At one o’clock in the morning, crystal tumblers clinked inside the penthouse VIP lounge of the Gourmet-King Tower.
Zhao Peng sat on an Italian leather sofa, his mud-stained designer jacket replaced by a fresh crimson silk robe. Opposite him sat Jiangcheng’s three primary wholesale food cartel bosses: Boss Qian of the wholesale seafood docks, Boss Ma of the regional pork abattoir, and Boss Wang of the grain distribution syndicate.
“Every freezer gate in the city is locked tight, Young Master Zhao,” Boss Qian laughed, swirling a glass of aged cognac. “For twenty years, not a single crate of river shrimp has moved through this province without my stamp. By dawn, those two hundred street cooks will have boiling water and empty woks!”
Boss Ma slapped his thick thigh, his gold rings catching the chandelier light. “My central abattoir has sealed fifty cold-storage lockers. I warned every private butcher that selling a single rib to Taichu means losing their license. Let us see Grandma Chen wrap her precious wontons with river air!”
Boss Wang blew a thick ring of cigar smoke toward the ceiling. “My grain syndicate locked down all thirty flour mills in the district. They will not even find a handful of wheat dust in Jiangcheng tomorrow morning.”
Zhao Peng took a slow, triumphant sip of whiskey, his eyes gleaming with vicious delight. “Good. When those old peddlers are forced to turn away thousands of hungry workers at sunrise, the public will realize that Taichu is nothing but an empty shell. By noon, Lin Mo will crawl to my office on his knees.”
***
Across the city, inside the high-tech command center of the Taichu Sanctuary Sky-Tower, dozens of digital monitors glowed against the dark glass.
Su Wan stood before the central holographic map. The city’s forty commercial cold-storage facilities and wholesale distribution centers flashed bright red: completely locked down under the cartel’s boycott.
“Chairman Lin,” Su Wan reported, tapping her screen. “The wholesale food cartel executed a total citywide embargo at midnight. All commercial suppliers have refused our purchase orders. If our two hundred kitchens do not receive supplies by five in the morning, our breakfast service will fail.”
Lin Mo stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, taking a quiet sip of warm tea from his stainless thermos.
Predatory middlemen always make the fatal mistake of believing food comes from warehouses, Lin Mo thought deadpan. Food does not grow in concrete freezers. It comes from honest farmers and fishermen who wake up at three in the morning to pull nets and tend livestock. Bypassing the parasite to pay the producer is the oldest and cleanest trade in history.
“Su Wan, connect to our river fleet and logistics hubs,” Lin Mo commanded.
Two communications windows opened on the main display.
In the left window appeared Commodore Old Captain Zheng, wearing his dark naval coat aboard the bridge of the flagship Taichu Sanctuary superyacht.
In the right window appeared Rider Captain Old Ma, wearing his yellow Taichu Express windbreaker at the North Logistics Hub.
“Old Captain Zheng reporting, Chairman Lin!” the sixty-year-old naval veteran barked with a crisp salute. “Ten heavy refrigerated river-barges and thirty fast catamarans are fueled and idling at the South Anchor basin! Our thirty retired naval mechanics and fifty river mariners are ready for sea duty!”
“Old Ma reporting!” the veteran courier captain announced with equal pride. “Five hundred Taichu Express temperature-controlled electric vans and twelve hundred honest riders are mobilized across all thirty hubs! We can roll on twenty seconds’ notice!”
Lin Mo leaned toward the microphone.
“Captain Zheng, take your fleet upriver directly to the Lake Poyang and Honghu fishing co-ops,” Lin Mo ordered. “Captain Ma, dispatch your five hundred vans into the Dabie mountain valleys. We are going straight to the three hundred independent black-pig farmers and river-shrimp fishermen.”
Lin Mo’s eyes sharpened with cold resolve.
“For ten years, Zhao Peng’s cartel has forced those farming families to sell their harvest at below-cost prices,” Lin Mo continued. “The cartel cheats them on the scales and pays them six months late. Tonight, Taichu buys directly from the source. We pay double the fair market rate in immediate cash. And we provide free solar-powered mobile cold-storage units for every village.”
Old Captain Zheng’s weather-beaten face lit up with fierce joy. “Understood, Chairman! Full throttle up the Yangtze!”
