“Lock the doors! Today I’m revoking this store’s lease, confiscating these twelve million yuan watches as stolen goods, and banning Lin Mo for life!”
Inside the glittering Vacheron & Patek boutique on the ground floor of Grand Golden-Plume Luxury Plaza, Mall Vice-President Zhao (Goodness: 13/100) slammed his palm onto a glass display counter.
His pudgy face was twisted into an ugly, triumphant sneer. Twenty burly private security guards in black tactical vests fanned out across the marble showroom. They shoved startled customers into the central atrium and pulled the steel security shutters halfway down.
Standing right beside VP Zhao was twenty-four-year-old Zhao Kai (Goodness: 9/100). His eyes burned with venomous spite after his morning humiliation at the POS terminal.
Clinging to Zhao Kai’s arm was ex-girlfriend Liu Yan (Goodness: 14/100). She held her smartphone high on a rose-gold selfie stick, live-streaming the confrontation to thirty thousand viewers online.
“Look at you now, Su Wan!” Liu Yan gloated into her microphone. She pointed her camera lens at twenty-two-year-old CEO Su Wan (Goodness: 95/100), who stood calmly behind the mahogany counter with her chin held high.
“This morning you put on airs because Lin Mo used a rigged card machine to buy watches!” Liu Yan sneered. “Now Kai’s uncle—the Vice-President of this entire luxury plaza—is here in person! When Lin Mo shows up, he’ll have to kneel on this floor and beg my boyfriend for mercy!”
Su Wan didn’t flinch. She adjusted the emerald lapel pin of her bespoke Taichu executive suit and looked VP Zhao dead in the eye.
“You have zero legal authority to confiscate paid inventory or break a five-year commercial lease, Vice-President Zhao,” Su Wan said, her voice crisp and steady. “Every watch bought this morning was settled in full through the central clearing bank. Furthermore, our parent company is currently in direct talks with your Hong Kong board of directors.”
“The Hong Kong board? Ha! The Hong Kong directors are a thousand miles away, whereas I run every square inch of Grand Golden-Plume Plaza!” VP Zhao barked a laugh and slapped a stamped internal confiscation notice onto the glass case.
“In this mall, my signature is the law! My nephew told me how Lin Mo bribed your former store manager to fake a twelve-million-yuan receipt. Guards, pry open the back-office safe and load every remaining timepiece into my office!”
Two of VP Zhao’s private guards stepped behind the counter, reaching rough hands toward Su Wan’s shoulder.
“Let’s see whose hand stays attached if it touches my CEO,” a calm, deadpan voice echoed from the boutique entrance.
The half-lowered steel security shutter suddenly groaned under tremendous external force.
CLANG—SCREECH!
Four pairs of callused, iron-strong hands gripped the bottom edge of the heavy steel shutter and heaved it straight up into the ceiling track!
Lin Mo stepped unhurriedly into the showroom.
Right behind him, thirty-nine tall, battle-hardened special-forces veterans in crisp black Taichu tactical jackets marched into the atrium in two disciplined columns. At their head strode Commander Tie Niu (Goodness: 93/100), his six-foot-three frame moving with tiger-like power and zero trace of his five-year limp!
In three seconds flat, Tie Niu and Deputy Squad Leader Lei Gang (Goodness: 92/100) crossed the showroom. They grabbed the two private guards reaching for Su Wan by their vest collars and tossed them ten feet backward into VP Zhao’s formation like sacks of wet straw!
The crowded mall atrium outside the glass walls fell quiet except for the click of hundreds of phone cameras.
VP Zhao’s jaw dropped as he stared at Tie Niu’s bare, brace-free right leg.
“Tie Niu?! You’re that crippled night watchman from the loading dock!” VP Zhao stammered. He took an involuntary step back as Captain Biao—nursing a bandaged nose in the rear—shrank behind two guards. “How are you walking without your steel brace?! And how dare you bring a gang of street muscle into my luxury plaza, Lin Mo?!”
“Street muscle?” Lin Mo walked past the fallen guards and stood beside Su Wan, glancing dryly at Liu Yan’s live-streaming phone. “Every man behind me is a decorated combat veteran of the Taichu Righteous Iron Guard. As for why we’re here, you just said your signature is the law in this mall?”
“Of course it is!” Zhao Kai shouted, puffing out his chest beside his uncle. “Lin Mo, you pathetic delivery-boy upstart! You tricked Su Wan’s POS machine into flashing a fake alarm this morning, and you beat up Captain Biao in the basement! My uncle has already signed the order banning you and your fake shell company from Grand Golden-Plume Plaza forever!”
Zhao Kai pointed at the marble floor between them. “Unless you kneel down right now, apologize to Yan’er and me on her livestream, and hand over all thirty-eight watches, my uncle’s guards will throw you into a police van for commercial fraud!”
