Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 828 It's not about the money, it's about the spectacle.

Experienced players had already seen the problem. Someone who could defeat these top players without relying on technique, but solely on psychological warfare, was no ordinary person.

So, according to the casino's principle of "the older player comes after the younger one," their trump card is being played here.

This was a middle-aged man around forty years old, not much older than Xia Lin, but he exuded a deep and profound air, giving one the illusion of being Du Ruhui at first glance.

Xia Lin looked around and immediately realized that this person must be the legendary sweeper of the place. He tidied up the more than 200,000 taels of chips in front of him, looked up at the person opposite him, and asked, "How about it? This brother wants to play a few rounds?"

"I could certainly ask for your advice, but not now."

The man smiled and cupped his hands in a gesture of respect to Xia Lin, saying, "May I ask who this gentleman has come to stand up for?"

"Do I have to teach you the rules of the casino?" Xia Lin said impatiently. "I didn't cause any trouble, and I didn't cheat. Why are you asking me who I'm here for? Do you think I'm not here for the money? If you can't afford to gamble, then there's probably no point in you opening this place."

"Sir, you misunderstand. We do business with our doors open, so naturally we don't worry about these things. It's just that I'm afraid you've won too much today and have flaunted your wealth, which might lead to unforeseen circumstances."

Damn, this blatant threat is incredibly audacious.

Xia Lin just smiled after hearing this, and even Emperor Jingtai next to him didn't get angry. Instead, he thought the man was quite cute.

“Look, even threats can be amusing when people are incompetent.” Emperor Jingtai mimicked the voice of Douyazi, who was gently fanning himself, saying, “If wealth is flaunted, misfortune may befall you.”

Douyazi burst into laughter without any attempt to hide his laughter, his voice showing no mercy: "The Dugu family's accounting office is at number sixteen on South Street, where there are eighteen million taels of silver in cash, and I haven't seen anything amiss."

This back-and-forth banter made the man's face turn red and then pale, while Xia Lin, sitting there, calculated the value of the chips, weighed them for a moment, and said, "Hmm, here's 273,000 taels. I'm planning to win another 200,000 taels. What do you think?"

At this moment, the casino manager's expression turned grim. He sat there and said with a dark look, "Sir, leave some room for maneuver. You might need to meet again in the future. We open our doors to do business, not to be bullied."

"Do you still want your place?" Xia Lin didn't waste any words, but tapped the table with his knuckles, his face turning gloomy and serious: "I'll repeat myself, I didn't cause any trouble, and I didn't cheat. Try saying another word."

Just as the man was about to lash out, a hand landed on his shoulder, and a young man with red lips and white teeth slowly walked over. He first bowed to Xia Lin and said with a smile, "Please calm down, sir. The servants in my household are ignorant and should not be held to his level. You can play however you like here, for as long as you want. A mere few hundred thousand taels is something I can afford to pay and lose."

Without a doubt, this person is none other than Lu Dunxin, whom others describe as arrogant and boundless. His words live up to his reputation as a madman, exuding an air of dominance over all others. No wonder the common people call him Little Xia Lin. He does indeed bear some resemblance to the legendary Xia Lin who stunned everyone upon his debut.

But rumors are just rumors. Xia Lin is not arrogant at all. He is a low-key king. As for how he became known as the representative of the world's eccentric geniuses and even attracted many people to imitate him, no one knows. Anyway, there are various folk versions of Xia Lin's story, which can even be compiled into a fantasy Xia Lin collection.

After Lu Dunxin finished speaking, he came to Xia Lin's side, smiled and nodded at him, but this feeling was very uncomfortable. It was the kind of feeling where someone is very polite to you, but you can really feel that they look down on you.

Xia Lin hissed and turned to look at him, but Lu Dunxin only gave Xia Lin a side profile, with a rather elegant smile on his lips.

At this moment, Emperor Jingtai and Douyazi, who were standing there watching Lu Dunxin walk by, both crossed their arms and watched him pass by. Douyazi, in particular, had a hint of eagerness in his eyes.

"Let's go." Douya patted Xia Lin on the shoulder: "Forget about the rest of the money, I'll make up the difference for Baozhu."

Xia Lin didn't waste any words. He called over the shop assistant to exchange the chips and then left with Baozhu and the others. On the way back, Emperor Jingtai didn't say a word, but you could tell from his face that the old man was up to no good.

"What are you thinking?"

