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

The backyard of the Lin Family Ancestral Hall in Tazhai Town.

Lin Fu looked down at the yellowed paper on the table. The paper was stamped with a large red clay seal, and the title read "Property Certificate of the Back Mountain Quarry and its Affiliated Hongxing Cement Plant in Tazhai Town".

"This is the abandoned quarry that Lin Daqiang used to occupy, and the Hongxing Cement Factory in town that went bankrupt ten years ago and no one wanted it."

Lin Ting tapped the table. "This afternoon, I had someone go to the town committee to buy the property rights. The money came from the ancestral hall's public account; it cost two million."

Lin Fu raised his head.

"Grandpa, the cement factory's kilns have long been abandoned. The quarry's machinery is rusted too. If we produce it ourselves, it's too late to solve our immediate problem!" Lin Fu said anxiously.

Lin Ting stood up. He walked to his desk and opened a drawer.

Two sheets of A4 paper were taken out and slapped onto Lin Fu's chest.

"Here you go. One is the equipment modification blueprint, and the other is the cement formula."

Lin Ting walked out and said, "Notify Uncle Dayou to call everyone in Yitang, get their tools, and meet at the back of the mountain."

Lin Ting lit a cigarette and threw the lighter on the table.

"Leng Qiu is trying to cut off my information and force me to withdraw from the bidding conference." Lin Ting exhaled a smoke ring.

"She forgot that the land of Tazhai is full of resources. Our Lin family owns mountains and mines."

Lin Fu looked down at the blueprints. They were densely covered with various mechanical parameters and chemical ratios.

Lin Fei followed Lin Ting, carrying the seamless steel pipe.

The abandoned Hongxing Cement Plant on the back hill.

The factory roof was drafty. The yard was overgrown with weeds. Two rusty stone crushers sat in a mud pit, and the rotary kiln's outer shell was covered in rust.

This place has been abandoned for ten years, and even the town's scavengers are unwilling to come here.

Lin Ting stood in the center of the courtyard. He summoned the system panel in his mind.

[Family prosperity points will be reduced by 20,000.]

[Successfully redeemed: Level 2 Black Technology Blueprint Library - High-Efficiency Quarrying Machinery Modification Blueprint.]

[Redeem successful: Level 2 Black Technology Blueprint Library - Basic Special Cement Recipe.]

These two items perfectly filled the gaps in the Lin family's infrastructure.

Lin Dayou ran over, covered in sweat. Behind him followed thousands of Yitang men, each carrying shovels, sledgehammers, and welding machines.

"Grandpa, with just one word from you, the entire Yitang has arrived. A hundred people were left to guard the construction site in the county town. The rest are all here!" Lin Dayou reported.

Lin Ting pointed to the broken copper and scrap iron behind him.

"Uncle Dayou, Leng Qiu has cut off our supplies. Without supplies, the Jiangjing Mansion building can't be built, and we won't even be able to get in the door for tomorrow's bidding meeting." Lin Ting handed the blueprints to Lin Dayou.

"Disassemble and reassemble these machines according to the blueprints Lin Fu has. Buy the materials for the formula from the chemical store in town. If you can't find them there, go to the city and buy them at a high price."

Lin Dayou took the blueprints and glanced at them by the light of a flashlight.

He was taken aback.

"The furnace temperature requirements and the proportions are too bizarre. If this were made, its hardness would be enough to break an iron rod!" Lin Dayou, an expert, said.

"How long will it take to produce the first batch?" Lin Ting asked.

Lin Dayou gritted his teeth and threw his helmet to the ground.

"Grandpa, you've spoken! These men of Yitang will get the job done, even if they don't sleep!" Lin Dayou shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Three days! Just three days, and I guarantee our cement mixers will be loaded with ash and ready to drive into the county town! Nobody will be able to touch the Karin family!"

Lin Ting nodded.

"Let's do it."

The entire back hill was bustling with activity.

Thousands of men from the Lin family took off their shirts. They grabbed wrenches, welding machines, and cutting machines and rushed into the abandoned factory.

Sparks flew everywhere.

The first night.

The rusted gears were removed and replaced with newly polished parts. The clogged rotary kiln was broken open and re-lined with refractory bricks.

Over at the quarry, hundreds of people were wielding sledgehammers and pneumatic picks. They were forcefully smashing open the weathered rock layers, revealing the bluish-gray stone underneath.

