Chapter 131 Unbelievable People

Day 10 of the road survival game!

"That email address is like a Pandora's box used for fishing. Once you touch it, the organization will find out. I've heard of several people who tried to investigate the organization, including officials and international underworld figures, who were killed after their identities were discovered because they touched this point."

It's estimated that the organization had already planted people in the three major telecommunications companies in Japan. Anyone who investigates that email address will be counter-tracked and their identity exposed. Mentioning this, Morobuchi gave a helpless, bitter smile: "If it weren't for Zero and me obtaining the organization's BOSS's email address..."

Just as we were preparing to investigate this email address through the police, I received a related assignment and almost made the same mistake. However, Zero later hacked into the email account and discovered that the owner was an incredibly eccentric person.

"Who?" Sensing the hidden meaning in Morofushi's words, Matsuda realized that this might be an important person and subconsciously asked.

Mentioning this matter, Morofushi Hiromitsu's previously relaxed and gentle expression instantly turned serious: "The largest shareholder of Tokyo Electric Power Company, who is also a major American capitalist..."

"The CEO of the Bellende Group!" They are all Japanese. Other countries may not understand Japan's industrial structure, but how could the Japanese themselves not understand it? They are well aware that although TEPCO is nominally Japan's power and energy company.

The largest actual shareholder, the one with the most say, and the real controller are the capitalists from the United States. Although it is a Japanese power company, neither the Japanese government nor the nominal president has any say; only the capitalists from the United States have the final say.

Even Hagiwara couldn't help but say, "He's truly an unbelievable figure. If he's the organization's boss, Japan can't do anything about him unless the US government decides to take action against him."

What if he's just bait and a shield used by the organization's boss? How astonishing must this boss be to control a major capitalist who wields power over Japan's entire electricity supply and owns numerous businesses worldwide?

"Huh? Isn't TEPCO the Japanese government's energy department?" Feng Xingshou, who had no idea about foreign companies, industries, and capitalists, belatedly realized something he didn't understand at all after listening to their conversation.

Seeing that she didn't understand, Hagiwara immediately explained: "On the surface, TEPCO is Japan's largest energy supply company, and it is managed by Japanese people. In reality, the major shareholders are American capital, and only a small portion of the shares are held by Japanese people."

"Hmph! The US isn't really like the movies, maintaining world peace. They station troops in Japan because it's profitable. Basically, many of Japan's vital companies are controlled behind the scenes by their capital." Matsuda added without any curiosity when the topic came up.

Hearing their words, Feng Xingshou felt a little annoyed: "No wonder TEPCO's decision to discharge nuclear wastewater into the sea was met with protests and even self-immolation in front of government buildings, but to no avail. When I saw the news, my colleagues and I even cursed the Japanese government for being inhumane!"

Unexpectedly, the wrong people were criticized. It was actually American capitalists who, for the sake of profit, disregarded the global marine environment and the safety of seafood from Japan, South Korea, and China—the closest countries and most vulnerable to nuclear wastewater—instead of the world's marine environment.

"If you hadn't brought it up today, I wouldn't have known that most of TEPCO's shares were held by American capital! Now they're even treating their own countrymen like slaves, exploiting them to the point of death. It's not surprising that they would do such things for profit."

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"Well, that's true, but it's a matter closely related to national security. If the Japanese government is tough enough, it can completely veto TEPCO's decision on national security issues. It's just that, according to Japanese practice, TEPCO's decision in this regard will be announced later."

"I reckon they've already gotten in touch with most of the lawmakers and officials. Given Japan's political climate, unless the majority of lawmakers oppose this policy, a small number of opponents are practically useless." This was Morofushi saying in response to Hagiwara and the others' questions about the organization.

He also learned a lot about the future from them and Feng Xingshou, including the nuclear wastewater discharge into the sea, which Feng Xingshou resented the most. With his profession, he naturally guessed what it was about as soon as he heard it.

Feng Xingshou doesn't understand the political system in Japan. Living in a country like China with a unified government, strong national enforcement capabilities, and public trust, it's hard to imagine that a government would betray the present and future safety of its own people for its own interests.

They can come up with all sorts of excuses to deny that water and food poisoning are unrelated to nuclear wastewater, and they don't care about the fish dying in large numbers, as if they don't even care about future generations...

However, since it's not her own country's business, she was angry because the discharge of nuclear wastewater would endanger her country over time. Now that she knows the culprits are only a small part of the Japanese government, and the majority are in the United States.

