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

The nib of the pen in Sha Ruijin's hand broke, and the sound of it piercing the wood was like a muffled thunderclap.

The old quartz clock on the wall gave a dry "click".

The second hand was stuck at 11:59:50.

Li Dakang's eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets, the whites of his eyes covered in crisscrossing red blood vessels.

He was like a catfish about to suffocate out of the water.

He lunged forward, gripping the brown paper contract stained with bloody fingerprints tightly with both hands.

The cold sweat on my palms almost tore the edges of the paper.

"Give it to me! I'll take it down!"

Li Dakang's voice cracked, and he scrambled out, clutching the documents.

The soaking wet leather shoes tripped on the wool carpet.

He slammed half his body against the door frame with a dull thud.

He didn't even notice the aching in his shoulders as the sawdust embedded itself in his suit fabric.

Stumbling and falling into the corridor, leaving a trail of muddy black footprints.

The elevator entrance at the end of the corridor.

The two legal representatives of the Lingxiao Consortium were standing there in suits.

Their leather shoes were gleaming, and they exuded a cold, unapproachable aura.

Li Dakang gasped for breath, his lungs gurgling.

He slapped the tattered agreement onto the legal representative's chest.

"Signed! Stamped! Transfer the money now!"

Li Dakang gripped the other man's suit sleeves with both hands, his fingernails digging into the fabric.

The legal representative frowned in disapproval.

He reached out and unceremoniously brushed aside Li Dakang's muddy, dirty hands.

He glanced expressionlessly at the bloodstains on the signature.

"Secretary Li."

The legal representative forced a cold, insincere smile.

"Master Yan said that although your sincerity is a bit muddy, it's still passable."

He slowly pulled a miniature scanner from his pocket and scanned the barcode on the document with a "beep".

The scene shifts back to the Standing Committee meeting room.

The screen of the encrypted terminal computer on the table, which belonged to the Provincial Department of Finance, suddenly lit up.

"bite--"

A crisp electronic notification sound rang out in the deathly silent room.

Old Zhou, clutching his cramping stomach, scrambled towards the computer screen.

His large face was almost pressed against the screen, his greasy nose touching the glass panel.

The exhaled breath created a white mist on the screen.

On the screen, a string of bright red numbers was jumping wildly.

"It's here...the money's here!"

Old Zhou's Adam's apple bobbed violently, and a few specks of white foam appeared on his chapped lips.

He counted the zeros on the screen with his fingers.

"Three hundred billion! Not a penny less!"

The second hand on the wall had just passed the number twelve.

It was exactly noon.

There was no terrifying scene of the entire city's lights going out instantly, as I had imagined.

The few flickering, yellowish-white incandescent light tubes overhead suddenly made a "buzzing" sound.

The light instantly became stable and bright, even so bright that it made people's eyes ache.

On the street outside.

The car horns, which had been blaring like they were about to kill, gradually subsided.

The traffic lights were not turned off, and the people did not take to the streets to protest.

"We survived..."

Old Zhang slumped into a chair, wiping his forehead with his greasy sleeve.

"That bastard Yan Qingfeng finally kept his word this time."

But just as they were about to exhale the stale air trapped in their lungs...

The real fear had only just begun to creep into Handong's very bones through the internet.

The provincial government dispatch center is a six-story building next door.

Hundreds of large screens are mounted on the wall to monitor the operation of the city's water, electricity, and gas pipeline networks.

Originally, they all had the same uniform, official dark blue system interface.

Suddenly.

"Sizzle—" A crackling sound like an electrical discharge.

All the screens went black at the same time.

The entire hall went dark instantly, with only the whirring of the exhaust fans in the server racks remaining.

"What happened? Was the server struck by lightning?"

The supervisor on duty was so shocked that he almost dropped his thermos.

He didn't even care when hot water scalded the back of his hand, leaving a red mark.

"Reboot immediately! Reboot the defenses right now!"

Several technicians were frantically typing on their keyboards.

The clicking and clacking of buttons echoed throughout the dark hall.

