The three black-and-gold executive vans returned to Industrial District North at three o’clock in the afternoon.
Outside the main logistics depot of Taichu Express, the street was completely gridlocked. Ten heavy flatbed tow trucks and dozens of modified off-road vehicles blocked the depot gates. Leaning against the truck hoods were two hundred aggressive men wearing black leather jackets and brass-knuckle gloves.
In front of the gates stood Scarface Hu.
A jagged knife scar ran from his left temple down across his thick cheekbone to his lip. A gold chain as thick as a bicycle chain hung around his neck, and a foul-smelling cigar smoked between his teeth.
[TARGET: SCARFACE HU]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 4/100 (PREDATORY LOAN SHARK, ENFORCER, CRIME SYNDICATE BOSS)]
[BACKGROUND: BACKED BY ZHAO KAI'S COUSIN TO MONOPOLIZE URBAN USURY]
Beside Scarface Hu stood a thin man in a bespoke pinstriped suit carrying a black leather briefcase. This was crooked corporate lawyer Attorney Deng.
[TARGET: ATTORNEY DENG]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 9/100 (CORRUPT LAWYER, EVIDENCE FORGER, LEGAL EXTORTIONIST)]
[SPECIALTY: FABRICATING COMPOUND-INTEREST BLANK LEASES]
Inside the depot courtyard, Old Ma and two hundred newly recruited Taichu riders stood with pale, furious faces. Behind them, the three hundred new BYD vans were parked under the covered bays, protected by heavy chain-link fences.
For three years, the Hu-Claw Syndicate had preyed on Jiangcheng’s working class. Whenever a migrant worker needed an electric bike or a small emergency advance for medical bills, Scarface Hu’s thugs forced them to sign blank promissory notes. Later, Attorney Deng filled in the blanks with predatory compound interest rates.
“Old Ma, don’t play dumb with me!” Scarface Hu barked, waving a thick stack of printed contracts in the air. “Two hundred of you couriers signed my blank-page battery lease agreements three years ago!”
“With compound penalty interest, you owe the Hu-Claw Syndicate exactly thirty million yuan! If you don’t pay by five o’clock today, Attorney Deng files the commercial liens, and the court auctions your rural family homes tomorrow morning!”
Attorney Deng pushed his gold spectacles up his nose with a sleek, predatory smile.
“Under Section 402 of the Commercial Lending Code,” Attorney Deng recited smoothly, “the penalty clause for battery lease default compounds at forty percent monthly. My client holds signed promissory notes with all two hundred riders’ thumbprints. The law is absolute. If you cannot pay, your new vans will be impounded as collateral.”
Old Ma clutched his bruised ribs, his voice shaking with righteous fury. “You liar! We rented those batteries for two hundred yuan a month! You forced us to put our thumbprints on blank receipt forms when we picked up the chargers! You never said anything about forty percent monthly interest!”
“A thumbprint is a signature, old man,” Scarface Hu laughed, blowing a cloud of gray cigar smoke into Old Ma’s face. “The law doesn’t care if you can read or not.”
Scarface Hu turned his head as Lin Mo stepped out of the executive van into the center of the avenue.
“Ah! Chairman Lin!” Scarface Hu grinned, revealing a row of crooked, discolored teeth. “The famous billionaire who likes playing savior for bums!”
“If you want your two hundred riders to keep their houses, and if you want to keep your shiny green vans, pay me fifty million yuan in cash right now! Thirty million for the debt, and twenty million as a settlement fee for my boys!”
The two hundred thugs behind him banged their iron pipes against the truck beds, shouting threatening jeers.
Old Ma and the riders clenched their fists in deep despair. Fifty million yuan. They knew Lin Mo had money, but paying fifty million yuan to an underworld loan shark was an outrageous extortion.
“Chairman Lin, don’t give him a single fen!” Xiao Liu cried out from the front line. “We would rather sleep in our vans than let this parasite steal your money!”
Lin Mo stood quietly in the center of the street, his hands tucked casually in his coat pockets.
His pragmatic brain calculated the transaction with absolute, razor-sharp clarity.
Paying fifty million yuan to a man whose moral integrity score was four out of a hundred would trigger zero System rebate. The System strictly rewarded spending money on people with Goodness scores of eighty or above. Handing cash to Scarface Hu would simply feed a violent parasite and validate predatory extortion.
