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

Zhong Family Villa, West Second Ring Road, Beijing.

In the huge, high-ceilinged living room, it was so quiet that you could hear the ticking of the second hand on the wall clock.

The air was thick with a suffocating, deathly atmosphere.

Zhong Xiaoai gripped the newly replaced secure phone tightly, her knuckles turning a pale white.

The screen is black.

For a full twenty-four hours, this phone, which usually rings from morning till night, hasn't even vibrated once.

She bit her bloodless lower lip and, refusing to believe it, unlocked the screen again.

She pulled out the starred number from her contacts and pressed it with trembling fingers.

"Sorry, the number you dialed is currently switched off."

The cold, mechanical female voice was like a crisp slap across her face.

This is already her fifteenth phone call today.

Those powerful uncles and elders who would line up to visit the Zhong family during holidays and festivals.

Those high-ranking officials in the capital who patted their chests and promised to deal with Yan Qingfeng for her.

Now it's like everyone's planned it together: some are shutting down their phones, others are on business trips.

"Avoiding me? Everyone's avoiding me!"

Zhong Xiaoai slammed her phone onto the wool carpet, her chest heaving violently.

She knew perfectly well why these people had suddenly become cowards.

Yan Qingfeng has blocked the import channels for high-end special drugs and life support systems.

Which family doesn't have an old man lying in a special ward waiting for medicine to prolong his life?

To go against the Lingxiao Consortium at this critical juncture is tantamount to asking your elders for too long a life!

Just as Zhong Xiaoai was getting anxious like a cat on a hot tin roof, the heavy security door of the villa made a muffled "click".

The door opened.

A strong, sour smell, mixed with the stench of a garbage heap, instantly flooded the luxurious living room.

Zhong Xiaoai covered her nose and turned her head, her pupils suddenly contracting.

The person standing in the entryway was hunched over, looking just like a homeless person who had just crawled out from under a bridge.

Hou Liangping's expensive black windbreaker was covered with dried egg yolks and rotten vegetable leaves.

His usually meticulously combed slicked-back hair was now a mess of pulled-out strands, covered with grayish-black coal dust.

The gold-rimmed glasses were gone, and a purplish-red gash was clearly visible on his cheek.

"Ryohei?"

Zhong Xiaoai gasped, almost unable to recognize her husband.

"What happened to you, you look like a monster!"

Hou Liangping, like a puppet who had lost his soul, dragged his heavy steps into the living room.

He didn't change his shoes; the muddy soles left a long trail of black marks on the expensive Persian carpet.

"What happened to me?"

Hou Liangping, his lips chapped, let out a bitter laugh that sounded worse than crying.

"I went to Dafeng Factory to promote legal awareness and explain national righteousness to the people."

He suddenly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot, like a wild beast on the verge of collapse.

"And what happened? I was chased away three blocks by the very workers I was trying so hard to save, who grabbed mops and old-fashioned shoes!"

"Are they crazy?!" Zhong Xiaoai's eyebrows shot up, her anger rising to the top of her head.

"A bunch of penniless wretches on fixed salaries, unable to distinguish between good and bad people!"

"They're not crazy! We're the crazy ones!"

Hou Liangping overturned the shoe-changing stool next to him and started screaming hysterically.

"Yan Qingfeng tripled their salaries, covered all their medical expenses, and even gave them fully furnished apartments!"

He pointed at Zhong Xiaoai's nose, tears streaming down his face mixed with the mud.

"And what about us? Besides giving them empty promises, have we spent a single penny?"

Zhong Xiaoai was stunned by the shout, and then her face turned as red as a liver color.

"Hou Liangping! What kind of talk is that? Have you been brainwashed by capitalists?!"

She rushed over in her slippers and grabbed her husband by the foul-smelling collar.

"You backed down just because a few poor bastards threw two rotten eggs at you?"

Zhong Xiaoai gritted her teeth, her eyes filled with malice.

"You have utterly disgraced the Supreme People's Procuratorate! You have utterly disgraced the Zhong family!"

"I'm a disgrace? Does the Chung family still have any shame?!"

Hou Liangping abruptly shook off her hand, took two steps back, and sneered repeatedly.

"Sha Ruijin used your name as a pledge of loyalty, and overnight dismissed everyone in Handong who had anything to do with us!"

He pointed at the shattered phone on the coffee table, his words piercing to the heart.

"Your good uncles are kneeling outside the gates of Lingxiao Manor right now, crying and begging Master Yan to give them medicine!"

