that. But after several months of constant, subtle influence, the psychological suggestion function of the Biochip had worked surprisingly well.

By now, Garfield had long since cast aside the interests of the Fernando family and his so-called relatives.

Besides, he had never felt much affection for his father, Jacques. People born into great families were often the most pragmatic and rational.

Bagheera shrugged, then instructed his men to move Jacques Fernando and the others from the sofa onto a trolley.

They wheeled them into the garage.

A minibus was parked inside. When they opened its doors, they revealed a set of modified medical examination equipment, including an X-ray machine.

Jacques was strapped securely to a hospital bed and given another dose of a specialized anesthetic before various monitoring devices were attached to him.

Bagheera opened the briefcase.

Inside was a row of specially made syringes. He took one out and pried Jacques's eyes open. Watching the computer display showing the X-ray imaging, he carefully guided the needle through the eye socket and into the prefrontal lobe of Jacques's brain.

When the X-ray image showed the needle had reached the intended position, he slowly injected the liquid inside the syringe.

The liquid contained an improved version of the Biochip, changed from its previous solid form into a liquid.

The improved Biochip model used blue-green algae as its base. After Gene recombination, it formed individual free-floating cells. When stimulated by pheromones and hormones, these cells could combine into a Biochip aggregate.

The main reasons for this improvement were to reduce the time needed for surgery, avoid leaving obvious surgical marks, and shorten the recovery period.

After injecting the Biochip into the target's brain, Bagheera immediately took out specially prepared hormone and pheromone injections and injected them into Jacques's veins.

In about forty minutes, the Biochip's cellular units would join together to form a functional Biochip aggregate.

As for the Gene Modification that would disable the gene sequences in Jacques's prefrontal lobe and reproductive system, that could be done later, after things had settled down.

In any case, the Biochip now had a computing capacity of 3,600 trillion and 600 TB of storage, while the soldier program was also gradually being improved.

Li Qingye knew that someone like Jacques, whose mind had already set in its ways, wasn't suitable for joining the Web. If he decided to go down fighting, all the arrangements they had made within the Fernando family could be ruined.

Besides, it was enough to have two members of the Fernando family join the Web. There was no need to bring another old fox into the fold.

Besides Jacques, Butler Nuka and Dolittle Lopez, the Patriarch of the Lopez family, were also targets who had to be brought under control.

A little over an hour later, the Biochips in the three men's brains began to activate. To prevent them from getting out of control, the soldier program had already suppressed their consciousness, making them think they were asleep.

In reality, however, the soldier program was in control of their bodies.

To keep the Lopez family from noticing anything amiss, Garfield personally led a group to take Dolittle back to the Lopez family villa nearby.

The Lopez family bodyguards who had been waiting outside the villa hadn't noticed anything wrong with their Patriarch. After all, they couldn't imagine anyone taking control of a person in just over an hour.