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

18.7%.

The string of numbers was read out by Song Mingda, rolled around on the phone, and finally reached Li Jianguo's ears, making him sink three points deeper into his chair.

He put down the microphone, sat there, staring at the lights of Nanzhou outside the window, without saying a word.

Ten minutes later, Chen Ping called.

"Mayor, I just went through the data from Director Song's side."

"18.7%." Li Jianguo repeated the number without adding any comment.

"In three more trading days, the Zhao family will be able to complete the takeover bid."

Li Jianguo tapped his finger on the table twice, then stopped.

"What are you planning to do?"

Chen Pingfang did not answer immediately, but paused for two seconds.

"Tomorrow, I'm going to launch a project that's been stalled for a long time. It's a rectification document issued by the provincial party committee in March this year, which requires quarterly assessments of the electricity efficiency of high-energy-consuming and low-output enterprises throughout the city."

"That document..."

"We've been holding back all this time," Chen Pingfang continued, "but it wasn't the right time then. Now it is."

Li Jianguo mentally reviewed the document. The main responsibility for implementation lay with the Industrial Energy Coordination Center. And the director was Chen Pingfang.

This piece of chess has been sitting here waiting since the day the project was initiated.

"Do you have a list?"

"have."

"Okay." Li Jianguo didn't ask any more questions. "The city will follow suit. But one thing needs to be clear: the Zhao family has been rooted in Nanzhou for so many years, they won't just watch you uproot them."

"I understand."

"How many days until the Capital Expo?"

"Twelve days."

There was a few seconds of silence on both ends of the phone call.

"Okay, go do it."

hang up.

Chen Ping put his phone in his pocket and pushed open the door to the conference room on the third floor of the coordination center.

Zhang Chao had been waiting for almost an hour. A stack of company files was on the table, its thickness visible from the doorway.

"Is the list finalized?"

Zhang Chao pushed the top one over, pressing his finger on a line of text in the remarks column.

"Eleven companies meet the criteria for suspending power supply. Six of them have direct equity ties with the Zhao family. The remaining five companies have clean books, but their electricity usage records and purchase records overlap."

Chen Ping picked up the first document and flipped directly to the notes page.

[In the fourth quarter of last year, the company issued an invoice for 13 million yuan to the settlement company under the provincial urban construction investment group, for which there were no actual construction records.]

A blank invoice for thirteen million.

The accounts are so crudely prepared, yet they appear perfectly clean in the auditing system, simply because they have their own people on both ends.

"Inspection team, depart at seven o'clock tomorrow morning, covering eleven households simultaneously." Chen Ping put down the file. "For those whose electricity efficiency does not meet the standards, the electricity supply will be suspended on the spot, and they will be given sixty days to rectify the situation."

Zhang Chao wrote it down in his notebook, then paused for a moment.

Who will lead the team?

"I'll go."

Zhang Chao was stunned for a moment.

Chen Ping closed the stack of files and pushed it aside.

"I'll be surprised that the Zhao family will take this matter seriously."

The next day, at 6:50 a.m., all the basement lights were on.

Three white inspection vehicles bearing official markings drove out one after another, heading west along the outer ring road of Nanzhou.

Among the nine inspectors accompanying Chen Ping, Lao Gu sat behind him. He was an old man who had been doing electricity verification at the center for seventeen years. He could tell at a glance how many devices each household had and which household's reports were inflated.

Once outside the city, factories began to appear in clusters along the roadside.

Old Gu turned to the side and lowered his voice.

"Director, we've visited several of these companies before."

"How did it go?"

"The company knew before the inspection team arrived. Everything on site was tidied up, and the accounts matched up." Old Gu paused. "This time, no one gave us any warning?"

Chen Ping turned to the third page of the inspection procedures, underlined a regulation with a pen, and handed it to Lao Gu.

"According to the provincial party committee's document, the energy regulatory department has the right to conduct surprise inspections without prior notice."

Old Gu glanced down and said nothing more.

