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

After the briefcase clasp clicked shut, no one moved in the meeting room.

Chen Ping walked back to his seat, placed his bag on his lap, and weighed it down with his hands clasped together. The light on the projection screen went out, but no one present could forget those two bolded conclusions.

Li Jianguo pushed his chair back to its original position, said nothing more, picked up his teacup, took a sip, tapped the bottom of the cup on the table, and announced the meeting was adjourned.

Twelve chairs were pushed aside one after another, and footsteps echoed outwards along both sides of the long table. Chen Ping didn't rush to get up; he waited until most of the people had left before picking up his briefcase and heading towards the door.

Yan Qinghua had already taken seven or eight steps down the corridor.

Chen Pingfang quickly caught up with him, and the two were about to pass each other. At that very second, Yan Qinghua paused for a beat, turned his head to the side, not looking at Chen Pingfang, but focusing his gaze on the fire hydrant sign at the end of the corridor, and let out a very soft hum from his nose.

Then he continued walking forward, his leather shoes stepping on the paving stones, his pace steady, his back straight, and the back of his suit without a single wrinkle.

Chen Ping paused for a moment, watching the figure turn the corner of the stairwell and disappear completely.

As expected of a seasoned official with twenty years of experience, even after losing a round, he couldn't lose face or dignity.

But that cold snort said it all.

……

Jiang Fan was waiting downstairs. Zhang Chao was leaning against the car smoking. When he saw Chen Ping put the cigarette down, he stubbed it out on his shoe and opened the back door.

"We'll be going to the South District for the handover tomorrow. You two will come with me."

Jiang Fan bent down to get into the car, opened the notebook, and unscrewed the pen cap.

"Who will be handed over to?"

"Liu Yuejin, the head of the South District, and Liu Zhengming, the person in charge of the Hongtuyuan project, notified us in advance by phone and sent a formal letter."

Zhang Chao started the car and glanced at it in the rearview mirror.

"Liu Yuejin was promoted by Yan Qinghua. He was transferred from the town to the district in less than eight months."

Chen Ping didn't respond to that. He took out the 47-page report from his briefcase, flipped to the page with the equipment model, folded a corner, and stuffed it back in.

"The letter will be sent tonight, stamped with the center's seal, and copied to the Municipal Government Office."

Jiang Fan wrote down the key points, his pen pausing briefly on the paper.

"Should we add Mayor Li's document number?"

"add."

This word carries significant weight. Stamping the mayor's approval number onto the handover letter tells everyone in the Southern District that this wasn't Chen Pingfang's personal action, but rather a resolution of the Municipal Standing Committee.

Anyone who dares to stop them is going against the Standing Committee of the Municipal People's Congress.

The car drove towards the old town, streetlights flashing past the windows. Chen Ping leaned back in the back seat, took out his phone, opened Song Yue's chat window, typed two words, and sent them.

"Stay calm."

The reply came instantly, just two words.

"Running."

The precision testing equipment issue needs to be put on hold for now, as does the power supply issue, and there's also the order from Hongtuyuan. Right now, the most important thing is to secure control of the southern district; otherwise, nothing can be done.

……

The next morning at 9:15, the three of them arrived at the South District Government Building.

Jiang Fan walked ahead, holding a copy of the handover letter and a copy receipt from the Municipal Government Office in his hand, and pushed open the glass door of the reception hall on the first floor.

A young woman was sitting at the front desk. She looked up and glanced at them with a polite smile.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Director Chen Pingfang of the Chip Spark Industry Promotion Center has scheduled a handover meeting with District Head Liu Yuejin this morning. The letter was sent last night; your office should have received it."

The girl looked down and flipped through the register on the table, picked up the internal phone, dialed a number, waited twenty seconds, and hung up. She dialed again, waited fifteen seconds, but still no one answered.

She put the phone back on the landline and gave Jiang Fan a perfectly timed embarrassed look.

"Excuse me, District Chief Liu led a team to the provincial capital to attend a special training session on industrial revitalization today, and they left very early. Deputy District Chief Lin, who is in charge of industry, also went with them."

Jiang Fan turned to look at Chen Pingfang.

Chen Ping stood in the middle of the hall, his hands hanging at his sides, pondering those words.

Group study trip.

The handover letter had the mayor's approval number pinned to it, and the copy receipt was delivered to the South District office at 11 p.m. last night, but this morning, everyone had disappeared.

Without frowning, he walked to the front desk and placed a copy of the handover letter next to the registration book.

