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

After Lin Che finished speaking, the conference room remained silent for a long time.

The report lay spread out in the center of the table, untouched by anyone. Yet, those few thin pages had already sealed the fate of this negotiation.

That sentence, "I only received the report today," is still echoing in everyone's ears. It carries no hint of boasting, but that's precisely what makes it so chilling. Someone who received the report at the same time as everyone else, based on their own judgment, won a global evaluation that a top team had spent over half a year conducting. This isn't luck; it's genuine insight.

The chief representative sat there, remaining silent for a long time.

He's thinking about things.

He was recalling every word Lin Che had said over the past few days.

At first, he dismissed it as a coincidence. When Lin Che casually pointed out the direction of the mineral belt, he assumed the Chinese man had commissioned a survey. When Lin Che discussed policy trends, he thought it was just empty talk. When Lin Che pointed out that his electricity cost calculations were too high, he dismissed it as the ramblings of an amateur.

At that time, these words were like scattered beads; he didn't string them together.

But now, the report has settled everything.

The report accurately confirmed the mineral belt's trajectory, word for word. While the policy predictions haven't materialized yet, following Lin Che's logic, they exude an undeniable certainty. As for the power shortage, Lin Che initially said his model overestimated the 2024 threshold; now, comparing it to this report that places the core issue in the middle, the confidence behind that prediction clearly has a basis.

The scattered beads were strung together with a thread.

It's not a single point.

It's a single line.

A layer of cold sweat seeped out from the chief representative's back.

He had initially thought that he had only stumbled on that geological assessment. A technical error, though fatal, was ultimately just a mishap at a particular point.

But only now did he realize that things were far more terrifying than he thought.

He finally realized that from the first day he sat down at the negotiating table, he had never truly had the upper hand.

He thought Lin Che was passively taking a beating, but in reality, Lin Che was luring him into a trap. He thought Lin Che was cornered by his identity, but in reality, that obstacle was bait offered by Lin Che. He thought he was pressing forward step by step, but in reality, every step he took was on a path paved by Lin Che.

From urging him to sign the contract, to spreading rumors, to bringing up his identity as a bargaining chip, every powerful move he thought he made was actually anticipated by Lin Che, and even welcomed by him.

He was like a puppet on a string, believing from beginning to end that he was the one pulling the strings.

His unspoken question, "How could he know?" had now become something else entirely, one that chilled him to the bone.

How much does this person actually know?

He had no idea what Lin Che was still holding onto. He didn't even know if he had any other weaknesses that the other party had already seen through. This feeling of being completely seen through while he knew nothing about the other party was more unsettling than losing the mine.

The experience of sparring with an opponent you can't figure out at all, yet who sees you completely clearly, is terrifying in itself.

He even began to feel a sense of lingering fear. If he had won today, if this third-party report hadn't exposed the truth in time, he would have signed that plan based on that flawed judgment, handing over the true core of the entire mine, and thinking he had gotten a huge advantage.

He will remain in the dark until much later when he realizes that he has let a mountain of gold slip away with his own hands.

The person who persuaded him to let Jinshan go simply sat quietly across from him, watching him jump into the pit.

This realization sent a chill down his spine even more than losing the game.

He has truly lost this round.

Endritu, who was sitting to the side, also fell silent.

The initial complex feeling of being overtaken by an outsider had now settled into a sense of solemnity. He looked at Lin Che again, as if for the first time truly seeing this man clearly. He had seen countless foreigners come to this land to seek their fortune, but this was the first time he had encountered someone who understood this land better than he did.

The local official's attitude, however, completely changed.

He cleared his throat, breaking the silence.

"It seems the ownership of the core area of ​​this mine is clear." He looked at Lin Che, his tone carrying a hint of politeness he hadn't shown before. "We've also seen the qualifications and compliance of Weiguang, and they're impeccable. I will report the approval process truthfully to my superiors and handle it according to regulations."

These words effectively shifted the balance of power to Lin Che's side.

With the third-party report and the stack of compliance documentation, he had no reason to make things difficult for a clean and capable company. Moreover, he had personally witnessed this company make the right judgment, one that even local experts had overlooked.

All the concerns that had previously made him hesitate and shrink back now seemed like a joke. He was even somewhat glad that he hadn't spoken so definitively and hadn't actually sided with the other side. Otherwise, today, it wouldn't just be the Western company that would be proven wrong by this report, but also him, the local official who had misjudged the situation.

He silently made a mental note that he would have to be extremely careful when dealing with Weiguang in the future. This company was no ordinary one.

The wind direction has completely changed.

The chief representative certainly sensed it too.

He knew there was nothing left for him to fight for at this table. The land was lost forever. The third-party report was in black and white, and the local officials' attitude had already changed. If he continued to argue, he would only lose face even more completely.

There's no point in forcing them to stay.

He remained silent for a long time before finally standing up.

The man who had entered with such confidence and aggressive manner now looked utterly exhausted. In just one meeting, he seemed to have aged several years.

"I need to report today's results to headquarters." He spoke cautiously, a hint of heaviness in his voice. "We'll wait for headquarters' decision on how to proceed."

Report to headquarters.

He spoke casually, as if it were just a routine formality. Reporting a failed negotiation back to headquarters is perfectly normal.

Nobody thought much of what he said.

Even Lin Che, at this moment, only took this as an excuse for his opponent to make a dignified exit. He had no idea that this time, the other party returned with a belly full of resentment and the lingering resentment about him. He wondered how much he still knew and what kind of new storm he would stir up at headquarters.

That's a story for another time.

At this moment, the outcome of the battle in this conference room has been decided.

After the chief representative finished speaking, he nodded slightly to everyone and turned to walk towards the door.

When he arrived, his steps were light, carrying a sense of certainty that he had the victory in his grasp.

But at this moment, as he walked out of the conference room, his back was hunched over, and his steps were heavy, as if filled with lead.

No one knows what he will stir up at the headquarters on the other side of the ocean when he returns.