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

The sound of Lin Yubing's high heels gradually faded into the distance.

The heavy, solid wood soundproof door slammed shut, completely sealing off this luxurious VIP ward and turning it into an isolated island.

The ward was eerily quiet.

Only the imported vital signs monitor by the bedside remained, emitting a regular "tick-tock" sound.

The sound was monotonous and cold, like the death knell hanging in Zhong Xiaoai's villa back then.

Li Dakang was nestled in a soft, electric medical bed, his body covered in tubes.

He stared intently at the pristine white ceiling without a main light fixture, a single, cloudy tear sliding down his cheek.

bitter.

My mouth tastes bitter, but my heart tastes even bitterer.

Li Dakang dedicated his entire life to revolutionary work, and for the sake of Jingzhou's GDP, he was even willing to send his wife to prison.

He always thought he was the most astute player in the officialdom of Handong.

Sha Ruijin was his check and balance, Gao Yuliang was his stumbling block, and Yan Qingfeng was at most a slightly fatter pawn.

Once capital is trapped, it has to follow Li Dakang's rules.

But even today, lying on this hospital bed that was entirely bought by the Lingxiao Consortium, his life is in the hands of his mortal enemy.

He then truly and acutely realized a cruel truth.

Yan Qingfeng had no interest in playing such a low-level power game on the chessboard.

They thought the rules were too broken, so they flipped the table upside down.

He also bought the lumber mill and loggers that made the chessboard with real money!

Faced with absolute dimensional reduction, his proud public power is nothing but a fart.

"Squeak."

The door to the ward was gently pushed open.

Yi Xuexi walked in wearing his faded old jacket and carrying a stainless steel thermos.

His forehead was covered in sweat, and the soles of his rubber shoes were soaked with mud and water, indicating that he had walked all the way here.

"Old Li, you're awake."

Yi Xuexi pulled up a chair, sat down, unscrewed the thermos, and poured out a small half-bowl of steaming hot white porridge.

"The nurse said your blood vessels are fragile. You just had a stent implanted, so you can only eat liquids now."

Li Dakang turned his head with difficulty, looking at his old friend's weathered face, his lips trembling.

"Old Yi... what's the situation outside?"

His voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded on sandpaper, and it carried a sense of unwilling despair.

Yi Xuexi blew on the hot spoon, his tone calm and undisturbed.

"What else can we do? The world has changed."

He held the congee to Li Dakang's lips and continued talking to himself.

"The science park fully resumed operations yesterday, and the Lingxiao Consortium's investment of tens of billions of yuan arrived in the account within an hour."

"The assembly line over there is spinning like crazy, it doesn't stop even in the middle of the night."

Li Dakang stiffened his neck to avoid the spoon, his eyes wide open.

"What about the city's finances? What about tax revenue? Are we just going to let them do this?"

"Old Li, don't you understand?"

Yi Xuexi gave a wry smile and slammed the bowl heavily on the bedside table.

"This quarter's GDP not only didn't fall, but actually surged by 30%! It was all driven by Lingxiao's subsidiaries."

"They paid ordinary people three times their salary, covered all medical expenses, and even gave out high-end mobile phones as year-end bonuses in advance."

Yi Xuexi pointed out the window, his eyes filled with an indescribable complexity.

"Now, the local people have spontaneously erected a life-size bronze statue of Yan Qingfeng in the Science and Technology Park Square."

"Every morning, workers line up to offer flowers, saying that she is a living bodhisattva, their provider!"

Li Dakang felt dizzy and his vision blurred as he listened, his fingers gripping the bedsheets tightly.

"What about the municipal party committee? Did Zhao Donglai and his group just stand by and watch?"

"The municipal party committee compound?" Yi Xuexi shook his head, as if telling an absurd joke.

"Even the cleaning lady in the compound doesn't obey orders anymore."

"No money, no gas, no electricity. All of Zhao Donglai's police cars are broken down, and the SWAT team is pushing them on the road in broad daylight."

Yi Xuexi sighed and laid bare the cruelest reality for him.

"There's only one small diesel generator left in the compound, which is only enough to power the light in the guardhouse."

