Nineteen-year-old Taichu courier Xiao Lin struggled on his knees in the wet gravel outside the gilded wrought-iron gates of Royal Dragon Villa District while two burly security guards twisted his arms behind his back.
Marble pillars carved with roaring dragons flanked the private hillside driveway behind them, shielding the luxury mansions from the public road.
Standing over him was a woman in her late forties named Mrs. Qian. She wore a heavy mink shawl over an embroidered silk dress, her fingers weighed down by diamond cocktail rings. A shattered cardboard bakery box lay in a puddle at her feet, surrounded by smashed white cream and squashed strawberries.
“You clumsy, illiterate peasant!” Mrs. Qian shrieked, pointing her diamond-clad finger at Xiao Lin’s face. “You bumped my gate and ruined my two-hundred-yuan French cake! Either pay me twenty thousand yuan in cash right now, or get down on all fours and lick the cream off my Italian heels!”
Beside her stood Property Manager Liu. He adjusted his gold wire-rimmed glasses, tapping a leather baton against his palm with casual contempt.
“Listen to Mrs. Qian, courier,” Manager Liu sneered. “Her husband is President Qian of Northern Excavation Group. He sits on our homeowners’ executive council. If you don’t compensate her immediately, our security department will break both your wrists and toss your green scooter into the drainage canal.”
Xiao Lin struggled against the guards’ grip. His young face was covered in gravel dust, his yellow jacket torn at the seams.
“I didn’t bump the gate, ma’am!” Xiao Lin pleaded, his voice breaking with desperation. “I handed you the box across the counter! You were filming a selfie on your phone and fumbled the string! It dropped from your own hands! Please, I have to pick up my deaf-mute sister from school at three o’clock...”
“You dare talk back to me, you little beggar?” Mrs. Qian shrieked, raising her heavy leather handbag to strike Xiao Lin across the cheek.
The handbag never landed.
WHOOSH!
A sharp gust of pressurized air swept across the entrance like a mountain squall.
Three black-and-gold executive vans screeched to a halt along the curb. Before the doors even settled, Lin Mo stepped forward in his tailored suit.
His Rank 1 Peak Martial qi surged with explosive velocity. He didn’t even touch the two security guards holding Xiao Lin. He simply flicked both wrists outward in a sharp, casual snap.
BANG! BANG!
Two shockwaves of invisible kinetic energy struck the guards’ chests like sledgehammers. The two men flew twenty feet backward through the air, crashing into the iron security booth and sliding unconscious into the flowerbeds.
Mrs. Qian gasped, staggering backward as her leather handbag fell into the strawberry cream.
Xiao Lin blinked in disbelief, rubbing his bruised shoulders as he looked up. “Chairman... Chairman Lin?”
Lin Mo knelt down on one knee in the gravel. He reached out with both hands and lifted the nineteen-year-old boy gently to his feet.
“Stand up, Xiao Lin,” Lin Mo said, his voice quiet, calm, and reassuring. “No worker wearing Taichu’s emerald emblem ever kneels in the mud.”
Lin Mo’s Pure-Heart Eye scanned the young courier instantly:
[TARGET: XIAO LIN (AGE: 19)]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 92/100 (DEVOTED BROTHER, FILIAL, ENDURED HARSH LABOR WITHOUT COMPLAINT)]
[FAMILY STATUS: SOLE GUARDIAN OF 12-YEAR-OLD DEAF-MUTE SISTER XIAO YU]
[CURRENT SAVINGS: ¥8,400.00 RMB (SAVING FOR COCHLEAR IMPLANT)]
Lin Mo felt a deep, protective warmth. A boy of nineteen working twelve-hour shifts in cold rain, carrying the weight of his disabled sister on his shoulders, being ordered to lick cream off a snob’s shoes.
Lin Mo pulled a clean linen handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped the gravel dust from Xiao Lin’s forehead.
“Xiao Lin,” Lin Mo asked gently. “How much does the imported Swiss cochlear implant surgery cost for your sister Xiao Yu?”
Xiao Lin froze, his eyes widening in shock. “Four... four hundred and fifty thousand yuan, Chairman Lin. The doctors at the provincial clinic told me it would take ten years to save that much...”
“It will take ten seconds,” Lin Mo said.
Lin Mo pulled out his phone and tapped his banking application.
