Lin Mo stepped onto the illuminated central stage with calm, measured footsteps.
Behind him, Tie Niu and four veteran Iron Guards wheeled out a heavy titanium flight case. The sleek metal housing bore the embossed emerald logo of Taichu Benevolence Group. With two mechanical clicks, the case unlocked, revealing a glowing touch-screen diagnostic terminal linked via encrypted satellite to the central banking clearing network.
This was the [Taichu Live-Bank & Morality Verification Terminal].
Zhao Kai stood at the center of the stage, puffing out his chest behind his six-foot-wide ceremonial foam cardboard check. Painted across the board in bright crimson characters was his grand announcement: ¥10,000,000.00 DONATION TO JIANGCHENG MUNICIPAL PUBLIC HEALTH FUND.
“Well, Lin Mo?” Zhao Kai sneered into the television microphone, his face flushed with theatrical bravado. “You spent fifty million buying medicine for your own hospital’s patients. But that is just moving money from your left pocket to your right pocket! Dare you match our Zhao family’s selfless ten-million-yuan public donation right now on live television?”
Zhao Kai turned toward the front row of camera operators, posing with his best rehearsed smile.
“Look at this, Jiangcheng!” Zhao Kai shouted, waving his arms dramatically. “While upstart peasants play games with private assets, the Zhao family has protected public healthcare for a quarter of a century!”
“Our ten million yuan will buy modern vaccines and respirators for every municipal clinic!” he boasted. “Let us see if Lin Mo has the guts to donate cold cash to the public treasury, or if his entire foundation is just empty hot air!”
In the front row, Zhao Dehai leaned back with a smug smile. He had planned this public relations stunt for weeks. The ceremonial check bore a legitimate-looking municipal routing barcode, but it was wired to an offshore shell entity in the Bahamas.
By the time municipal accounting tried to settle the transfer next week, the tax deduction certificate would already be filed, and the wire would bounce quietly under the excuse of international banking delay.
Lin Mo looked at the giant foam check, then turned to the television host, Master of Ceremonies Lu.
“Master of Ceremonies Lu,” Lin Mo said, his tone dry and relaxed. “Public charity is a wonderful thing. But ceremonial cardboard does not pay for hospital beds. A real donation requires actual digital currency clearing through the state banking ledger.”
“Naturally, Chairman Lin!” MC Lu nodded eagerly into his lapel microphone. “Every formal donation pledge must be cleared through our municipal charity gateway.”
Lin Mo patted the sleek titanium terminal beside him.
“This is Taichu’s real-time banking verification console,” Lin Mo announced to the eight hundred guests and millions of live television viewers. “It is connected directly to the People’s Bank clearing core. If Young Master Zhao’s ten-million-yuan transfer clears right now, and if his personal moral integrity score passes eighty, my foundation will not merely match it.”
Lin Mo paused, holding up his right hand with an open palm.
“I will match it ten-to-one. I will wire one hundred million yuan in pure cash to the municipal health fund within three seconds.”
A massive roar of excitement rippled through the amphitheater.
“One hundred million?!” “A ten-to-one match on live TV?!”
Reporters shoved their microphones forward, their camera lenses whirring in overdrive.
On stage, Zhao Kai’s smug smirk began to falter. A prickle of cold sweat ran down the back of his neck. He had never intended to actually transfer ten million yuan of real money.
In the front row, Zhao Dehai suddenly realized the trap. His face turned pale as milk. He leapt out of his seat, waving his arms frantically toward the stage.
“Kai! Step down!” Zhao Dehai yelled, his voice cracking with panic. “Do not let him dictate our corporate procedures! The ceremonial board is for publicity—our accounting department will wire the funds next month!”
“Next month?” Lin Mo smiled faintly. “Chairman Zhao, a billionaire who needs thirty days to find ten million yuan sounds terribly undercapitalized.”
Before Zhao Kai could pull the cardboard check away, MC Lu stepped forward with an electronic optical scanner.
“Since both parties are on stage, let us verify the transfer immediately for our viewers!” MC Lu beamed, swiping the laser scanner across the barcode on the bottom corner of the foam board.
A sharp electronic beep echoed over the audio system.
The titanium verification terminal chimed. Its high-speed satellite uplink connected instantly to the offshore banking clearinghouse.
A fraction of a second later, the terminal’s processing core locked onto the routing code. The massive sixty-foot high-definition LED arena screen behind the stage flickered, and then projected the full financial diagnostic in blinding four-thousand-pixel clarity:
[CLEARING NETWORK: BAHAMAS CARIBBEAN COMMERCE BANK]
[ACCOUNT HOLDER: GOLDEN-SHORE NIGHTCLUB HOLDINGS (BENEFICIARY: ZHAO KAI)]
[TOTAL VERIFIED LIQUID BALANCE: ¥12,400.50 RMB!]
