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

The wind blew by, carrying the earthy smell of water plants and rotten mud.

Yan Qingfeng held a rough earthenware jar in his left hand, which contained dark red fish pellets.

The thin layer of oil on the surface of the fish food felt slippery and slightly fishy on my palm.

"Splash—"

Dozens of large koi, each half a meter long, instantly swarmed around like mad dogs.

The fish's tail slapped wildly against the water's surface, its scales scraping against each other.

The ear-piercing splashing sound, mixed with the churning water, all went into the black cell phone on the nearby table.

The phone was on speakerphone.

On the other end, Kobayashi's tearful screams hadn't completely faded away.

Yan Qingfeng twitched one corner of his mouth and chuckled.

He casually wiped the few remaining crumbs on the cuffs of his trousers.

"Did you hear that, Secretary Sha?"

Yan Qingfeng spoke in a calm and unhurried manner, much like asking about the weight of a cabbage at a regular market.

"I don't need to bother unplugging the water pipes and the power switch now."

He took a warm, damp towel from Zhou Yuan beside him.

He wiped the sticky spaces between his fingers one by one.

"Your own people have already taken care of it for me."

In the meeting room of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee.

The sound of splashing water from the hands-free speaker of that red landline phone made Saruijin's eardrums buzz.

He looked down at his pierced palm.

The blood had congealed into a dark red scab.

It's stuck to the skin and flesh, and even the slightest movement causes a throbbing, pulsating pain in the nerves.

"Yan, Yan Qingfeng...stop playing tricks!"

Sha Ruijin gritted his teeth, a hard lump of flesh sticking out of his cheek.

"More than two thousand meter readers are on strike... Did you pay them up to start this?"

His chest heaved violently, his breath coming in sharp, jerky gasps onto the landline microphone.

"Holy crap, that's a really smooth way to shift the blame."

Before Yan Qingfeng could respond, Zhou Yuan's loud, crude voice came from the other end of the phone.

Accompanied by the crisp sound of biting into an apple.

"Old man, your finance bureau hasn't paid the power grid's salaries for six months!"

Zhou Yuan mumbled curses while chewing on an apple.

"They can't even scrape together the money to buy 1.2 yuan worth of my Master Yan's refined rice, they deserve to have their power cut off!"

Sha Ruijin choked, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly.

The acid in my stomach surged up my esophagus, burning my throat.

The Finance Department Director, Old Zhou, lay sprawled on the ground, his neck hunched over, not daring to utter a sound.

Yan Qingfeng casually tossed the dirty towel aside.

The towel landed precisely in the rattan trash can next to it with a muffled thud.

"Secretary Sha, integrity is something you can't eat."

Yan Qingfeng walked to the mahogany round table and picked up a cup of freshly brewed Da Hong Pao tea.

Two tea leaves floated on the surface of the tea.

"You're talking to me about the military? About the old men in Beijing?"

He blew on the hot air.

Even through the radio waves, the sound carried a chilling aura.

"After midnight, the entire province will experience a water and power outage."

Yan Qingfeng took a sip of tea; the tea was warm and slightly bitter.

"At that time, there will be 50 million people in Handong."

He paused for two seconds.

"Those ordinary people who only recognize the benefits I, Yan Qingfeng, provide."

The people in the meeting room were all so frightened that they held their breath.

Li Dakang even forgot that mud was still dripping from his trouser legs.

He gripped the back of the chair tightly, his fingernails scratching deep white marks into the leather.

"If they find out... it's you officials who are clinging to that ridiculous power."

Yan Qingfeng ran his fingertips along the warm teacup.

"So that they can't watch TV at night, can't light their cooking, and can't even flush their toilet."

His tone carried a hint of disdainful laughter.

"Do you think they might storm into the provincial party committee compound...?"

"You want to gnaw off every last piece of plaster from your walls?"

Sha Ruijin's mind went blank.

It felt as if a rusty saw was tearing at his brain nerves.

The pain caused him to break out in a cold sweat.

Beads of sweat on his forehead slid down his brow bone and landed on the table, spreading out in a light gray rim.

"President Yan...Master Yan!"

Li Dakang simply couldn't take it anymore.

He scrambled to the front of the phone, his knee hitting the table leg with a dull thud.

"We...we can talk this over...three hundred billion..."

Li Dakang's tongue was tied in knots, and he sprayed saliva onto the keyboard.

"We'll pay interest! Even loan shark interest is fine! Just don't cut off the power!"

"Get out of here."

Yan Qingfeng's voice instantly turned cold.

It was like an icicle piercing directly into Li Dakang's ear.

"I said I wanted a franchise."

He slammed his teacup on the table.

The ceramic struck the glass plate with a crisp "ding".

"It's fine if you don't sign."

Yan Qingfeng put his hands in his trouser pockets and watched the koi fish still frantically fighting for them in the water.

"Then just be straightforward and hold a press conference to announce the financial bankruptcy of the Handong government."

He tilted his neck, and his joints made a slight "crack" sound.

"I can wait."

The air on the other end of the phone seemed to freeze.

All that could be heard were the heavy, disordered breathing of a few people, like a broken bellows.

"My Lingxiao Consortium has 100,000 heavy-duty diesel generators stockpiled in its warehouse."

Yan Qingfeng spoke in a flat tone.

"I control all the high-end water purification equipment in the city."

He forced a smile and then uttered a final, death sentence.

"I have a generator, I have clean water."

Do you have any?

"Yan..."

Sha Ruijingang opened his mouth, his chapped lips split open, and a trace of salty blood seeped out.

"Beep—beep—beep—"

The merciless tone of the disconnection rang out instantly.

The dial tone echoed like a death knell in the empty conference room.

