The auctioneer’s wooden mallet struck the brass disc with a crisp, echoing clap.
“Twenty million yuan, going three times,” the auctioneer announced into his microphone. “Sold to bidder number one, Taichu Benevolence Group!”
Inside the municipal judicial auction hall, twenty competing freight brokers slumped in their seats. None of them had expected a newly established company to tender twenty million yuan in cleared court escrow on fifteen minutes of notice.
Lin Mo lowered his bidding paddle. He adjusted his dark tie with a relaxed movement of his wrist.
Beside him, Su Wan signed the court escrow authorization on her carbon-fiber tablet. “The auction lock is complete, Chairman Lin. Once we induct the hub workforce this afternoon, the twenty million yuan escrow will settle alongside our equipment endowment. Thirty regional distribution hubs, two hundred commercial charging bays, and eighteen thousand square meters of sorting depots are now registered under Taichu Express.”
“Twenty million yuan for complete municipal delivery infrastructure,” Lin Mo murmured. “Buying bankrupt monopolies from court trustees is far cheaper than building from scratch. It is almost like a civic discount.”
Shen Qiaoqiao hurried through the double oak doors, carrying three fresh folders of land deeds. Her dimples flashed brightly.
“Chairman Lin, the court bailiffs just handed over the master keys,” Shen Qiaoqiao said cheerfully. “Every station from North Industrial Park to East River Port is officially ours. But we have a minor personnel crisis out front.”
“A crisis?” Lin Mo asked, standing up.
“Three thousand former couriers and dispatchers from Boss Wang and Scarface Hu’s syndicate have surrounded the courtyard,” Shen Qiaoqiao explained. “They heard Taichu Express offers triple wages, heated winter gear, and full medical coverage. They all want employment contracts before sunset.”
Lin Mo smiled faintly. “Then let us go inspect our candidates.”
When Lin Mo, Su Wan, and Tie Niu walked out onto the granite plaza, the sight was staggering.
Over three thousand men and women crowded the wide square. Rusted electric scooters, dented delivery boxes, and faded nylon jackets stretched as far as the eye could see. The air was filled with a deafening rumble of voices.
“Chairman Lin is here!” someone shouted.
“Chairman Lin, hire us! We worked for Boss Wang for five years!”
“We know every alley in Jiangcheng! Give us the Taichu contracts!”
Tie Niu stepped to the front of the marble terrace. He planted his combat boots shoulder-width apart. His deep, gravelly voice cut through the clamor like an artillery shell.
“Quiet down!” Tie Niu bellowed. “Line up in four single files! Anyone pushing or shoving will be disqualified immediately!”
The sheer presence of the former special-forces commander silenced the crowd. Within two minutes, four long columns stretched across the plaza.
Lin Mo stepped forward to the edge of the stone terrace. In his field of vision, the system interface shimmered with bright emerald light.
[Ding! Deploying Morality & Integrity Screening Gate Lv.2.]
[Target Pool: 3,000 Delivery Logistics Candidates.]
[Screening Threshold: Moral Integrity Score 80/100 or Higher.]
[Automated Scanning Mode: Active.]
Lin Mo pointed his hand toward the center of the terrace. “Old Ma, bring two portable scanner pylons from our lead van.”
Old Ma and two veteran riders ran to the van, carrying two sleek, matte-black scanner stanchions. They placed them three paces apart at the top of the stairs. A soft green laser beam connected the two posts, humming with quiet energy.
Lin Mo addressed the three thousand candidates.
“Taichu Express is not an ordinary delivery company,” Lin Mo said, his tone calm and even. “We do not dock your pay for rainy-day delays. We do not fine you for customer complaints caused by restaurant mistakes.”
His clear voice carried to the back of the square. “We pay three times the market wage. We provide free meals at Grandma Chen’s canteens, heated winter suits, and full medical care for your parents and children at Taichu Hospital.”
The three thousand workers held their breath. Many of them clenched their caps against their chests, their eyes wide with disbelief.
“However,” Lin Mo continued, his voice hardening slightly. “We have only one condition. We hire only honest, hardworking people. If you take pride in your sweat, walk through this gate. If you steal packages, tamper with food, or bully weaker couriers, step out of line now.”
A burly courier with grease-stained sleeves and a cigarette behind his ear snorted loudly from the front of the first column. His name was Liu San, a notorious warehouse team leader under Boss Wang.
“Come on, brothers, he’s bluffing!” Liu San laughed, swaggering toward the stairs. “A plastic gate cannot tell what kind of person you are! As long as we walk through, he has to give us contracts!”
Liu San stepped between the two scanner pylons with a mocking smirk.
