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

"Beat it! Beat this heartless bastard to death!"

A tattered mop reeking of swill flew through the air and landed squarely on Hou Liangping's back.

He stumbled and fell face-first onto the concrete curb.

His chin hit the stone slab, leaving a bloody red mark.

"Don't let him get away!"

The elderly men and women waved their brooms and chased after the dog like it was drowning.

Rotten eggs, rotten vegetable leaves, and muddy coal dust rained down on the once-expensive black windbreaker.

Hou Liangping covered his head with his hands and scrambled out of the large black iron gate of the welfare community.

His gold-rimmed glasses were nowhere to be found, and half of his face was covered with a blob of yellowish-green, runny egg.

His usually sleek, slicked-back hair was now covered in chicken feathers and sour cabbage stalks.

"Fellow villagers! You are protecting criminals! You will be punished by capital!"

He clung tightly to the roadside green railing with both hands, trying to shout out a few words of legal education declaration in his hoarse voice.

"Fuck your laws! Get out of Jingzhou!"

The plump woman took off her old-fashioned shoes, swung her arm, and flew straight at Hou Liangping's face.

The pungent smell of foot odor mixed with the smell of swill made his eyes roll back and he almost vomited on the spot.

Where is the slightest bit of the prestige of the head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Supreme People's Procuratorate?

He looked exactly like a beggar who had rolled around in a garbage dump three times.

Hou Liangping completely broke down and scrambled into a dark, dead-end alley next to him.

He leaned against the moss-covered, broken brick wall, panting heavily, his chest heaving violently like a bellows.

He couldn't understand how the justice he was so proud of had become a piece of trash in the eyes of ordinary people.

But what he didn't know was that inside that seemingly ordinary Iveco van across the alley...

Three high-definition telephoto lenses were already fixed on his disheveled face.

Lingxiao Media Headquarters, Top-Level Control Center.

Hua Linglong held a half-full glass of red wine, looking at the high-definition, uncensored "Director Hou's Escape Picture" on the screen, and laughed heartily.

"This close-up is really well done; it even captures the chive leaf stuck between his teeth clearly."

Her long, slender fingers, painted with red nail polish, tapped lightly on the keyboard.

"Director, add a highlight to this video, and write a really 'huge' title."

Hua Linglong parted her red lips slightly and uttered a sentence that could kill a person's heart.

"Let's call it 'A retired official attempted to sabotage the resumption of work and production in Handong, but was spontaneously driven away by the masses.'"

The operations director rubbed his hands together, grinning from ear to ear.

"Boss Hua, you've hit the nail on the head. Not only have you convicted this bastard, but you've also portrayed the common people as a righteous army."

"Push! Instantly send a pop-up notification to the top of all online channels!"

In just ten minutes, this two-and-a-half-minute video went viral on the internet.

The servers of major short video platforms are almost overwhelmed by the sudden influx of traffic.

The barrage of comments was dense, layer upon layer.

"Who's that beggar? He's been beaten like a grandson, it's so satisfying to watch!"

"Upstairs, this is a high-ranking official from the capital. I heard he came specifically to cause trouble for Master Yan."

"Smash Master Yan's pot? That's smashing our rice bowls! These aunties did a great job, they hit the mark with their shoes!"

"These parasites that hinder the economic development of Handong should be kicked out!"

The video was shared wildly, and the number of views skyrocketed.

Hou Liangping's lifelong accumulation of political integrity has been stripped bare in the face of the torrent of the internet, leaving him with nothing but his underwear.

He became the biggest laughing stock on the internet, a political clown that even an old lady on the street could easily step on.

This fire, carried by the internet cable, spread directly to the capital city, thousands of miles away.

Inside a heavily guarded detached villa on the West Second Ring Road.

"Clang!"

A beautiful cloisonné enamel teacup was smashed hard onto a 75-inch LCD TV screen.

The expensive screen instantly exploded with a spiderweb-like crack, emitting a wisp of burnt blue smoke.

"This is outrageous! This is outrageous!"

Wearing a silk nightgown, Zhong Xiaoai spun around wildly in the spacious living room like a mother tigress protecting her cubs.

Her usually well-maintained face was now distorted horribly, her features almost squeezed together.

Although the TV screen was broken, the footage of Hou Liangping being hit with an old man's shoe was still playing on a loop from the speakers.

The crisp "smack" sound, like a hard slap, landed squarely on Zhong Xiaoai's face.

"Who does Yan Qingfeng think he is! A local nouveau riche, how dare he treat our Liangping like this!"

She kicked over the mahogany tea table in front of her, shattering the exquisite fruit plate on the floor.

"Have those poor bastards gone mad? Instead of being protected by government officials, they've gone to become henchmen for capitalists!"

In Zhong Xiaoai's world, power is everything.