Sha Ruijin suddenly loosened his grip on the receiver.

The red plastic earpiece slid down, hit the base, and bounced onto the table.

It made a few loud "clanging" noises.

His entire arm looked as if its tendons and bones had been removed, hanging limply down the outside of his trousers.

The stomach spasm reached its peak at that moment.

My internal organs are all twisted together, and it hurts.

Sha Ruijin suddenly tilted his head to the side.

"Wow--"

He vomited a mouthful of yellowish, bitter, sour water directly onto the wool carpet.

The pungent smell of gastric juices instantly filled the enclosed room.

Old Zhou was so frightened that he backed away repeatedly and plopped back into his dirty puddle.

"Secretary Sha!"

Sha Ruijin gripped the edge of the table tightly with both hands, gasping for breath.

Tears, forced from the corners of my eyes, mixed with cold sweat and stung my eyes.

The rain outside is pouring down even harder.

The wind tugged at the tree branches, as if countless ghostly hands were pounding on the glass window.

It made a "bang, bang" sound, as if it might smash the glass at any moment.

Sudden.

The few incandescent bulbs overhead were always on.

"Zzz—" It flickered twice and then emitted a short-circuit electrical sound.

The light in the room suddenly dimmed, then stubbornly came back on.

The light had turned a dim, yellowish color, like a candle about to burn out.

Old Zhang raised his head and stared at the ceiling.

His eyes were so wide they almost popped out, and he was gasping for breath through his teeth.

"The voltage... the voltage is unstable."

His finger, which was pointing at the light bulb, trembled so badly it looked like he had Parkinson's disease.

"A sign of an impending power outage... They really pulled the main switch!"

Li Dakang collapsed to the ground.

The crotch was cold and pressed against my skin; I couldn't tell if it was rainwater or something else.

He looked up at Sha Ruijin in despair.

"Secretary Sha..."

Li Dakang's voice was so harsh it was unbearable to listen to, with an unpleasant sobbing tone.

"Sign it... If you don't put it on now, those two hundred contractors outside will really eat us alive!"

Sha Ruijin did not move.

He just stared intently at the puddle of yellow liquid he had vomited on the carpet.

The sour, foul smell assaulted his nostrils, and he didn't even have the strength to raise his hand to cover his nose.

That broken quartz clock on the wall.

The second hand ticked away rapidly.

It's already 11:45.

There are only fifteen minutes left until the critical moment of midnight.

In the hallway outside the door.

The government building, which was quiet just a moment ago, is now like a hornet's nest.

The sounds of hurried footsteps, the clatter of leather shoes hitting the ground, and the suppressed screams of the female clerk.

It all crept into my ears through that wooden door.

"Elevator! The elevator is stuck on the third floor! Call property management immediately!"

Someone was shouting at the top of their lungs outside, their voice filled with panic.

Xiaolin sat on the ground, his eyes glazed over.

He used his remaining foot, which was wearing a leather shoe, to push off the ground and shrink himself into the corner.

"There's no property management anymore... The property management company was just a shell company under Ling Xiao, they've long since disappeared."

Xiao Lin grinned foolishly, a sound more chilling than a wailing funeral.

Sha Ruijin slowly turned around.

Its body swayed twice, like a piece of rotten wood hollowed out by termites, ready to crumble into pieces at any moment.

He walked to the center of the table.

The torn brown paper bag lay there quietly, like a gaping black hole.

Sha Ruijin bent down.

With his still-bleeding right hand, he shakily pulled open the drawer.

After fumbling around for a while, I finally found a high-quality red-lacquered fountain pen used for signing official documents.

The "pop" sound of the pen cap being pulled out was particularly loud in the room.

He held the pen nib suspended on the last page of the franchise agreement.

My wrists were shaking like a leaf.

The pen tip was waving wildly a few millimeters from the paper, but it just wouldn't fall.

Li Dakang scrambled over to get closer.

He grabbed Sha Ruijin's leg without hesitation.

Sha Ruijin's soaked suit trousers were covered in black mud on his legs.

"We can't hesitate any longer, old boss!"

Li Dakang's face was covered in tears and snot, and he tilted his head back and howled.

"Even if I have to be a dog, I have to survive until noon today! Outside... the car horns are practically shaking the building down!"

Outside the window, on the road outside the municipal party committee compound.

A series of ear-piercing car horns blared, "Beep-beep-beep—" echoing throughout the room.

Amidst the faint murmurs of angry curses from the crowd, the shouts rose in waves.

Sha Ruijin closed his eyes.

His teeth were grinding together.

The pen tip pressed down heavily.

"Click—"

Because of excessive force, the pen nib pierced the paper and scratched the mahogany table below.

It left a glaring red mark.

Just as he finished making the last stroke and threw away the pen...

"Bang!"

A stone was smashed into the conference room window from the outside.

The stone failed to penetrate the bulletproof glass and bounced off the windowsill, making a screeching sound.

Immediately afterwards, Old Zhou's desperate screams came from outside the door.

"Secretary Sha...don't sign it!"

Old Zhou stumbled and crawled through the corridor and burst into the room, holding a phone with a shattered screen in his hand.

His face was filled with terror, as if he had seen a living ghost.

"Qi Weidong... Commissioner Qi was just cornered by two drones at the train station! He... he revealed that top-level secret order in front of hundreds of passengers..."

"He ate the secret order?!" Li Dakang suddenly raised his head and grabbed Lao Zhou's trouser leg, breaking it in two.

Old Zhou was so startled that he almost dropped his phone.

"No, it's not about eating... He shouted into the drone camera... The capital can't handle things in Handong anymore! Just tell Master Yan to leave him a whole corpse!"