The moment his boots crossed the green line, the laser beam flared a blinding, angry crimson.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
A deafening siren erupted from the pylons, projecting holographic crimson text three feet above Liu San’s head:
[SCREENING REJECTED! CANDIDATE: LIU SAN.]
[MORAL INTEGRITY SCORE: 24/100 (SYSTEMIC THIEF & BULLY).]
[VERIFIED OFFENSES: 84 STOLEN PARCELS, EXTORTED ROOKIE COURIERS, SPIT IN CUSTOMER TAKEOUT.]
[ELIGIBILITY: PERMANENTLY BANNED FROM ALL TAICHU ENTITIES.]
The entire plaza fell into dead silence.
Liu San’s face turned from smug confidence to sickly white. “Wait! This thing is broken! It is a fake trick!”
Tie Niu stepped forward, grabbed Liu San by his jacket collar with one hand, and hoisted the two-hundred-pound man off his feet as if he were a sack of dry feathers.
“Move along,” Tie Niu said coldly, tossing Liu San five yards down the steps into an empty flowerbed. “Before I test your structural integrity.”
Liu San scrambled up, clutching his bruised shoulder, and fled into a side street without looking back.
A wave of panic rippled through the four lines. Several dozen men near the front began looking around nervously.
Honesty has a measurable market value, Lin Mo thought, watching the crowd. Most companies spend millions on surveillance cameras and middle managers to catch thieves. My system filters them out in half a second for zero administrative cost.
“Next,” Lin Mo called out calmly.
A scrawny young man of nineteen stepped forward timidly. He wore thin canvas sneakers with holes at the toes. His hands were red from the autumn chill. His name was Xiao Dong.
Xiao Dong hesitated before the beam, his lower lip trembling. “Sir... I was late three times last month because my mother had asthma attacks. Boss Wang fined me all my wages. Am I allowed to try?”
“Walk through,” Lin Mo said gently.
Xiao Dong took a breath and stepped between the pylons.
The beam flared with soft, warm golden light. A soothing chime echoed across the plaza.
[SCREENING PASSED! CANDIDATE: XIAO DONG.]
[MORAL INTEGRITY SCORE: 89/100 (FILIAL, HONEST & HARDWORKING).]
[NOTE: WORKED 14-HOUR SHIFTS TO PAY MOTHER'S MEDICAL BILLS. ZERO MISCONDUCT.]
[STATUS: APPROVED FOR IMMEDIATE SIGNING.]
Xiao Dong gasped, tears instantly spilling down his cheeks.
Su Wan stepped forward with a warm smile, handing Xiao Dong a sleek digital tablet and a thick, emerald-green winter parka. “Welcome to Taichu Express, Xiao Dong. Your starting base wage is nine thousand yuan per month. Take your mother to Taichu Sanctuary Hospital tomorrow morning. Her asthma treatment is fully covered by our employee welfare plan.”
Xiao Dong clutched the thick coat to his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. He ran his calloused thumb over the embroidered golden cloud emblem on the collar.
“Thank you, Miss Su! Thank you, Chairman Lin!” Xiao Dong bowed three times, his tears falling onto the cold granite. “I will deliver every parcel with my life! I will never let Taichu down!”
“Do not deliver with your life,” Lin Mo told him deadpan. “Deliver with your heated van and traffic safety rules. Living workers are far more profitable than martyrs.”
Seeing Xiao Dong receive a real contract, nine thousand yuan in monthly base pay, and a winter jacket on the spot, the entire crowd surged with electric excitement. Hope flared in thousands of tired eyes.
Over the next three hours, the screening proceeded with machine precision.
Whenever an honest, hardworking worker stepped through—men and women who had endured years of wage theft, worked through blizzards, and returned lost wallets—the gate chimed with golden radiance. Su Wan and forty Taichu associates immediately issued contracts, heated smart helmets, and winter boots.
Whenever a slacker, parcel thief, or neighborhood thug stepped through, the gate blared with crimson alarms, exposing their exact misdeeds for the whole city to see.
“Candidate Zhao Qiang: Score 31/100! Falsified mileage claims and damaged customer electronics!” “Candidate Sun Wei: Score 19/100! Sold customer phone numbers to scam call centers!” “Candidate Sun Biao: Score 42/100! Slashed tires of rival delivery drivers!”
One by one, exactly nine hundred dishonest couriers were rejected and chased off the plaza by the righteous anger of their peers.
By four o’clock in the afternoon, the screening concluded.
A total of two thousand one hundred genuinely honest couriers, warehouse sorters, and fleet dispatchers stood assembled on the plaza. Scores ranged from eighty to ninety-four. Every single one wore the emerald-and-gold Taichu Express emblem on their chest.
