I chose one of four options at the start, and I chose the number one clan in Lingnan.

Sun Jianguo's pen drew the last stroke of ink on the confirmation form.

He pulled out the inkpad, pressed his thumb on the name, and left a bright red handprint.

Old Wei accepted the order confirmation for 500 million yuan with both hands, his hands trembling so much that he could barely hold the thin few pages of paper.

He turned around and shouted in the direction of Workshop No. 4.

"The order is signed! All machine tools in Workshop 4 are powered on! I want to see the first batch of fifty bearings off the production line within three days!" Old Wei's voice cracked.

A dozen technicians cheered, while several veteran workers wiped their eyes.

Captain Chen, his face dark, shoved Murakami. Two policemen, one on each side, supported Murakami and Watanabe Ichiro, and led them towards the police car.

Murakami turned his head and stared intently at Lin Ting. His lips moved, but he didn't dare to utter another harsh word.

The police car, sirens blaring, drove out of the gate of Hongtu Factory.

Ma Guoqiang, clutching the black leather bag, hunched his shoulders and moved toward his Coaster bus.

"Director Ma." Lin Ting sat in a chair, fiddling with walnuts in his hand.

Ma Guoqiang stopped, turned around, and gave a dry laugh.

"Grandpa Lin, is there anything else you need? I will absolutely not say anything out of line with the provincial authorities, and I will personally expedite the process at Jiangnan Heavy Industry," Ma Guoqiang replied, bowing slightly.

Lin Ting picked up his teacup and took a sip.

"I'll keep the original for you. If anything happens in the province in the future, Director Ma will know which number to call." Lin Ting put down his teacup.

Ma Guoqiang nodded repeatedly, climbed onto the Coaster bus, and urged the driver to start driving quickly.

Lin Ting stood up, tapping his walnut cane on the bluestone slab.

"Old Wei, I'm leaving the factory to you. Da Biao, take the men back to Tazhai," Lin Ting ordered.

An abandoned quarry is located on the back mountain of Tazhai Village.

Lin Dabiao stood shirtless on a large rock.

In the open space in front of him stood five hundred men from Zhongtang dressed in black suits.

Under the blazing sun, the five hundred people stood ramrod straight, not even catching their breath.

Lin Dabiao jumped off the rock and walked to several large wooden crates, each about half a person's height. He kicked open the lid of the first crate.

The box contained neatly stacked piles of black, tight-fitting vests.

"The special equipment that Grandpa spent a fortune to get! Put it all on!" Lin Dabiao shouted.

Several squad leaders stepped forward and distributed vests to everyone. The material felt like cotton, but it was much heavier than cotton.

Lin Fei pulled a tactical dagger from his waist, walked up to a squad leader, and slashed the blade directly at the man's chest.

A sharp, screeching sound of friction.

Not a single white mark was left on the black vest. The squad leader glanced down, then looked up at Lin Fei and grinned.

"Bulletproof bio-fiber, impervious to knives and bullets. Wear it under your shirt, and don't take it off for 24 hours." Lin Fei tucked the dagger back into his waistband.

Five hundred men took off their coats and shirts in unison, put on black vests, and then put on white shirts and black suits.

Lin Dabiao walked to the front of the line.

"Grandpa gave us money and equipment, so we have to sell our lives to the Lin family! Everyone, carry heavy logs and run twenty laps around the back mountain!"

"Anyone who falls behind, get out of Zhongtang!" Lin Dabiao roared.

Five hundred people, in groups of three, carried logs weighing hundreds of kilograms each and strode towards the mountain path behind the mountain.

The sound of footsteps echoing on the gravel reverberated through the valley.

The century-old ancestral hall in Tazhai.

Lin Ting sat in the armchair, spinning the walnuts in his hand rapidly.

Lin Dayou, accompanied by two men from the Yitang guild, dragged a middle-aged fat man in from outside.

The fat man's hands were tied behind his back, his clothes were covered in mud, and his right cheek was swollen.

Lin Da kicked the fat man in the back of the knee, and the fat man fell to his knees on the bluestone slab with a thud.

"Grandpa, we've caught him. It's Liu Sangui, the contractor from another family who led the team to the Jiangjing Haoting construction site." Lin Dayou pointed to the person on the ground.

Lin Ting ignored Liu Sangui and continued fiddling with the walnuts.

