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

Inside the luxurious cabin of a Gulfstream private jet, 10,000 meters in the air.

Yan Qingfeng leaned back lazily on the leather sofa, his slender fingers holding a wine glass.

The dark red Romanée-Conti swayed slowly on the glass, exuding a rich, bloody aroma.

Outside the porthole, large clumps of white clouds were being sliced ​​apart by the wings.

On the huge LCD screen in front of him, the video signal from the 100th floor of the Handong Lingxiao Building was being switched.

Zhou Yuan's enlarged face took up half the screen, and he was smiling like a bandit who had just robbed a road.

"Master Yan, all the gates you instructed us to lower before you left have been lowered."

Zhou Yuan rubbed his hands together, his eyes shining. "Right now, the entire payment gateway in Handong is completely blocked by the firewall of our Lingxiao system."

Yan Qingfeng gently swirled his wine glass, remaining silent.

A heat map showing the flow of funds across Handong Province was displayed on the screen.

The countless red lines that originally radiated outwards have now been cleanly severed as if by an invisible guillotine, and are all trapped within the territory of Handong.

"Those foreign devils, and those from other provinces who come here to make money, are all jumping up and down in anger."

Zhou Yuan picked up a lighter from the table and tossed it around, his tone incredibly irritating.

"This morning, the alarms about failed inter-provincial remittances almost crashed the finance department's back-end system."

Yan Qingfeng picked up the cup and took a sip.

His deep gaze seemed to pierce through the screen, as if he were looking down upon the vast territory of Handong.

"This land in Handong used to be drafty, and anyone who came here could suck a few drops of blood."

He tapped his fingertips rhythmically on the table, making a crisp "tap-tap" sound.

"The rules need to be changed now. I welcome business to Handong."

Yan Qingfeng's lips curled into a sharp arc, his eyes icy cold.

"If you want to make money, you can spend it in Handong. But what if you want to withdraw large sums of money from my territory?"

He sat up straight, and a powerful sense of oppression crashed onto the other side of the screen via the radio waves.

"Tell them that not a single penny of the money in Handong is allowed to flow out. This is my ironclad rule, Yan Qingfeng's rule."

Zhou Yuan stood at attention on the other side of the screen, laughing even more wildly.

"Understood! Anyone who dares to try and bypass our firewall will have their account shut down!"

At this moment, in the backstage area of ​​the Olympic Sports Center in Jingzhou City, Handong Province.

The floor was still littered with glow sticks and celebrity support signs, and the air was filled with a pungent, cheap perfume smell.

Wang Pangzi, the executive director of Starlight Media's East China region, was sitting in the dressing room with his legs crossed.

He held a thick cigar between his fingers, staring smugly at the reports on the tablet.

"Tsk tsk, these small-town exam-takers in Handong really go all out when it comes to chasing celebrities."

Fatty Wang exhaled a smoke ring, his chubby face scrunching up.

"An inner-circle ticket was being resold for 80,000 yuan, plus those handshake tickets and blind boxes of merchandise. These two concerts over three days raked in over 400 million yuan!"

The assistant next to him brought over tea, his face full of flattery, his back almost bent to the ground.

"Mr. Wang, you're brilliant! You brought over one of Beijing's top celebrities to show his face, and the fans in Handong have already sold their underwear for you."

"That's right." Fatty Wang proudly flicked his cigarette ash.

"Hurry up and have the finance department transfer these four hundred million through the company account directly back to the Beijing headquarters. The big boss is waiting for this money to ring the bell on NASDAQ."

No sooner had he finished speaking than the door to the dressing room was flung open with a bang.

The finance manager rolled in, sweating profusely, having lost one shoe and with his tie askew on the back of his head.

"Mr. Wang... Mr. Wang! Something strange has happened!"

Fatty Wang frowned, grabbed a teacup from the table, and pretended to smash it.

"Is your house on fire? Speak clearly!"

"The money... can't be transferred out!"

The finance manager, with a long face, shoved his laptop directly into Fatty Wang's face.

"The inter-provincial corporate banking channels of the four major banks are completely paralyzed! Our 400 million yuan is stuck in a temporary account in Jingzhou!"

Fatty Wang shoved his assistant aside, causing his cigar to fall onto his crotch.

He was throbbing from the heat and frantically grabbed the computer to take a look.

In the center of the screen, a large, dark gold dialog box appeared, bearing the logo of the Lingxiao Consortium.

[System notification: Your fund transfers have triggered a large-scale offshore transaction alert in Handong Province.]

[Currently, the inter-provincial settlement channel has been forcibly closed. These funds are only permitted for consumption and investment within Handong Province.]

