Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

Zhang Dabiao went to the tea stall to check, and everything was going smoothly, except that the police and gangs were taking a few extra butter and chocolate breads every day, everything was normal.

There are occasional disputes between the tea stall owners on the street, but with Ah Hua and Aunt San there, they never suffer any losses.

As for a fight...

It hasn't reached that level yet. In Zhang Dabiao's view, to give an example, if your family sells hot dry noodles, and my family also sells hot dry noodles, my family will have more sesame paste and a little meat sauce in it.

So my business is good, but at least a dozen other breakfast stalls selling hot dry noodles on this street are fighting over the same reason...

Business wasn't booming to the point of financial ruin. In most people's eyes, "Zhang's Milk Tea Shop" was losing money to gain publicity since it had only been open for a short time, and that it wouldn't last long.

Zhang Dabiao restocked the village house with eggs, chocolates, sugar, and other items. He then asked Ah Xiang to find the rice shop owner to buy another HK$500 worth of goods and a medium-sized second-hand commercial oven. The rest would be kept as working capital for the tea stall.

The biggest headache right now is that all the money we've earned has gone into buying food, and our lease is about to expire. Should we continue running the tea stall or open an ice cream parlor?

The weather has also turned cold. Although the temperature here is much higher than in Beijing, drinking milk tea and eating pineapple buns at a tea stall in the dead of winter is a completely different experience from being in an ice cream parlor.

But Zhang Dabiao didn't have much Hong Kong dollars on him, less than two hundred dollars.

Or, how about using the small yellow croaker?

Or perhaps, we're waiting for Lou Yufan to send over HK$10?

But there's a logical flaw here. How did I, as Zhang Dabiao's twin brother, know that Lou Yufan was going to give me HK$10?

If you can't figure it out, then stop thinking about it and go check it out first.

------------

In the Shau Kei Wan Industrial Area, at the "Yu Fan Plastics Factory," Zhang Dabiao changed his clothes, dressed in all black, with a gray-black baseball cap and a thin black scarf, and crept over under the cover of night.

There wasn't much surveillance these days, and Zhang Dabiao had been consistently working out for the past six months, improving his physical fitness, and he had also learned a martial art.

His physical abilities are twice that of a normal person. He might not be considered a master, but he's more than capable of dealing with ordinary people.

With strength comparable to two pillars, speed, jumping ability, explosive power, and endurance, he is on par with top international athletes.

His recovery ability is a bug, which is why he's become so bold.

The night was as dark as ink, spilling over the dilapidated plastic factory on the outskirts of the city. The broken glass on the walls had long been eroded by wind and rain, losing its sharpness. The night wind swirled dust, sweeping over the scattered plastic scraps in the factory area, howling and wailing. To be honest, if you modified it and used it to make a ghost movie, it would probably be quite fitting.

Taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, Zhang Dabiao took a running start, climbed over the wall, and jumped into the plastic factory.

He hid in the shadows of the factory's exterior wall, his cold gaze sweeping over the half-dead building. He had come today to probe Lou Yufan's background and see just how far that sum of US dollars had been squandered.

In the open space inside the factory, several workers were walking out, cursing and swearing.

"Damn it, you bastard! Three months of work and not a penny paid!" The foreman spat, his voice particularly grating in the night. "That loser Lou Yufan, he kicks people when the factory collapses, he's got no conscience!"

"You bet! I heard all the new machines broke down? Damn it! This lousy factory should have been shut down long ago!"

"It's better if it collapses! It'd be best to bury him underneath, so he can't come out and cause trouble!"

The cursing faded into the distance, and the footsteps disappeared at the factory gate. The factory area was completely quiet, with only the chirping of insects and the rustling of the wind through the weeds remaining.

Zhang Dabiao glanced down at the workshop on the first floor. In the dark windows, there were only a few machines, and the place where the raw materials were piled up was empty, with only a few marks of varying depths, indicating that it had just been moved away.

There was a sense of desolation, as if the road to ruin had come to an end.

He withdrew his gaze and turned to the half-open window beside him. Dim yellow light shone through, accompanied by the clattering sounds of things being smashed inside, and a man's furious curses.

"Damn it! All the family's kitchen tools are gone! All the fuck gone!"

That was Lou Yufan's voice, hoarse and frantic, filled with hysterical despair.

Zhang Dabiao raised an eyebrow and began to climb the wall like a gecko. With his current strength, climbing several floors by gripping the brick seams would be a piece of cake. He slowly approached the second-floor window and peeked into the room.

The office was a mess, with shards of porcelain scattered everywhere, wooden chairs overturned, and documents strewn about. Lou Yufan stood in the center of the room, his hair a tangled mess, his seemingly expensive suit crumpled and torn on the floor. He leaned against the boss's desk, his chest heaving violently, looking every bit like a cornered beast.

"Bank loans paid off, loan sharks paid off! My life savings, all gone!" He grabbed a glass from the table and smashed it against the corner of the wall. The glass shattered. "All that equipment I bought at a huge cost! Pawned it, sold it, got a few stinking bucks for nothing! What good is it!"

He kicked the desk leg again, making it creak and rattle, scattering files all over the floor. "What about the orders? All those orders that were promised with such certainty! They've all fallen through!"

Lou Yufan staggered backward, collapsing onto the rickety boss's chair, his hands gripping his hair tightly, his shoulders shaking violently. "The workers all ran away... only a few old hands are left, blocking the door every day demanding their wages. How am I supposed to pay them? How am I supposed to pay them?!"

His voice was choked with sobs, his bloodshot eyes staring at the ceiling as if questioning the heavens or lamenting to himself: "How did such a good factory come to this? My life's work, Lou Yufan's, is all gone..."

Just then, the old telephone on the table suddenly rang, its sharp ring breaking the silence.

Lou Yufan was startled and looked up abruptly, the madness still lingering in his eyes. He stared at the phone, panting heavily, and after a long while, he got up cursing and grabbed the receiver.

"Hey! Who is it?!" The tone was extremely harsh, as if she wanted to vent all her resentment on the other person.

"I am your father."

"?"

A deep, authoritative male voice came from the other end of the phone—it was Lou Bancheng from Beijing, his father.

Lou Bancheng's voice was calm and steady: "So, how is the plastics factory doing now?"

Upon hearing it was his father, Lou Yufan's arrogance diminished somewhat, but his tone remained defiant: "What else can I do? It's completely hopeless! The equipment was sold, the orders fell through, the workers left, and I'm left all alone, guarding this dilapidated factory!"

"Useless thing!" Lou Bancheng cursed under his breath, then changed the subject, his tone becoming serious, "I have something important to discuss with you today—prepare HK$100,000 to send to Zhang Yaoyang."

"What?!" Lou Yufan bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, his voice rising abruptly, "One hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars? Old man, are you crazy?!"