By the locked marina breaker box outside the Boat Show Pavilion, Manager Wei rested his good left hand on the heavy iron padlock and laughed until his shoulders shook.
“Did you hear that woman on his speakerphone, Young Master Song?” Manager Wei jeered, nodding toward Lin Mo’s phone while nursing his dislocated right wrist in its silk sling. “Buy the entire Cloud-Crown Five-Star Hotel and Marina for one and a half billion yuan? He thinks a forty-story five-star landmark on the Tianhai Bund is a roadside cabbage stall!”
Song Zihao blew out a cloud of cigar smoke and smirked across the dark pier, where the shore-power cables and diesel pumps along all thirty European superyachts sat dead.
“Let him bluff, Manager Wei,” Song Zihao drawled, glancing at the diamond watch on his wrist. “It’s eleven-twenty at night. My family holds fifty-one percent of the Cloud-Crown’s operating company through a leveraged European bank loan. Without my father’s signature, not even the governor could transfer this hotel’s deed before midnight. Enjoy sitting in the dark on your six-hundred-million-yuan shrimp boats, Lin Mo!”
Behind Song Zihao, Tiffany wrapped her white fur shawl tighter and hesitated with her finger over her phone screen, wondering if she should delete the text she had just sent her society broker.
Lin Mo tucked his satellite phone back into his coat pocket and looked at Song Zihao with mild curiosity.
He admits out loud that his family bought the hotel with a leveraged European bank loan, Lin Mo thought deadpan. He doesn’t even know his father skipped the last three quarterly principal payments to fund their shipping cartel. Rich second-generation heirs really ought to take a basic accounting class.
Just then, the rhythmic, synchronized click of thirty pairs of leather shoes echoed down the covered marble walkway connecting the hotel driveway to the marina pier.
Clack-clack-clack!
Thirty sharp-eyed legal auditors in black trench coats—every one of them carrying a silver-sealed aluminum legal case and a portable court-certified notary printer—marched onto the pier in two crisp columns.
Walking at the front of the formation with a bright, dimpled smile was twenty-six-year-old Shen Qiaoqiao (`Goodness: 91/100`). She was the newly appointed Tianhai Provincial Chief Legal Counsel of Taichu Benevolence Group, working alongside Jiangcheng Director Zhang Wei.
Beside her walked a sixty-five-year-old man with snow-white hair and an upright posture despite his faded wool coat. As the old man stepped under the pavilion lights, dozens of hotel housekeepers, bellhops, and marina maintenance workers who had gathered along the glass corridor gasped in recognition.
“It’s Director Xu! Old Founder Xu!” rookie concierge Xiao Lin whispered excitedly to Lin Mo. “He designed and built the Cloud-Crown Hotel fifteen years ago! He always paid us double overtime on holidays until the Song Clan trapped him with a predatory bridge loan three years ago and froze his thirty percent minority shares!”
Lin Mo’s [Pure-Heart Eye] scanned the white-haired founder:
[Target: Xu Changqing (Director Xu) | Role: Original Founder & 30% Minority Shareholder of Cloud-Crown Hotel & Marina].
[Moral Integrity Score: 86/100 (Built Tianhai’s safest harbor pier; refused to fire older workers during the downturn; pension illegally frozen by Song Shipping)].
[Status: Verified Pure-Heart Beneficiary — 100x Refund Unlocked!].
Seeing Director Xu walk onto the pier, Song Zihao’s smile stiffened slightly before turning into a sneer. “Old man Xu? Still alive? Your thirty percent minority stake has been frozen in commercial arbitration for three years! Bringing a toothless old shareholder here won’t turn the electricity back on!”
“Who said Director Xu came here for arbitration, Young Master Song?” Shen Qiaoqiao beamed, her dimples deepening as she patted the wet hood of a white Taichu cold-chain van parked beside the pier entrance.
Two Taichu lawyers immediately spread a waterproof velvet document mat across the hood of the cold-chain van. On top of it, they set a thick stack of international bond-assignment deeds stamped with the red wax seal of the Zurich-Jiangnan Sovereign Debt Clearinghouse.
“Don’t panic, Young Master Song—look at Clause 19 of the Senior First-Lien Mortgage that your Song Clan signed with the Zurich Banking Consortium three years ago,” Shen Qiaoqiao recited cheerfully. “If the majority operator defaults on two consecutive principal tranches or uses the hotel’s accounts for illegal kickbacks, the senior bondholder can execute an instant Debt-for-Equity Foreclosure with the founding shareholder!”
Song Zihao’s face twitched. “So what?! The Zurich Consortium would never call our loan over a forty-day delay!”