She was used to being high and mighty, used to being able to decide someone's life or death with just a phone call.

But now, her husband, whom she was so proud of, was being driven into a dead end by a group of the lowest-level workers, like beggars being chased away!

This is no longer just slapping Hou Liangping in the face; it's throwing the face of the entire Zhong family in the capital into the latrine and trampling on it!

"Investigate! Find the source of this video immediately!"

Zhong Xiaoai grabbed the secure phone on the table and screamed hysterically into the other end, her voice so shrill it could pierce eardrums.

"Block his account! Arrest that woman named Hua Linglong!"

The voice on the other end of the phone, however, carried a hint of helpless bitterness.

"Director Zhong, we can't block them. Lingxiao Media's nodes are all overseas; they're using legal territorial news broadcasting rights."

"This video has now been reposted hundreds of thousands of times by netizens. Since there are so many people involved, the Cyberspace Administration of China is helpless."

"Useless! A bunch of useless trash!"

Zhong Xiaoai slammed the secure phone to the ground, shattering it into pieces.

She clutched her chest and slumped onto the sofa, trembling with anger.

That feeling of helpless rage and despair overwhelmed her like a tidal wave.

Power is no longer effective.

Faced with Yan Qingfeng's perfectly legitimate business machine, her proud background in Beijing became a useless decoration.

Jingzhou, the top floor of the Lingxiao Building.

A hundred meters above the city, the chairman's office is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Outside the huge panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, neon lights flickered.

Yan Qingfeng sat in a large leather chair, his two long legs casually crossed and propped up on the desk.

He held a translucent jade thumb ring in his hand, rubbing it slowly with his thumb.

Three holographic projection screens on the desk are simultaneously displaying intelligence from various locations.

On the left is surveillance footage of Hou Liangping awkwardly wiping his face in a dead-end alley.

On the right is a hidden camera shot of Zhong Xiaoai smashing a television in the Zhong family villa in Beijing.

"Master Yan, the tigress from the Zhong family has really lost her temper."

Lin Yubing walked in, wearing high heels, and gently placed a data report on the table.

"In just ten minutes, at least a dozen groups of people in Beijing tried to trace our IP, but they were all blocked by Wushuang's firewall."

Yan Qingfeng did not read the report.

He stared at the hysterical Zhong Xiaoai on the screen, a chilling smile curling at the corner of his lips.

"It's good that they're desperate; a cornered dog will jump over the wall."

He slipped the jade thumb ring onto his thumb, tapped the mahogany table with his finger bone, and produced a dull, crisp sound.

"These self-proclaimed parasites have been sitting on their pedestals for too long, and they really think that even the air is free."

Yan Qingfeng pulled his legs back, stood up, and walked to the French windows, looking down at the brightly lit city of Jingzhou.

"They don't care about giving them any face, and instead they insist on doing these underhanded things behind the scenes."

He dusted off non-existent dust from his cuffs, a hint of domineering killing intent flashing in his eyes.

"Then let them know that in this world, power is not the only thing that can hold their lives in its grasp."

"Thump, thump".

There was a gentle knock on the office door.

Bai Zhi, president of Lingxiao Medical Group, walked in, wearing a well-tailored white coat.

She wore gold-rimmed glasses and had a cool, aloof demeanor, like a block of ice.

Holding a thick stack of encrypted medical records in his hands, he walked with a steady gait.

"Master Yan, you wanted to see me?" Bai Zhi bowed slightly, her voice clear and crisp.

Yan Qingfeng turned around and his gaze fell on the pile of medical records in Bai Zhi's hand.

That place contains the life-extending secrets of countless high-ranking officials and powerful figures in the capital.

Imported specialty drugs, exclusive gene-targeted therapy, and rare high-end life support systems.

These life-saving resources are all firmly held in the hands of Lingxiao Medical.

Yan Qingfeng walked to his desk and casually picked up a cup of still steaming black tea.

He took a deep breath of the tea aroma, his eyes becoming even more piercing than the winter chill outside the window.

"Bai Zhi, has the maintenance notification for the medical devices been written?"

"Reporting to Master Yan, the draft has been completed according to the highest compliance standards."

Bai Zhi pushed up her glasses, her tone completely calm.

"Starting from 8:00 AM tomorrow, all of Lingxiao Medical's overseas import channels for special-effect drugs, as well as the leasing and maintenance of high-end equipment, will enter a one-month legal technology sequestration period."

Yan Qingfeng nodded in satisfaction and slammed the teacup heavily on the table.

He looked out the window at the pitch-black night sky and seemed to see the terrified faces of the powerful and wealthy thousands of miles away.

A cruel smile curled at the corner of his mouth as he casually uttered a sentence.

"Go and do it. It's time to cut off the oxygen supply to the powerful and wealthy in the capital."