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

Inside the red plastic landline phone, the lifeless dial tone was still ringing "beep-beep-".

The sounds of things bouncing back and forth in the empty conference room sounded like the despairing thud of an electrocardiogram machine flattened out.

The phone in Lao Zhou's hand, its screen shattered into a spiderweb pattern, slammed onto the thick wool carpet with a "thud."

His legs buckled and he fell backward.

His shoulder slammed heavily against the plastic casing of the water dispenser, causing the water bottle to bubble up with a "plop".

"He... he, Qi Weidong, didn't even dare to put up a fight..."

Old Zhou clutched his aching stomach, his face contorted in pain, and slid down the plastic bucket.

"The capital city has abandoned us... We're all doomed!"

Just as his voice cracked as he uttered those words.

The three rows of bright incandescent light tubes overhead.

Suddenly, a sharp "zzzz" sound, like an electrical short circuit, rang out.

Immediately afterwards, the light in the entire room suddenly dimmed.

It felt like someone had suddenly blindfolded me with a black cloth.

It remained dim for a good two or three seconds before the light bulb flickered and came back on.

However, the originally cold white light had now turned into a hazy, waxy yellow, and it kept flickering.

This is a sign that the power grid voltage is about to give way.

The countdown to the power outage at the power company was practically right in front of these guys' heads.

Old Zhou was squatting on the ground, clutching his stomach.

Seeing the flashing yellow light, his eyes widened instantly, almost bulging out of their sockets.

The string that had been taut in my mind for half the night snapped completely with a "pop".

He suddenly sprang up from the ground like a mad dog whose tail had been stepped on.

He rushed to the oval mahogany table in a few steps.

The leather shoes, wet with rain and mud, left two black marks on the expensive carpet.

"Secretary Sha!"

Old Zhou, with his broken, hoarse voice, pointed his stubby fingers straight at Sha Ruijin's nose.

His fingernails were full of black grime, and he was less than half a foot away from Sha Ruijin's face.

"You must be an honest official! You must uphold your political integrity!"

Old Zhou spat out a torrent of saliva, which splashed onto the still-wet puddle of tea on the table.

"You're fucking crazy! But those bastards outside will kill us!"

He was so anxious that he kept slamming his fist on the table, his palms making a loud "bang" sound on the solid wood.

The shirt he was wearing, already soaked with cold sweat, clung tightly to the fat on his stomach.

With his heavy breathing, a pungent, fermented smell of sweat mixed with the smell of overnight cigarette tar wafted out.

"Ten minutes! Only ten minutes left!"

Old Zhou's eyes were red and bloodshot, and tears were streaming down his face.

"The whole city lost power! There weren't even any traffic lights on the streets!"

He gritted his teeth and roared, "Even without Yan Qingfeng lifting a finger, those two hundred-odd contractors who haven't received their wages can storm this gate and tear us apart alive within ten minutes!"

The other people in the meeting room who were still in a daze were all woken up by Lao Zhou's shout.

Fear is contagious.

Once the bottom line is breached, the plastic masks within the system are utterly worthless.

Old Zhang, who was in charge of infrastructure, slammed his butt against the chair.

The chair legs dragged on the carpet with an unpleasant scraping sound, knocking over the nearby trash can.

The floor was covered with crumpled paper and sunflower seed shells.

"Old Zhou is right! Secretary Sha, we can't die along with this empty shell of a government!"

Old Zhang hastily wiped the dense sweat from his forehead.

He got oil on his hands and rubbed them hard on his trousers twice.

"Qi Weidong has already surrendered to the conglomerate! The higher-ups have long since abandoned us!"

Old Zhang walked around the table, leaned closer, and breathed rapidly as if he were having an asthma attack.

"Yan Qingfeng can have this franchise! He can manage the water and electricity; it's better than us getting beaten to death in this house tonight!"

"That's right, Secretary Sha, let's sign it..."

"We can't all take the blame, we all have wives and kids at home..."

Several leaders started talking at once and switching sides.

The sounds of mutual complaints and impatient panting made the room feel like a boiling slop bucket.

The atmosphere of despair was so thick it was almost unbearable, making one's lungs ache.

Li Dakang huddled in the leather chair closest to the door.

