The Earth Federation seemed well prepared.

This was Chen Chen's observation as the first to discover the virus and subsequently produced the first vaccine for the virus.

On the outside, this pandemic appeared to be merely a coincidence, it was a calamity that was bound to happen eventually. However, apart from Africa, it seemed like most countries in the world did not suffer significant losses. This was especially the case for the five great continents.

Most people would attribute this to the fact that a lot of countries had learned their lessons from the pandemic three years ago. The moment they saw a pandemic brewing, they were able to put it out immediately.

This seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation but the way the defense was executed so perfectly left Chen Chen feeling suspicious.

Could it be that the Earth Federation saw the pandemic coming ahead of time?

An idea suddenly came to Chen Chen, to which he shook his head and quickly brushed it off.

Based on his study of the Ebola variant and the Blacklight virus, there were no signs of it being artificially modified.

Most viruses that had been pre-modified artificially should leave traces behind it. These indications could be in the form of abnormal changes in genetic material fragments, different characteristics with similar viruses, and so on.

Further examples included the virus containing genes that should not otherwise be present, gene fragments that should not have been altered or other phenomena that would contradict the laws of natural evolution.

Of course, there was the off chance that the party modifying the virus were several generations ahead in biotechnology advancement, even surpa.s.sing the level of Resident Evil. In that case, it would be plausible that Chen Chen would not be able to identify signs of modification.

Similarly, there was no surefire way to tell whether the sudden emergence or evolution of a new virus occurred as a result of natural development.

Most viruses made their historical appearance without any warning. It happened with Ebola, HIV, Marburg virus, and many others. Influenza virus made its rounds around Europe for several millennia until there was a sudden huge outbreak in 1918.

Smallpox may have existed for thousands of years, but it was not until the 16th century that it began to spread and mutate rapidly, becoming a serious threat…

It was also worth noting that smallpox was an “ethnic-specific” virus, with nations co-existing with the virus building up a higher natural resistance to it. Therefore, when the Spaniards brought smallpox to the American Indians, they nearly caused a genocide.

When the Qing people were a.s.similated, they were also more likely to succ.u.mb to smallpox compared to the Han people. It was likely that the native smallpox strain in China had existed since the Tang Dynasty. Its threat had been gradually decreased over time until it became a virus that only posed danger to children. It was even mistaken as a “fetal virus” by doctors at the time.

This was to say that if there was truly a technologically superior force modifying the virus, it was possible that Chen Chen would not be able to notice it. However, if such technology existed, then the destructiveness of the virus should be far beyond its current state.

It should be able to bring down the entire human civilization in one fell swoop, instead of being contained after only a month of destruction, and barely able to make it out of Africa.

Now that he thought about it, even when the pandemic outbreak had been occurring for more than a week in Africa, the Earth Federation was still slow to respond. It was only after Chen Chen had submitted the first report of the pandemic when the Earth Federation began taking the appropriate measures.

No matter how you looked at it, the Earth Federation was still a little too lax with their response.

That was right. It was this feeling of self-contradiction he was dealing with!

Chen Chen finally realized why he was feeling so conflicted about it.

If the Earth Federation was taking its time with its response, then why was it that only when Chen Chen had prompted them that they immediately formed a defensive ring and even the big corporations began developing the vaccine?

This was where the contradiction was glaring.

It was as if the Earth Federation had known about the pandemic for a long time…

The more he thought about it, the more he became sure of this theory.

So, what was the Earth Federation hiding?

“X.”

Chen Chen raised his head. “Hack into the Earth Federation official website undetected and find me a secret message.”

“What sort of secret message?” Little X asked dearly.

“Message containing keywords such as 'Virus', 'Biological weapon', and 'Ethnic weapon'.”

Chen Chen answered, “Target the Earth Federation Headquarters.”

“Understood!”