Xia Lin suddenly asked a question, and Emperor Jingtai slowly turned his head: "I was wondering if he was looking down on me just now?"

“Yes, he looks down on you, Your Majesty.” Douyazi said cheerfully, “Now, you have two options. One is to bring people to seal this place off tomorrow and say that the Lu family is involved in corruption. Lock up Lu Dunxin for three to five years. If they find out anything, sentence him to death. If they don’t find anything, release him and give him two hundred taels of silver as compensation, which is fifty taels per person per year.”

Upon hearing this, Xia Lin truly felt that the saying "the most poisonous heart is a woman" made sense. This tactic was indeed too insidious, and there was no fault to be found in it. It was said that, based on reports from the public, Lu Dunxin was guilty of tax evasion, running brothels and casinos, hiding weapons, hoarding goods, selling inferior goods as superior ones, and producing and selling counterfeit goods.

It's so easy to find fault with him. Let alone three or five years, just the fact that he took away Emperor Jingtai's jade pendant and sold it is enough to keep him locked up for as long as the country lasts.

“But that’s not fun.” Bean Sprout waved his hand and said, “I don’t like wielding power. It’s meaningless. It’s just a trick of the strong bullying the weak.”

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind that." Bean Sprout twirled her fan in her hand and happily walked away, as if she had found a new goal.

"That woman is truly not a good person," Emperor Jingtai whispered to Xia Lin. "She's full of wicked schemes, she's really wicked. They say that those who steal a country become princes..."

"Do you think she didn't steal anything? How could Third Sister have ascended the throne without her support? She still holds the financial power of the Li Tang dynasty."

After Xia Lin finished speaking, he smacked his lips and looked at Douyazi's back, thinking, "What kind of trick is this old woman going to pull this time?"

"Never mind that, how about we go beat up that Lu Dunxin tonight?"

"Hit him? You're a bit off." Xia Lin waved his hand. "Don't underestimate Bean Sprout just because she's small. She has a temper. Didn't that little brat give her a look today?"

"Yeah, I shook it off."

"He's finished." Why would Xia Lin and his group bother with a greenhorn? Isn't that beneath their dignity?
Stop. Don't try to trap people like them with moral blackmail. Xia Lin killed so many people, even turning the Suzhou River red for three days, why doesn't anyone say, "What did those old people, women, and children do wrong?" Because if he were susceptible to moral blackmail, he would have colluded with those he killed long ago.

Besides, didn't he also disagree with Emperor Jingtai's suggestion to sneak into Lu Dunxin's house at night and beat him up?

After returning home, Douyazi immediately began preparations. Her forte was business sniping. As the head of the world's number one financial empire, her words were like imperial edicts in the business world.

She said that if an estate could be vacated, it would be cleared out and renovations would begin that very afternoon. With so much money and so many people, and without regard to cost, it would all be done in a day.

For this reason, she spent a lot of money to hire half of the designers from Fuliang Academy Design Institute to design the manor for her. The work was done at a rapid pace.

They started construction while they were having dinner that evening, and the next afternoon, just after Xia Lin woke up from her nap, they said that the renovations could begin.

Emperor Jingtai was clearly a man with nothing better to do. Since there hadn't been any performances in the past few days, he brought Xia Lin to the new manor upon hearing the news.

Xia Lin could tell at a glance what Douya was up to. She was simply following Tengzi's path, copying whatever model Tengzi had. But because of her large business and reckless investment, she ended up being bigger and more capable than Tengzi. She was also trying to poach Tengzi's employees. In the end, whoever Tengzi targeted was basically doomed.

Copying homework is always faster than doing it yourself, isn't it?

This manor is larger and more luxurious than the Lu family manor. Because of the involvement of a design institute, it is far superior to the Lu family manor. From lighting to configuration, it is a whole level higher. A lot of money was invested at once to bring electricity to the manor and even custom-made a water turbine to power the manor.

As for the design, it felt novel and luxurious. But for Xia Lin, the first impression was that she had entered an atmosphere of "Commander, Director Mao on the phone," the kind where someone outside was singing "Night Shanghai, Night Shanghai, you are a city that never sleeps," while inside a gramophone was playing "One wrong step, and you're doomed."

strange……

Perhaps people like Douyazi share a common aesthetic sense; in short, there's a sense of being ahead of their time and converging on a similar evolutionary path.

