The richest man started taking advantage of loopholes after joining Alibaba.

That advice to carefully select partners served as a signal. After a few days of relative calm, the situation suddenly changed.

Bad news kept coming.

First, the other side changed its attitude. They had initially agreed to wait for the third-party report before signing, but within two days, their stance suddenly hardened. That morning, the chief representative called personally, getting straight to the point.

"Mr. Lin, now that the framework is set, it should be finalized as soon as possible." On the other end of the phone, his tone lacked its previous politeness and the friendly camaraderie from that tea break. "The longer it drags on, the more variables there will be. Our board of directors hopes to sign the contract before the end of the month."

"But third-party exploration hasn't even started yet," Lin Che said.

"That's all I wanted to say." The other person paused for a moment. "The board's opinion is that the assessment is authoritative enough, and conducting another exploration would be completely unnecessary and only increase costs. My personal suggestion is that you don't need to waste your time on this."

Before the end of the month. No exploration required.

These two sentences, taken together, essentially block the entire path for third-party exploration. A proper independent exploration, from site entry to report production, takes at least three to four weeks. The deadline of the end of the month forces Lin Che to put pen to paper before receiving the actual measurement data.

He Wei put down the phone, her expression not looking good.

"They're pressuring us to sign," she said. "The report isn't even out yet, and they want us to sign it. This isn't negotiation; this is an ultimatum."

Lin Che sat at the table without saying a word.

Then came the second piece of news. The local official's attitude also underwent a subtle change.

Previously, he had at least maintained neutrality, but in the past two days, his words, both overt and covert, had been reminding Weiguang of her identity. That seemingly casual reminder during the tea break now sounded like a signal that something was beginning to happen.

"The officials have given me a heads-up." He Wei looked at the message she had just received on her phone, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper. "They said that the higher-ups are already sensitive about foreign investment in core mining areas, and people with our background need to be even more cautious. They spoke very politely, but I understood what they meant: they're backing away."

The issue of identity has been brought up again and put on the table.

She knew in her heart that this was no coincidence. One minute someone was privately telling the government to be cautious, and the next minute the officials' attitudes changed. There was a hand behind the scenes, quietly pushing everything together.

Lin Che remained silent, simply holding the glass of water and gazing out the window.

The third message was the heaviest one.

The company's legal department sent a reminder that, according to local regulations, there is a time limit for the approval of foreign-invested mining rights. If it drags on any longer, even their application for the small mining rights in the middle section might be rejected due to exceeding the time limit. Once rejected, all the previous efforts would be in vain.

Three things, like three stones, pressed down on me one after another.

The other party is pressuring them to complete the visa application before they have the actual test data. Local authorities are loosening their grip, using residency status as leverage to push them out. Deadlines are tightening, gradually eliminating any room for maneuver.

These three forces, seemingly coming from different directions, surprisingly converged on the same point, all forcing Lin Che to make a decision as soon as possible—a decision that was detrimental to him.

Any average player would panic at this point.

It seems there are only two paths left. Either sign before the report is released, accepting the plan that gives the northern section to the other party and handing over the core area; or stubbornly refuse to sign, watching helplessly as the approval process expires and even the central section is lost.

One is a slow death, the other is being eliminated on the spot.

Dilemma.

What was most suffocating was that these three forces pressed down almost simultaneously. It was as if someone was timing it perfectly, aiming to force Lin Che to submit the moment he couldn't breathe.

He Wei felt increasingly uneasy. How could three seemingly unrelated entities—a multinational corporation, a local official, and a rigid approval deadline—have coordinated their attacks at the same time?

But she couldn't understand the underlying reasons; she only felt that a net was tightening, and they were trapped inside it.

He Wei paced back and forth in the room twice before finally stopping and looking at Lin Che.

"President Lin," her voice trembled with anxiety, "aren't we... in a bit of a passive position?"

This was the first time in days that she had uttered that question. From fighting all the way from China to Africa, she had witnessed Lin Che's composure countless times, but this time, pressured from three sides and with the deadline fast approaching, she truly couldn't see a way out. She even began to doubt whether she had made a mistake by yielding in the first place. If she hadn't retreated back then, would she have ended up in this predicament?

The moment this thought crossed her mind, her heart clenched even tighter.

She thought Lin Che would frown, ponder, and analyze with her how to overcome these three pressures.

But Lin Che didn't.

He remained seated, holding the glass of water that had long since gone cold, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon outside the window, his expression so calm that it seemed he was not in the midst of a negotiation on the verge of collapse.

There was no pretense in that calmness; it was a certainty that things were going according to plan, and even this seemingly dangerous siege was within his expectations.

He even smiled when he heard He Wei's words.

"Passive." He repeated the word softly, as if savoring its meaning. "Look at them, they're urging you to sign, spreading rumors, and setting deadlines—they're using all three methods at once, not waiting a moment longer."

He turned his head and looked at He Wei.

"Don't you think they're in a bit too much of a hurry?"

He Wei was stunned.

She opened her mouth, not immediately understanding what Lin Che meant. They were clearly the ones who had been cornered, so why was Lin Che saying that the other party was getting anxious?

"A piece of land they say will only be valuable in 2024." Lin Che's tone was very light, as if he were talking about something very ordinary. "If it were really worthless, why would they go to all this trouble, raising the price and putting pressure on me, rushing to get me off this table?"

He paused.

"The more someone tries to take something from you, the more valuable it is. A piece of real worthless land wouldn't even be picked up if it were left on the roadside, so why would anyone go to such lengths to get it? The more anxious they are, the more they are proving to me that this piece of land is worth far more than they claim."

He Wei stood there, stunned.

These words were like a ray of light, illuminating her previously tangled anxiety. It turned out that in Lin Che's eyes, the opponent's three sharp blows hadn't created a hopeless situation, but rather a weakness. A truly confident opponent wouldn't rush into a fatal attack. The more force the opponent exerted, the more it exposed the underlying unease that even he himself might not have realized.

He Wei couldn't quite pinpoint where that unease came from. But suddenly, she felt less panicked.

He didn't say anything more, turned back and looked out the window.