When I went home for Chinese New Year, I spent a million times more money on my foreign wife.

Katyusha put down her knife and fork and glanced at Chen Yang's constantly vibrating phone.

"Could you turn that thing off?"

Chen Yang hung up on Chen Yue's nineteenth call.

"It's off."

"Liar. It'll ring again in a bit." Katyusha wiped her mouth with a napkin. "These past few days, the manor has been like a war command center, packed with people. I even feel oppressed having afternoon tea in the garden."

"The financial war is over, and we'll be leaving tomorrow."

"I don't care about financial warfare." Katyusha stood up and walked to the window. "I don't care how many billions you've made. I just want to see something nice, something sparkly, something that can lift my spirits."

Chen Yang watched her retreating figure without saying a word.

The phone rang again. Chen Yue.

"Brother, the settlement data for the first day of the Kunlun System is out. The total amount of Huabi exchanged exceeds—"

"Let's not talk about that now. Can you look something up for me?"

"What?"

Which of South Africa's largest gold mines is for sale?

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone.

"...Brother, you want to buy a gold mine?"

"Um."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"My wife said she wanted to see something shiny."

Chen Yue remained silent for another three seconds.

"Okay, I'll check."

Twenty minutes later, Chen Yue returned the call.

"Found it. The world's second largest gold mine is located 160 kilometers west of Johannesburg, South Africa, in a place called Randfontein. It produces 47 tons of gold annually, and the vein's reserves are estimated to last another 35 years. The controlling shareholder is a long-established mining group from England, which was already in talks to sell last year due to its debt crisis, with a listed price of US$52 billion."

Are there any other buyers now?

"Yes. A royal foundation in the Middle East submitted an offer of 49 billion, which was rejected. A private equity firm in the United States submitted an offer of 50.5 billion, and negotiations are still ongoing."

"53 billion, a fixed price, settlement within 24 hours. The money will be deducted from Kunlun system's transaction fee revenue today."

"Brother, Kunlun's commission income for today just arrived... Wait a minute." Chen Yue checked the data. "The daily commission income is 1.1 billion Chinese yuan? No, the exchange volume in Europe is too large. Let me recalculate—4.6 billion Chinese yuan. That's about 600 million US dollars."

"Then we'll advance the funds from our domestic reserve fund first. The handling fee will come back on its own later. Transfer 53 billion, and we'll sign the contract tonight."

"Understood. Whose name should the property be registered under?"

"Your sister-in-law."

Chen Yue chuckled on the other end of the phone, didn't ask any more questions, and hung up.

The next morning, Chen Yue's message arrived.

"It's all done. All the shares of the Randfontaine gold mine have been transferred to Ekaterina Ivanova."

Chen Yang put his phone in his pocket and went downstairs to find Lei Zi.

"Contact the people at the mine. I need one hundred high-purity gold bars, each weighing twenty kilograms, to be airlifted to the estate by the day after tomorrow."

Lei Zi didn't ask why.

"I'll arrange the shipping and security."

"After the gold bricks arrived, they were all laid out on the lawn in the back garden."

Lei asked this time.

"Spread it...on the lawn?"

"Lay them out neatly, one next to the other, until they are full."

"Boss, how about paving the lawn with a hundred gold bricks?"

"Just tell me if it's possible."

"able."

Two days later.

The automatic sprinkler system in the manor's back garden was turned off, and in the center of the 300-square-meter English lawn, one hundred gold bricks weighing twenty kilograms each were neatly stacked into a golden carpet.

The sunlight shone down, making the whole garden look like it was on fire.

All the security personnel at the manor were relocated to the perimeter, and no one was allowed to approach within fifty meters of the garden.

Lei Zi stood beside the gold bricks with several fully armed Black Kite team members, their expressions even more serious than those guarding the nuclear button.

Chen Yang led Katyusha down from the second-floor bedroom and stopped at the garden gate.

"Didn't you want to see something shiny?"

