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

2:30 a.m. Hantong International Airport.

The roar of the Gulfstream's turbines had not yet completely subsided.

A pure black Hongqi L5 sped off like an arrow, its tires churning through the water on the tarmac, hurtling towards downtown Beijing.

The heating in the carriage was on quite well.

Yan Qingfeng rubbed his throbbing temples, his nostrils filled with the scent of fir trees from the car air freshener.

He reached out and pressed the window button, lowering it a crack.

The autumn rain outside, mixed with a cold wind, rushed in with a "whoosh," feeling like ice daggers scraping my scalp.

The car passed by the largest chain supermarket on Renmin Road.

In the middle of the night, someone smashed and rolled up half of the supermarket's metal roller shutter door.

Hundreds of people were crammed into the entrance, their umbrellas bumping against each other.

"Let go! I was the one who touched this bag of Wuchang rice first!"

"Get out of my way! I'll pay two hundred bucks!"

The woman's screams, the man's heavy breathing, and the blaring of car horns created a chaotic mess.

A torn white flour sack was thrown on the curb.

Flour mixed with black mud was smeared all over the ground.

Yan Qingfeng didn't even lift his eyelids, but directly rolled up the car window, shutting out all the chaotic noise outside the glass.

"Master Yan, judging from this situation, those bastards really want to starve us to death."

Sitting in the passenger seat, Zhou Yuan loosened his tie, turned around, and cursed.

"The prices of rice, flour, and oil on the market tripled starting at 10 p.m. last night. And even then, you can't buy a single one."

Yan Qingfeng leaned back in the leather seat.

My fingertips tapped lightly on my knee.

"Three times? They've got quite the appetite." He scoffed. "Aren't they afraid of bursting their bellies?"

3:15 a.m.

The CEO's Office, 118th floor of Lingxiao Building.

As soon as the door was pushed open, a pungent smell of cheap tobacco hit the door.

Li Dakang left a series of muddy footprints on the Persian carpet.

His white shirt was wrinkled like dried plums, the collar was wide open, and his tie was nowhere to be seen.

He clutched the half-smoked cigarette butt tightly in his hand, and only when the sparks burned his flesh did he suddenly throw it to the ground.

"Master Yan! You're finally back!"

Li Dakang rushed over as if he had seen his own father.

Running too fast, she tripped over the coffee table leg and stumbled, almost hitting Yan Qingfeng's foot.

He reached up and hastily wiped the glistening sweat from his forehead.

The palm of my hand was full of black mud balls that had been joined together.

"Those foreign devils are inhuman!"

Li Dakang's Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and he was breathing heavily.

"The four major oligarchs, A, B, C, and D, have completely blocked all grain transport vehicles from other provinces from entering our Handong by rail and road!"

Yan Qingfeng took off his trench coat.

Zhou Yuan casually took the coat and hat rack and commented with a smirk.

"No, Secretary Li, are those large grain depots of the provincial party committee just for show? Are they just there to hatch chicks?"

Upon hearing this, Li Dakang's face twitched violently twice.

His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been driven to the brink of despair.

"Don't even mention it! Secretary Sha almost fainted when he went to check the accounts just now!"

Li Dakang slapped his thigh, his knuckles cracking as he squeezed them.

"The quotas in the strategic reserves were already shorted by those oligarchs using financial leverage!"

"Right now, besides hundreds of tons of moldy, stale corn, even the mice in the warehouse are squealing with hunger!"

He was so anxious that he spun around in circles, gesturing wildly with his hands in the air.

"The major domestic grain traders also took advantage of the situation."

"They took the opportunity to close the granary doors and refused to release any grain, saying... saying they would only sell rice once our Handong payment gateway was opened and the money they had hoarded was released."

Li Dakang stared longingly at Yan Qingfeng.

The look in his eyes was as if he wanted to kowtow to Yan Qingfeng on the spot.

"Mr. Yan, could you give me a heads-up about our 500 billion yuan fund pool...?"

Li Dakang rubbed his hands together and swallowed hard.

"Could we allocate some cash to buy some relief food at a high price on the black market?"