“Giving fifty million to a loan shark is a negative return on equity,” Lin Mo thought to himself with deadpan amusement. “However, spending money to hire a legal genius to tear this crook into shreds will yield a hundredfold return and clean up the entire city.”
Lin Mo looked at Tie Niu. “Commander Tie.”
“Present, Chairman!” Tie Niu stepped forward, his eyes burning with cold tactical precision.
“Form an iron perimeter across the depot gate,” Lin Mo ordered. “If any of these gentlemen attempts to cross the white line, assist them with gravity.”
“With pleasure, Chairman,” Tie Niu grinned.
Tie Niu whistled sharply. Thirty-eight veteran Iron Guards in black tactical armor formed an impenetrable wall across the depot entrance. When two burly thugs tried to shove past with iron pipes, Tie Niu simply extended one arm and pushed them backward. The two thugs flew ten feet through the air, crashing into Scarface Hu’s tow truck with a dent that cracked the radiator grille.
Scarface Hu stepped back, startled by the casual display of martial force. “Lin Mo! You dare use violence against legal creditors? Attorney Deng, call the district bailiffs!”
“Call whoever you like,” Lin Mo said, his tone bored. “You have until tomorrow morning to enjoy your freedom.”
Lin Mo turned away from the thugs and closed his eyes.
In his mind, he accessed the System’s newly upgraded navigation tool:
[DING! SYSTEM UPGRADE ACTIVATED!]
[BENEVOLENCE DISTRESS RADAR LV.2 (10-KILOMETER SEARCH RADIUS)!]
[SCANNING ENTIRE MUNICIPAL DISTRICT FOR SUPREME LEGAL & MORAL ALLIES...]
A three-dimensional digital holographic map of Jiangcheng bloomed in Lin Mo’s consciousness.
Emerald pulses of radar energy swept outward from his location, passing over office towers, shopping malls, and government plazas. Thousands of yellow and red dots flickered across the city grid, representing ordinary citizens and minor crooks.
Suddenly, five miles to the south, behind the imposing limestone facade of the District Commercial Courthouse, a brilliant, dazzling jade-gold halo erupted in Lin Mo’s mind.
The pillar of light was so pure and concentrated that it outshone every other signal in the city:
[MATCH LOCATED! SUPREME LEGAL TALENT DETECTED!]
[COORDINATES: ROOM B-12, OLD ARCHIVE BASEMENT, DISTRICT COURTHOUSE BACK ALLEY]
[TARGET: SHEN QIAOQIAO (AGE: 26)]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 91/100 (THE SMILING IRON ABACUS, PUBLIC-INTEREST DEFENDER)]
[SPECIALIZATION: FORENSIC AUDIT, FINANCIAL FRAUD, CONTRACTUAL DEFENSE]
[CURRENT SITUATION: BLACKLISTED BY COMMERCIAL LAW FIRMS FOR REFUSING TO FALSIFY EVIDENCE; WORKING BY CANDLELIGHT IN A FLOODED BASEMENT!]
Lin Mo opened his eyes. A sharp, satisfied smile touched his lips.
“The Smiling Iron Abacus,” Lin Mo murmured softly.
At that moment, the System’s daily afternoon passive income report chimed softly in his ear:
[DING! TAICHU SANCTUARY DAILY PASSIVE HEALING & CANTEEN STREAM SETTLEMENT!]
[AFTERNOON SUBSIDIZED OUTLAY: ¥2,000,000.00 RMB!]
[100x PURE-HEART REBATE TRIGGERED: +¥200,000,000.00 RMB!]
[PERSONAL VAULT BALANCE: ¥58,415,180,000.50 RMB!]
[BENEVOLENCE MERIT POINTS: +200,000 BMP (TOTAL: 60,650,528 BMP)!]
[GOOD PEOPLE NETWORK EXPANDED: 1,520 -> 1,600 MEMBERS!]
Lin Mo checked his vault balance. Fifty-eight point four billion yuan in liquid cash.
With fifty-eight billion in the bank and a ninety-one-point legal genius waiting five miles away, Scarface Hu’s thirty-million-yuan compound-interest trap was about to become his own prison sentence.
Lin Mo stepped back toward the lead executive van.
“Commander Tie, keep the gate sealed,” Lin Mo said, stepping into the passenger cabin. “Su Wan, come with me. We are going to recruit our Chief Legal Counsel.”