“Rolling out now!” Captain Old Ma shouted.
At one-fifteen in the morning, the Yangtze River erupted into motion.
Twin marine diesel engines roared as ten massive refrigerated barges and thirty sleek catamarans surged into the main channel, their bow waves cutting white foam through the midnight mist.
Simultaneously, five hundred heated, insulated Taichu Express vans rolled out from thirty distribution hubs in a long, orderly river of headlights, heading toward the winding mountain roads.
At two-thirty in the morning, the lead catamaran docked at the Honghu River-Shrimp Co-Op pier.
Sixty-year-old fisherman Old He stood on the damp wooden dock in worn rubber waders, looking despondently at ten giant floating cages filled with live, glistening river shrimp.
Beside him, dozens of fishing families huddled under oil lamps, their faces etched with bitter despair.
“The cartel told us they will only pay five yuan a pound this morning,” Old He told his weeping wife. “Diesel fuel cost us six yuan a pound. The cartel uses rigged digital scales that steal twenty pounds per crate. If we sell at their price, we lose our boat. If we refuse to sell, the shrimp die in the holding nets by noon.”
A heavy mooring line landed on the wooden piling with a solid thud.
Old Captain Zheng strode down the gangway, his silver naval buttons gleaming under the deck floodlights. Behind him marched twenty sturdy mariners rolling industrial oxygen tanks and insulated holding bins.
“Old Brother He!” Captain Zheng boomed warmly. “Who told you to sell to those cartel leeches?! Chairman Lin Mo of Taichu Group sent us! We are buying every single pound of live river shrimp in this lake!”
Old He blinked through the mist. “Taichu Group? But... what is your purchase price?”
Captain Zheng pulled out an official contract bearing Taichu’s red seal.
“Thirty yuan a pound in immediate wire cash!” Captain Zheng declared. “Double the fair market rate! And Taichu supplies free solar aeration tanks to your entire co-op!”
Old He gasped, his knees trembling. “Thirty yuan a pound?! That is six times what the cartel offered!”
Tears streamed down the weathered cheeks of the fishermen as they began hauling their nets directly into the aerated tanks aboard Captain Zheng’s barges.
Across the mountain ridges of the Dabie Mountains, a similar scene played out in forty farming hamlets.
Captain Old Ma’s electric vans pulled into the dirt square of Black Stone Village.
Fifty honest mountain farmers who raised pasture-fed black pigs stood in disbelief as Taichu logistics officers weighed their livestock on digital scales and handed over thick stacks of cash.
Farmer Uncle Wei wiped his eyes with a rough canvas sleeve. “The cartel tried to force us to inject chemical growth hormones and clenbuterol into our pigs. When we refused, Boss Ma blacklisted our village for three years. Today, Taichu gave our families our dignity back.”
Lin Mo monitored the live transactions from the Sky-Tower command center. He tapped his Black-Gold Benevolence Card on the master procurement terminal: ¥20,000,000.00.
BEEP.
A grand, celestial chime resonated deep inside Lin Mo’s consciousness:
[Ding! Detected spending of ¥20,000,000.00 RMB on Direct Farm-to-Table Procurement & 300 Righteous Farmers/Fishermen (Goodness: 83–95/100)!]
[Target Integrity Verified: Eliminating predatory monopoly middlemen, doubling farm income, ensuring pure food for the public.]
[Triggered 100x Pure Benevolence System Refund!]
[Received Cash Refund: +¥2,000,000,000.00 RMB!]
[Funds deposited directly into Host Personal Liquid Vault!]
[Personal Liquid Vault: ¥44,000,000,000.00 RMB!]
[Benevolence Merit Points: +2,000,000 BMP!]
[Good People Network Expanded: 8,000 verified righteous allies (+200: fishermen, pig farmers, rural co-op leaders)!]
Two billion cash refund, Lin Mo thought, feeling the warm, crystalline resonance of his Iron-Jade Bones humming with boundless vitality. Forty-four billion in liquid capital. Paying farmers a fair living wage eliminates the middleman, cuts our procurement costs by half, and yields a two-billion-yuan dividend. Treating the primary producer with honor is simply the smartest logistics model on the planet.