Looking at the busy workers, Emperor Jingtai sighed, "What's the point of this bean sprout? Just for something like this? She really has a temper."

"I told you she has a bad temper," Xia Lin said, leaning against the table with a bowl of lotus seed soup in her hand. "And she also saw the potential of the Lu family's business model. In the back is a casino for the rich, in the middle is an auction house for legally selling stolen goods, and on the outside is a large, people-friendly market. This whole system, from top to bottom, shows that Lu Dunxin does have some tricks up his sleeve."

"What happens after that?"

"After that? After that, it'll be my turn to attack, Little Sprout. She'll stick to Lu Dunxin like a leech, doing whatever he does, using whatever methods he employs. It's a commercial encirclement, you know?" Xia Lin looked up at Emperor Jingtai and then laughed, "Walk other people's paths and leave them with no path to walk."

No wonder such a fierce woman like Douya could give birth to two children for him. Douya, who was trying to be mysterious, never expected that Xia Lin would guess all her plans even though she didn't say a word.

The renovation of the top-ranked building probably only took four or five days, after all, it cost a lot of money, so the efficiency was high. But when it came time to actually start working, it was already nearly twenty days later. The main problem was the water turbine network setup. After all, that thing is no less technologically advanced than Iron Man in this day and age. Although the parts were readily available and could be used immediately, the debugging alone took quite a few days.

When the manor lit up at night, Douyazi invited Xia Lin and the others to come and play, barbecue in the yard, and soak in the bath.

It wasn't until Xia Lin was soaking in the warm hot spring pool that he realized that Dou Yazi had not only copied the Lu family's business model, but had also copied the business model of the Fuliang Grand Guesthouse.

She envisioned transforming this place into a massive 600-acre entertainment complex, emphasizing a comprehensive and all-encompassing approach.

But what could Xia Lin say? As long as she didn't get involved in pornography or drugs, she could get away with even the slightest hint of it, because encouraging private sector was Xia Lin's overarching goal.

However, this matter is neither fair nor honorable, because Douyazi's actions are indeed quite extravagant. He is rich and willful and does not care about costs. This kind of commercial encirclement will most likely result in mutual destruction. But who benefits? Of course, it is the local tax revenue, ordinary people looking for jobs, a large number of suppliers, and a large number of clueless bystanders.

So Xia Lin let her do whatever she wanted. After all, as long as Douyazi wasn't exterminated along with her entire clan for rebelling, her money would keep growing, enough to last several lifetimes. Plus, since they couldn't farm or buy houses anymore, spending money was the safest option.

Otherwise, if social wealth becomes excessively concentrated, Douyazi wouldn't dare gamble on whether her partner would be the first to turn against her.

Clever people can always express their most rational ideas through the most absurd behaviors. By spreading their businesses across the country now, they can eventually demolish the properties for their children. The children will have children of their own, and when the profits are distributed among them, the Dugu family can truly live in peace for generations to come.

At this moment, Lu Dunxin, completely unaware that he had been used as a test subject in a hunt, was sitting in the room carefully refining the poem he had just written, but after looking at it for a while, he crumpled the paper and threw it aside.

"Someone is coming!"

The servant below hurried over: "Master, what are your orders?"

"Go and call them all over. I want to ask them why it's been so long since I've managed to invite Xia Daosheng to a banquet."

Even though he was furious, there was nothing he could do. Several of his subordinates came over and said that they had tried everything they could, but Lord Xia still wouldn't give them a chance to meet. They even met Lord Xia's attendants once, but still couldn't see Lord Xia himself.

"Arrogant! Utterly arrogant!" Lu Dunxin roared in fury. "I have never seen such an arrogant person. Go, go again tomorrow and ask them to come. No matter what method you use, you must deliver the letter."

“Master, it would be better not to bother you too much. I have heard that Lord Xia often eats the food that street vendors eat in the morning. Why don’t you go and meet him yourself?”

"That stuff is for human consumption?" Lu Dunxin frowned after saying that. "Never mind, I'll try it in the next few days."
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I've been working non-stop on my new book these past few days, and it's already been rejected four times. The next version I'm planning is a food-themed anime. Brothers, please feel free to share your thoughts and let's see who has the best ideas. I'll try to write something based on them. Don't hold back your ideas, brothers. I understand you all; everyone has a dream of writing. If you succeed, I might not get royalties, but you'll be credited as a co-author in the first chapter of your next book.

(End of this chapter)