Me! A high-ranking official!

Zhao Jianguo sat in his office, tapping his fingers on the desk, mentally rehearsing every move he would make next. After confirming there were no blind spots, he took out his phone and dialed Liu Tao's number.

"Taozi, put down what you're doing and come to the gate of the bureau right now."

Twenty minutes later, Liu Tao arrived in his old pickup truck. He had been overseeing the demolition at the supermarket construction site, and was covered in dust and sweat. He called out from a distance, "Brother Jianguo, what's the emergency? I'm watching the wiring."

He pulled Liu Tao under the shade of a tree, away from the sight of the compound's gatekeeper.

"There's something I can't do in person, so I'll have to borrow your name."

"Tell me what it is! As long as it's not illegal, I'll go through fire and water for you, brother!" Liu Tao patted his chest, kicking up a cloud of dust.

He pulled a bank card from his wallet and shoved it into Liu Tao's hand: "There's 14 million in this card. Go to the head office now and transfer it all to your own corporate account or personal card, and then..."

He leaned close to Liu Tao's ear, lowered his voice, and explained in detail his entire speech and the actions to come.

Liu Tao's eyes widened as he listened, his breathing becoming labored as he swallowed hard. "Brother... are you trying to steal meat from the county magistrate's pot?! What if all that 14 million goes down the drain..."

"Do as I say." He patted him on the shoulder, his eyes resolute: "Remember, you are a cultural tourism investor from out of town. Rent a nice car, change your clothes, and don't look timid. See you at the Xiaozhai Village Committee in half an hour."

After seeing Liu Tao off, he rode his old electric bike and wobbled towards Xiaozhai Village on the outskirts of the city.

As soon as he arrived at the large courtyard in front of the Xiaozhai Village Committee, he gasped in shock.

The scene was even more tense than Wang Pingping had described. Two or three hundred people, men, women, old and young, had gathered outside the compound. The front row of young men were carrying hoe handles, shovels, and even rusty steel pipes. Their eyes were bloodshot, and they were staring at the people in front of them like wild dogs guarding their food.

Between them and the village committee gate, two police lines were set up, and dozens of police officers and riot police stood in a human wall with shields. The atmosphere was tense, as if a single spark could turn the place into chaos.

He parked his electric bike in a ditch far away, quietly squeezed into the crowd of onlookers, stood on tiptoe, and looked over the sea of ​​heads at the dilapidated bungalows of the village committee.

The door of the bungalow was wide open, and figures were moving inside. Although the specifics of the argument were unclear from the distance, the villagers' representatives were clearly putting up a show of force by waving their arms and slamming their fists on the table. They were probably threatening the leaders that if they didn't take over the entire property at the high price they paid years ago, this matter wouldn't be over! These people had been holding back for years and had finally seized the opportunity presented by the county's renewed development plans to squeeze back all the money they hadn't managed to extort years ago.

Suddenly, his eyes narrowed as he spotted two familiar figures in the bungalow. Although they were partially obscured by the crowd, their aura of authority was unmistakable.

County Party Secretary Zhou Qingyan, County Head Han Baomin.

He was shocked. Good heavens, this matter had escalated to a much bigger level than he had imagined, with even the top two leaders personally involved! It seemed that the Xiaozhai Village incident had left the county committee compound with no way out. If negotiations broke down today and bloodshed ensued, the municipal committee would be in deep trouble, and neither Zhou nor Han would escape punishment. If the government bowed down and compromised, accepting exorbitant compensation to settle the matter, then all projects in Xihua County would be canceled, and all the troublemakers in the county would follow suit.

This is a dead end!

He huddled at the back of the crowd, took out his phone, and typed a WeChat message for Zhou Qingyan: "Secretary Zhou, stabilize the situation. Don't give in to talking about the acquisition. Calculate the economics with them. Explain that once the cultural tourism project is completed, their houses will be the core shops under the NPC model, and their value will increase several times over. Leave the rest to me. I have a way to break the deadlock."

After sending the message, he moved his position and found an angle where he could see Zhou Qingyan's profile through the crack in the door.

Inside the bungalow, Zhou Qingyan was surrounded and arguing with several agitated villagers when he suddenly felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at it.

In the instant she looked up, she keenly scanned the crowd outside the window.

He slightly raised his chin and nodded almost imperceptibly in that direction.

When Zhou Qingyan saw him, her brows furrowed instantly, and a look of extreme surprise flashed in her eyes. She then quickly replied with a message.

Zhao Jianguo's phone vibrated: "What are you planning to do? Don't do anything reckless!"

Zhao Jianguo smiled and his fingers flew across the screen: "You can just watch the show later."

Inside the bungalow, Zhou Qingyan looked at the reply on the screen, her eyes suddenly sharpening, as if she were sending a dagger at Zhao Jianguo from afar. But she took a deep breath, her back, which had been somewhat relaxed due to fatigue, instantly straightened. She pressed her hands on the table, raised her voice, and began to calculate the benefits of the project's completion with the village representatives in an extremely assertive manner.

Just when things were at a stalemate, a deep, resonant engine roar suddenly came from the main road at the village entrance.

A brand-new black Maybach S-Class sedan, like an elegant black panther, slowly drove through the bumpy dirt road of Xiaozhai Village and came to a steady stop outside the warning line.

In such a dilapidated urban village, this luxury car worth millions stands out like an alien spaceship.

The villagers on the outskirts turned around, and their whispers instantly drowned out the shouts and curses.

The car door opened, and Liu Tao, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a well-tailored navy blue bespoke suit, with her hair neatly combed and her shoes polished to a shine, stepped out of the car. She first slowly and deliberately buttoned up one button of her suit, then glanced around at the crowd.

He had that condescending, money-as-dirt-is-no-object nouveau-riche boss attitude completely under his thumb.

"Fellow villagers, please make way, please make way," Liu Tao said with a smile as he walked forward in Mandarin with a slight southern accent.

These days, ordinary people value two things most: power and money. This Maybach and his attire are the best passes. The villagers, who were originally fierce and menacing, actually made way for him without him even realizing it.

Liu Tao walked unimpeded to the cordon, where he was stopped by two armed police officers holding shields.

"What are you doing? Stand back! We're dealing with an emergency here!" the armed police officer shouted sternly.