Two men from the Yitang guild threw four snakeskin bags in front of Liu Sangui. The bags were open, revealing that they were full of dregs of the Red Blood Vine medicinal herbs, covered in mud.

"Grandpa, this grandson took a few people from another village to dig soil under the fruit trees on the back hill in the middle of the night."

"He dug up more than 200 jin of the medicinal residue we buried," Lin Dayou reported.

Liu Sangui struggled desperately, raising his head to look at Lin Ting.

"Grandpa! I'm innocent! I really didn't know what kind of treasure it was."

"I just saw a lot of trash on the back hill and thought I'd help the village clean it up. I meant well, Grandpa!" Liu Sangui cried out.

Lin Ting stopped what he was doing.

"Do we need to hire two refrigerated trucks to wait by the national highway to clean up the garbage?" Lin Ting asked.

Liu Sangui was stunned for a moment, his eyes darting around.

"That was...that was my fellow villager's car. He just happened to be passing by and gave me a ride," Liu Sangui continued to argue.

Lin Ting looked at Lin Fu standing beside him.

Lin Fu took out a sheet of printing paper from his pocket and walked up to Liu Sangui.

"From 10 p.m. last night to 2 a.m. this morning, you made six phone calls to the purchasing department of Tiankang Group in the provincial capital."

The price was fifty yuan per kilogram, with a promise of a stable supply of two tons per month. Is this what they call "picking it up on the way"?

Lin Fu slapped the printed paper onto Liu Sangui's face.

Liu Sangui shuddered, sweat streaming down his forehead.

Knowing he had been exposed, he simply changed his tune.

"Grandpa, I worked on construction projects with the Lin family. Even if I didn't achieve anything, I still put in a lot of hard work!"

The mess at Jiangjing Mansion was a disaster, and I led my brothers to work day and night to meet the deadline.

"You can't let a little bit of grass root chill the hearts of us outsiders!" Liu Sangui shouted.

Lin Ting chuckled.

"Hard work? Last month you took two tons of special cement from Lin's Cement Plant and resold it to Ma Jinlong."

"I didn't touch you because your mother needed money for surgery at the city hospital. Do you really think the Lin family's account books are just for show?" Lin Ting looked at him.

Liu Sangui collapsed to the ground, his lips trembling, unable to utter a word.

"The Lin family pays you and provides you with jobs, so you have to follow the Lin family's rules. If you overstep your bounds, you'll be punished."

Lin Ting put the walnuts on the table and picked up his cane.

"Dayou, break one of his legs and throw him out of the prefecture-level city."

"The workers under Jiangjing Mansion who want to stay will continue to receive their wages; those who don't want to stay will have their wages settled and be dismissed," Lin Ting ordered.

Lin Dayou picked up a solid wooden stick from the side and walked towards Liu Sangui.

"Grandpa! I was wrong! Give me another chance!" Liu Sangui cried out in despair, begging for mercy.

The wooden stick slammed down hard, and a chilling cracking sound of bones breaking echoed through the ancestral hall.

Two men from the ancestral hall dragged the unconscious Liu Sangui out of the hall.

Half an hour later, at the border of a prefecture-level city on National Highway 104.

A dilapidated pickup truck was parked on the side of the road. Two men from Yitang threw Liu Sangui into the dusty grass and drove away.

Liu Sangui clutched his broken right leg, writhing on the ground in pain. He gritted his teeth, a fierce look on his mud-covered face.

A bus bound for the provincial capital slowed down as it approached.

Liu Sangui waved frantically and scrambled to the middle of the road.

The bus came to an abrupt stop, and the ticket seller opened the door, cursing as she looked at Liu Sangui on the ground.

"To the provincial capital! I have urgent business at Tiankang Group headquarters! I'll pay double the fare!"

Liu Sangui pulled out the crumpled banknotes from his pocket and struggled to climb onto the train carriage.

Inside the Tazhai Ancestral Hall, the bloodstains had been washed away.

Lin Ting picked up his teacup and blew on the tea leaves to disperse them.

Lin Fu strode in from outside, holding a black envelope with gold lettering.

"Grandpa, someone just delivered this to the front desk of the logistics building. It specifically asks you to open it yourself." Lin Fu handed over the envelope.

Lin Ting put down his teacup and tore open the envelope.

Inside was an invitation printed on cardboard, with no superfluous pleasantries, just two lines of text.