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

The Standing Committee meeting room in the provincial Party Committee compound.

The heavy, framed wooden door was kicked open from the outside and slammed against the wall with a loud bang.

The drafty wind, carrying the stench of rainwater, squeezed in through the cracks in the door.

Li Dakang looks like a zombie that just crawled out of the morgue.

He scrambled over the threshold, his shoes filled with mud and water.

With each step, a sticky "smack, smack" sound came from inside the shoe shell, leaving a trail of black marks on the carpet.

His white shirt was completely soaked and clung tightly to his thin, bony ribs.

A cold wind blew, and his upper and lower teeth chattered uncontrollably, making a soft "clucking" sound.

Li Dakang stumbled and fell to the oval mahogany conference table.

He was clutching a black kraft paper bag that was crumpled and torn at the edge.

He used his last bit of strength to flick his wrist.

"Snapped!"

The heavy file slid off the desktop.

The back of the paper rubbed against the waxed wood, producing a dry, harsh "hissing" sound.

Finally, it bumped right into the purple clay teacup in front of Sha Ruijin.

A few drops of cooled tea splashed onto the kraft paper bag.

Sha Ruijin leaned back in his seat, his eyelids twitching violently twice.

He didn't touch the mud-stained document, but merely glanced at Li Dakang out of the corner of his eye.

Li Dakang collapsed into the empty chair next to him, exhausted, his trousers dripping with dirty water.

"Sign... Yan Qingfeng asked me to sign..."

Li Dakang's throat was hoarse, as if it were stuffed with broken glass, and his tongue was tied in knots.

"After signing... 300 billion, arrived in the account in half an hour."

The leaders who had been smoking and sighing in the conference room were all stunned.

Finance Department Director Zhou was the first to jump up.

He already had stomach cramps, and now he was clutching his stomach, unable to even straighten his back.

But his eyes gleamed with the green light of a starving wild dog seeing raw meat.

"Three hundred billion? He's really willing to pay that much?!"

Old Zhou lunged forward, his stubby, greasy fingers grabbing the document in one swift motion.

With trembling hands, I tried to untangle the messy white cotton rope.

"Slow down! Can you afford to pay for it if you tear it?"

Vice Governor Zhang, who is in charge of infrastructure, also came over and wrung his hands anxiously.

Old Zhou finally managed to pull the A4 paper out of the box.

The smell of ink mixed with the fishy smell of rainwater on Li Dakang's hands wafted straight into his nose.

Old Zhou stared at the large, bold characters on the cover with his small, bloodshot eyes.

"What kind of public infrastructure in Handong Province? Exclusive franchise..."

As Lao Zhou was reciting, his voice suddenly sounded like it was being choked by something.

Vice Governor Zhang snatched the contract away.

He turned to the first page.

His eyes scanned the paper for two lines.

Her face, which had been glowing red, suddenly looked as if all the blood had been drained from her.

In an instant, it turned into a blank sheet of paper, white as a dead person.

"This...this isn't a damn IOU!"

Old Zhang suddenly opened his throat and let out a grating, hoarse scream.

His hands, which were holding the paper, began to shake wildly, and the pages rattled and trembled.

A bean-sized amount of sweat slid down his temple and dripped directly onto the black text of the terms and conditions.

The ink immediately dissolved into a blurry black blob.

"What does he want? Read it aloud!"

Old Zhou was so anxious that he stomped his feet, his leather shoes making a dent in the carpet.

"Does Yan Qingfeng want land? Give it to him! Give it all to him! The south and north sides of the city connect to the suburbs, as long as it can settle debts..."

"He doesn't want the land!"

Old Zhang yelled back at the top of his lungs, spitting all over Old Zhou's face.

"He wants the entire water supply network in Handong Province! He wants control over the power grid! He wants the main natural gas valve!"

Old Zhang's chest heaved violently, and his breathing became rapid, as if he were having an asthma attack.

His fingers trembled as he pointed at the terms on the second page, making a thumping sound as he poked at the paper.

"And the city's public transportation system, subway dispatching... fifty years!"

He swallowed hard, his saliva tasting of blood. "It's all under the control of the Lingxiao Consortium! They even have the pricing power!"

The meeting room fell into a deathly silence.

The creaking sound of the old floor fan suddenly became as loud as a drumbeat.

A few seconds later, the room erupted in chaos.

"This can't be signed! This absolutely cannot be signed!"

In his haste, Old Zhang slammed the contract down on the table, the impact sending numbness through his fingers.

His suit and tie were all askew, and he was pacing around the table like a madman.

The leather shoes rubbed against the carpet, producing a slightly acrid smell.

"What are water pipes and electrical switches? They're things that ordinary people use to survive!"

