The glass construction elevator glided down the exterior of the Sanctuary Sky-Tower at eighty feet per second.
Through the transparent cabin walls, Lin Mo watched the street plaza below. Outside Grandma Chen’s flagship canteen, a dense crowd of five hundred people had gathered. Bright studio lights beamed from mobile broadcast rigs, casting harsh glares against the glass facade.
Every morning, hundreds of sanitation workers, bus drivers, and neighborhood grandmothers lined up outside Grandma Chen’s canteen. A generous porcelain bowl of handmade spring-water shrimp wontons cost five yuan, and it was completely free for street sweepers and orphans. Now, an imported bright yellow sports car sat parked directly across the crosswalk, blocking the hungry crowd.
The elevator doors parted at the ground level.
Lin Mo stepped onto the polished stone pavement, followed by Shen Qiaoqiao, Tie Niu, and Su Wan.
At the center of the crowd, Pierre Zhang stood behind a folding television broadcast desk. His tailored French double-breasted suit was immaculate, and a gold silk cravat puffed from his stiff collar. In his left hand, he held a porcelain soup spoon.
In his right hand, clamped in a pair of steel tweezers, was a large, greasy black insect.
“Look at this, viewers of Jiangcheng News!” Pierre Zhang shouted into the high-definition camera, his accent dripping with exaggerated European disdain. “A dead sewer cockroach floating right on top of Taichu’s famous shrimp wonton soup! This is the street-stall swill that billionaire Lin Mo calls charity! In Paris, this biohazard would be shut down by the health ministry in ten seconds! It lacks technique, it lacks refinement, and it breeds lethal bacteria!”
Beside Pierre Zhang, Zhao Peng leaned against the hood of his sports car, sipping an iced espresso from a gold-trimmed paper cup.
“My cousin Zhao Kai was too gentle with you peasants,” Zhao Peng sneered to the cameras. “Taichu feeds workers expired garbage to cut costs! Gourmet-King Monopoly is filing an emergency health petition right now. We demand the municipal health bureau padlock this filthy canteen today!”
Standing behind the stainless-steel serving counter was sixty-five-year-old Master Chef Lao Tang.
He wore a crisp white chef’s coat, but his weathered hands were shaking with indignation. For forty years, Lao Tang had simmered heritage broths in Jiangcheng, refusing to use synthetic flavorings, artificial gelatin, or cheap chemical powders.
“You are lying!” Lao Tang shouted, his voice cracking with outrage. “I simmered this broth for twelve hours using whole free-range hens, aged mountain duck, and live river shrimp! The cauldrons are sealed with fine mesh lids! Not even a speck of dust could enter my pots! You brought that filth with you in your pocket!”
Pierre Zhang sneered, waving his tweezers dismissively. “Old man, I am an accredited Three-Star Golden-Fork Inspector. My palate is insured for ten million euros by an overseas syndicate. I judge three-star Michelin banquets in Milan and Tokyo! Are you, a common street cook, calling me a liar?”
Several elderly canteen helpers looked terrified, pulling Little Guo’er behind the counter as angry murmurs rose from the crowd.
“Yes,” a calm voice cut through the shouting. “He is calling you a liar. Because that is what you are.”
The crowd parted instantly.
Lin Mo walked through the opening, his hands resting casually in his coat pockets. Behind him, Tie Niu stepped forward like an iron wall, pushing two of Zhao Peng’s private camera operators back three yards without breaking a sweat.
Zhao Peng straightened up, his eyes narrowing into slits. “Lin Mo? You finally came down from your ivory tower? Did you bring your lawyers to explain why you are feeding cockroaches to innocent workers?”
Planting a dead bug in soup on a live stream when the restaurant was built by an ancient mechanism master is hilarious, Lin Mo thought deadpan. A man who wears French cuffs always thinks nobody is watching his wrists. Magicians know that the sleeve is where every cheap trick hides. And culinary snobs who hide behind European titles are usually the biggest frauds of all.
Lin Mo ignored Zhao Peng completely. He walked straight to the broadcast table and looked at Pierre Zhang.
[TARGET: PIERRE ZHANG]
[GOODNESS SCORE: 11/100 — BRIBED CULINARY EXTORTIONIST, ACCEPTED ¥500,000 FROM ZHAO PENG TO FABRICATE FOOD SAFETY VIOLATION]
[HIDDEN OBJECT: ACRYLIC SLIDE-BOX HIDDEN INSIDE RIGHT CUFFLINK SLEEVE]
Lin Mo tilted his head, a faint, cold smile touching his lips.
“Inspector Zhang,” Lin Mo said smoothly. “You claim you discovered this cockroach floating in the bowl the moment Lao Tang handed it to you?”
“Of course!” Pierre Zhang declared, puffing out his chest for the cameras. “I dipped my spoon, and this abomination surfaced! The entire city watched it live! The health code violations are absolute!”
