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

Yan Qingfeng felt a layer of unpleasant, greasy smell in his nasal cavity.

The Waldorf Astoria Hotel's enormous banquet hall, which can accommodate two thousand people, was completely packed with people, with not a single room to step in.

The audience was packed with foreign reporters.

The central air conditioning vents were blowing cold air downwards with great force, carrying the smell of dust from filters that hadn't been cleaned in years.

But it couldn't suppress the body heat emanating from these white reporters at all.

The smell was body odor, mixed with cheap cologne bought from who-knows-how-many supermarkets.

Baked at high temperatures, the smell is so intense it stings your eyes and seems to seep straight into your brain.

Yan Qingfeng sat in the single leather sofa on the stage and rubbed the tip of his nose with the knuckle of his index finger.

He genuinely disliked it.

Countless cameras and microphones were pointed at him from below the stage.

The flashes of the cameras created a blinding white light.

When the sunlight hit my face, I could even feel a slight burning sensation.

"Mr. Yan!"

In the second row, on the left, a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed male reporter suddenly stood up.

He got up too quickly and his thigh slammed hard against the back of the wooden chair.

"Hiss—" He gasped in pain, his facial muscles contorting in pain.

The foreigner grabbed the wired microphone from in front of him.

My palms were covered in sticky, cold sweat, and I slipped, causing the microphone to fall directly onto the table.

With a muffled "thud," a piercing whistling sound instantly emanated from the speakers.

Many people in the audience covered their ears in pain, and Yan Qingfeng also frowned.

The blond reporter hurriedly picked up the microphone, his Adam's apple bobbing laboriously twice.

"You...you're committing blatant robbery!"

His voice trembled noticeably from excessive nervousness, and even the Chinese spoken through the simultaneous interpretation headset stuttered.

"You cut off the battery supply and smash the plate with mutated food."

The reporter's eyes were bloodshot, and spittle flew onto the black foam cover of the microphone.

"This is technological monopoly! This is an incomprehensible tyranny of conglomerates! You are stripping the entire free market of its most basic principles!"

The entire banquet hall fell silent for a few seconds.

The only sound was the foreigner panting heavily.

Zhou Yuan, standing slightly behind Yan Qingfeng, was picking his teeth with a toothpick.

Upon hearing this, he rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Has this stupid foreigner taken the wrong medicine?"

Zhou Yuan lowered his voice and whispered in Yan Qingfeng's ear, "Master Yan, how about I have someone close the door and let two Tibetan mastiffs in to clear his head?"

Yan Qingfeng ignored Zhou Yuan.

He leaned casually against the back of the sofa, his long legs crossed.

He twirled the pure gold lighter between his fingers twice in his right hand, then clicked it shut.

He didn't get angry, not even a flicker of emotion crossed his eyes.

He simply raised his left hand, held it in mid-air, and snapped his fingers lightly.

"Smack."

The crisp sound was clearly transmitted throughout the venue via the miniature microphone on his chest.

The giant holographic screen behind Yan Qingfeng flashed.

All those terrifyingly sharp drop data streams have disappeared.

The scene instantly cuts to a giant slum in Somalia, Africa.

It was a garbage dump that even flies would avoid.

In a ditch filled with yellow sand and the stench of foul water, several black children with swollen bellies and limbs as thin as matchsticks were digging for rotten vegetable leaves in the muddy water.

Yan Qingfeng picked up the iced soda water on the table, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip.

The cool liquid soothed the irritation in my throat.

"Look carefully."

He put the bottle back on the table and tapped the surface with his fingertips.

"You self-proclaimed civilized gentlemen are always shouting about the bottom line of freedom."

In the holographic image, the sky was suddenly obscured by a huge black shadow.

Hundreds of heavy industrial drones bearing the "Lingxiao" totem hovered directly over the slums with deafening engine roars.

"Splash—"

A dozen or so extra-large waterproof woven bags were airdropped and landed on the muddy ground.

The bag burst open.

The white, plump Lingxiao premium rice spilled all over the ground.

The aroma of this rice, even through a screen, seems to evoke the most primal sweetness of carbohydrates.

The black children were stunned, then pounced on them like madmen.

He would grab handfuls of raw rice covered in mud and stuff them into his mouth, chewing until his mouth was full of blood, but he couldn't bear to spit it out.

Not just food.

The hatch at the bottom of the drone opened again.

Several silver-white shipping containers landed steadily.

The door popped open automatically, revealing the lowest-spec automated medical pod of the Lingxiao Consortium.

The red cross emblem gleamed faintly in the yellow sand.

"This is what you call a monopoly."

Yan Qingfeng's voice, delivered through simultaneous interpretation, resonated in the ears of every foreign journalist.

There was no anger, only a condescending tone of voice.

"I'm using a 1.2 yuan high-nutrition food ration to feed these people you consider garbage."

Yan Qingfeng leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees.

"And what about you?"

A cold, emotionless smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"You're using the guise of free trade to sell secondhand weapons to these poor bastards who can't even afford pants, inciting them to fight each other until their brains spill out."

The blond reporter in the audience began to turn pale.

Sweat dripped down my forehead and into my eyes, stinging them so badly that I could only blink frantically.

"Mr. Yan, this...this cannot be confused; it's a matter of business etiquette..."

He tried to explain, but his voice came through the microphone as weak as a mosquito's buzz.

"What kind of bullshit business rules are these?"

Yan Qingfeng interrupted him directly, his tone revealing impatience.

"Your God has spent two thousand years and still hasn't been able to feed these people a single full meal."

"Now it's my turn to do this."

Yan Qingfeng stood up and casually patted off non-existent dust from his trousers.

"Whether it's technological advancement or violent dictatorship."

He placed his hands on the podium, staring intently into the fearful eyes of the audience below.

"I feed them, I am their God. I don't follow your rules, I make the rules."

The entire banquet hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The flashes that were going off just moments ago have all gone out.

The blond reporter felt as if his legs had been pulled out of their muscles, so weak that he couldn't stand up at all.

With a "thump".

He slumped back into his chair, the chair creaking under his weight.

His chest heaved violently, and he gasped for breath with his mouth open, but he felt like he couldn't get any oxygen into his lungs.

The Western world has maintained that arrogance for over a century.

At that moment, the man on the stage crushed them to pieces under his feet with several bags of rice and several medical pods.

Yan Qingfeng had no interest in watching the pathetic state of these stray dogs.

He loosened his tie, turned around, and walked backstage.

The smell of this wretched place made him feel nauseous.

Zhou Yuan quickly spat the toothpick he had used into the trash can and strode after him.

The bodyguards immediately formed a human wall on both sides, forcefully blocking the foreigners who were trying to rush forward.

"Master Yan, is that all?"

Zhou Yuan was walking too fast, and his leather boots kept slipping on the carpet. He quickly grabbed the door frame to steady himself.

"What if these foreign devils are not satisfied and try to trip us up behind our backs? Those old men from Wall Street haven't even shown their faces yet."

Yan Qingfeng pushed open the heavy wooden door to the backstage area.

A cool breeze blew through the corridor, finally dissipating some of the body odor.

He casually picked up a hot towel from a passing waiter's tray and slowly wiped his fingers.

"You disagree?"

Yan Qingfeng casually tossed the dirty towel onto the carved small table next to him and turned to look at Zhou Yuan.

"Notify Shen Pojun to book the entire airport. In three hours, those old monsters from Wall Street will be lining up in Handong begging me for a meal. Tell him to prepare a few more wheelchairs so that the old geezer doesn't die on our turf and bring bad luck."