“I am transferring five hundred thousand yuan directly into your personal account right now,” Lin Mo said. “Four hundred and fifty thousand for Xiao Yu’s surgery at Taichu Sanctuary Hospital tomorrow morning, and fifty thousand for her specialized speech school.”
DING!
Xiao Lin’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out with shaking hands. The verified notification flashed on his screen:
Your account ending in 7721 has received a direct wire transfer of ¥500,000.00 RMB. Remitter: Lin Mo.
Xiao Lin stared at the numbers. His knees buckled with emotion, but Lin Mo held him firmly by the shoulders, keeping him standing upright.
“Don’t kneel, Xiao Lin,” Lin Mo whispered with a warm smile. “Brothers stand together.”
Across the gate, Mrs. Qian recovered her breath. Her face turned purple with outrage as she pointed at the two unconscious guards in the hedges.
“Assault!” Mrs. Qian shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Manager Liu! Call the police! Call our private security company! This punk assaulted our guards and threw money around like a common thug!”
Manager Liu stepped forward, his eyes burning with arrogance as he tapped his security badge.
“Young man, you are out of your mind,” Manager Liu sneered at Lin Mo. “Do you know where you are standing? Royal Dragon Villas is the premier private estate in Jiangcheng! The average villa here costs thirty million yuan! Our property management company is owned by the Hong Kong Sun-Grand Group!”
“Effective immediately, every vehicle, courier, and employee associated with Taichu is permanently blacklisted from entering this district! You will not step past this line!”
Lin Mo dusted a speck of gravel from his sleeve, looking at Manager Liu with mild, deadpan curiosity.
“Sun-Grand Property Management,” Lin Mo mused aloud. “What is the total market valuation of your district property firm?”
Manager Liu scoffed. “Our regional entity manages twelve hundred luxury villas, sixty private parks, and the community sports complex! Our operational asset value is at least twenty-five million yuan! You can’t intimidate us with a little cash!”
Lin Mo did not reply. He turned to CEO Su Wan, who was standing beside the command van holding her tablet.
“Su Wan,” Lin Mo said.
“Yes, Chairman Lin,” Su Wan answered crisply.
“Contact the Hong Kong board of Sun-Grand Properties,” Lin Mo instructed. “Purchase one hundred percent of the equity in Royal Dragon Villa Property Management Company. Settle the entire twenty-five-million-yuan purchase in cash immediately.”
Manager Liu laughed out loud, throwing his head back. “Purchase our entire company? In cash? On the street? Who do you think you are, the Emperor of China?!”
Three minutes later, Manager Liu’s satellite phone in his breast pocket began shrieking with a priority ringtone.
Manager Liu smirked, pulling out the phone. “That must be my regional vice-president calling to send fifty armed guards to arrest you!”
He swiped the screen and held it to his ear. “Vice-President Chen, I have a trespasser outside the main gate who needs to be—”
“Shut your useless mouth, Liu!” the roaring voice of the Hong Kong regional chairman boomed through the speaker, loud enough for Mrs. Qian and the gate staff to hear every word. “Sun-Grand Group has just concluded a full corporate buyout! Taichu Benevolence Group wired twenty-five million yuan in unencumbered cash into our Hong Kong treasury ninety seconds ago!”
“Lin Mo is now the one-hundred-percent owner of Royal Dragon Property Management! You have been terminated as general manager! Get off the property before the police escort you out for corporate insubordination!”
CLICK.
The line went dead.
Manager Liu’s jaw hung slack. His phone slipped from his fingers and crashed into the wet gravel, cracking the screen into jagged lines.
“Bought... the whole company...” Manager Liu whispered, his knees trembling violently. “In three minutes...”
Lin Mo stepped up to Manager Liu, looking down at him with a calm, deadpan gaze.
“Manager Liu,” Lin Mo said in an even tone. “As the new owner of this property company, my first executive order is to accept your immediate, uncompensated resignation. Your severance pay is zero yuan. Please vacate your office within five minutes, or Commander Tie will assist your departure.”
Tie Niu cracked his knuckles with a sound like snapping timber.
Manager Liu turned pale as a sheet. He grabbed his coat, turned around, and sprinted down the private driveway toward the staff quarters, abandoning his car and his dignity.
Lin Mo then turned his gaze toward Mrs. Qian, who was trembling in her mink shawl.
“Now, Mrs. Qian,” Lin Mo said, taking a step toward her.