He pushed open the door.

Katyusha stood frozen in the doorway.

The golden light illuminated her face, casting a warm glow on the collar of her trench coat. She took two steps forward, crouched down, and touched the nearest gold brick with her finger.

"Is this real gold?"

"Just dug out of your gold mine."

"My gold mine?"

"South Africa, the world's second largest. The property was transferred to your name yesterday."

Katyusha withdrew her hand from the gold brick and stood up.

"Honey, are you sick?"

"Um?"

"When I said I wanted to see something sparkly, I meant you could just take me to a jewelry store. Are you going to buy me a gold mine?"

"Jewelry stores are boring."

Katyusha turned away from him, but the tips of her ears were bright red.

Chen Yang's phone vibrated in his pocket.

It wasn't a phone call, it was a system notification.

He took out his phone, and a message popped up on the encrypted interface of the Swiss bank—

"Host behavior detected: Providing extreme emotional value to the spouse. Triggering a critical hit reward. Reward contents: Sixth-generation fighter stealth coating formula (military-grade, top secret). Already stored in the host's encrypted terminal."

Chen Yang glanced at it for two seconds and then exited the interface.

Stealth coating for sixth-generation fighter jets.

The world has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in research and development in this field, but so far no country has produced a finished product.

The US's sixth-generation fighter jet project has been delayed three times, with the core bottleneck being the inability to break through the material formula for the stealth coating.

The recipe is currently on his phone.

Chen Yang turned and went into the study, where he dialed a domestic encrypted dedicated line.

"Minister Li".

"Chen Yang? I was just about to tell you about the Kunlun System—"

"Let's put that aside for now. I have something here, the complete formula for the stealth coating of sixth-generation fighter jets, including material composition, process parameters, and coating procedures."

There was no sound on the other end of the phone.

Five seconds later, Li Bu lowered his voice.

"The sixth-generation fighter jet you're referring to, is it the one I understand?"

"Yes. Using this formula will advance our sixth-generation fighter jet development by at least five years. While the US is still burning money in the lab, we can go straight to the trial production stage."

"How will the recipe be passed on?"

"Same as always, brought back manually. I'll have Lei fly to Harbin tonight and hand the encrypted hard drive to Chen Yue, who will then transfer it to you through an internal channel. Not a single byte will pass through the network."

"Chen Yang," Li Bu's voice was heavy, "Do you know what this means?"

"I know. That's why I'm calling you."

"Okay. I'll wait here."

The phone hangs up.

Chen Yang walked out of the study and saw Katyusha still squatting in the garden, taking pictures of the gold bricks with her phone.

Lei Zi stood to the side, his expression as if he were guarding a world heritage site.

"Lei Zi."

"exist."

"Fly to Harbin tonight and bring this to Chen Yue."

Chen Yang handed over an encrypted USB drive about the size of a thumb.

Lei took it and put it in his inner pocket.

"Are the gold bricks still being laid?"

"Let it sit. We'll talk about it after she's had her fill of looking."

Lei Zi turned around to arrange the flight.

Katyusha walked over from the garden and held her phone up to Chen Yang.

"Look, it looks especially beautiful when it's glowing."

The screen displays a photograph of a gold brick reflecting dazzling light in the sunlight.

Chen Yang nodded.

"nice."

Katyusha put her phone away and, as she passed by him, casually tugged at his sleeve.

"I'll cook dinner, so don't call a chef."

"OK."

Katyusha went into the kitchen.

Chen Yang returned to his study, opened his terminal, and sent Chen Yue an encrypted text message—

"The coating formula for the sixth-generation fighter jet has been delivered to Lei Zi. Once it arrives, you must personally hand it over to Director Li; it must not pass through the hands of a third person. Also, send me the second-phase expansion plan for the Kunlun system; we'll have a meeting tomorrow."

Thirty seconds later, Chen Yue replied with four words.

"Got it, bro."

Outside the window, the golden garden's glow had not yet faded.