Living in a county town, starting as a stock market maker...

Just as the teachers' circle at HG City No. 1 Experimental Middle School fell into a deathly silence due to a lawyer's letter, everyone was on edge.

Beijing, more than a thousand kilometers away.

The highest floor of China World Trade Center Phase 3.

In an office overlooking the bustling CBD, it was so quiet that the only sound was the crisp sound of a cigar being cut.

The office owner was a man who looked to be in his early fifties, wearing a Chinese-style button-down jacket, but whose temples were already gray.

Instead of sitting behind the huge desk that symbolized power, he leaned against a rosewood daybed, playing with two shiny walnuts in his hands.

He is Shen An'an's father, Shen Guodong.

A man whose name alone represents a powerful capitalist faction within Beijing's elite circles.

Opposite him stood a middle-aged man dressed in a sharp dark suit, his hair neatly combed.

He was Lao Chen, Shen Guodong's personal assistant for twenty years.

Old Chen was holding a thick folder in his hand.

"Boss, the preliminary investigation into the situation in Hegang has been completed."

Old Chen's voice was steady and precise, without a trace of personal emotion.

Shen Guodong grunted in response, without even lifting his eyelids, simply indicating for him to continue.

Old Chen opened the folder and began his report.

He didn't say a single unnecessary word, but directly dissected the most crucial information layer by layer, like a scalpel.

"Star Media, with a registered capital of 500,000 yuan, is legally represented by Gu Ming, who holds 100% of the shares."

"In the company's accounts, apart from the 18 million transferred by the young lady, there was only one income of 1.2 million, which came from the local Longquan Winery."

"Independent shareholding and clear finances. This means that, legally speaking, this company has no connection with prostitutes and is entirely Mr. Gu Ming's sole proprietorship."

Shen Guodong's movements as he twisted the walnuts remained unchanged.

Losing money?

The money he lost in his lifetime was more than the annual GDP of HG City.

What he cared about was never money.

Old Chen clearly understood this as well, and he turned to the second page.

"This is the current project schedule and planning for all of Star Media's projects."

"Including but not limited to: 'The Metamorphosis of the Spirited Young Girl,' 'The Character Creation of the Hegang Heroine,' 'Contemporary Consumerist Performance Art Practices,' etc."

"Among them, the largest investment project, 'Seeing the Earth in 100 Million Pixels,' according to our technical assessment, although it sounds unbelievable, the equipment used and the team hired are all top-notch in the industry and conform to professional operating logic. If successful, it could indeed create a phenomenal city marketing case."

"The conclusion is that Gu Ming is not just burning money recklessly. Each of his projects has a clear business logic and a strong expectation of monetization."

Upon hearing this, Shen Guodong's hand, which was twisting walnuts, finally paused for half a second.

interesting.

To package extravagance as performance art.

This kid is a master at manipulating concepts.

Old Chen didn't stop; he knew that what followed was what the boss really wanted to hear.

He pulled out the thickest stack of documents from the folder.

"Boss, this is our recap of the entire process of how he acquired Longquan Winery for 1.2 million."

"Throughout the process, he designed two plans, A and B, which were closely linked."

"Plan A, which involved infiltrating the distillery's young owner, failed."

"After Plan A failed, he did not hesitate for a moment and immediately launched Plan B. He used a song he 'wrote' himself to make a newcomer famous and create external public opinion pressure."

"After Zhou Jianjun, the chairman of the winery, was on the verge of bankruptcy and took the initiative to seek peace, he used falsified traffic data to completely break down the other party's psychological defenses."

"He recorded the entire negotiation, seized the opportunity to catch the other party trying to poach him, and extorted 200,000 yuan in compensation for emotional distress."

"The most crucial step is the last one."

For the first time, Old Chen's voice showed a slight fluctuation.

"After receiving the money and signing the contract, he gave away a 'Brand Revitalization White Paper' that our team had evaluated and that was enough to revive Longquan Winery, as if it were trash, 'for free'."

"This is a classic example of psychological warfare."