"In this battle of dimensional reduction, the power you're so proud of is less than the mud beneath their feet!"

"Shut up!"

Zhong Xiaoai was so angry that she trembled all over and raised her hand to slap him.

But her hand froze in mid-air as she looked into Hou Liangping's eyes, which were filled with despair and mockery, and suddenly she lost all strength.

She slumped down, gritted her teeth, and a desperate madness ignited in her eyes.

"Okay, we can't get through this through legitimate channels, and the authorities aren't doing anything about it."

Zhong Xiaoai turned and walked to the liquor cabinet, poured herself a full glass of strong liquor, and drank it all in one gulp.

The strong liquor burned her throat, making her eyes gleam with a fierce light.

"Since Yan Qingfeng likes to play the game of capital, I'll play along to the very end!"

She turned around abruptly and pulled a spare cell phone from the drawer.

"Our Chung family also has three offshore trust funds overseas, with tens of billions of dollars in cash flow in them."

Zhong Xiaoai dialed an encrypted international long-distance number, her tone chilling.

"Even if I have to sell everything I own, I'm going to short-sell the shell companies of the Lingxiao Consortium on the US stock market!"

Hou Liangping looked at his wife, who had fallen into a frenzy, and slid helplessly onto the sofa.

He knew that Zhong Xiaoai was completely desperate after losing, and had even taken out her life savings.

The phone rang for a long time before it was finally answered.

"Old Wei! Immediately transfer all the liquid funds from the family trust!"

Zhong Xiaoai, like a commander surveying the land, loudly gave orders into the microphone.

"Go all in on shorting those energy stocks held by the Lingxiao Consortium overseas! Smash them through the floor!"

There was no crisp, decisive reply from Lao Wei on the other end of the phone.

There was only a series of heavy, desperate breaths, mixed with the sound of a keyboard being smashed.

"Director Zhong... we can't smash it anymore."

Old Wei's voice trembled like fallen leaves in the autumn wind, filled with a strong sob.

"What did you say?" Zhong Xiaoai frowned, her heart suddenly skipping a beat.

"Our three offshore trust accounts were forcibly frozen by Wall Street's anti-money laundering agencies ten minutes ago!"

Old Wei burst into tears on the other end of the phone, completely breaking down.

"It's not just a freeze! Su Jianxin from Lingxiao Financial somehow got hold of our accounting records."

He sobbed as he uttered news that sent a chill down Zhong Xiaoai's spine.

"He directly leaked the original documents to the International Securities and Exchange Commission! Interpol is practically banging on our fund company's doors right now!"

The phone slipped from my palm with a "thud" and landed on the thick carpet.

Zhong Xiaoai's face turned deathly pale instantly, and even her lips lost all color.

Her trump card, the one she was so proud of, was enough to make her a force to be reckoned with in the financial world.

He couldn't even last a second against Su Jianxin!

They didn't even use funds to fight back against her; they directly uprooted her from the source of compliance!

"This is impossible... How could this be..."

Zhong Xiaoai's legs went weak, and like a puppet whose tendons had been pulled out, she collapsed onto the carpet with a thud.

The arrogance and resentment that had been building up in my heart for the past few days shattered at this moment.

Instead, there was a tremor that came from the depths of one's soul.

It was only at this moment that she truly felt fear.

Yan Qingfeng, who was far away in Handong, was like a god high above.

Not only can they predict every move the authorities make, but they can also manipulate the capital market at will.

The Zhong family's supposedly proud wealth is, in other people's eyes, really like a broken paper toy.

The living room was deathly silent, save for Hou Liangping's heavy breathing.

"Bang bang bang!"

Suddenly, there was a rapid knocking on the villa's door.

Zhong Xiaoai's personal assistant, Xiaolin, didn't even bother to ring the doorbell; she simply swiped her fingerprint to open the door.

Xiaolin was out of breath from running, clutching a tablet computer tightly in her hand, her face as white as paper.

"Director Zhong! Something big has happened again in Handong!"

Zhong Xiaoai collapsed to the ground, her eyes moving stiffly for a moment.

"What else could happen? Even if the sky falls, there's always someone tall enough to hold it up."

"That George! That foreigner from the William Group!"

Xiaolin swallowed hard, then handed the tablet to Zhong Xiaoai, his voice trembling.

"He just signed an 80% indenture contract, and now Master Yan's men are forcing him to stand on the rooftop of the tech park's office building!"