"If this happens tomorrow morning and the people find they can't even scrape a grain of rice out of the pot, they'll have swallowed the iron gate of the provincial party committee compound whole!"

Yan Qingfeng walked to the large boss's chair but did not sit down.

He turned around and placed his hands on the solid wood table.

His gaze was like two blood-stained ice blades, piercing directly into Li Dakang's deathly pale face.

"Give them the money?"

Yan Qingfeng let out a cold laugh.

The laughter echoed through the empty office, sending chills down Li Dakang's spine.

"Take my money to fill the bottomless pits of those foreign devils and speculators?"

Yan Qingfeng tapped his fingers twice on the table, making a muffled tapping sound.

"Are they trying to strangle me with food?"

He straightened up and walked to the wine cabinet next to him.

My thumb rested on a hidden fingerprint lock on the edge of the wine cabinet.

A soft "beep" sounded.

The wine cabinet is split in two from the middle and slowly slides open to both sides.

A large, silver-gray metal door, gleaming with a cold light, revealed a secret chamber.

Li Dakang's eyes widened and his mouth slightly open.

A gust of air, mixed with the smell of earth and cold wind, blew out of the sealed room, making him shiver twice.

Yan Qingfeng walked in, his leather shoes echoing crisply as they stepped onto the metal plate.

He came out less than half a minute later.

He now held a long, thin glass test tube, half-filled with a dark green, viscous liquid.

In his other hand, he held a small handful of seeds that gleamed with a strange metallic luster.

"Bang."

Yan Qingfeng casually tossed the two items onto the coffee table in front of Li Dakang.

The test tube hit the glass tabletop with a sharp, piercing sound.

A few metallic seeds rolled down and landed on the edge of the carpet.

Li Dakang was startled and pointed helplessly at the tube of green water.

"Master Yan, what is this? Is it pesticide?"

Sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes, stinging painfully, and he could only blink frantically.

"pesticide?"

Zhou Yuan, who was leaning against the back of the sofa next to him, laughed, his shoulders shaking.

He walked over, bent down, picked up the seed, and pinched it between his fingertips.

"Secretary Li, this is a treasure that those crazy, reckless guys in our Lingxiao Laboratory worked on for more than half a year to create."

Yan Qingfeng walked to the French windows.

The autumn rain outside was pouring down even harder, with large raindrops pounding against the tempered glass with a loud pattering sound.

He looked down at the city below, gripped by panic and scramble for food.

"Don't those foreign devils like to play the monopoly game?"

A cruel sneer curled at the corner of Yan Qingfeng's lips.

He turned around and pointed to the seeds and test tubes on the coffee table.

"Secretary Li, take this and go back to the Provincial Party Committee to tell Sha Ruijin."

Yan Qingfeng straightened his suit sleeves, his tone light and casual, yet revealing an arrogance that seemed capable of turning the world upside down.

"Let him rest assured and sleep peacefully."

"When it's light tomorrow, I'll show the whole world what Lingxiao Technology is all about."

A bloodthirsty glint flashed in Yan Qingfeng's eyes as he spoke with extreme emphasis.

"I will personally teach these bastards what real people's livelihood means."

Li Dakang carefully held the vial of green liquid in his hand; the icy touch made him shiver again.

"Master Yan, are you really counting on this worthless seed?"

He stammered, his face full of disbelief.

"How many bowls of rice can this grow?"

"How many bowls?"

Yan Qingfeng twitched the corner of his mouth and reached into his pocket for a lighter.

"Tomorrow, I'll make sure they don't even have the right to eat dirt. Zhou Yuan, see them out."

Zhou Yuan grabbed Li Dakang's shoulder and half-pushed, half-shoved him toward the door.

"Oh, my dear Secretary Li, you don't need to worry about this."

Zhou Yuan grinned, looking like a bandit about to rob a vault.

He opened the office door a crack, lowered his voice, and whispered mysteriously in Li Dakang's ear.

"You should go back immediately and have your men free up several hundred super warehouses. Tomorrow at noon..."

Zhou Yuan paused, his eyes gleaming with a thieving light.

"The highway in Handong that was managed in the 1950s is probably going to collapse under the weight of grain trucks."