Handong: Sha Li wants political achievements? I'll shut down the entire province.

Li Dakang, exuding a chilling aura, kicked open the door to the No. 1 conference room of the Jingzhou Municipal Party Committee.

It's 11:30 p.m.

The Standing Committee members on both sides of the long table, who had been nodding off in sleep, were startled by the loud noise and trembled violently, nearly dropping their thermos cups.

Li Dakang strode to the head of the table and slammed his briefcase onto the solid wood table.

"Open your eyes, all of you! No one's going home until this meeting is over!"

Executive Vice Mayor Chen pushed up his reading glasses and cautiously peeked out.

"Secretary Li, what terrible thing has happened in the middle of the night?"

Li Dakang braced his hands on the edge of the table, his eyes bloodshot, looking like a starving wolf.

"I've secured the Lingxiao solid-state battery mega-factory. A trillion-dollar project, all going to Jingzhou!"

The meeting room erupted in excitement, and all drowsiness vanished instantly.

Old Chen was so excited that his hands were trembling. He was about to stand up and flatter Li Dakang when Li Dakang's cold next words nailed him to the chair.

"The price is to relinquish the franchise rights to all expressways within Gyeongju for the next fifty years."

It was like pouring a bucket of ice water directly into a pot of boiling oil.

There was a moment of deathly silence in the conference room, followed by a burst of protest that seemed ready to tear the roof off.

"No! Absolutely not!" Old Chen stood up abruptly, his fat face trembling.

"This is a vital transportation artery! If it's contracted out to private capital for a monopoly in black and white, the people will definitely tear down the gates of our municipal government building!"

"Secretary Li, this is crossing a red line! If the provincial party committee investigates, none of us here will escape!"

Li Dakang's eyes were like knives as he stared intently at Old Chen.

"Old Chen, you've been in this position for five years, and has Jingzhou's GDP increased by even one percent?"

"A mountain of gold has fallen from the sky, and you're telling me to tell ordinary people to tear down their doors?"

Li Dakang straightened up, his knuckles cracking loudly, the sound echoing in the hall.

"I'm not here to discuss this with you! If you agree, sign now."

He grabbed the draft resolution from the table and slammed it down in the middle.

"Those who disagree, go to the Organization Department and submit your resignation first thing tomorrow morning. Jingzhou doesn't want useless cowards who dare not fight!"

Old Chen swallowed hard, still wanting to retort.

"This is tyranny! I'm going to report this to the provincial party committee!"

"Go report it! Go now!"

Li Dakang pointed at the gate, looking like a tyrant who had completely gone mad.

"Even if Sha Ruijin wants to take my job, I'm still going to do it. Anyone who dares to stop the super factory from being built, I'll skin them alive first!"

The Standing Committee members at the long table looked at each other, sweating profusely.

Faced with Li Dakang's attempt to intimidate them by wielding his official position, no one dared to utter a single word.

In less than half an hour, a resolution bearing the official seal of the Jingzhou Municipal Party Committee was freshly issued.

Two o'clock in the morning. Office building No. 1 in the provincial party committee compound.

Sha Ruijin, wearing a coat, stared at the resolution on the table, still smelling of ink, his fingers trembling.

"Li Dakang, are you crazy?"

Sha Ruijin suddenly grabbed the resolution and slammed it onto Li Dakang's chest, scattering the papers all over the floor.

"This is ceding territory and paying reparations! You've handed over the lifeline of Handong's transportation to a capitalist; how am I supposed to explain this to my superiors?!"

Sha Ruijin was so angry that he paced back and forth behind his desk, pointing at Li Dakang's nose and cursing loudly.

"Fifty years of toll collection rights! Do you know what that means? If Yan Qingfeng wants to hold someone hostage, even the provincial government can't interfere!"

Li Dakang didn't dodge; he squatted down and picked up the scattered documents one by one.

He dusted it off and patted it back onto Sha Ruijin's desk.

"Secretary Sha, why don't you go to the Finance Department and check the accounts?"

Li Dakang straightened up, meeting Sha Ruijin's murderous gaze without backing down an inch.

"A large portion of our current fiscal revenue in Handong is supported by the Lingxiao Consortium's industrial chain."

His Adam's apple bobbed, and his voice carried a desperate, resolute edge.