"Ji Changming handed in his resignation and went back to his hometown to farm. Wang Fugui was so anxious that he lost his hair in the office."

After hearing this, Li Dakang felt as if every bone in his body was being shattered inch by inch.

His stubborn, unyielding spirit was crushed to dust in the face of this irrefutable fact.

He closed his eyes, stopped speaking, and his chest heaved violently.

Yi Xuexi was silent for a moment, then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a neatly folded document.

There was also a black ballpoint pen.

"What is this?" Li Dakang suddenly opened his eyes, like a startled old bird.

"Agreement on the permanent transfer of the core plot of Jingzhou to Lingxiao Consortium".

Yi Xuexi laid the document flat on Li Dakang's chest, his voice cold.

"Lin Yubing left this at the nurses' station before he left, and asked me to give it to you."

"They've said that if you don't sign, the city will never get a single penny of tax revenue or energy supply."

"This is a contract of servitude! This is a betrayal of national sovereignty and humiliation!"

Li Dakang's eyes were bloodshot, and he raised his hand, which was covered in needles, to tear up the document.

"Yan Qingfeng is forcing me to abdicate! I'd rather die than sign!"

"Snapped!"

Yi Xuexi grabbed his wrist, his eyes sharp enough to kill.

"Old Li! Wake up! Stop using your bureaucratic ways to harm people!"

"What do you have to fight them with now? Your half-life, or the starving police officers in the compound?"

Yi Xuexi lowered his voice, each word piercing the heart.

"If you sign, the people will have food to eat, and the city's civil servants will be able to afford to buy cabbages."

"If you don't sign, the shutdown in Handong will never end, and this mess will all fall on your shoulders, Li Dakang!"

Li Dakang was completely stunned.

As he looked at the densely packed, unfair terms in the agreement, images flashed through his mind of police officers suffering from the cold because they couldn't afford to pay their heating bills.

He suddenly let out a miserable laugh that sounded worse than crying, and he coughed as he laughed.

lost.

They suffered a crushing defeat, leaving them with no chance to turn the tide.

With trembling hands, he took the heavy pen from Yi Xuexi.

The pen tip landed on the paper, making a soft scratching sound.

In the lower right corner of this humiliating agreement, Li Dakang signed his distorted name.

With the final stroke, the pen tip pierced the paper, leaving a black ink dot.

Li Dakang loosened his grip, and the pen fell onto the blanket.

At this moment, Secretary Li of Jingzhou felt his backbone completely drained.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Earth.

Ten thousand kilometers away in America, a Boeing 747 private jet bearing the dark gold logo of Soaring Sky roared through the thick clouds.

The huge tires scraped across the track, kicking up a cloud of white smoke.

The plane landed smoothly on the VIP runway at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The cabin door slowly opened, and the cold autumn wind rushed into the luxurious cabin.

Yan Qingfeng wore a pure black handmade haute couture trench coat, and his leather shoes stepped on the red carpet of the gangway.

He put one hand in his pocket and looked down at the land that was known as the world's capital center.

In the distance, the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan gleamed coldly in the rising sun.

Su Jianxin, dressed in a flashy burgundy suit, pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and followed closely behind Yan Qingfeng.

He was holding a flat tactical tablet in his hands, the screen of which was filled with densely packed English data.

"Master Yan, we just received intelligence from our undercover agents."

Su Jianxin grinned, his smile resembling that of a refined scoundrel who had just smelled blood.

"After we drove that old foreigner George back to his country, he gathered together three old-established financial groups from Wall Street."

"They've raised $50 billion and are now aggressively targeting our energy company, which just went public through a reverse merger, on the US stock market. They're making quite a splash."

Yan Qingfeng stepped down the last step, his shiny leather shoes landing on the American concrete floor.

He listened to Su Jianxin's report without even blinking.

A haughty, disdainful sneer curled at the corner of his mouth.

"A few bankrupt foreign trash, scraping together some begging money, dare to call themselves intimidating?"

Yan Qingfeng stopped and turned to look at Su Jianxin, his tone revealing a chilling decisiveness.

"Go and send a letter to those self-righteous old vampires on Wall Street."

"Tell them, I, Master Yan, am here to smash the market."