The final interpretation right belongs to the Lingxiao Consortium.

"To hell with the right to interpret!"

Fatty Wang's eyes turned red, and he kicked the makeup chair over, breaking the wooden leg in two.

"What is the Lingxiao Consortium anyway! Our Starlight Media is backed by a big shot in Beijing. How dare this nouveau riche internet tycoon try to steal our thunder?"

The finance manager wiped the sweat from his forehead; his calves were cramping.

"Mr. Wang, I asked a friend at the bank to check. It's not just us!"

He swallowed hard, his voice filled with fear.

"Right now in the entire Handong province, let alone four hundred million. Even a pancake vendor wanting to send 20,000 yuan out of the province needs approval from the Lingxiao system!"

"This is insane... Has Handong rebelled?!"

Fatty Wang's hands trembled as he pulled out his phone and dialed the number.

"I'm calling headquarters in Beijing right now! These peasants are trying to double-cross us, don't they even know whose flesh and blood this 400 million is from!"

Two hours later, at the headquarters building of Starlight Media, within the Second Ring Road of Beijing.

The atmosphere in the chairman's office on the top floor was so gloomy it could be wrung out.

Chairman Chen leaned back in his boss's chair, toying with two walnuts in his hands.

The crunching sound of walnuts being cracked was particularly jarring in the quiet office.

He is a well-known princeling in Beijing's entertainment circles, wielding considerable influence in the industry thanks to his family background.

He's always been the one profiting from others' misfortunes, but today he's the one being bullied and humiliated.

"Young Master Chen, they're being too arrogant in Handong."

The vice president stood in front of his desk, slamming his fist on it indignantly.

"Four hundred million! All the costs we incurred in the early stages, such as using online trolls to control comments and buying trending topics, have been wiped out. Now we can't even recover our initial investment!"

"Did you call the Hantong Provincial Committee?" Young Master Chen asked without lifting his eyelids.

"We hit him." The vice president gritted his teeth, his face turning green.

"Li Dakang's secretary answered the phone. He said something about the government not intervening in corporate disputes and then hung up!"

"That Yan Qingfeng from Lingxiao is a complete bandit! He's blatantly and illegally seizing property!"

"Bang!"

Young Master Chen slammed the walnut in his hand onto the mahogany table, splitting it in two on the spot.

"Illegal? He's even controlled the banking gateway in Handong. In Handong, Yan Qingfeng is the law!"

Young Master Chen stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the bustling traffic of Beijing.

"We've been exploiting people in various provinces for so many years, but this is the first time we've encountered someone who dares to lock the door and unplug the internet cable."

The vice president leaned closer, a sinister glint in his eyes.

"Young Master Chen, are we just going to admit defeat like this? Four hundred million is a small matter, but your reputation in Beijing is a big deal."

"Admit defeat?" Young Master Chen sneered, a cruel smile spreading across his lips.

"Does a nouveau riche who made his fortune by tinkering with a few cheap batteries and tinkering with some kind of holographic system even know what 'dimensional reduction attack' means?"

He turned around and pointed to the rows of exquisite posters of his company's top stars on the wall.

"In our industry, capital might be subject to restrictions, but traffic is a nuclear weapon."

The vice president's eyes lit up, and he immediately understood his master's meaning.

"You mean, mobilize the fans?"

"Notify the public relations department to summon all the fan leaders from these concerts in Handong."

Young Master Chen loosened his tie, his eyes like those of a venomous snake eyeing its prey.

"Brainwash those little girls. Tell them that the Lingxiao Consortium is engaging in regional discrimination, withholding their brothers' hard-earned money, and is going to blacklist their idols."

The vice president rubbed his hands together excitedly, as if he could already see the dawn of victory.

"Incredible! If these brainless fans really went crazy, they could completely destroy the official account of Lingxiao Building!"

"Let's buy a few hundred more trending topics and turn Yan Qingfeng into a public enemy through cyberbullying!"

Young Master Chen sat back down in the boss's chair and gave a disdainful snort.

"Trying to play dirty tricks on our Beijing circle? Today I'll teach this bumpkin what it means to kill with public opinion."

He flicked the dust off his fingernails and casually gave an order.

"Tell your subordinates that at 8 PM sharp, the entire internet's trending topics will be filled with negative information about his Lingxiao Consortium."

The vice president grinned and nodded, then flung open the office door.

"Don't worry, Young Master Chen. After tonight, I'll let that arrogant bumpkin from Handong know that if he messes with the fans of our Beijing circle, we'll even dig up his ancestral graves!"