“Good,” Lin Mo said. He looked over at Shen Qiaoqiao. “Counselor Shen, connect to the plaza’s fifty-foot electronic billboard.”
Shen Qiaoqiao tapped her tablet with practiced speed.
The giant LED billboard above the canteen entrance flickered, switching away from commercial advertisements to a crisp, high-definition video feed.
“When Master Lu Jian designed this canteen,” Lin Mo announced to the crowd, “he installed four ultra-high-speed security cameras in the ceiling beams. They record at four-K resolution at two hundred and forty frames per second. Let us review the last ninety seconds of Inspector Zhang’s inspection.”
Pierre Zhang’s smug grin began to slip. A flicker of panic crossed his eyes. “What... what video? You cannot broadcast unauthorized footage without my legal consent!”
“Play it,” Lin Mo said.
The giant screen lit up with crystal-clear footage.
On the massive screen, Pierre Zhang stood at the counter. The camera was angled directly above his right shoulder, offering an unobstructed, high-angle view of his hands and sleeves.
Lin Mo tapped a button, slowing the playback to one-tenth speed.
Every single micro-movement was magnified ten times on the fifty-foot screen.
In ultra-slow motion, the crowd watched Pierre Zhang take the bowl from Lao Tang with his left hand.
Then, his right hand moved.
His right thumb subtly pressed against the underside of his gold French cufflink. A tiny clear plastic drawer slid forward from inside the stiff silk cuff.
With a smooth, practiced flick of his middle finger, Pierre Zhang extracted a dried black cockroach and dropped it straight into the steaming broth!
Two seconds later, he dipped his spoon, gasped with fake horror, and lifted the insect with his tweezers!
The entire street plaza went dead silent.
Then, the five hundred thousand viewers watching the live stream exploded into a frenzy.
The live chat scroll on the screen turned into an unreadable blur of furious comments:
— “HE DROPPED IT FROM HIS SLEEVE!” — “LOOK AT HIS CUFFLINK! THERE IS A SECRET SLIDE TRAY!” — “FRAUD! HE BROUGHT A DEAD BUG TO FRAME GRANDMA CHEN!” — “ARREST THIS FAKE CRITIC! BOYCOTT GOURMET-KING!”
Pierre Zhang’s face turned completely white. A bead of cold sweat rolled down his powdered cheek, dripping onto his silk cravat.
“This... this is an optical illusion!” Pierre Zhang stammered, pulling his right arm behind his back. “The video was edited! Artificial intelligence generated this footage to slander me!”
Tie Niu stepped forward like lightning.
Before Pierre Zhang could tuck his hands into his pockets, Tie Niu’s iron grip clamped onto the critic’s right wrist.
CLICK.
Tie Niu twisted Pierre’s wrist upward, popping the golden French cuff open.
A small acrylic slide-box tumbled out of the silk sleeve, bouncing across the broadcast desk. Inside the clear plastic case rested three more dead, dried German cockroaches, each labeled with tiny sticky notes indicating restaurant names.
The crowd of workers, grandmothers, and neighbors roared in fury.
“You shameless beast!” an older construction worker yelled, throwing a crumpled paper cup at Pierre Zhang’s head. “Grandma Chen gives us free meals, and you try to ruin her with bugs?!”
“Beat the fraud!” a sanitation worker shouted, brandishing a broom.
Zhao Peng’s face twitched violently. He backed toward his sports car, cursing under his breath. “Useless idiot... couldn’t even drop a bug cleanly...”
Lin Mo walked behind the serving counter.
He placed a gentle hand on Master Chef Lao Tang’s trembling shoulder.
[TARGET: MASTER CHEF TANG DEXING (LAO TANG)]
[GOODNESS SCORE: 93/100 — LIFELONG HERITAGE BROTH MASTER, REFUSED TO ADULTERATE FOOD WITH CHEMICALS FOR 40 YEARS]
[LIFELONG DREAM: BUILDING A TRANSPARENT PUBLIC KITCHEN WHERE HONEST CRAFT CANNOT BE SLANDERED]
Ninety-three points of goodness, Lin Mo thought. An artisan who spent forty years simmering real soup for working people. Men like this are the backbone of our culture. They deserve the finest tools money can buy.
“Master Tang,” Lin Mo said warmly. “You spent four decades defending the purity of your broth. Today, Taichu ensures no insect or liar will ever question your food again.”
Lin Mo turned to Su Wan.
“Su Wan, execute an immediate renovation allocation,” Lin Mo commanded. “Two million yuan to install a fully enclosed medical-grade transparent glass smart-kitchen. Equip it with hospital-grade laminar air filters, thirty-six panoramic four-K cameras streaming twenty-four hours a day, and induction broth cauldrons. Lock an additional forty million, one hundred eighty thousand yuan into the Canteen Operating Reserve.”