Liu Yan tilted her selfie stick closer, her eyes gleaming with vindictive excitement. “Did everyone in the livestream hear that? Lin Mo spent his last penny putting on a show this morning, and now he’s cornered by the Mall Vice-President! Lin Mo, if you kowtow three times and admit you’re a broke loser who still worships me, maybe I’ll ask Kai’s uncle to leave you one watch box to pawn for rent!”
She’s still calculating how to squeeze a watch out of me even now, Lin Mo thought with deadpan amusement. Arguing with a middle-management parasite who doesn’t even own the building is a waste of saliva. Buying the whole plaza over his head and subsidizing the four hundred honest workers here is a much cleaner return on capital.
Lin Mo didn’t even look at Liu Yan. Instead, he turned to Su Wan.
“CEO Su,” Lin Mo asked calmly, “is the Hong Kong parent fund’s equity settlement line open?”
“Yes, Chairman Lin,” Su Wan said. She turned her tablet screen toward the showroom so the high-definition video conference with the Hong Kong board of directors was visible to everyone. “The cash-strapped parent fund in Hong Kong just approved the 100% full-cash transfer of Grand Golden-Plume Luxury Plaza for two billion five hundred million yuan. It only awaits your final card authorization and the employee welfare allocation.”
VP Zhao stared at the tablet screen and burst out laughing.
“Two billion five hundred million yuan?! Su Wan, have you lost your mind along with this delivery boy?!” VP Zhao sneered, pointing a stubby finger at Lin Mo.
“Do you know what two and a half billion yuan in liquid cash looks like?! Even our entire Zhao Pharmaceutical Group couldn’t pull two and a half billion in unencumbered cash in one afternoon! If this punk can buy out our Hong Kong parent fund today, I’ll crawl out of this atrium on my hands and knees!”
“Commander Tie, make sure the floor is wet so his knees slide smoothly,” Lin Mo said deadpan.
He drew his black-gold [Personal 100x Vault Card] and his matte emerald-green [Benevolence Charity Card] from his pocket. He tapped both cards against Su Wan’s dual-channel corporate banking terminal.
“Wire two billion five hundred million yuan (`¥2,500,000,000.00`) from my Personal Vault to complete the 100% corporate equity buyout of Grand Golden-Plume Luxury Plaza,” Lin Mo said clearly. “And simultaneously wire one hundred million yuan (`¥100,000,000.00`) from the Benevolence Channel to establish the Taichu Mall Employee Welfare & Honest Tenant Subsidy Fund.”
Lin Mo’s voice carried across the atrium. “That hundred-million-yuan fund provides an immediate two-hundred-fifty-thousand-yuan housing, medical, and commission-protection grant to every single one of the four hundred honest salesclerks, janitors, cafeteria aunties, and security guards (`Goodness: 80+`) working in this building!”
Beep—DING!
Across the atrium, the giant thirty-foot LED directory screen above the central fountain flickered.
A split second later, the official Hong Kong Stock Exchange & Municipal Commercial Registry real-time settlement banner flashed in blazing gold letters across every floor of the mall:
`[OFFICIAL EQUITY TRANSFER NOTICE: 100% OWNERSHIP OF GRAND GOLDEN-PLUME LUXURY PLAZA ACQUIRED BY TAICHU BENEVOLENCE GROUP (CHAIRMAN: LIN MO) — SETTLEMENT: ¥2,500,000,000.00 PAID IN FULL!]`
`[TAICHU EMPLOYEE WELFARE FUND ACTIVATED: ¥100,000,000.00 DISTRIBUTED TO 400 VERIFIED HONEST STAFF!]`
Simultaneously, the golden ledger inside Lin Mo’s mind detonated like a tidal wave of liquid gold:
[Ding! Landmark Commercial Buyout & Mass Worker Benevolence Verified!]
[Host executed a ¥2,500,000,000.00 Corporate Asset Acquisition and spent ¥100,000,000.00 RMB directly improving the lives, housing, and job security of 400 Qualified Pure-Heart Mall Employees (Goodness: 80–94/100)!]
[Note: Direct Corporate Asset Buyout (¥2.5B) yields 100% landmark equity; Direct Benevolent Welfare Spend (¥100,000,000.00) triggers 100x Pure-Heart Cashback Multiplier!]
[+¥10,000,000,000.00 RMB (Ten Billion Yuan, Tax-Cleared Sovereign Funds) deposited into Host's Personal Vault!]
[+10,000,000 Benevolence Merit Points (BMP) awarded!]
[Current Personal Liquid Vault Balance: ¥15,102,680,000.50 RMB (Fifteen Billion One Hundred and Two Million Six Hundred and Eighty Thousand Yuan)!]