Little X answered promptly before raising his voice again, “Hm, Sir G.o.dfather, I found something strange when I hacked into the Federation official website. Thirteen media outlets in Switzerland published thirteen articles related to our Blacklight Biotechnology at the same time. The contents are very similar, suspecting Blacklight Biotechnology of engineering the virus to dominate the international market quickly, thus achieving our strategic goals.”

“Show me.”

Chen Chen became intrigued. He saw web pages opening one after the other on the computer display. There were thirteen of them in total, all of them auth.o.r.ed by Switzerland media outlets.

Based on the articles published, some of them went into the topic of the vaccine and a.n.a.lyzed the vaccine technology for the Blacklight virus. They concluded that even with the world's leading technology, it should not be possible to produce a genetically modified vaccine within a month. That was unless Blacklight Biotechnology had been developing the vaccine before the virus even began spreading.

While other articles mentioned that Blacklight Biotechnology which discovered the virus first should be listed as a suspect and so on…

Although the articles claimed that they were just speculating, the expert writing and formatting served to guide the reader to lean toward the views they had shared.

Chen Chen immediately understood the situation after he read through several articles.

Eco Science City was primarily targeting the high-end healthcare sector. Naturally, Switzerland which was the largest high-end healthcare provider in the industry would be the first one to clash with its compet.i.tion, Eco Science City.

Currently, hundreds of medical facilities in Switzerland were seeing a decline of more than one-third in their turnover compared with previous years. The number was still declining at a steady rate.

Chen Chen had already antic.i.p.ated the Swiss to make a move when he saw the reports. It was bound to happen eventually. As a matter of fact, the very thing did happen.

Although the governmental bodies of each continent of the Earth Federation were aware that the virus was not artificially engineered, the people were not informed. The people tended to believe in biased articles supporting their views.

“To be honest, this article expressed something that I've been concerned with for some time. Why was this Blackwatch company the first one to discover the virus, are you telling me that the governments can't keep up with a mere company?”

“Just the fact that they were the first ones to develop the vaccine, leaving us Swiss trailing behind proves that they are the ones who engineered the virus, this is it!”

“G.o.d, I can't believe a monstrous corporation exists in the world. They killed billions just to make a profit, should I say that I expected no less from a corporation from the Mainland?”

Chen Chen let a smirk escape his lips when he read the comments below the articles. He then closed the web pages.

“Should I blacklist these websites?” Little X asked.

“No need, they are just starting the conversation and getting it going.”

Chen Chen shook his head. “It's just the warm up phase here. From here on, with the Swiss kicking the dust, the rumor will quickly make its way around the world.

“Apart from the Mainland, the governments of the other major continents will be more than happy to let it slide and allow these discussions to continue spreading. At best, they'll just candidly issue a clarification statement after several months, which by then, our company's reputation would be ruined.

“By then, our reputation and international standing will be greatly cut short, with no hopes of coming back up.”

Chen Chen smirked coldly. “This is what they mean when they talk about rumors growing legs of their own. Considering we're directly competing with the medical sector of various European countries, it's already pretty civil of the Western media to not pile on top of the rumors. Apart from the World Health Organization, how many bodies do you expect to see speaking up for us?”

“Then what should we do?” Little X asked concerningly.

“Two can play at this game.”

Chen Chen expressed without care, “The reason that rumors tend to be so convincing is that they are capturing the result which people want to see. On top of that, the first impression plays a role in solidifying people's perception of a topic, further boosting the effectiveness of the rumor.

“If we want to break the rumor, we need to be the one to spread it first. We need our rumor to spread wider and faster than the opponent's.”

Chen Chen let out a sigh and instructed, “X, use our funds to buy out dozens of Swiss media outlets and have them circulate the same rumor. Say that the virus originates from a North American military laboratory. Also, contact North American media outlets and have them publish reports suspecting the virus originating from Switzerland. Let's muddle the waters completely.

“With this, both sides will begin claiming that the virus doesn't contain any signs of being artificially modified to clear their name. This way, the rumors targeted at our company will collapse on their own without us having to do anything about them.”