Old Zhang stopped in his tracks, placed his hands on the table, and stared at Sha Ruijin.

"Secretary Sha! Once this contract is finalized..."

His Adam's apple bobbed. "That ruthless tyrant Yan Qingfeng can kill anyone he wants without even sending someone with a knife!"

"He just needs to sit in his office and press any key on the keyboard."

"That person can't even turn on the tap to drink a sip of tap water, let alone turn on the lights to cook!"

A suffocating sense of panic filled the room.

Fear, like a cold, venomous snake, crawled up everyone's trouser legs.

It gripped their hearts tightly, suffocating them.

This is utter deprivation.

Yan Qingfeng wasn't lending money at exorbitant interest rates; he was undermining the very foundation of the Han Dong government.

"You won't sign? If you don't sign, those contractors outside will smash your head in with bricks!"

Old Zhou doesn't care about any of that; all he can think about right now is filling that 300 billion yuan hole.

He shoved Old Zhang aside and poked around in mid-air with his fingers.

"Once midnight strikes and the bank issues a default notice, we'll all be in jail!"

Tears welled up in Old Zhou's eyes and streamed down his chubby face.

"If Master Yan wants to control the electricity, let him! Anyway, people use his points to buy even scallions, so what's wrong with paying a little extra for water?"

"You don't know anything!"

Old Zhang was so anxious that he started swearing and grabbed Old Zhou by the collar.

Old Zhou rolled his eyes back and gagged.

"This isn't about money! It's about hostages! Hostages, you understand?!"

Old Zhang's face was twitching all over.

"Once they sign this document, all fifty million people of Handong will be in Yan Qingfeng's hands as hostages!"

"From now on, even an official document issued by the provincial or municipal party committee won't be as effective as a water outage notice from the Lingxiao Consortium!"

He let go, and Old Zhou slumped into the chair, gasping for breath.

"From now on, we'll really be Yan Qingfeng's gatekeeper dogs!"

Li Dakang was slumped in his chair, trembling uncontrollably.

At this moment, as if she had risen from the dead, she lifted her face from her dripping sleeves.

His face was bluish-purple, and his lips were bloodless.

"Yan... Yan Qingfeng said..."

His teeth were chattering as he managed to squeeze out a few broken, incoherent words.

"From now on... water, electricity, and gas meters will no longer need to be checked by humans. The artificial intelligence in the Cloud Sky system will automatically take over."

Li Dakang closed his eyes in despair, the purple bump on his forehead throbbing with pain.

"Unpaid bills or insufficient credit score... in a fraction of a second, the service will be physically cut off."

Sha Ruijin finally moved.

He reached out and took the tattered contract.

My fingers touched the cold rainwater residue on the paper, and my fingertips jerked violently.

Every line of words on the paper is like a barbed blade.

It brutally ripped away the last shred of fig leaf covering up Han Dong.

As he looked at the terms and conditions, a chill ran down his spine, making his internal organs convulse.

The reason why the government is the government is because it controls the resources that allow society to function.

Now Yan Qingfeng wants to take all these underground pipelines.

It's like they've emptied out their internal organs.

All that remains is an empty shell dressed in a suit.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock—"

The ticking of the old-fashioned quartz clock on the wall suddenly became particularly jarring.

Each beat, like a death knell, pounded on everyone's temples.

Sha Ruijin turned his head and glanced at the watch face.

The black pointer at the top has already passed 10:10.

It's almost noon, and that crucial red line for breach of contract is close.

All told, there's only a little over an hour left.

The rain outside the window intensified.

The wind whipped the rain into the glass, making a dull "crackling" sound.

Sha Ruijin felt his breath was thick, and his lungs were filled with despair.

He slowly rolled up the contract.

Clenched tightly in his palm, his knuckles turned white and ached from the pressure.

"Old Zhou, go..."

Sha Ruijin's throat was so dry it felt like he had swallowed sand. He paused for several seconds before finally managing to squeeze out the rest of his words.

"Go and notify the security department to lock the iron fences at the front and back gates of the compound with heavy iron chains."

Old Zhou was stunned, his hand, which was clutching his stomach, froze in mid-air.

"Why are you locking the door?"

Sha Ruijin tugged at one corner of his mouth.

That smile was utterly hideous, and his eyes were filled with a deathly pallor.

"What else can we do? After an hour and a half... we'll just stay inside and listen to those debt collectors smashing the door with sledgehammers."

He casually tossed the contract onto the table and closed his eyes.

"Go, call Qi Weidong."

Sha Ruijin's Adam's apple bobbed violently.

"Ask him... is it too late to buy a standing ticket and escape back to Beijing?"