Patriarch Zhao Tianxiong gripped his serpent-carved ivory cane at the head of the black marble boardroom table on the sixty-eighth floor of Zhao Tower as rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling glass.
Inside the executive war room, blue fluorescent screens flickered with red financial charts while smoke from imported cigars mixed with the sharp scent of medicinal alcohol. The eighty-year-old patriarch possessed a Goodness Score of 6/100, his face sunken and yellowed with fury.
To his right, Chairman Zhao Kun paced back and forth like a caged predator. His suit was wrinkled and stained with dried blood from the underground arena.
Across the table, Zhao Kai—Freshly bailed out pending trial by his uncle’s legal team—sat slumped in his leather chair, trembling as he watched notifications flash on his phone.
“Five hundred million yuan,” Patriarch Zhao Tianxiong said, his gravelly voice scraping like rusty iron. “We have pledged our remaining municipal land holdings, our pharmaceutical supply warehouses, and our private credit lines. Every cent is deployed. Kun’er, are you certain this will choke Lin Mo to death?”
Zhao Kun slammed both fists onto the marble table.
“It will suffocate him before dawn!” Zhao Kun snarled, his teeth bared in a feral grimace. “Taichu Sanctuary Hospital consumes fifty tons of medicinal herbs and packaging materials every morning. Grandma Chen’s fifty canteens require seventy tons of fresh vegetables, flour, and grain before six o’clock! We hold the land leases on all thirty private packaging workshops and food processors in the southern industrial district!”
Zhao Kun picked up a red desk phone and dialed the night dispatch office.
“Issue the ultimatum to all thirty supplier workshops right now!” Zhao Kun barked into the receiver. “Tell those peasant factory owners that not a single truck leaves their gates by dawn! If they deliver to Taichu Group, Zhao Real Estate will cancel their land leases, call in their loans, and dismantle their machinery!”
Zhao Kun slammed the receiver down, turning to Zhao Kai with bloodshot eyes.
“And what about the luxury plaza?” Zhao Kun hissed.
Zhao Kai swallowed hard, his voice shaking.
“I... I hired four chemical saboteurs from the provincial docks,” Zhao Kai stammered. “They have three hundred pounds of industrial butyric acid and corrosive sewer sludge. At one-thirty in the morning, they will pump it directly into the central air intake of Grand Golden-Plume Plaza. By sunrise, the entire mall will reek of rotting corpses, and the sprinkler pipes will corrode. Lin Mo’s flagship retail property will be condemned for months!”
Patriarch Zhao Tianxiong closed his cold, reptilian eyes and tapped his ivory cane on the marble.
“Good,” the patriarch whispered. “If our Zhao family must bleed, Lin Mo will drown.”
Meanwhile, two miles to the west, the eighty-eighth floor of Taichu Sky-Tower was bathed in bright, warm light.
Soft jazz played over the ceiling speakers. The scent of freshly ground Brazilian coffee drifted through the spacious executive suite.
Lin Mo stood by the panoramic window, looking out over the neon-lit river of Jiangcheng.
Behind him, Su Wan sat at a sleek glass desk, reviewing real-time supply logs on two curved monitors. Beside her, Shen Qiaoqiao sat with her laptop open, monitoring corporate registries and financial risk alerts.
Tie Niu stood by the doorway, wearing a clean charcoal-gray suit that barely contained his massive bronze shoulders. His cold-iron sabre stood upright in a corner umbrella stand, resting like a piece of quiet modern art.
Ding-ding-ding.
A series of frantic incoming phone alerts flashed on Shen Qiaoqiao’s terminal.
Shen Qiaoqiao adjusted her headset, listening for twenty seconds before looking up at Lin Mo.
“Chairman Lin,” Shen Qiaoqiao reported, her brow furrowing slightly. “We have a coordinated supply-chain crisis. Over the last twenty minutes, all thirty of our primary packaging, glass-vial, and agricultural processing workshops in the southern district have received formal threat notices from Zhao Real Estate.”
“What kind of threats?” Su Wan asked, her fingers pausing above her keyboard.
“Zhao Real Estate owns the ground beneath their workshop sheds,” Shen Qiaoqiao explained. “Zhao Kun is demanding they terminate all supply contracts with Taichu Hospital and Grandma Chen’s canteens immediately. If they load their morning delivery trucks, Zhao Group promises to call in their equipment loans and bulldoze their gates by eight in the morning.”
