Harvest

"Mom, I'm at the company. I'm handling company matters right now."

Mark kept the camera away from the airplane window, making Rosalie think he was in his office.

He had also ordered the two bodyguards who came with him not to tell Rosalie that he was on a plane.

"Okay. I've already helped you request an extended leave from school. But according to school rules, you can only take a maximum of twenty-one days off."

"Once the time is up, you'll need to return to school for exams. You can only continue taking leave after you pass."

Mark was quite satisfied with that arrangement.

With his abilities, passing elementary school exams would naturally be no problem. He could simply request more leave afterward.

After ending his call with Rosalie, Mark started a video call with Silas Knight, the president of Payne Games.

Silas had already been the president of the game company before Mark acquired it, and Mark had not made any personnel changes for the time being.

Whether Silas could keep his position as president in the future would depend on his performance.

"Mr. Payne, Myth of Heroes has now reached 1.5 million users. Player spending yesterday amounted to $137,000."

Silas reported to Mark.

"Not bad. More and more players are starting to pay!"

Mark nodded in satisfaction.

Online games had longer lifespans. As long as they could continue attracting players, the revenue could keep flowing.

"How many users does Panda Chat have now?"

Mark continued asking.

Panda Chat could not make a profit in the short term and would even require constant investment.

But Mark knew that the software had enormous potential in the future, so he remained very attentive to it.

"Panda Chat currently has 3.16 million registered users. Aside from users of the company's two games, some internet users have also downloaded and registered for the software on their own."

"It already has 3.16 million users!"

For an instant messaging app that had only recently launched, Mark was quite satisfied with that many registered users.

He did not plan to promote the software through advertising. That kind of expense was simply a bottomless pit.

It was better to use the appeal of the games to increase Panda Chat's user base.

After ending the call, Mark realized that the flight had been underway for nearly eight hours and had entered Polynesian airspace.

Then, under Dalton's command, the plane slowly descended toward the capital airport of Polynesia.

The plane had to refuel there before it could continue flying.

[Sunlight Value: 2127]

Looking at his current Sunlight Value, Mark nodded in satisfaction.

The Sunlight Value he had collected during those eight hours of flight was equivalent to at least two months' worth of collection on the ground.

The plane had departed Los Angeles at nine in the morning. Because it had been flying in the same direction as the sun, it was only one in the afternoon in Polynesia.

After the plane was refueled and the crew had rotated, it took off again.

"Mark, a suspicious target has been spotted near the house!"

Not long after the plane took off, Mark suddenly received an alert from Alice.

At the same time, she projected several images onto the large screen in the cabin.

The footage showed the same young white man wearing a baseball cap. At different times, he had been circling around Mark's house.

He occasionally spoke with passing residents, seemingly asking them for information.

Several images showed the young white man looking up in the direction of Mark's house.

If it had only been a single image, it might have been a coincidence and proved nothing.

But the drones had detected him in the area for so many consecutive days. That could not be explained by coincidence.

"Looks like someone sent a scout to investigate our house."

Mark's gaze instantly turned cold.

Although Mark's home was now built like a fortress, so there was no need to worry too much about its security.

But there was no such thing as guarding against thieves for a thousand days. Mark was worried that something might happen at home.

He had to find the force behind this person and figure out a way to deal with it.

"Alice, is this person from the Iron Blood Gang?"

Mark asked.

The Iron Blood Gang was the only group that had recently clashed with his family, so they were the most likely to have sent someone.

"Based on my assessment, there is a seventy percent chance that this person is not from the Iron Blood Gang."

As Alice spoke, she displayed another video recorded by a drone following him.

After leaving Clem Street, the man had not gone to Frank Street, where the Iron Blood Gang was located. Instead, he had gone to a more distant slum district.

The slum district was filled with illegally built shacks, its streets extremely narrow, and there were no cameras on the streets.

The young white man wound through the streets several times, and the drone quickly lost track of him.

"The slum district? That should be Latin Gang territory, right?"

Mark's thoughts stirred, and he quickly guessed the man's identity. "Could he be here because of the Li Qianhuan sisters?"

A few days earlier, the Li Qianhuan sisters had been chased through the streets by Latin Gang members. Fortunately, Mark had sent bodyguards to rescue them in time.

He had not expected the Latin Gang to remain so persistent. They were now practically tracking them to Mark's home.

When Mark had decided to take in the Li Qianhuan sisters, he had considered that the trouble surrounding them might implicate him.

But if he wanted to recruit a Mutant as promising as Li Qianhuan, how could he avoid taking some risks?

He did not regret it.

However, dealing with the trouble from the Latin Gang would not be so easy.

According to the information Mark had previously uncovered, the Latin Gang was the largest criminal organization in Los Angeles, with more than a thousand core members. Its strength far surpassed that of small and mid-sized gangs like the Iron Blood Gang.

Furthermore, the Latin Gang mainly operated in the disorderly slum districts, where even the police had difficulty exerting control. This made the gang especially brazen.

"I can only see if I can find some evidence of the Latin Gang's crimes first."

Mark tapped on the keyboard and began hacking into some network facilities within the Latin Gang's territory.

The bars, dance halls, arcades, and nightclubs in the slum district were basically all Latin Gang properties.

Mark hacked into the computers at those places and several surveillance systems that were still running, quickly finding quite a bit of evidence of the Latin Gang's crimes.

Although this evidence could not seriously cripple the Latin Gang, it could still cause them some trouble.

Mark immediately compiled the evidence and sent it to several nearby police stations.

But something that astonished Mark happened. After the nearby police stations received the evidence of the Latin Gang's crimes, they acted as if they had seen nothing and took no action at all!

"Looks like quite a few of the police around here have been bought off by the Latin Gang!"

Mark's expression darkened as he realized that his plan to use the police against the Latin Gang had failed.