"If Yan Qingfeng moves this factory to the next province, Handong's economy will collapse tomorrow, and the people won't even be able to afford food!"

"Secretary Sha, I, Li Dakang, will bear all the blame. But you must sign this document today!"

Sha Ruijin stood frozen in place, his expression shifting unpredictably.

The night wind outside the window lashed against the glass, making a piercing whistling sound.

He slumped into the wicker chair, looking as if he had aged ten years in an instant.

Yan Qingfeng had long ago, without anyone noticing, tightly gripped the throat of Handong, turning even the provincial party secretary into a puppet.

With trembling hands, Sha Ruijin took out the large red seal of the Provincial Party Committee from the bottom of the drawer.

A muffled "bang" was heard.

A glaring red seal was stamped on that humiliating and unequal agreement.

He closed his eyes, his voice hoarse as if he had swallowed a handful of sand.

"Li Dakang, this Handong... has truly become the Yan family's territory."

The next morning, sunlight pierced through the clouds and shone on the floor-to-ceiling windows of the 100th floor of the Lingxiao Building.

Yan Qingfeng leaned back on the leather sofa, pinching the red-headed document between two fingers.

The two large red seals on the document gleamed dazzlingly in the sunlight.

"Master Yan, that old bastard Li Dakang is really crazy. He even managed to take down Sha Ruijin in one night."

Zhou Yuan walked in carrying two glasses of iced Americano, grinning like a fox who had stolen a chicken.

Yan Qingfeng casually tossed the provincial party committee's highest resolution onto the coffee table, as if it were a piece of waste paper.

"He's not crazy, he's just terrified of hunger. If you throw a stray dog ​​a piece of bloody meat, it'll even bite its owner's hand."

Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, one can vaguely see the direction of Jingzhou High-tech Zone, where a cloud of yellow dust rises.

Hundreds of heavy excavators have arrived on site, and the roar of the super factory breaking ground seems to shatter the air.

Yan Qingfeng picked up his coffee, took a sip, looked down at the city below, and a disdainful smile appeared on his lips.

He holds the reins of the economy, holographic data, and now even the major arteries of physical transportation.

In this Handong Province, even a fly has to be beholden to the Lingxiao Consortium.

"Zhou Yuan, arrange for an engineering team to demolish all the toll stations within Jingzhou."

Yan Qingfeng swirled the ice cubes in his glass, making a crisp sound.

"My path will not tolerate any obstacles set by others."

Just as the Lingxiao Consortium's massive infrastructure machine was running at full capacity, frantically devouring the territory of Handong.

On Wall Street across the ocean, greedy eyes are fixed on Yan Qingfeng, this ever-expanding behemoth.

3 PM. 68th floor of Lingxiao Building, Intelligence Department.

"Drip—drip—drip—"

A piercing red alarm suddenly blared in the spacious hall.

Dozens of large monitoring screens simultaneously flashed a blinding red light, illuminating the entire floor.

The data analysts were pale-faced, their hands frantically typing on their keyboards, leaving blurry afterimages.

"An unusually large number of sell orders have appeared on the stock chart of the overseas affiliated company!"

"The fund chain warning model has been triggered; a massive amount of foreign capital is dumping shares!"

Zhou Yuan was downstairs overseeing the progress of dismantling the toll booths when he received the call and immediately took the president's private elevator upstairs.

He snatched the top-secret report that the analyst had just printed out, glanced at it, and gasped.

The Lingxiao Consortium is aggressively acquiring land, building super factories, and deploying an unmanned logistics network.

This astronomical amount of heavy asset investment is seen by Wall Street's financial crocodiles as a fatal flaw leading to a cash flow crisis.

Zhou Yuan, clutching the report, kicked open the door to the CEO's office on the 100th floor.

Yan Qingfeng was sitting in the boss's chair, resting with his eyes closed, his fingertips rhythmically tapping the armrest.

Zhou Yuan rushed to his desk and slammed the top-secret report onto it.

He was breathing heavily, and beads of sweat were dripping down his temples.

"Master Yan, something has happened."

Zhou Yuan clenched his teeth, his eyes flashing with a fierce light.

"George Williams of the Quantum Fund on Wall Street is gathering several top international investment banks, preparing to launch an unprecedented short-selling attack on our affiliated companies overseas!"