Shen Qiaoqiao tapped a key, putting an incoming call on the speakerphone.
The frantic, tearful voice of Factory Director Song, the sixty-year-old owner of the Red-Star Glass Bottle Workshop, filled the room:
“President Su! Chairman Lin! Are you there? Zhao Group’s thugs just spray-painted red crosses on our warehouse doors! They said if we deliver the twenty thousand sterile medicine vials to Taichu Hospital at dawn, they will smash our glass kilns! My thirty workers are terrified! We want to supply you, but we cannot afford to lose our livelihood!”
Above Director Song’s voice on the digital screen, the System displayed his verified moral rating: Goodness: 86/100.
Below his name, the ratings of the other twenty-nine workshop owners glowed in clear, honest greens between 81/100 and 89/100. These were small, hardworking local business owners who had refused to sell counterfeit medicine vials to Zhao Pharma for years.
Lin Mo turned around from the window, holding a warm porcelain cup of black coffee.
He looked completely relaxed, without a trace of anxiety.
Zhao Kun really thinks he can wage an economic siege with paper leases and red spray paint, Lin Mo thought, taking a slow sip. He does not realize that fear only works when the victim has no money. And money is the one thing I have in endless supply.
Lin Mo walked over to Su Wan’s desk and set down his coffee cup.
“Director Song,” Lin Mo said into the speakerphone, his voice calm, firm, and reassuring. “Do not be afraid. Taichu stands behind you.”
“Chairman Lin...” Director Song choked on a sob. “What should we do?”
“Keep your kilns burning,” Lin Mo said. “Su Wan, activate the Taichu Supplier Emergency Shield.”
Su Wan looked up, her pen poised. “What are the parameters, Chairman Lin?”
“Wire ten million yuan immediately from my personal account,” Lin Mo commanded. “Divide it equally among all thirty supplier workshops. That is three hundred and thirty-three thousand yuan in cleared cash for each owner as an immediate advance prepayment for the next six months of supplies.”
Lin Mo paused, looking at Shen Qiaoqiao.
“In addition,” Lin Mo continued, “Shen Qiaoqiao, prepare legal acquisition filings for all thirty industrial land parcels beneath their workshops. If Zhao Real Estate attempts to foreclose, Taichu will purchase the underlying land deeds directly through municipal auction at double market value and deed the property directly to the workshop owners.”
Director Song gasped over the speakerphone.
“Three hundred and thirty thousand yuan in cash advance? And you will buy our land for us?!”
“You stood by Taichu when the Zhao family ruled this city,” Lin Mo said gently. “Now that Taichu stands tall, we will never allow our partners to be bullied. Take the money, pay your workers triple overtime, and load your trucks.”
Tap.
Su Wan swiped Lin Mo’s Black-Gold Sovereign Benevolence Card across the payment console.
BEEP.
A grand, resonant celestial chime rang out in Lin Mo’s mind:
[Ding! Detected spending of ¥10,000,000.00 RMB on Taichu Supplier Emergency Shield & Industrial Protection!]
[Target Beneficiaries: 30 Honest Local Workshop Owners & Small Manufacturers (Goodness: 81–89/100)!]
[Purpose: 6-month advance procurement prepayments, equipment modernization grants, and land lease defense against predatory consortium coercion!]
[Pure Altruistic Intent Verified: Protecting small independent producers, securing civic hospital supply chains, and preventing corporate extortion!]
[Triggering 100x Pure Benevolence System Refund!]
[Cash Refund Received: +¥1,000,000,000.00 RMB!]
[Funds deposited directly into Host Personal Liquid Vault!]
[Personal Liquid Vault: ¥86,000,000,000.00 RMB!]
[Benevolence Merit Points: +1,000,000 BMP | Total BMP: 178,949,528 BMP!]
[Good People Network Expanded: 9,630 Verified Righteous Allies (+30 small manufacturing leaders formally integrated into Taichu Supply Grid)!]
One billion more in cleared cash, Lin Mo thought, watching his liquid vault climb to eighty-six billion yuan. Zhao Kun spent five hundred million on margin loans and bribes to organize a boycott. I spent ten million to dismantle it, and earned a billion in profit.