Su Wan closed her tablet with a crisp click. “Where are we heading, Chairman Lin?”
“To a flooded basement behind the courthouse,” Lin Mo said, his eyes gleaming with pragmatic resolve. “It is time to give a righteous lawyer the biggest budget in Jiangcheng history.”
During the drive to the district courthouse, Su Wan pulled up the commercial registry files on Shen Qiaoqiao.
“Shen Qiaoqiao graduated top of her class from China University of Political Science and Law,” Su Wan explained, reviewing the records. “She possesses photographic memory and passed the national bar and certified public accountant exams at age twenty-one. She worked for the city’s largest corporate law firm, Grand-East Partners.”
“Why did she leave Grand-East?” Lin Mo asked.
“Two years ago, Grand-East ordered her to destroy forensic accounting evidence proving that a property developer backed by the Zhao family embezzled forty million yuan from rural migrant workers,” Su Wan answered. “Shen Qiaoqiao refused. She copied the files, delivered them to the prosecutors, and resigned on the spot. Grand-East blacklisted her from every commercial firm in Jiangcheng.”
Five miles away, behind the stately granite pillars of the Jiangcheng District Courthouse, narrow stone steps led down into a dark, damp sub-basement.
The air smelled of mildew, stagnant rainwater, and yellowed legal paper.
In the flooded corridor outside Room B-12, eighty elderly migrant bricklayers huddled together on wooden benches. They wore patched overalls stained with dried cement. Many shivered from the damp cold, sharing a single vacuum flask of warm water.
Inside the tiny eight-by-ten-foot concrete room with no windows, water dripped steadily from an overhead pipe into a rusted tin bucket. The room’s electricity had been shut off two hours ago.
At a warped wooden desk illuminated by a single battery-powered desk lamp, twenty-six-year-old public-interest lawyer Shen Qiaoqiao sat furiously typing on a cracked laptop.
Her round, pretty face wore gold-rimmed glasses, and a pencil was tucked behind her ear. Her fingers flew across the keyboard with the blistering speed of a concert pianist. Beside her laptop sat a dry block of instant noodles, which she crunched on absentmindedly between legal citations.
“Uncle Gao,” Shen Qiaoqiao called through the open door with a cheerful smile, her dimples showing. “The forensic tax audit on your construction employer is almost ready! I calculated every unpaid hour down to the minute! You eighty brothers will get every single fen of your wages!”
Uncle Gao wiped his calloused eyes. “Lawyer Shen, you haven’t slept in two days. The landlord cut your power...”
Right then, a heavy landlord in dirty overalls stomped down the stone steps carrying a pair of steel bolt cutters.
“Shen Qiaoqiao!” the landlord screamed, banging the metal cutters against the doorframe. “You owe two months of back rent! If you don’t pack your trash and get out of this basement by sunset, I’ll cut this lock and dump all your court folders into the street drain!”
Shen Qiaoqiao did not even look up from her screen. Her fingers never missed a stroke.
“Cut off the power all you want, Landlord!” Shen Qiaoqiao shouted back, her voice bright, cheerful, and completely unbreakable. “I have three power banks and two candles! Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, I am filing this class-action lawsuit for eighty unpaid bricklayers, and your loan-shark friends will all be wearing prison orange by noon!”
“You little brat! I’ll cut your desk in half right now!” the landlord roared, raising his heavy steel bolt cutters.
A calm, pale hand reached out from the gloom of the hallway and caught the heavy steel pivot of the bolt cutters.
The landlord froze, trying to pull with both arms. The steel tool would not budge an inch.
Lin Mo stepped into the dim light of the corridor, his tailored charcoal suit pristine despite the damp concrete surroundings. Behind him, two Iron Guards in black tactical uniforms blocked the stairwell exit.
“Threatening an attorney who is working for eighty honest laborers,” Lin Mo said in a quiet, deadpan voice. “Landlord, your lease enforcement practices are extraordinarily uncivilized.”
Lin Mo exerted a fraction of his Rank 1 Peak Martial grip. The heavy forged-steel pivot of the bolt cutters deformed with a quiet creak, locking the blades permanently together.
The landlord dropped the tool in terror, stumbling backward against the damp brick wall. “Who... who are you?”
“We are here to audit your accounts,” Lin Mo replied dryly, stepping past him into the flooded office where Shen Qiaoqiao looked up from her cracked laptop in pure astonishment.