Our first stop was a metal surface treatment plant in the Nanzhou Port Industrial Zone.

The inspection vehicle stopped at the factory gate. The gatekeeper peeked out, saw the logo on the vehicle, paused for three seconds, and then turned and ran inside.

Chen Ping walked to the guardhouse and placed his ID on the window.

"Open the door, routine check."

"We need to notify the factory manager..."

"No need to notify."

The door slowly opened.

The inspection team split into two groups: one group went into the archives to retrieve the radio records, and the other group followed Lao Gu to the equipment area.

Chen Ping placed his hands on the railing of the factory passageway and scanned the workshop.

There are fewer machines.

The application stated that there were 18 units in full production, but only 7 were actually in operation on site.

Old Gu returned in less than twenty minutes and whispered a string of numbers in his ear.

The actual number of devices online was 30% less than the reported figures. Electricity consumption, calculated at full production capacity, was a full 1.2 million kilowatt-hours over-consumption.

Where did those 1.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity go? The blank invoice in the file already explains it.

After signing the rectification notice, I handed it to the factory manager.

The factory manager took it without saying a word. Sweat had already soaked through the fabric around the collar.

He flipped through the notice and saw the words "Suspension of two tiers of supply, for a period of sixty days." His lips moved, but he didn't utter a sound.

Before he could speak, Chen Ping turned and left the factory.

In one morning, all eleven companies were cleared out one by one.

Some went smoothly, while others encountered obstacles. The seventh company, a warehousing and logistics enterprise registered under the development zone, had its manager rush to the door with a stack of documents, shouting that he wanted to call the municipal party committee hotline, claiming that the coordination center had no authority.

Chen Ping stopped where he was, handed over his identification and authorization letter, and let the other party see them for themselves.

The other party flipped through the document for half a minute, then returned it without saying another word.

At 2:00 PM, the power outage notice was sent to the Nanzhou Power Dispatch Center via the official document system.

Six companies simultaneously had their electricity consumption quotas reduced.

All three companies had their production lines shut down that very day.

The news reached the provincial capital in less than two hours.

Inside a small conference room with a heavy wooden door closed at the Provincial Construction Investment Company.

The person giving the report pushed the document onto the table, bowed deeply, and waited to be reprimanded.

Zhao Xilai flipped to the last page of the notice of suspension of supply, stopped at Chen Pingfang's signature, stared at it for a few seconds, and then put the paper back.

"Six families?"

"Yes, Chairman. Shunda Trading and Huineng Logistics were unable to operate this afternoon, and the electricity indicators for the other four companies were reduced by two levels, barely managing to stay afloat."

Zhao Xilai mentally reviewed the name Shunda Trading.

That was an intermediary layer used to transfer a batch of project funds in Nanzhou. If the payment period was interrupted, the seven million yuan would be stuck there and unable to be used.

It's not a large amount.

But Chen Ping's knife didn't strike the neck; it struck the wrist instead.

Zhao Xilai suppressed that feeling in his mind.

This young man has figured things out.

It's not just the surface appearance; it's the real money-making channel the Zhao family operates in Nanzhou, the deep roots buried underground for over a decade.

This method of attack is uprooting the problem.

It was pulled up very steadily and accurately.

Zhao Xilai leaned back in his chair and slowly tapped the table twice with his right hand.

"Tell the funding team to speed things up."

The reporter looked up.

"The bidding must be completed before the expo." Zhao Xilai folded up the notice of supply suspension and pressed it on the corner of the table. "I want to cut off Xinhuo's supply chain in front of the most people."

He left out the last sentence and put it in word by word.

"If Chen Ping uses my money bag as a weapon, then I'll just cut off his manhood."

The assistant left and closed the door behind him.

He was the only one left in the conference room.

Zhao Xilai picked up his phone, found the encrypted text message, and stared at the line of text on the screen for a long time.

"Director Chen, it's time to settle our accounts."

The expo, twelve days later.

He wanted to use that stage, in front of all the capital and media in the province, to forever nail this young man to Nanzhou.