“They wouldn’t,” Shen Qiaoqiao smiled sweetly, holding up a notarized red certificate. “Then fifteen minutes ago, Taichu Benevolence Group bought out their defaulted ¥1.30 Billion Senior Mortgage at full par value! We also added ¥200,000,000 to unfreeze Director Xu’s pension, buy the remaining shares, and fund the Cloud-Crown Honest Employee Welfare Fund for all 279 upright staff members!”
Manager Wei’s jaw dropped open. “One... one billion five hundred million yuan?! Cash buyout of the parent mortgage?!”
“Boss Lin,” Shen Qiaoqiao uncapped a gold fountain pen and pointed to the signature line on the hood of the cold-chain van while sliding the Taichu Benevolence POS Terminal beside Director Xu’s hand. “Sign here, and 100% of the Cloud-Crown Five-Star Hotel, Private Marina, Boat Show Pavilion, and Fuel Depot belongs to Taichu Group!”
Spend one and a half billion yuan to turn Song Zihao’s flagship hotel into our provincial employee dormitory, and pocket a hundred and fifty billion in cashback, Lin Mo thought with a nod. That’s what I call a proper hostile takeover.
Stepping up to the hood of the cold-chain van, Lin Mo signed his name across the master acquisition deed in three bold strokes. Then he tapped his Taichu Black-Gold Benevolence Card against the terminal as Director Xu (Goodness: 86/100) and the representatives of the 279 honest workers (Goodness: 80–90/100) verified the transfer!
BEEP—CHIME!
A blinding column of emerald-gold light shot across the terminal screen and linked directly to the Tianhai Municipal Property & Commercial Registry:
[BEEP! SOVEREIGN ACQUISITION & WELFARE SETTLEMENT APPROVED: ¥1,500,000,000.00 (¥1.50 BILLION RMB) PAID IN FULL!]
[PROPERTY DEED #TH-00089 TRANSFERRED: 100% OWNERSHIP OF CLOUD-CROWN FIVE-STAR HOTEL & MARINA ASSIGNED TO TAICHU BENEVOLENCE GROUP!]
[BENEFICIARIES VERIFIED: DIRECTOR XU CHANGQING (GOODNESS: 86/100 — SHARES & ¥20M PENSION RESTORED) & 279 HONEST HOTEL/MARINA STAFF (GOODNESS: 80–90/100)!]
Inside Lin Mo’s mind, a colossal golden tsunami of sovereign wealth roared through his dantian like a bursting dam:
[DING! SPENT ¥1,500,000,000 ON 280 VERIFIED PURE-HEART BENEFICIARIES!]
[100X PURE-HEART CASHBACK TRIGGERED! +¥150,000,000,000 (¥150.00 BILLION RMB) DEPOSITED INTO PERSONAL LIQUID VAULT!]
[CURRENT LIQUID VAULT BALANCE: ¥326,800,000,000 (¥326.80 BILLION RMB)!]
[GOOD PEOPLE NETWORK: 10,350 (+280) | BONUS: +1,500,000 BENEVOLENCE MERIT POINTS!]
As 1,500,000 Benevolence Merit Points surged into Lin Mo’s meridians, every bone and tendon in his body hummed with warm golden resonance. The surge pushed his Rank 2 Peak Martial cultivation to the razor’s edge of the Half-Step Grandmaster threshold!
At the exact same second, the giant forty-story LED facade on the outside of the Cloud-Crown Hotel tower flickered twice—and the old Song Clan emblem vanished, replaced by a gleaming, hundred-foot golden lotus banner:
[TAICHU TIANHAI EMPLOYEE WELFARE HEADQUARTERS & SANCTUARY HOTEL]
Across the lobby, corridors, and marina docks, 279 phones belonging to honest housekeepers, bellhops, laundry aunties, and dock mechanics chimed in unison with texts from the new Taichu HR system. Their salaries had just been doubled, all unpaid Song Clan overtime was settled at triple rates, and the third through fifth floors were now permanent free employee family suites!
Director Xu stared at the twenty-million-yuan pension restoration notice and his reinstated Founding Honorary Director badge. The sixty-five-year-old founder bowed deeply to Lin Mo, tears splashing onto the hood of the cold-chain van.
“Three years...” Director Xu choked out. “For three years the Song Clan bled this hotel dry and treated my old employees like cattle. Thank you, Chairman Lin! Now the Cloud-Crown finally has a master with a conscience!”
“You built a solid foundation, Director Xu,” Lin Mo said warmly, helping the old founder stand straight. “Stay on as Honorary Chairman of our Tianhai Hospitality Board.”
Lin Mo then turned toward twenty-one-year-old rookie concierge Xiao Lin (`Goodness: 91/100`), who was still standing respectfully beside Grandma Chen’s thermos bag in his frayed bellhop jacket.
“Xiao Lin,” Lin Mo said.
“Here, Chairman Lin!” Xiao Lin stood at attention.