[Good People Network Expanded: 465 Verified Beneficiaries & Allies (+400 Honest Mall Clerks, Janitors & Guards)!]
In the atrium outside the boutique, four hundred overworked salesgirls, restroom cleaners, and honest security guards (Goodness: 80–94/100) heard their phones chime in unison with their ¥250,000.00 welfare grant notifications!
Tears of joy and thunderous cheers erupted from every balcony of the six-story plaza!
Inside the boutique, VP Zhao’s smirk froze solid on his face.
Before he could utter a syllable, the private smartphone in his suit pocket rang with a shrill, urgent tone.
VP Zhao fumbled the phone out with shaking fingers. On the screen flashed the caller ID of the Hong Kong Parent Fund’s Chairman.
When his sweaty thumb hit speakerphone by mistake, the Hong Kong Chairman’s furious voice roared across the dead-silent showroom:
“Zhao Hai, you corrupt, nepotistic idiot! Chairman Lin Mo just wired two and a half billion yuan in cash to buy 100% of Grand Golden-Plume Plaza! His preliminary audit already flagged your three million yuan in grey-market kickbacks!”
“As of this second, you are fired with zero severance, and your embezzlement files are with the Jiangcheng Economic Crimes Bureau! If you don’t get out of Chairman Lin’s building in sixty seconds, our lawyers will sue your whole family into prison!”
Click—beep—beep.
The call ended.
CRASH!
Beside Zhao Kai, Liu Yan’s hands shook so violently that her rose-gold selfie stick slipped right out of her fingers. Her smartphone smashed face-down onto the marble floor, cracking the screen in half while fifty thousand livestream viewers flooded the chat with rows of shocked exclamation marks!
“Two... two and a half billion yuan cash?!” Liu Yan whispered, her face draining to the color of chalk as she stared at Lin Mo’s calm profile. “He didn’t just buy the watches... he bought the entire luxury mall?! And I dumped him outside those glass doors yesterday because he only had forty-eight yuan?!”
Next to her, Zhao Kai turned ghostly pale as the real financial catastrophe hit him.
“Uncle!” Zhao Kai grabbed VP Zhao’s sleeve in panic. “If Lin Mo owns the whole plaza, what about our Zhao family’s three flagship jewelry and pharmacy anchor stores on the first floor?! You gave us five years of rent-free leases under the table!”
“Those three rent-free backdoor leases were voided thirty seconds ago,” Su Wan said coolly, tapping her tablet. “Furthermore, your three anchor stores owe twelve million yuan in unpaid back-rent and utility fees. Our legal team has already locked their inventory pending court auction.”
VP Zhao’s legs gave out completely. He slumped against a display pillar, his lips trembling without a sound.
Lin Mo looked at Commander Tie Niu and raised two fingers.
“Commander Tie,” Lin Mo said mildly. “This building now belongs to Taichu Benevolence Group, and we have an eighty-point hygiene standard. Throw these three pieces of trash out onto the street where they belong.”
“Yes, Chairman!” Tie Niu’s booming voice shook the crystal chandeliers.
With a wave of Tie Niu’s hand, Deputy Squad Leader Lei Gang, Chen Hu, and six burly Iron Guard veterans stepped forward.
VP Zhao’s twenty hired security guards didn’t even dare raise their batons. Half of them (Goodness: 81–85/100) had just received Lin Mo’s ¥250,000 employee welfare grant and immediately stepped aside to salute their new Chairman, while the remaining cronies fled through the side exit!
“Don’t touch me! I’m the Vice-President—ahhh!”
“Let go of my jacket, you crippled brutes! My dad is CEO of Zhao Pharma!”
“Lin Mo! Mo-ge, tell them to put me down! I was wrong yesterday—!”
Ignoring their shrieks, Tie Niu and his veterans hoisted VP Zhao, Zhao Kai, and Liu Yan by their collars and belt loops. They marched the trio straight through the main atrium under the applause of four hundred cheering mall workers and tossed all three of them out through the front entrance into the rainy plaza forecourt!
SPLASH!
VP Zhao, Zhao Kai, and Liu Yan landed in the exact same shallow rainwater puddle where Zhao Kai’s Porsche had splashed Lin Mo twenty hours earlier.
Spitting muddy rainwater out of his mouth, a humiliated and desperate VP Zhao scrambled to his knees on the wet flagstones. He pointed a shaking finger back at the atrium doors, where twelve silk-suited luxury boutique directors had just hurried down the escalators.
“Laugh while you can, Lin Mo!” VP Zhao snarled venomously through the rain. “You think buying the brick-and-mortar building makes you king of luxury retail?! All twelve senior brand managers in this atrium are my personal confidants! Without their Paris and Milan supplier channels, they’ll stage a collective walkout strike right now and leave your two-billion-yuan mall an empty shell!”