His soaked suit trousers clung coldly to his thighs.

The chill that came in from the rain is now seeping into my bones.

The cold made his upper and lower jaws chatter uncontrollably.

He didn't dare go with Lao Zhou and the others to force the emperor to abdicate.

He just kept his head down, his hands digging into the flesh of his thighs.

The fingernails dug through the damp cloth and into the flesh.

I forced myself to suppress the cramps in my calves, relying on that sharp pain.

He secretly glanced up and surveyed his colleagues who were jumping up and down in a panic.

A chilling sense of sorrow welled up from the bottom of my heart.

Official credibility? Government face?

In just a few short hours.

Yan Qingfeng used that invisible and intangible scheme of cutting off the power to strip them bare, leaving them with nothing but their last pair of underwear.

They didn't even send out a single thug with a knife.

This has driven the people in the highest positions of power in Handong into a vicious cycle of mutual attacks and backstabbing.

"Tick-tock...click."

The old quartz clock on the wall had a sluggish second hand.

The noise it emitted was ten times louder than usual.

The hour and minute hands were stuck at 11:50 a.m.

Only ten minutes left.

On the street outside the building.

The sound of rain could no longer suppress that frantic restlessness.

"Beep—beep beep—!"

The faint, piercing sound of car horns emanated from several blocks away.

This is the frantic honking caused by the traffic lights malfunctioning and blocking the intersection.

Followed by.

A series of muffled but extremely oppressive noises from the crowd seeped into the crack of the window with a shard of glass, carried by the cold wind.

It looked like hundreds or even thousands of people were wading through the puddles, approaching the iron gate of the provincial party committee compound.

Sha Ruijin stood alone in front of the main seat.

Hearing the commotion outside, his chest stopped heaving violently.

In just a few minutes.

The skin on his face sagged at a visible rate.

The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were so deep they looked like knife marks, and his eye bags drooped, with a deathly grayish tinge.

He seemed to have been drained of all his energy and spirit in an instant, aging him by a full ten years.

He ignored his subordinates who were quacking like ducks around him.

My gaze mechanically drifted downwards.

It landed on that franchise agreement with its edges torn and stained with mud.

Sha Ruijin slowly extended his injured right hand.

Blood was still seeping from the cut on his palm caused by the broken pen.

The sticky blood was smeared in the lines of his palm, a shocking sight.

His five fingers trembled like he was having a Parkinson's attack, and he couldn't even make a complete fist.

He reached for the expensive red-lacquered fountain pen on the table that he hadn't had a chance to use earlier.

My fingertips just touched the cool metal pen barrel.

Because my hand was shaking so badly, I accidentally spun the pen halfway around with a "snap".

Sha Ruijin clenched his molars and tasted a salty, fishy flavor in his mouth.

He gripped the pen tightly with his thumb and forefinger.

The finger bones turned pale from excessive force.

The pen tip hovered over the blank signature area on the last page of the contract.

It's just this inch away.

Yet it was as heavy as the steel and concrete that weighed down the entire city of Jingzhou.

An extreme sense of humiliation transformed into a cloud of sour, stale steam that rushed straight to the bridge of his nose.

Sha Ruijin's wrist trembled like a sieve.

A drop of thick blood slid down his wrist.

With a "click".

It landed on the blank paper next to the signature line, spreading out in a dazzling red plum blossom pattern.

The blaring from the loudspeakers outside grew even sharper.

You could even hear the faint, rapid static of the security guard at the gate of the compound shouting into his walkie-talkie.

Old Zhou, covered in sweat, took half a step forward.

The unpleasant stench of sweat hit Sha Ruijin's face directly.

"Hurry up, old boss..."

Old Zhou's voice was weak and he was so anxious that he kept stamping his feet, the soles of his shoes scraping against the carpet with a sizzling sound.

Li Dakang, who was slumped in the chair, finally couldn't sit still any longer.

He suddenly leaned forward, letting out a wailing sound, staring intently at the pen in Sha Ruijin's hand.

"Secretary Sha... hurry up and write it."

Li Dakang swallowed hard, his eyes filled with desperate, bloodshot veins.

"If you don't press that pen nib down... those guys outside are really going to break down the door and force us to drink this bottle of ink raw!"