Lin Mo stood before the two thousand one hundred newly inducted workers. He drew his emerald-green [Benevolence Charity Card].
“Su Wan,” Lin Mo commanded. “Settle the twenty-million-yuan hub escrow and disburse an additional ten million yuan in operational setup funds. Equip every new worker with high-capacity heated electric vans, smart navigation helmets, and initial signing allowances—thirty million yuan in total.”
Su Wan tapped her tablet screen with brisk efficiency. “Disbursement confirmed, Chairman Lin. Thirty million yuan—twenty million for the thirty distribution hubs and ten million for two thousand one hundred verified personnel and equipment upgrades—has been settled in full.”
A resonant, thunderous chime exploded in Lin Mo’s consciousness.
[DING! Massive Pure-Heart Benevolence Expenditure Confirmed!]
[Recipient: 2,100 Honest Logistics Workers (Goodness: 80–94/100) — Received: ¥30,000,000.00 Hub & Fleet Equipment Endowment.]
[Calculation: Total Spent: ¥30,000,000.00 RMB | Multiplier: 100x Pure-Heart Return.]
[Refund Amount: +¥3,000,000,000.00 RMB Transferred to Personal Vault!]
[Benevolence Merit Points: +3,000,000 BMP Awarded!]
[Personal Vault Current Balance: ¥71,978,180,000.50 RMB!]
[Good People Network Expanded: 4,022 Verified Righteous Allies!]
A tremendous surge of golden benevolence qi roared through Lin Mo’s dantian.
The energy was wider and more intense than anything he had felt before. It rushed through his limbs, expanding his internal meridians until they felt like river channels of solid jade. His senses stretched out effortlessly, encompassing the entire five-block radius of the judicial district.
He could hear the quiet murmur of clerks on the fourth floor of the courthouse. He could hear the hum of distant traffic. His Rank 1 Peak Martial physique reached the razor’s edge of breakthrough.
Seventy-two billion yuan in liquid reserves, Lin Mo observed silently. And a loyal army of four thousand honest couriers who know every doorstep in Jiangcheng. The Zhao family spent thirty years building their monopoly. We dismantled their logistics wing in two days.
Two thousand one hundred mobile phones pinged almost simultaneously across the plaza.
“My signing bonus arrived! Five thousand yuan cash!” “The new heated vans are arriving from the depot!” “Long live Chairman Lin! Long live Taichu!”
The cheers of two thousand workers shook the autumn air like thunder. Many of the older couriers threw their worn caps into the air. Others called their wives and children, shouting into their phones that they had real health insurance and heated vans.
Grandma Chen’s supply trucks pulled up along the southern curb of the plaza. The back gates opened, revealing massive insulated thermal vats of hot wild-shrimp wonton soup and braised beef noodles.
“Eat, boys and girls!” Grandma Chen’s warm voice boomed through a megaphone as she bustled between the tables. “No worker drives for Taichu on an empty belly! If anyone tries to leave without a steaming bowl, you answer to this old woman!”
The plaza filled with the rich, savory aroma of herbal bone broth and fresh scallions. Two thousand couriers lined up with broad smiles, laughing and warming their hands around ceramic bowls.
Suddenly, the warm afternoon light vanished.
A cold, biting gust of wind swept across the square, rustling the banners and sending dry leaves spinning into the air.
Lin Mo looked up.
Thick, bruised-purple storm clouds rolled over the northern mountains with terrifying speed. The sky turned an ominous, sickly yellow-black within seconds.
Sirens began to wail across the city. High above the plaza, the giant municipal public broadcast screen flashed bright crimson text:
[URGENT METEOROLOGICAL ALERT: RED TYPHOON WARNING!]
[SUPER TYPHOON 'BLACK JADE' HAS MADE EARLY LANDFALL!]
[TORRENTIAL RAINFALL EXCEEDING 250MM PROJECTED OVER THE NEXT SIX HOURS!]
[CITYWIDE FLOOD EMERGENCY LEVEL ONE IN EFFECT! ALL CITIZENS SHELTER IMMEDIATELY!]
Old Ma rushed up to Lin Mo, his phone clutched in his trembling hand.
“Chairman Lin!” Old Ma shouted over the rising gale. “The municipal drainage system in the lower districts is already backing up! River water is surging into the underpasses! Thousands of elderly folks and schoolkids are trapped across the city!”
Tie Niu clenched his massive fists, his tactical jacket whipping in the violent wind. “Chairman, what are our orders?”
Lin Mo looked at the four thousand honest couriers standing firm before him, then at the darkening sky.
“Old Ma, sound the assembly,” Lin Mo said, his voice cutting through the howl of the storm. “Taichu Express does not shelter from rain. Tonight, we go rescue Jiangcheng.”