"From beginning to end, he not only wanted money, but also wanted to completely destroy his opponent psychologically."

At this point, Old Chen stopped.

A long silence fell over the office.

All that remained were the drifting clouds outside the window and the man on the daybed, who had started turning the walnuts again, making a "click, click" sound.

for a long time.

Shen Guodong spoke slowly, his voice revealing neither joy nor anger.

"What about that lawyer's letter?"

Old Chen immediately turned to the last page.

"Just yesterday. Because of the artists he made famous, rumors spread in Hegang, which directly affected his family."

"Within half a day, he mobilized a 'water army' of people whose source we couldn't trace, and accurately pinpointed the source of the rumor—a local secondary school teacher."

"Then, he spent a lot of money to hire the top legal team in the provincial capital overnight."

"The next morning, a strongly worded lawyer's letter, with a direct copy to the Municipal Education Bureau, was delivered to the principal's desk."

"According to our sources, the teacher was paralyzed with fear on the spot, and the entire teaching community in Hegang fell silent instantly."

"From the outbreak of the crisis to its complete resolution, it took no more than 24 hours. The methods were clean, efficient, and left no future troubles."

Old Chen closed the folder, bowed slightly, and gave his final summary.

His voice was more solemn than ever before.

"Boss, this Gu Ming is extremely capable, resilient, and ruthless. He's a potential tyrant."

"He has a level of shrewdness and skill far beyond his years."

"More importantly, he is using the woman's capital and his unique understanding of the times to rapidly build a business empire that is entirely his own."

"His ambitions far exceed our imagination."

"The young lady is like a rabbit living in the den of a young fox. She may not be eaten for the time being, but her every move is nourishing the fox, making him grow sharper claws and fangs."

The office fell silent once again.

Shen Guodong finally put down the walnuts in his hand.

He stood up, walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the steel forest built by countless amounts of money and desire.

His gaze fell on the cover of the document his assistant handed him.

There is a photo of Gu Ming there.

It's a very ordinary ID photo, with clear black and white contrast.

The young man in the photo has a calm gaze and even a faint smile on his lips.

But Shen Guodong saw a sense of kinship in that calmness.

A disregard for rules and a greed for prey.

He didn't care about the 18 million he lost.

That amount of money wasn't enough for him to buy a yacht.

He didn't even care whether Gu Ming was using his daughter.

In this world, the relationship between people is inherently a never-ending cycle of mutual exploitation.

He cares about it.

It’s An An.

It was his precious daughter, whom he had protected so well, who was so innocent that she was even a little foolish, who was being deeply influenced by a man he couldn't control in a way that she herself was unaware of.

Perhaps, one day in the future, she will become the most dazzling, yet most helpless, piece of that man's business empire.

This is something he absolutely cannot tolerate.

She, Shen Guodong's daughter, could marry a fool who is her equal in social standing, an ambitious man from a humble background, or even a penniless young man.

But there are prerequisites.

That person must be someone he has personally seen and selected, someone he can firmly control.

But this Gu Ming is clearly not one of them.

Shen Guodong turned around and sat back on the daybed. He tapped the small sandalwood table in front of him, producing two crisp tapping sounds.

This was a signal that he was making his final decision.

"Backup machine."

He said it calmly.

"I'm going to Hegang."

Old Chen's body tensed up instinctively.

The boss is going to get involved himself.

He asked in a low voice, "Should we use our connections to put some pressure on the local authorities and make it impossible for them to move an inch?"

Shen Guodong shook his head.

A rare, cold yet intrigued smile appeared on his lips.

"No."

"That would be too boring."

He picked up the cup of tea on the table, which had long since gone cold, and took a small sip.

"I want to play with him myself."

"It's been a long time since I've seen such an interesting little fox."

Outside the window, a silver private jet was silently gliding across the gray sky of Beijing.

A scrutinizing and predatory gaze from the top echelons of Chinese capital is about to travel thousands of miles to that small northeastern city.

It befell that young, ambitious man who knew nothing of it.