Consider that American capitalists can come up with policies that exploit their own countrymen to the bone, such as airdropping health insurance, exorbitant medical prices, lunch loans, rainwater taxes, and selling blood. They are even more capable of ripping off other citizens who are completely unrelated to them.

Therefore, she could only take a deep breath and say helplessly, "So that's how it is. Okay! In the future, when I see seafood but dare not eat it, I will complain less about the Japanese authorities."

"It's alright! After we sort out all this mess, I'll go back to those old dungeons with you and try to collect enough seafood for our entire lives." As a Japanese person, Hagiwara couldn't imagine how miserable his life would be without seafood.

Therefore, he could empathize with his sweetheart's feelings of having seafood in the future but not daring to eat it. Seeing her so resentful, he immediately reached out and gave her a gentle pat on the head, and offered a solution.

Upon hearing this, Feng Xingshou thought of the seafood he could eat without worry in the past, and immediately nodded repeatedly, excitedly saying, "Let's do it this way, we must store more."

"Sigh! They even gamble with their lives to eat seafood. You can imagine what kind of lives the Japanese people will lead in the future. They really know how to mess everything up!" Morofushi Kagemitsu saw that Kazesei no Morishige had any dramatic or exaggerated expression.

This shows how devastating the impact of nuclear wastewater on her country of origin is. If it can cause such harm to a neighboring country, one can only imagine the situation in countries that are even closer, not to mention the bizarre policy they have implemented to artificially create nuclear contamination in farmland...

Just imagining it made him sigh: "Just a few months ago, I saw them solemnly guarantee on the news that they would properly handle the Fukushima nuclear wastewater. I never thought that I would know how they would 'properly' handle it in the future."

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"Since they messed up, let's beat up those good-for-nothing cowards and replace them with capable people to change this terrible future." Matsuda, who didn't like to be sentimental, said with a cold laugh.

He then continued, "But that's not urgent. What's more important is the matter of the person who owns that email address. Now that Furuya has found him, has he continued to investigate him and discovered any suspicious people he's associating with?"

"If it were in Japan, Zero would have the advantage of being in the Public Security Bureau, and could investigate all sorts of detailed intelligence through his colleagues there. In the United States, it would be difficult to reach them without using the organization's manpower, let alone dealing with big figures in the American capital circle."

All we could find were the publicly available information. The only real gain was that we spent a lot of effort collecting some old news articles to find the previous CEO of the Bellende Group.

In other words, the father of the current CEO of the Bellende Group was the biggest investor in Vermouth's mother's first film to break into Hollywood. Vermouth's real identity is Chris Vineyard.

"Her mother's name is Sharon Vineyard..." After explaining Vermouth's specific identity in reality to the three of them, Morofushi Kagemitsu continued, "It was originally found in Zero's investigation."

Sharon had complained to her assistant, director, and other close associates about how her daughter was hanging out with all sorts of shady people in her teens, and how she couldn't control her, which was giving her a lot of headaches.

Zero and I initially thought Vermouth had come into contact with the organization in her teens and joined using the disguise techniques she learned from her mother, until we discovered that the father of the organization's BOSS, who owned the email address, had a cooperative relationship with Sharon.

We then speculated that our previous idea might be wrong, and that Sharon herself might also be a member of the organization, with Vermouth being a second-generation member who followed in her mother's footsteps, and that the code name Vermouth had been used in the organization for over 20 years.

In the organization's lore, Vermouth has always been very mysterious. Apart from the core members, no other member has ever seen her face, and naturally, no one knows her exact age.

Zero and I went on several missions with her, and it was only after Zero gained her trust that we saw her real face and learned her true identity. Vermouth is only 21 years old now, so obviously this codename must have been used by a previous person.

After Zero learned of her identity, he naturally probed her about Vermouth's working age within the organization. Vermouth's answer at the time was that the previous Vermouth had died, and the organization's BOSS ordered her to inherit the codename.

“It seems that the previous generation Vermouth was her mother.” Since Morofushi said it so obviously, Matsuda could naturally guess this.

Hagiwara, however, seemed to understand something after hearing Morofushi's words and said thoughtfully, "Since the organization's codenames can be passed down from mother to daughter, does that mean there are second-generation members among the organization's boss and other old members? Half a century is not a short time."

"What about Vermouth's father? Since her mother is a member of the organization, her father must be connected to it as well. Could he be the former CEO of the Bellend Group?"