“You... you can’t touch me!” Mrs. Qian stammered, clutching her diamond rings to her chest. “My husband owns a villa here! I am an owner! The property company works for me!”
“The property company maintains order for all honest residents,” Lin Mo replied smoothly.
Lin Mo pointed toward the high-definition security camera mounted directly above the iron archway.
“Su Wan, play the security footage from ten minutes ago on the gate display screen.”
Su Wan tapped her tablet.
The massive forty-inch digital security monitor beside the gate flickered to life. The high-definition 4K footage played in crystal clarity:
On the screen, Xiao Lin was shown carefully carrying the red bakery box in both hands. He stopped three feet outside the barrier and held the box out politely.
Mrs. Qian took the ribbon with one hand while holding her phone with the other, laughing into a video call. She tugged the box awkwardly toward her hip, caught the bottom on her own diamond bracelet, and dropped the cake squarely into the puddle.
Xiao Lin hadn’t touched the gate. He hadn’t touched Mrs. Qian.
The surrounding crowd of sixty honest villa gardeners, maintenance technicians, and security officers (Goodness: 80–89/100) watched the video in total silence.
“You dropped your own cake while filming a phone video,” Lin Mo said dryly. “Then you forced a nineteen-year-old boy to his knees and demanded twenty thousand yuan.”
Mrs. Qian’s face turned from pale white to beet red. “It... it was an accident! I was startled by his uniform!”
“As the owner of Royal Dragon Property Management,” Lin Mo continued in a level voice, “I am issuing you an official citation for intentional lane obstruction and false accusation of service personnel. You also created a bio-hazard spill with strawberry cream on our paved stones.”
Lin Mo signaled the head of the maintenance crew.
“One hundred thousand yuan administrative fine,” Lin Mo announced. “If unpaid by tomorrow noon, our property company will terminate your villa’s private water and power hookups pending community review.”
Mrs. Qian let out a strangled shriek, covered her face in mortification, and fled through the pedestrian gate, her high heels splashing through her own ruined cake.
The sixty villa gardeners, cleaners, and maintenance workers broke into loud, admiring cheers.
Lin Mo pulled out his matte emerald-green Benevolence Charity Card and swiped it to finalize the acquisition and establish a dedicated employee welfare endowment for all sixty maintenance workers.
[DING! COLOSSAL SANCTUARY PROPERTY ACQUISITION DETECTED!]
[TARGET: XIAO LIN (GOODNESS: 92/100) & 68 HONEST VILLA WORKERS (GOODNESS: 80–89/100)!]
[SPENT: ¥25,500,000.00 RMB!]
[100x PURE-HEART REBATE TRIGGERED: +¥2,550,000,000.00 RMB!]
[PERSONAL VAULT BALANCE: ¥58,217,180,000.50 RMB!]
[BENEVOLENCE MERIT POINTS: +2,550,000 BMP (TOTAL: 60,450,528 BMP)!]
[GOOD PEOPLE NETWORK EXPANDED: 1,450 -> 1,520 MEMBERS!]
A magnificent surge of golden benevolence qi flooded Lin Mo’s dantian, solidifying his Rank 1 Peak Martial power.
Lin Mo turned to Xiao Lin. “Take the rest of the day off, Xiao Lin. Go to the deaf-mute school, pick up Xiao Yu, and bring her to Taichu Hospital. Dr. Gu will perform her cochlear implant tomorrow.”
Xiao Lin wiped his tears, saluting Lin Mo with fierce pride. “Thank you, Chairman Lin! I will never forget this day!”
Right at that exact second, Lin Mo’s tactical radio buzzed with an urgent priority call from First Fleet Commander Old Ma.
Old Ma’s voice crackled with breathless alarm:
“Chairman Lin! An emergency at Taichu Express Headquarters! Scarface Hu has arrived with two hundred debt collectors from the Hu-Claw Syndicate! They have blocked the depot gates with steel trucks! They claim our riders owe thirty million yuan in compound lease penalties, and they have brought court enforcement notices!”
Lin Mo’s eyes narrowed into twin points of deadly coldness.
“Tie Niu,” Lin Mo said, his voice dropping to a calm, icy whisper.
“Ready, Chairman!” Tie Niu stepped forward.
“The loan sharks have finally come out of their hole,” Lin Mo said, stepping into the command van. “Let us go show Scarface Hu what real enforcement looks like.”