After breaking up with my boyfriend, I made a fortune and rose rapidly in my career.

The applause in the Zhao family's conference room had barely subsided when Chen Ping's encrypted phone vibrated twice.

It was a string of numbers sent by Zhang Chao.

The trading volume of the five core stocks in the Chipfire supply chain increased sevenfold compared to the average of the previous week.

Chen Ping looked at the string of numbers for a while, then put his phone face down on the table, stood up, and grabbed his coat.

"Get the car ready, let's go to the city hall."

Zhang Chao didn't ask any more questions and followed.

Neither of them said anything on the way.

The streetlights receded one by one outside the car window. Chen Ping leaned his head back on the seat, closed his eyes, but his mind kept racing.

The speed at which the Zhao family is accumulating shares today indicates that their penetration of the Corefire project is much deeper than it appears on the surface.

Those offshore accounts weren't set up temporarily; they had been there for a long time, just waiting for a signal.

He gave that signal.

However, the Zhao family moved faster than he expected, leaving him with much less time than anticipated.

When the car stopped in front of the city government building, it was already past eight o'clock in the evening.

The lights in the building were all on.

On the fourth floor, the door to Li Jianguo's office was ajar, and the sound of him making a phone call could be faintly heard in the corridor.

Chen Ping didn't announce his arrival and went straight in.

Li Jianguo looked up, hung up the phone, and casually pushed a few documents on the table aside.

"Lie flat, sit."

Chen Ping placed his phone on the table and pushed it over.

"Mayor, this is the market data from 3 PM today until the market closes."

Li Jianguo picked up his phone, glanced at it, and the lines between his brows immediately deepened.

The line chart of trading volume shows that it started to climb during the day and exceeded the upper limit of the screen display by the end of the day.

"How much has it been magnified?"

"Seven times." Chen Ping paused for a moment, "The last half hour was eleven times."

Li Jianguo put his phone back on the table, leaned back in his chair, and didn't rush to speak.

The entire office remained silent for about ten seconds.

Occasionally, people would speak in the corridor, but through the half-open door, it all seemed very distant.

Finally, Li Jianguo spoke first.

"Lie flat and tell me the truth. Is Corefire really in trouble, or...?"

"It's a situation."

Chen Ping didn't let him finish speaking, cutting him off cleanly.

"I instructed Su Qingwan to write that report."

Li Jianguo remained silent for a few seconds, then looked Chen Pingfang up and down again.

"You're fishing."

"right."

Li Jianguo did not immediately express his opinion. He took a pen out of the drawer, twirled it in his hand twice, and then put it back.

This was an old habit of his when he was thinking, and Chen Pingfang, having followed him for a long time, naturally recognized it.

"Get them to speed things up, and then what?"

Chen Ping took out a neatly folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of his suit, unfolded it, and pushed it in front of Li Jianguo.

"This is an analysis of the fund flow at the coordination center."

"A significant portion of the funds used by the Provincial Construction Investment Group this time did not come from the group itself."

He tapped a line of numbers on the paper with his fingertip.

"Transfers will be made in batches through at least seven offshore companies registered in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands."

Li Jianguo took the analysis and read it from beginning to end without skipping a single line.

During the process, he would occasionally stop, scan a certain set of numbers again, and then continue looking at the next set.

After reading it all, he put the paper back on the table.

"Foreign funds".

Two words were squeezed out from between his teeth.

"Who does Zhao Xilai work for?"

"I'd also like to know the answer to this question." Chen Ping paused for a moment, "So now we need the city's cooperation."

Li Jianguo leaned forward slightly, but didn't speak; he just waited.

"Please have the Municipal Financial Services Office conduct routine monitoring of the recent abnormal transactions in the market," Chen Ping said calmly. "Take no action, just collect data and file it."

He paused for a moment, then added the most crucial point.

"If we need to trace back in the future, the city needs to have complete records to prove that it has fulfilled its regulatory responsibilities in the first instance."

That was a very tactful statement.

On the surface, it's about helping the city avoid potential future liability risks.

But Li Jianguo had decades of experience in administration, so he understood things very quickly.

Chen Pingfang was telling him something else. The scale of this matter would eventually far exceed what could be contained in a single city-level incident.

Li Jianguo picked up the analysis again, glanced at the numbers on the last page one last time, folded it, and placed it under the folder on the table.

"How confident are you in laying it flat?"

"I'm not sure." Chen Ping's answer was straightforward and without any embellishment. "But if we do nothing, once the Zhao family finishes accumulating shares, the Corefire supply chain will be completely cut off."

"Even if the province invests a lot more money, no one will be able to sell us the key materials."

Li Jianguo stared at him for a long time without saying anything.

Finally, he nodded.

"it is good."

Chen Ping was about to stand up when he paused.

"There's one more thing."

Li Jianguo looked up.

"The provincial construction investment company has been keeping a close eye on the city's movements. If the financial office starts accessing data, they'll notice very quickly." Chen Ping stood still, not moving. "I suggest that we present this routine inspection as a routine check by Nanzhou City in compliance with provincial financial regulatory requirements."

Li Jianguo wrote a few words on the notebook.

"I'll contact Song Mingda, the director of the Financial Affairs Office, tonight." He put down his pen. "He's a meticulous person and won't let anything slip."

Chen Ping walked to the door, paused for a moment, and did not turn around.

"Thank you, Mayor."

In the corridor, the lights cast long shadows.

Zhang Chao followed behind, and the two entered the elevator, the doors closing behind them.

"Did the mayor agree?" Zhang Chao asked.

"Agreed."

"So, what's next..."

"Wait." Chen Ping pressed the button for the first floor and said no more.

The elevator is going down, and the numbers are jumping.

He didn't look at the numbers; he just stared at his blurry reflection in the elevator door, his mind racing.

Wait until Zhao Xilai feels confident, wait until he reveals all his cards, then we'll make our move.

---

Two hours later, the lights in the Municipal Financial Office were still on.

Song Mingda sat at his desk and went through the data report he had retrieved from the exchange, not missing a single page.

He pressed the last page down, paused for a long time, and stared at the line of numbers without moving.

Then he picked up the phone and dialed Li Jianguo.

"Mayor Li, there's a situation that needs to be reported immediately."

"explain."

"The Provincial Construction Investment Group, through the eleven offshore accounts we have tracked, has completed the concentrated accumulation of shares in the two listed companies that are the core suppliers of the Chipfire project within a single day today."

Song Mingda revealed the most important set of numbers.

"One of them already holds 18.7% of the shares."

It paused for a moment.

"We're only 1.3 percentage points away from the threshold for raising our hand."

The teacup Li Jianguo was holding made a soft tapping sound on the table.

"Furthermore," Song Mingda continued, "our system cannot trace the final source of these funds back to the last account. The scale and speed of the flow far exceed the operational scope of any normal commercial institution."

"Mayor Li, this is not a commercial merger or acquisition."

There was no response for a long time on the other end of the phone.

Li Jianguo stared out the window at the night view of Nanzhou City, with its endless rows of lights, without saying a word.

18.7%.

a step far.

The Zhao family moved faster and more ruthlessly than anyone predicted.