"Leave this to District Chief Liu and ask him to contact me when he gets back."

The young woman deftly clipped the copy into the file rack, smiling throughout and being impeccably polite.

The three of them left the building. Zhang Chao stopped on the steps and looked back inside.

"The whole building was quiet, and the parking lot was half empty. Not just Liu Yuejin, everyone who could leave had left."

Jiang Fan opened the notebook and twisted the pen cap twice.

"To Hongtu Garden?"

"go."

……

Hongtu Park is located at the easternmost edge of the South District. Three kilometers along the provincial highway, on a newly leveled open space, a perimeter of corrugated steel sheet fencing stands. At the main entrance, there is an investment promotion board with the words "Nanzhou Semiconductor Supporting Park No. 1" still on it.

The car stopped at the entrance, and Chen Ping got out and walked inside.

Two security guards, dressed in the property management company's uniform, were sitting in the guard booth. One of them was scrolling through short videos on his phone and only looked up when he heard footsteps.

Who are you looking for?

Jiang Fan handed over his work permit and handover letter.

The security guard took it, looked at it for three seconds, and then handed it back.

"President Liu is not here."

"When are you coming back?"

"I don't know, he said he wasn't feeling well and took sick leave."

Jiang Fan glanced inside. Inside the construction site, a yellow crane was leaning precariously next to the half-built factory building, its boom still extended. Several piles of building materials were covered with tarpaulins on the ground, with bricks weighed down at the corners. In this large construction site, apart from the two security guards at the entrance, there was no one else in sight.

Where are the project team members? Where is the technical team?

The security guard locked his phone and leaned back in his chair.

"I've taken leave for the past two days."

They've all taken leave.

Chen Ping stood at the entrance, his gaze sweeping across the entire construction site. Thirty acres of land, three cranes, and four half-built factory buildings. A pile of obsolete equipment transported from Dongguan was still packed in wooden crates, stacked in the open. One of the tarpaulins was flipped up, revealing the rusty metal casings inside.

The project manager is on sick leave, the technical staff are also on leave, and the district head and the deputy district head of the South District are both away for training.

Not a single page of handover materials was left.

This is no coincidence.

This was a tacit, collective, and subtle form of resistance.

Yan Qinghua lost at the Standing Committee meeting, but he had been operating in Nanzhou for twenty years and had deep roots there.

He doesn't even need to say it explicitly; a phone call or a message is all it takes for his subordinates to understand what to do.

The goal is to delay and wear them down. Even if you, Chen Ping, send people here, you can only look at this empty space; you can't take anything with you.

Jiang Fan walked over, closed the notebook, and tightened the pen cap.

"What do we do? Everyone's gone, the handover can't proceed."

Zhang Chao stood to the side, arms crossed, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, swallowing back the swear words that were about to come out.

Chen Ping didn't answer. He walked a few steps into the construction site, bypassed the gate, and headed along the main road toward the few half-built factory buildings.

Jiang Fan and Zhang Chao followed.

He stopped in front of the nearest factory building and looked down at the ground. Cables were pulled out of a temporary distribution box and thrown directly onto the muddy ground, without any protective conduit or signs, just lying there next to the pile of steel bars. The insulation was worn in two places, exposing the copper core inside.

In the adjacent building materials storage area, the fire escape was blocked by wooden crates, and the fire extinguisher racks were empty, without even a shell.

Chen Ping squatted down, took three photos with his phone, stood up, and sent the photos to Zhang Chao.

Then he turned to look at Jiang Fan, speaking steadily, but each word carried weight.

"Call the city fire department."

Jiang Fan's pen stopped in mid-air.

"We told them that Hongtuyuan has major fire safety hazards. The cables are exposed, the fire escape routes are blocked, and there are no fire extinguishing facilities. We demanded that they come and seal it off immediately."

He paused for a moment.

"All personnel are prohibited from entering indefinitely."

Jiang Fan immediately memorized those words word for word.

Zhang Chao gripped his phone tightly, his lips moved slightly but he didn't speak. He turned and walked towards his car, already dialing a number.

The two security guards peeked out of their booth, exchanged a glance, and then withdrew.

Chen Ping put his phone in his pocket and walked towards the gate. When he passed the investment promotion display board for "Nanzhou Semiconductor Supporting Park", he slowed down and gently tapped the edge of the display board.

The sheet metal emitted a hollow sound that echoed across the wasteland without a trace.