On the speakerphone, the sudden chime of bank text alerts rang out in rapid succession across thirty different phone lines.
Ding. Your account has received ¥333,333.33 RMB.
Director Song’s voice broke into loud, joyous weeping over the speaker.
“The money is here! It is cleared in cash!” Director Song shouted, his voice echoing through his workshop shed. “Workers! Stoke the kilns! Load every crate of medicine vials! Tell Zhao Group’s thugs outside to shove their red spray paint up their noses! We work for Taichu!”
From the other speaker lines, dozens of factory managers yelled in unison:
“We are loading the flour trucks!”
“The organic vegetable convoy is rolling out!”
“Our packaging line is running at maximum speed!”
Lin Mo nodded, a faint smile on his lips. “Su Wan, dispatch twenty squads from the Taichu Righteous Martial Hall. Have our veteran brothers escort every supply truck directly to the hospital and canteens.”
Tie Niu grinned broadly, tapping his knuckles against his chest. “I will oversee the route assignments personally, Chairman Lin. If any Zhao thug tries to touch a delivery truck, our brothers will teach them how to walk backwards.”
Tie Niu bowed and hurried out to coordinate the veteran escorts.
Meanwhile, forty blocks away in the central shopping district, the clock on the municipal tower struck one-thirty in the morning.
Grand Golden-Plume Luxury Plaza stood silent under the pouring rain. The eight-story crystal atrium was dark, its vast marble corridors empty except for the soft hum of emergency floor lights.
Outside the rear delivery alley, a dark, windowless van pulled up beside the commercial trash compactors.
The rear doors clicked open.
Four men dressed in black rubber jumpsuits and heavy gas masks slipped out into the shadows. Each man carried two heavy plastic carboys filled with a foul, yellowish sludge, along with industrial high-pressure hoses and pipe-cutting torches.
Their Goodness Scores hovered in dark, toxic reds: -6/100, -8/100, -7/100, and -9/100.
The lead saboteur unbolted an exterior metal grate labeled CENTRAL HVAC INTAKE - SUB-LEVEL 2.
“Move fast,” the leader whispered through his mask. “Three hundred pounds of butyric acid and corrosive industrial grease. Once we pump it into the main intake plenum, the ventilation fans will blast it into every luxury boutique on eight floors. By dawn, the leather goods, silk dresses, and restaurants will be ruined forever.”
The four men crawled silently into the wide steel ventilation duct, dragging their heavy hoses behind them.
Inside the quiet mall, fifty feet above on the ground floor, an elderly man in a gray maintenance uniform was pushing a mop across the polished granite floor.
It was Old Wu.
Above Old Wu’s head, the System displayed a radiant green score: Goodness: 89/100.
Old Wu had worked as a sixty-year-old deaf janitor in Jiangcheng for forty years before catching the rat-poison saboteurs at Old Lantern Street through his lotus-broth vibration sense. Following that night, Lin Mo had funded his high-tech bone-conduction cochlear implant and arranged for Dr. Gu Qinghe to restore his auditory nerves with acupuncture, transferring him to oversee night sanitation at Grand Golden-Plume Plaza.
Now, combining his tactile vibration sense with his restored hearing, Old Wu’s perception was sharper than that of a trained guard dog.
As Old Wu dipped his mop into the warm soapy bucket, his left ear twitched.
SCRAPE. SCRAPE. CLANG.
A faint, unnatural metallic scraping sound vibrated through the floor tiles.
It was not the normal rhythmic hum of the water pumps. It was the sound of heavy rubber boots and steel nozzles crawling through the sub-level air plenum directly beneath the central jewelry gallery.
Old Wu stopped mopping.
He reached up, adjusting the small silver dial behind his left ear.
Through his restored auditory nerves, he clearly heard a muffled voice whispering through the steel pipe:
“Connect the pressure valve. In three minutes, we flood the intake.”
Old Wu’s wrinkled face hardened.
He looked at the gleaming crystal storefronts around him. This mall was Chairman Lin’s property. Chairman Lin had saved his life, restored his hearing, and given him a comfortable home.
Old Wu reached into his tool belt, pulled out his security emergency radio, and pressed the red panic button directly to Taichu Command.