[TRANSACTION STATUS: DECLINED — SEVERE INSUFFICIENT FUNDS!]
[FRAUD DETECTION: SHELL ACCOUNT CREATED FOR FICTITIOUS CHARITY DEDUCTION!]
[ETHICAL INTEGRITY EVALUATION: 9/100 — BENEFICIARY ZHAO KAI / 7/100 — AUTHORIZER ZHAO DEHAI (SERIAL TAX EVADERS, EXTORTIONISTS, MALICIOUS DEFRAUDERS)!]
The entire amphitheater fell into a silence so profound that the hum of the air conditioners sounded like an approaching locomotive.
Eight hundred guests stared at the giant screen.
Twelve thousand four hundred yuan and fifty fen.
Registered to a nightclub holding company in the Bahamas.
Zhao Kai stood frozen like a stone statue, holding the giant ten-million-yuan foam check over his head. His eyes bulged in pure, unadulterated terror.
Lin Mo stepped up beside Zhao Kai, glanced up at the screen, and tapped his chin with one finger.
“Twelve thousand four hundred yuan,” Lin Mo remarked in a deadpan, conversational whisper that echoed into Zhao Kai’s microphone. “Young Master Zhao, your ten-million-yuan donation is missing about nine million nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand yuan. Did your private jet consume the difference in jet fuel?”
A junior cameraman choked on his own laughter, followed immediately by a chorus of gasps and outraged shouts from the front rows.
“Fake check!” “He tried to scam the municipal health fund on live television!” “Twelve thousand yuan in a nightclub account! The Zhao family is bankrupt!”
In the front row, Zhao Dehai clutched his collar, his breath coming in ragged, suffocating gasps. The veins on his neck bulged like purple cords.
“Fraud... live on television...” Zhao Dehai wheezed.
His eyes rolled back into his head. His knees gave out completely, and the mighty chairman of Zhao Pharmaceutical Group collapsed backward onto the carpeted aisle with a heavy thud, knocking over two crystal champagne buckets.
Four municipal charity-audit inspectors and two financial regulators in the audience stood up immediately, their gold credentials flashing under the spotlights as they surrounded the stage stairs.
“Zhao Kai!” the lead regulator barked, ascending the stage stairs with an official red-sealed seizure notice. “You are hereby served with an emergency regulatory summons for public charity fraud, issuing unbacked commercial instruments, and false financial disclosure! Confiscate that fraudulent prop board and freeze all Zhao Group corporate credit lines pending a full tribunal audit!”
Zhao Kai’s hands shook violently. The giant foam cardboard check slipped from his fingers and crashed face-down onto the stage.
“Dad! Dad, wake up!” Zhao Kai shrieked, stumbling off the stage stairs in tears as two regulators slapped an asset-freeze summons into his chest while paramedics loaded his unconscious father onto a stretcher. “It was my dad’s idea! He set up the Bahamas account! Don’t fine me!”
The television cameras followed every second of the humiliation, broadcasting Zhao Kai’s sobbing face as he fled down the side aisle after his father’s stretcher to ten million viewers across the province.
Lin Mo turned his back on the disgraced heir, stepping toward the center of the stage. He looked out over the amphitheater.
In the middle and rear rows sat eighty elderly rural doctors and barefoot clinic healers from the remote counties surrounding Jiangcheng. They wore patched cotton jackets and carried worn leather diagnostic bags. They had traveled hundreds of miles on slow buses just to learn about modern cancer care, yet could not even afford the twenty-yuan boxed lunches in the exhibition lobby.
Lin Mo walked down the stage stairs and approached an eighty-two-year-old physician named Dr. Song. The old doctor had white hair and weathered hands that had set broken bones in the northern mountains for fifty years.
“Dr. Song,” Lin Mo said gently, bowing his head slightly in respect. “How far is your clinic from the nearest paved county road?”
“Twelve miles of dirt track, Chairman Lin,” Dr. Song replied, his voice raspy. “When a pregnant mother or injured miner needs emergency surgery, we carry them on bamboo litters through the snow. We have no ultrasound machine. We have no blood centrifuges. We only have glass thermometers and our two hands.”
Lin Mo felt a deep, stirring warmth in his chest. These were the true pillars of the nation.
Lin Mo turned back toward the television cameras. His Pure-Heart Eye scanned the eighty rural physicians.