“Manager Wei fired you an hour ago for holding an umbrella over Grandma Chen,” Lin Mo said deadpan, pulling the gold Master Hotel General Manager Badge off the newly printed registry tray and pinning it onto Xiao Lin’s lapel. “Starting tonight, you are the General Manager of Taichu Cloud-Crown Headquarters. Base salary: five million yuan a year. Your first job is to make sure no honest guest or driver ever stands in the rain at our front door.”
Xiao Lin’s eyes went wide as saucers. From a three-thousand-five-hundred-yuan-a-month intern slapped in the rain to the five-million-yuan-a-year General Manager of a five-star landmark in sixty minutes!
“I won’t let you down, Chairman Lin!” Xiao Lin shouted, his face glowing with fierce determination as 279 hotel employees burst into thunderous applause!
Lin Mo then looked at Captain Old Hai (`Goodness: 94/100`). “And Captain Hai, you are officially appointed Commodore of the Taichu Cloud-Crown Marina. Unlock that breaker box, turn on the floodlights, and fill all thirty European superyachts with top-grade marine diesel on the house.”
“Aye, Chairman!”
Captain Old Hai marched over to the marina breaker box. With one squeeze of his calloused diver’s hand, he wrenched Manager Wei’s padlock off the latch and threw the master power and fuel switches back up!
HUMMMMM—FLASH!
Instantly, all thirty European superyachts and the entire private harbor blazed with brilliant white floodlights, and the high-speed diesel pumps began fueling Captain Hai’s shrimp-and-patrol fleet!
Beside the breaker box, Manager Wei collapsed onto his knees in the puddles, staring at the gold General Manager badge on Xiao Lin’s chest.
“No... impossible!” Manager Wei sobbed, clawing at his wet hair with his good hand. “I worked ten years kissing Song Zihao’s boots to become Lobby Director! My two million yuan a year in supply kickbacks, my VIP commissions, my penthouse office—all given to the bellhop I slapped?!”
Song Zihao’s face was purple-black, his body shaking as Shen Qiaoqiao handed him a court-stamped eviction notice voiding his family’s operating shares.
“Lin Mo! You used one and a half billion yuan in cash to steal my hotel?!” Song Zihao snarled, backing toward the marble archway. “Don’t celebrate yet! The Jiangnan Provincial Commerce Elder, Elder Zheng, is arriving here in thirty minutes for the midnight Provincial Inspection Banquet—”
“Tie Niu,” Lin Mo interrupted calmly, checking his watch. “Why are there still two uninvited non-guests loitering in our employee headquarters?”
“My mistake, Boss Lin,” Tie Niu rumbled. “Taking out the trash now.”
Before Song Zihao could finish his sentence or his bodyguards could react, Tie Niu strode forward like an iron tower. With his left hand, he grabbed Manager Wei by the back of his pinstriped suit belt; with his right hand, he seized Song Zihao by the collar of his white Italian jacket!
“Let go of me! I’m the eldest heir of the Song Clan—!” Song Zihao flailed in mid-air like a caught frog as Tie Niu carried both men up the marble driveway steps and straight past the front pillars.
“Watch the curb,” Tie Niu said deadpan, and swung both arms forward!
WHOOSH—SPLASH!
Song Zihao and Manager Wei flew fifteen feet past the red carpet canopy and landed headfirst in the muddy gutter puddle on the public street outside, right beside Tiffany’s high heels!
As the hotel’s newly promoted security captains cheeringly locked the gold-trimmed gates behind them, Manager Wei sat in the gutter howling over his lost two-million-yuan kickbacks and dislocated wrist.
Spitting filthy gutter water off his lips, Song Zihao’s eyes burned with psychotic venom as he pulled a waterproof burner phone from his soaked jacket and dialed the direct line to the Cloud-Crown Grand Kitchen.
“Chef Pierre-Wang!” Song Zihao hissed into the phone. “Lin Mo just bought the hotel, and Provincial Commerce Elder Zheng is arriving at the banquet hall in twenty minutes with his chronic migraine! I’m wiring five million yuan to your offshore account right now—ruin every stockpot in the kitchen and walk out with the entire culinary team immediately! Let’s see how Lin Mo hosts Elder Zheng when he doesn’t even have a bowl of hot water to serve!”
Up on the third-floor corridor outside the Cloud-Crown Grand Kitchen, newly appointed General Manager Xiao Lin came running toward Lin Mo and Su Wan, his face pale with urgency.
“Chairman Lin! President Su! Bad news!” Xiao Lin panted, pointing toward the service elevator. “Song Zihao’s bribed French-returned head chef, Pierre-Wang, just poured cold tap water and salt into all twelve banquet stockpots and walked out the back door with twenty-five senior cooks! And Provincial Commerce Elder Zheng’s inspection car just turned onto our street!”