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

Inside the dilapidated Santana, there was a deathly silence.

Secretary Bai's words were like a resounding slap in the face, making Li Dakang see stars.

"Team Leader Qi wants to use me as a sacrifice?" Li Dakang's eyes were bloodshot, like a gambler who had lost everything. "What right does he have?!"

Sha Ruijin ignored him and snatched Secretary Bai's phone.

On the screen, the entry for "Handong's top two leaders, Lingxiao, are being punished by standing in the manor" was followed by a blood-red "Explosion" character.

Below are all high-definition photos taken secretly, even showing the sweat stains on his back clearly.

Sha Ruijin felt a sweet taste in his throat and almost spat a mouthful of blood onto the screen.

In the computer room of the Provincial Internet Security Bureau, the alarm lights flashed, turning the room into a sea of ​​red.

Team Leader Qi was standing in front of the big screen, his thin fingers slamming the table with a loud thud.

"Delete them! Send letters to all platforms immediately! Ban these few lousy photos from the entire internet!"

The director of the internet supervision bureau was sweating profusely, his keyboard clattering loudly.

"Old Qi, we can't hold them back! The enemy is using fully distributed overseas nodes, generating tens of thousands of mirror links per second!"

The bureau chief was so anxious that he kept pulling at his hair.

"We block one, they just give birth to a hundred! The internet police's firewall is almost overwhelmed by the traffic!"

Team Leader Qi was so angry he was trembling.

"We have to suppress it, even if we can't! Have the propaganda department immediately cut out that recording of Li Dakang's meeting and issue a circular!"

He gritted his teeth, a glint of malice flashing in his eyes.

"Fix the blame squarely on Li Dakang, claiming it's due to his rude work style and has nothing to do with the investigation team!"

But he didn't know that it was far away at the top floor of Lingxiao Media's headquarters.

Her almond-shaped eyes, adorned with exquisite eyeliner, had long since seen through his true intentions.

Hua Linglong swirled the red wine in her wine glass, looking at the data trend chart on the big screen.

"Hua Zong, we've detected unusual activity from the provincial party committee's internal IP address. It looks like they're about to issue an official statement to shift the blame."

The operations director leaned over and reported in a low voice.

Hua Linglong chuckled, tilted her long neck back, and downed the red wine in one gulp.

"Old Qi reacted quite quickly, but unfortunately, he was eight hundred years too late."

She slammed the wine glass down on the console, making a crisp, resounding sound.

"Team Two! Push our trump card short video out across all platforms!"

The sound of keyboard clicks suddenly erupted like a torrential downpour.

A short video titled "The Truth About the Forced-away God of Wealth of Handong" quietly appeared on the trending searches of major platforms.

The video has no fancy special effects; it opens with a clear, original audio recording from a conference room.

The screen is completely black, with only sound.

"For the Guangming Peak project, each of you will have to bleed a little!"

"If we don't recognize this share, the fire department, tax authorities, and business registration authorities have plenty of time to investigate you!"

Li Dakang's arrogant and domineering roar, which was almost like outright robbery, was reproduced with high fidelity.

They even thoughtfully added blood-red subtitles.

Immediately afterwards, the screen lit up.

Upbeat background music started playing, and a series of receipts began flashing across the screen.

The Lingxiao Foundation received a receipt for its charitable tax payment of 300 million NTD last year.

The highest-level social security certificate in Jingzhou was paid to the lowest-level cleaning lady.

Donation records for delivering rice and oil to elderly people living alone in Guangming District during holidays.

And that unreserved audit report, whiter than snow, stamped by both the Anti-Corruption Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers!

The final shot of the video focuses on the more than one hundred abandoned infrastructure projects that have been halted.

A line of glaring white text slowly appeared.

"We don't evade taxes, we don't avoid taxes, and we support 300,000 people in Handong. Yet we're being forced to bleed ourselves dry, so we have no choice but to leave."

This short three-minute video was like dropping a nuclear bomb into a cesspool.

The entire internet crashed instantly.

Those netizens from Handong who are cursing online because they can't buy affordable vegetables and can't get their wages.

My eyes welled up with tears after watching this video.

"Holy crap! This is blatant oppression and rebellion by the government!"

"I was cursing the Lingxiao Consortium as heartless capitalists just yesterday, I deserve to die! Master Yan was forced out!"

"They even pay the maximum social security contribution for their cleaning staff! That skinflint Li Dakang is trying to bleed them dry!"

The screen was filled with a dense barrage of comments, which even covered the original video footage.

Public opinion took a complete 180-degree turn in just five minutes.

The blades that were originally aimed at capital have all been turned around.

"No wonder cabbage is ten yuan a pound! It turns out the municipal party committee drove away the 'living Buddha'!"

"The investigation team investigated for three days and three nights and couldn't find anything wrong, and you still have the nerve to seal off someone's door?"

The outraged netizens were like a swarm of sharks that had smelled blood.

They flooded the official account of the Handong Provincial Party Committee.

They even went so far as to leave comments on the official Weibo account of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

The comment section refreshes with thousands of messages every second, all criticizing Sha Ruijin and Li Dakang.

Inside the beat-up Santana, Li Dakang stared at the overwhelming barrage of insults on his phone screen.

"They're spreading rumors! This is inciting subversion!"

He screamed at the top of his lungs, his hands shaking like he was having a Parkinson's attack, and his phone slammed onto the floor of the carriage.

Sha Ruijin leaned back in the driver's seat, his face ashen.

He knew it was all over.

The credibility that the authorities had painstakingly built up over decades was utterly destroyed by Yan Qingfeng's cunning scheme, leaving them with absolutely nothing.

Ordinary people don't believe in any sense of the big picture anymore; they only care about a few concrete tax bills.

All they knew was that Sha and Li had ruined everyone's livelihood for the sake of their political achievements.

Just then, Sha Ruijin's secure cell phone suddenly vibrated violently.

He mechanically pulled out his phone and glanced at the caller ID.

His pupils suddenly contracted.

It was an internal hotline call from the highest levels of government in Beijing!

Sha Ruijin's palms were sweating, and he pressed the answer button with trembling hands, holding it to his ear.

The carriage was eerily quiet, with only the muffled male voice coming from a cell phone.

"Sha Ruijin, what exactly are you guys at Handong doing?!"

The voice on the other end of the phone was filled with barely concealed rage.

"We just received news ten minutes ago that several foreign-owned contract manufacturers in Handong have had their power cut off, and the foreign companies are preparing to protest to the WTO!"

Sha Ruijin swallowed hard, opened his mouth, but couldn't make a sound.

The reprimand from the other end of the phone came down like a muffled thunderclap, carrying an unquestionable, death order.

"Suppress public opinion immediately! By dawn tomorrow, no matter what method you use, the Lingxiao Consortium must resume operations!"

"If you can't do it, the entire entire Handong team will go to the Discipline Inspection Commission for questioning and to explain yourselves!"

The call was abruptly ended.

Sha Ruijin's hand fell limply to his side, and his phone slipped from his palm, landing in the gap between the seats.

He turned his head and looked at Li Dakang in the back row, who was also pale-faced.

"Secretary Sha..." Li Dakang's lips trembled, and his voice was as weak as a ghost.

"What...what did they say?"

Sha Ruijin forced a bitter smile that was more like a grimace.

"How so?"

With trembling hands, he pointed to the imposing gate of Lingxiao Manor outside the car window.

"The higher-ups have ordered us to kneel and die outside this iron gate tonight."

"We must politely beg that God of Wealth to come back to us!"