Erin Xavier tried to find an ally, his eyes immediately falling upon Nathan Lockwood next to him.

Everyone had been running, yet Nathan Lockwood seemed completely unaffected. Only a light sheen of sweat graced his forehead, leaving his poised and aloof demeanor intact.

If not for the extra towel the instructor had given him, you couldn’t even tell he had just been exercising.

Nathan Lockwood’s gaze followed the backs of Chase Shaw and Zoe Pierce. "If you’re not happy about it, you can go after them."

Erin Xavier rolled his eyes at him. "Why would I go after them? That’s no fun."

Although his curiosity was piqued, it was obvious they hadn’t invited him, and he wasn’t about to go and make things awkward.

Turning to Nathan Lockwood, however, Erin Xavier’s lips curled into a smirk. "Nathan, you’re the one who wants to follow them, aren’t you?"

He got no response. Nathan Lockwood just gave him a cool glance. "I’m heading back."

Seeing he was now the only one left in the Psionic Training Room, Erin Xavier lost any desire to stay and casually strode after Nathan Lockwood. "I’m out, too."

As for Zoe Pierce, she was still a little dazed from being pulled along by Chase Shaw.

He was surprisingly strong; Zoe Pierce had to break into a light jog to keep up as he pulled her along.

Her hurried footsteps reached Chase Shaw’s ears, and he relaxed his grip slightly, slowing his pace.

Zoe Pierce was confused.

She watched him open a different Psionic Training Room, then he gestured with his chin. "Open your Intelligent Brain."

Zoe Pierce opened up permissions on her Intelligent Brain and watched as a series of documents transferred over.

"The Pierce Family’s mineral assets... most of their buyers are above board. But in recent years, a new one appeared." Chase Shaw pointed to a name at the very top, highlighted in red.

"Wesley White." He pulled up a photo, revealing a man with red hair and brown eyes. He wasn’t tall; in fact, he was rather thin and small-framed.

"A Beta male." Chase Shaw tapped Wesley White’s face on the screen. "Over the past few years, thirty percent of the Pierce Family’s energy ore has been sold to him, with the quantity increasing year by year."

’If he were just a simple merchant, Chase Shaw wouldn’t have gone out of his way to point him out to me.’

"As for the other buyers, even if their operations are smaller, we can trace the specific applications of the energy ore they purchase."

"But this Wesley White runs a shell company. He doesn’t sell a single Mecha a year. You can check his tax records—there are no sales in that sector. Most of his revenue comes from selling common household appliances."

When it came to Mecha, Chase Shaw’s expertise was nearly as impressive as Nathan Lockwood’s.

"Here’s the problem: I took a look at the inventory and disclosed sales figures for the household appliances they sell. The numbers don’t add up."

Chase Shaw pointed to the ore produced by the Pierce Family’s mines. "This N781 ore... a fist-sized chunk has enough energy to manufacture about a thousand of these household appliances."

"Logically speaking, if you were a normal person with such a surplus of energy supply, would you keep increasing your purchases of energy ore year after year?"

Chase Shaw waited for her answer. The question wasn’t about the specific use of the ore, but about human nature, and Zoe Pierce could draw a conclusion quickly. "I wouldn’t."

"If I were Wesley White, I wouldn’t purchase so much just to create a backlog of inventory." From the list Chase Shaw had given her, she could clearly see the sales contracts for this energy ore went back five years.

Over those five years, the price of the ore hadn’t fluctuated wildly, so there was no way he was profiting from it like a futures commodity.

"But Wesley White did exactly that," Chase Shaw’s husky voice cut in. "In fact, he nearly doubled his purchase volume every single year."

"He went from a buyer who made up only five percent of your family’s sales to one who makes up thirty percent. Among all your clients, he’s the biggest one by far."

’Even for Mecha applications, the required amount of N781 energy ore wasn’t particularly large.’

Which raised the next question.

’So, what else could Wesley White be doing with all that N781?’

Dozens of holographic images of devices materialized in front of them. "These are all the devices that can be made with N781," he said. "There are too many."

’So there was no way to pinpoint what Wesley White was trying to do.’

Besides, the Pierce Family was only a small-to-medium-sized energy ore supplier—they couldn’t even be called solidly mid-tier. A shift in sales volume like this would never attract any attention.

"I also looked into Wesley White’s other energy purchasing channels. I discovered he’s using the same method with different types of energy ore—gradually increasing his purchase ratio year after year."

"A company of this size has absolutely no way to absorb that volume of energy ore. And yet, the books show no losses."

"What’s even more interesting is that after you and your parents were in that mining accident, Wesley White vanished."

He disappeared in the most literal sense of the word.

That was the most suspicious part.

"If you investigate him, you’ll find he almost never shows up anywhere else. The only times he’s been captured on any recordings are when he’s purchasing energy ore. He keeps an extremely low profile."

"The last trace I could find of him was a record of him buying a starship ticket off the Capital Star."

He left alone, on an unremarkable day, without a single soul noticing.

’This was clearly not so simple.’

"But my brother told me the police ruled the accident involving my parents and me as a natural collapse caused by energy depletion in the caverns." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Zoe Pierce had learned this after she woke up. And Nathan Lockwood had explicitly told her that Damien Pierce couldn’t have been the one behind it.

Now, with the sudden appearance of this eerily mysterious person, it was hard for her not to connect the dots.

"Is it possible? That this person orchestrated my family’s mining accident?" Zoe Pierce tried to reason it out.

’It’s very possible he inadvertently helped Damien Pierce.’

’Because she had leverage over Damien Pierce with his account books, and because the Pierce Family’s problems were clearly numerous, she had been able to present herself as a completely different person to Ethan Grant and Michelle Young.’

"I wasn’t able to find the actual Pierce Family ledgers," Chase Shaw said, turning to look at Zoe Pierce. "You’ve already doctored the accounts."

"And you clearly did it meticulously. When I first looked into it, I wasn’t suspicious at all."

"But when I thought about Damien Pierce’s actions later, I became almost certain that the old you had to clean up a lot of his messes."

"Your family’s real account books should be in your possession. Think about it. Where would you have hidden them?"

’Even though I knew my past self had done a lot, now that it’s come to this, I feel like I’m stuck in a loop.’

’Right now, I’m like Schrödinger’s cat. I haven’t experienced the betrayal or the business with the Pierce Family’s energy mine. I’m so new to this that my grasp on the common sense of life in Interstellar Space is still spotty.’

’And yet, now I have to deduce where my other self—the one who went through everything and became so meticulous—would have hidden the account books.’

’This was unreal.’