My palms were sweating so much from my anxiety that I slipped the plastic keycaps on the keyboard.

No matter how many times they tapped, the screen remained completely black.

Less than three seconds.

A blinding dark gold light suddenly flashed across all the black screens.

The domineering and arrogant dark gold cloud logo of the Lingxiao Consortium.

The oppressive 3D animation effects occupy the center of every screen.

The blinding golden light shone on everyone's pale faces.

It exudes a sinister, irresistible chill of technology.

"Beep beep beep beep—"

Suddenly, alarms blared in the lobby, and red warning lights flashed and spun wildly.

The light made the white wall look like it had been drenched in blood.

The keyboard in front of the technician was physically locked.

Pressing any button will cause the host to emit a short, piercing beep.

Even the mouse cursor disappeared out of thin air.

"Master! Your access has been revoked!"

A young technician was so frightened that his voice changed tone.

My hands abruptly left the keyboard, as if I had touched a red-hot iron.

"They didn't use any hacking or viruses; they directly cut off our fiber optic access interface at the physical level!"

The director felt a chill run down his spine.

Cold sweat trickled down my tailbone and into my long underwear, chilling my lower body.

His mouth was agape, like a broken duck being choked by an invisible hand.

"The water authority's main control gate, the power supply bureau's distribution network... are we completely blind?"

Yan Qingfeng did not send any of those security guards in black vests to the compound to cause trouble.

He didn't even use a thug.

He used the Cloud AI system, which is 20 years ahead of the world.

Following the underground fiber optic cable, within 0.1 seconds.

This swiftly and decisively physically stripped the Handong government of its control over the city's underground pipe network.

Let's turn our attention back to the meeting room of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee.

Old Zhou slumped in his computer chair, his hands hanging limply at his sides.

The three hundred billion yuan balance on the computer screen, red as blood, stung his retina.

Instead of feeling joy at surviving the ordeal, he felt a soreness in his kneecaps.

My calves were twitching and cramping uncontrollably.

The heavy rain outside the window finally stopped.

The wind carried a damp, asphalt-like smell.

Suddenly, bursts of enthusiastic cheers erupted outside the rusty iron gate of the compound.

"The money's been paid! The bank SMS arrived! Our project payment has been settled!"

"We have food to eat! Thank goodness!"

The contractors and bricklayers who had almost jumped off the bridge were jumping for joy outside the gate.

The smell of cheap tobacco mixed with the odor of mud and water drifted in through the cracks in the window.

But as he listened to the cheers, Old Zhou felt a chill that was hard to describe rising in his stomach.

The intestines are all tangled up.

He knew that those people outside were celebrating too soon and had thanked the wrong person.

This 300 billion yuan buys out the last piece of the Hantong government's solid backbone.

From then on, any instructions issued from within this building had to be tailored to the whims of that dark gold logo.

Sha Ruijin was still sitting in the main seat.

He was like a piece of rotten wood whose soul had been taken away.

He looked down at his palm, which had been cut by the broken stub of a pen.

The bloodstains had dried, becoming sticky and tight, tearing painfully at the skin.

Li Dakang walked back from outside, his clothes soaking wet.

Like a defeated old dog, he shrank back into the chair without saying a word, his clothes still dripping dirty water.

The room was deathly silent.

"Bang."

The meeting room door was pushed open again.

Yi Xuexi stood at the door, holding a broken, vibrating, and ringing old-fashioned mobile phone in his hand.

His face was even more pale than before, his eyes were filled with horror, and even his breathing became shallow.

"Secretary Sha, Li Dakang."

Yi Xuexi swallowed a mouthful of bitter saliva, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down with difficulty.

The knuckles of my fingers turned white from being squeezed so hard.

"It was the old director of the Chengnan Water Plant who called just now."

He bit his pale lips hard, his voice trembling.

"He said thousands of dark, mechanical things flew in from the sky and took over the water plant and substation. Even the guard's dog didn't dare bark. Have we really let a wolf into the sheepfold this time?"