Su Wan swiped the Black-Gold Benevolence Card on the portable terminal: ¥2,000,000.00.
BEEP.
A bright, joyous chime echoed deep inside Lin Mo’s consciousness:
[Ding! Detected spending of ¥2,000,000.00 RMB on Master Chef Tang Dexing (Goodness: 93/100) and Grandma Chen's Transparent Culinary Sanctuary!]
[Target Integrity Verified: Preserving culinary integrity and providing pure food for workers.]
[Triggered 100x Pure Benevolence System Refund!]
[Received Cash Refund: +¥200,000,000.00 RMB!]
[Funds deposited directly into Host Personal Liquid Vault!]
[Personal Liquid Vault: ¥35,200,000,000.00 RMB!]
[Benevolence Merit Points: +200,000 BMP!]
[Good People Network Expanded: 7,410 verified righteous allies (+10: veteran culinary masters)!]
Two hundred million refund, Lin Mo thought, watching his vault grow to thirty-five point two billion after locking the canteen reserve. Spending two million to build an open smart-kitchen not only saves Grandma Chen’s reputation, but it also pays for itself a hundred times over. When you run an honest business, transparency is your greatest marketing asset.
Master Chef Lao Tang wiped tears from his eyes with his apron, bowing deeply toward Lin Mo. “Chairman Lin, as long as Tang Dexing breathes, every bowl of soup from this kitchen will be simmered with pure conscience!”
Grandma Chen smiled warmly, hugging Little Guo’er tightly as the little girl clapped her hands in delight.
The crowd of five hundred citizens cheered and rushed toward the serving line, eager to buy bowls of fresh shrimp wontons.
Pierre Zhang wiped the sweat from his neck. Knowing his reputation was on the brink of total destruction, his eyes flashed with desperate, spiteful fury.
He pointed a trembling finger at Lao Tang and Lin Mo.
“Fine!” Pierre Zhang shrieked, his voice cracking with humiliated rage. “Maybe a bug fell by accident! But catching a trick does not make your food fine dining! Your wontons are crude street-stall swill compared to real culinary heritage!”
Zhao Peng stepped up beside Pierre Zhang, his face dark with malice. “He is right! My Gourmet-King restaurants use hundred-year-old Imperial recipes! We simmer abalone, fish maw, and deer tendon! You feed dirty couriers five-yuan street soup!”
Pierre Zhang turned toward the television cameras, puffing out his chest.
“I challenge you, Tang Dexing!” Pierre Zhang screamed. “Tomorrow night at seven o’clock, live on the set of Jiangcheng Culinary Spotlight, we hold a public blind taste-test! Your crude wonton soup against Gourmet-King Monopoly’s flagship eighteen-hundred-and-eighty-eight-yuan Imperial Buddha-Jumps-Over-the-Wall Broth! If your peasant soup loses, Grandma Chen’s canteen shuts down forever!”
The street plaza went silent as everyone turned toward Lin Mo.
Master Chef Lao Tang looked at Lin Mo, his fists clenched tight. “Chairman Lin, my broth was taught to me by three generations of family soup masters. We never used chemical flavorings. I am not afraid of their synthetic soup!”
Lin Mo took a slow sip of warm tea from his thermos. He looked at Zhao Peng with calm, deadpan eyes.
“We accept your challenge,” Lin Mo said softly. “And when your eighteen-hundred-and-eighty-eight-yuan chemical broth loses to Grandma Chen’s five-yuan honest wontons, Zhao Peng, what does Gourmet-King forfeit?”
Zhao Peng let out an arrogant, mocking laugh. “If my family’s Imperial Buddha-Jumps-Over-the-Wall broth loses to five-yuan street swill on live television, Gourmet-King will surrender our eight-story flagship banquet building and fifty restaurant franchises to Taichu Group!”
“Counselor Shen, draw up the binding contest contract,” Lin Mo said, capping his thermos. “Get both their signatures on camera right now.”
Shen Qiaoqiao stepped forward with a ready digital contract on her tablet. Her eyes gleamed with razor-sharp legal precision. “Sign on the line, Young Master Zhao. Before five hundred thousand live viewers, this contest is a legally binding asset wager.”
Zhao Peng scrawled his signature with a golden stylus, sneering into the camera.
“Tomorrow night at seven, Lin Mo!” Zhao Peng snapped, climbing into his sports car. “Let us see if your five-yuan wontons survive the palate of real food critics!”
The yellow sports car sped away in a cloud of exhaust.
Lin Mo looked at the steaming cauldrons behind the counter, a faint, cold smile touching his lips.
“Tomorrow night,” Lin Mo murmured, “Jiangcheng will learn what happens when honest food meets corporate poison.”