A soft, warm jade-white radiance bloomed across the rear rows:
[SCAN: 80 RURAL PRIMARY PHYSICIANS & VILLAGE CLINIC DOCTORS]
[AVERAGE MORAL INTEGRITY: 85–94/100 (SELFLESS, TREATED PENNILESS FARMERS FOR DECADES)]
[TOTAL CLINICAL EQUIPMENT DEFICIT: ¥50,000,000.00 RMB]
Lin Mo drew his matte emerald-green Benevolence Charity Card and handed it to CEO Su Wan.
“Su Wan,” Lin Mo said into the microphone, his voice calm and steady. “The Zhao family’s foam board was empty. But Taichu’s promise is not.”
Lin Mo pointed toward the eighty rural doctors in the back rows.
“Wire fifty million yuan in immediate cash subsidies directly into the grassroots clinic accounts of these eighty village doctors,” Lin Mo announced. “Six hundred and twenty-five thousand yuan per doctor, designated specifically for purchasing ultrasound scanners, sterile surgical kits, and cold-chain vaccine refrigeration.”
“Furthermore, Taichu Sanctuary Hospital will link all eighty clinics into our direct satellite telemedicine network,” he added. “Any critical case will receive free transport and immediate surgery in our twenty-eight-story tower.”
The eighty village doctors stood up in utter disbelief. Several elderly physicians touched their silver hair, weeping openly as their phones buzzed with immediate central banking deposit confirmations.
“Benefactor Lin...” Dr. Song cried, pressing his hands together in a deep bow. “My village has delivered babies by candlelight for thirty years! You have brought daylight to our mountains!”
Su Wan tapped the confirmation terminal, authorizing the fifty-million-yuan disbursement. The official electronic receipts printed instantly, bearing the red digital seal of the municipal banking consortium.
Su Wan walked down the carpeted aisle, handing the official grant certificates and satellite communication tablets directly to Dr. Song and the seventy-nine rural physicians.
“Every clinic is fully funded,” Su Wan said with a warm, respectful smile. “Your equipment shipments will begin tomorrow morning.”
Dr. Song pressed the certificate to his chest with both hands. Tears of joy flowed freely down his wrinkled face. “The children in our mountain valleys will have warm medicine. The ancestors will remember Taichu’s kindness for a thousand generations.”
Lin Mo watched the elderly doctors with a quiet, deadpan satisfaction. Zhao Kai had tried to corner him with a fake ten-million-yuan board. In doing so, he had handed Lin Mo the perfect reason to enrich eighty honest healers and pocket five billion yuan in tax-cleared profit. As far as business trades went, Zhao Kai was the most generous fool in Jiangcheng.
A thunderous celestial chime erupted in Lin Mo’s mind, vibrating through his very soul:
[DING! COLOSSAL GRASSROOTS HEALTHCARE ENDOWMENT DETECTED!]
[TARGET: 80 RIGHTEOUS RURAL VILLAGE PHYSICIANS (GOODNESS: 85–94/100)!]
[SPENT: ¥50,000,000.00 RMB!]
[100x PURE-HEART REBATE TRIGGERED: +¥5,000,000,000.00 RMB!]
[PERSONAL VAULT BALANCE: ¥45,000,680,000.50 RMB!]
[BENEVOLENCE MERIT POINTS: +5,000,000 BMP (TOTAL: 47,150,528 BMP)!]
[GOOD PEOPLE NETWORK EXPANDED: 830 -> 910 MEMBERS!]
[HOST REALM CONSOLIDATION: RANK 1 PEAK MARTIAL FOUNDATION PERFECTED!]
A torrential river of golden benevolence qi roared through Lin Mo’s dantian.
The golden energy circulated through his jade-like bone marrow, settling into a calm, impenetrable reservoir of supreme martial might. His physical strength, reaction speed, and sensory acuity reached the absolute pinnacle of mortal martial arts.
The entire amphitheater rose in a standing ovation. Thunderous applause and cheers echoed through the vaulted ceiling, drowning out the wailing police sirens outside.
Paramedics wheeled the unconscious Zhao Dehai out to a waiting ambulance, with a disgraced Zhao Kai trailing behind under regulatory subpoena. Lin Mo looked down at the crumbling corporate dynasty with a cool, deadpan gaze.
Tomorrow morning at nine-thirty, the domestic stock exchanges would open.
With the CEO in an emergency room and the heir served with a televised charity-fraud regulatory freeze, Zhao Pharmaceutical Group’s market capitalization would crater into an inescapable abyss. The era of their monopoly was officially over.