At four-forty-five in the morning, the morning mist began to turn pale lavender over the Yangtze River.
A long, rhythmic horn blast sounded from the water.
Ten heavy refrigerated barges, loaded with thirty tons of live, oxygen-aerated river shrimp and fresh mountain black pork, docked at the private pier directly behind Old Lantern Food Street.
Simultaneously, five hundred Taichu Express vans lined up along the rear delivery alley.
Young, athletic couriers and naval mariners unloaded glistening, dew-fresh crates with military precision.
Inside the two hundred kitchens, Master Chef Lao Tang, Grandma Chen, and Grandma Liu stood waiting.
When Lao Tang lifted the lid off the first wooden crate, hundreds of translucent, sweet-water river shrimp leaped into the air, splashing fresh river water across his apron.
“Look at this shrimp!” Lao Tang laughed, wiping tears of pure joy from his eyes. “They were pulled from the lake less than three hours ago! In forty years of cooking, I have never seen ingredients this fresh!”
Grandma Liu touched the sacks of freshly milled, unbleached stone-ground wheat flour carried in by two couriers. A radiant smile lit up her blind face. “The wheat smells of mountain sunshine. Our cakes will feed thousands today!”
Down the street, two hundred stoves roared to life. Rich, savory steam billowed toward the morning sky, carrying the mouth-watering scent of real food to every corner of Jiangcheng.
Meanwhile, three miles away on the industrial ring road, young courier Xiao Lin sat on his electric scooter behind the perimeter hedge of Gourmet-King’s central food factory.
Xiao Lin, whose deaf-mute little sister’s cochlear implant Lin Mo had funded after a rainstorm crash days earlier, had been patrolling the wholesale delivery routes on Lin Mo’s instructions.
Through his binoculars, Xiao Lin spotted a heavy refrigerated eighteen-wheeler with rusted, mud-splattered license plates creeping through the factory’s rear loading gate with its headlights extinguished.
Xiao Lin pulled a miniature 4K surveillance drone from his delivery backpack and launched it silently into the foggy air.
The drone’s telephoto camera zoomed in through the open factory doors.
The rear doors of the trailer swung open. Four workers in heavy rubber aprons and chemical respirators began rolling out pallets of frozen meat blocks wrapped in tattered burlap.
The meat was not pink or red. It was a sickening, mottled gray-black, encrusted in thick yellow ice crystals. Stamped across the faded wooden pallets were official agricultural inspection stamps from 2019—seven years ago!
Inside the factory, workers dragged the frozen slabs toward giant industrial meat grinders, dumping buckets of industrial bleaching agent and liquid formaldehyde into the hoppers to mask the rotting stench.
Xiao Lin gasped, his hands shaking in horror.
“Expired zombie meat...” Xiao Lin whispered into his encrypted headset. “They are bleaching forty tons of seven-year-old expired frozen pork to grind into Gourmet-King’s dim sum!”
Xiao Lin tapped his screen, transmitting the live 4K drone footage directly to Shen Qiaoqiao and Lin Mo at the Sky-Tower command center.
On the main command screen, the crystal-clear feed displayed thirty chemical drums labeled with skull icons and the faded 2019 inspection certificates.
Shen Qiaoqiao pushed her glasses up her nose, her eyes flashing like polished steel blades.
“Bleaching seven-year-old expired meat with industrial chemicals and distributing it across eighty city restaurants constitutes a Class-One Public Endangerment crime,” Shen Qiaoqiao said, her fingers flying across her legal terminal. “Under national food safety statutes, this carries a mandatory twenty-year sentence and total corporate forfeiture.”
Lin Mo set his thermos down on the glass desk, his eyes cold and calm.
“Xiao Lin, keep the drone hovering and maintain the encrypted uplink,” Lin Mo commanded. “Tie Niu, dispatch thirty armored Iron Guard vans to surround the factory loading docks. Counselor Shen, contact the Municipal Food Safety Taskforce and the city prosecutors.”
Lin Mo turned toward the morning sky, where the first golden rays of sunlight broke through the river clouds.
“Zhao Peng locked the cold-storage warehouses to starve working people,” Lin Mo said softly. “Now, we will show the entire city what kind of poison Gourmet-King serves in the dark.”