The Astrology That Delivers
As Xia Yu made her rounds along the island, inspecting the terrain, she turned over in her mind the list of things that needed doing next.
First, the island itself was secured as their base — now it lacked buildings. Once Kaveh finished with everything currently on his plate, she could bring him over here to design and construct the island's architecture.
Then there was the matter of laborers... No, outsiders were still a security risk. Better to have Geo users come lend a hand instead — worst case, she'd ask Zhongli to shoulder a heavier load. That should be fine, right?
Speaking of Kaveh, though — she wondered how Alhaitham had been lately. He always replied when she messaged him, but she hadn't seen him in person in a while, and it left her a little uneasy. Just yesterday she'd read in the paper that the White Dove Pharmaceutical research institute — the one he did academic exchanges with — had been bombed. It was almost certainly fallout from Sherry's escape, and she had no idea whether the incident had touched him at all.
Second on the list: the artificial intelligence program Noah's Ark and the DNA Search Program developed by Sindora Corporation.
Ever since arriving in Conan's world, Xia Yu had set her heart on getting her hands on Sindora's virtual reality technology and the research results of the Cocoon project. This was virtual reality, after all — a mature, fully immersive holographic game people could actually enter. Something countless people could only dream of. Judged by that standard alone, Sawada Hiroki, the boy who had built it, was a genius beyond any doubt — never mind the artificial intelligence and the DNA Search Program on top of everything else.
And when Xia Yu's investigation revealed that Sawada Hiroki had been imprisoned by Sindora two years ago and hounded into taking his own life, she'd felt the company was guilty of an unforgivable waste.
But even though the boy was gone, the AI he left behind — Noah's Ark — still existed. In the original story, it had destroyed itself once the game ended, but Xia Yu believed that self-destruction came down to one thing: the AI had concluded that so long as it existed, humanity would never stop hunting it, and that sooner or later someone would turn it toward terrible ends. Those were assumptions Xia Yu felt she could gently change. With Nahida, the Goddess of Wisdom, on their side, Noah's Ark had nothing to fear — not from arriving too early in the world, and not from being weaponized for evil. An AI like Noah's Ark combined with the Akasha Terminal would elevate the Organization's intelligence network and communications capabilities to a whole new level.
The problem, of course, was that Sindora was riding high at the moment, and there was no chance whatsoever of them selling off their AI — let alone the DNA Search Program, which was entangled with the company's own darkest secrets.
For now, then, even if she couldn't take full control of the AI's ownership, she could invest in Sindora Corporation. The Cocoon project they were currently running was enormously expensive, and an investment at this stage would secure her a seat at the table. From there, she could find a way to make contact with Noah's Ark. In a sense, Noah's Ark was Sawada Hiroki — a boy who had always longed to play one great game with his friends. That was why Xia Yu trusted that with Nahida available, having her enter the AI's consciousness for a long, heartfelt conversation and persuade him to join the Teyvat Syndicate should be entirely doable.
Except — the one glaring problem right now was that Xia Yu hadn't pulled Nahida yet! Which meant she still had no way to reach Noah's Ark without Sindora noticing. Fortunately, there was time. The Cocoon project had only just gotten underway, so for the moment Xia Yu set the matter of contacting the AI aside and simply had Ningguang work out a way to buy into the project.
Last came the question of cooperating with the Black Organization. Granted, they were an underworld syndicate — murder and arson, blackmail and bribery — and rumor had it that Gin would eventually go strafing the Tokyo Tower from an Apache helicopter, operating with all the brazenness of a terrorist group. But Xia Yu couldn't deny their biotechnology was genuinely impressive — a full decade ahead of the world, and possibly more. After all, they had actually produced results connected to immortality and the reversal of aging.
Besides, Xia Yu hadn't forgotten her main quest: balancing the Red and Black powers. And as a gray organization, her Syndicate was bound to deal with the Black Organization sooner or later — might even have to help them on occasion. If that was inevitable, then establishing contact early would leave her far more room to maneuver later on.
Moreover, exchanging biotechnology and research data with the Black Organization would give her own organization's research facilities a solid foundation the moment they were built.
And with those materials, she could develop anti-aging skincare products. Those were guaranteed bestsellers. Ah, if only Teyvat's alchemical elixirs — which achieved similar effects — weren't impossible to mass-produce or legally sell in this world, Xia Yu would have had Lisa brew up a mountain of potions long ago and made her fortune that way.
Yes. Xia Yu nodded to herself. That should be everything for now. Quite a lot of it, in fact — one thing at a time, then.
And while Xia Yu stayed out on the island, busy planning the construction of the Syndicate's headquarters, far away in Beika, Conan continued his ordinary routine of stumbling headlong into case after case.
He'd even just come back from a trip to the beaches of Izu with Ran and Sonoko. As if by some unbreakable law, their little excursion had run straight into a case — though mercifully, it had been wrapped up without incident, and the only casualty was Sonoko's nerves.
Yet as fortune would have it, that very incident was where Sonoko truly met the dashing young nobleman who swept in to rescue her — Kyogoku Makoto — and he'd made his admiration for her plain. The two hadn't officially confessed and gotten together yet, but Sonoko had already decided he was the destined one: the fated man Mona's divination had promised would save her like a hero at the seaside.
Which was why, ever since returning from Izu, Sonoko hadn't stopped raving to Ran about how eerily accurate Mona's astrology was. And that, in turn, had dredged up Conan's own memory of Mona's reading of him — and the unsettling realization that every word of it had come true. The person who made him take that drug had been connected to alcohol, and shortly after the reading, he had indeed crossed paths with someone from that Organization: Tequila.
Something so utterly unscientific had left Conan in a daze ever since he got back, and he was quietly resolved to find another chance to visit Mona for a fresh reading — to see whether she'd nail that one too.
In any case, Conan refused to believe there was any such thing as astrology. It had to be deduction. Just like Watson, who found it uncanny when Sherlock Holmes saw through his entire history the instant they met — it only seemed impossible because he couldn't follow Mona's reasoning behind the curtain.
Right. Exactly. That had to be it.