The crusher restarted, emitting a loud roar, and large pieces of stone were crushed into standard-sized aggregates.

The only old generator in the factory was running under overload, and its belt burned out.

All the machines have stopped.

Lin Dayou was so anxious he was jumping up and down.

Without saying a word, Lin Fei drove his light truck out of Tazhai.

He traveled to the electromechanical markets in the three surrounding counties and bought two brand-new, high-power generators at a high price.

After the power was restored, the searchlights illuminated the entire factory area again. The machines roared to life once more.

Noon the next day.

Lin Fu drove his Santana, leading his people to the town and the neighboring county, hauling back truckloads of slag and additives needed for the formula.

Longhai Building Materials' informants had their eyes on the Lin family's purchasing vehicle. They set up a roadblock at the entrance of a chemical store in the neighboring county, stopping Lin Fu's vehicle and refusing to let him load the goods.

Four bald thugs were banging on the hood of a Santana with baseball bats.

"The city has given the order: not a single chemical material is allowed to be sold to the Lin family. Get out of here!" the bald thug yelled.

Lin Fu rolled down the car window and lit a cigarette.

Ten young men from Zhongtang, who had drunk the enhanced medicine, jumped out of the back of the car.

Ten men carrying seamless steel pipes rushed forward.

In less than a minute, more than twenty informants from Longhai Building Materials were beaten to a pulp. Four bald thugs knelt on the ground begging for mercy.

The chemical store owner was so scared that he dared not accept the money.

Lin Fu slammed a bundle of cash onto the counter and forcibly hauled ten tons of special additives back to the back mountain of Tazhai.

Leng Qiu wanted to strangle the Lin family, so the Lin family created their own lifeline.

Old Zhao led a hundred heavy dump trucks parked outside the factory area, the engines still running. The drivers were all eating boxed lunches in the trucks, waiting to haul the first batch of materials.

Lin Ting sat on the worn-out sofa in the factory manager's office. He drank the tea that Lin Fei had brought him and looked out the window at the brightly lit construction site.

Four o'clock in the morning on the third day.

Lin Dayou, his face covered in soot, rushed into the office.

"Grandpa, it's done!" Lin Dayou's voice was completely hoarse.

Lin Ting got up and walked to the bottom of the rotary kiln.

A conveyor belt was feeding gray-black powder into a storage silo, and a wave of heat hit us.

Lin Dayou had someone bring over a basin of freshly cooled cement powder. He added water according to the formula, stirred it, and poured it into a square mold.

"Grandpa, according to the blueprints, this special cement will solidify and reach its strength in just two hours." Lin Dayou stood guard beside the mold.

Two hours later.

Its daybreak.

Lin Dayou disassembled the mold, revealing a square gray cement block.

"Bring the sledgehammer!" Lin Dayou shouted.

A strong and robust young man from Zhongtang walked over. He was carrying a twenty-pound octagonal hammer.

"Smash it!" Lin Ting ordered.

The young man swung his arm in a wide arc. The sledgehammer came crashing down.

"clang!"

A loud bang was heard, and sparks flew everywhere.

The sledgehammer was bounced back by the powerful recoil, and the young man was shaken back two steps, his hand split open, and the sledgehammer fell to the ground.

Lin Dayou snatched the sledgehammer and personally smashed it three more times.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Only a few white scratches remained on the cement block, with the edges intact.

"It's done! Grandpa, we've done it!" Lin Dayou's hands trembled as he touched the cement, laughing and crying at the same time.

With this thing, no one can stop the Lin family from building houses in the future.

The blacklist imposed by the city's three major conglomerates was utterly insignificant compared to the special cement produced by the Lin family themselves.

Old Zhao was squeezed into the crowd.

"I've been in the building materials business for half my life, and I've never seen such hard ash! This isn't cement, it's steel plate!" Old Zhao shouted.

"Ma Jinlong's group used high-grade cement; I could dent it with one hammer blow. But Taigong's cement is simply a divine formula!"

"Load it onto the truck." Lin Ting patted the dust off the cement blocks.

Old Zhao kicked the tire of the dump truck.

"Brothers, fill the carriage! Give Grandpa the best possible burial!" Old Zhao roared.

Eight o'clock in the morning.

On National Highway 104 leading from the county seat to the Jiangjing Haoting construction site.

One hundred heavy trucks lined up in a long queue, each with a large red ribbon tied to its front.

The truck bed was filled with stones and special cement produced in the back mountains of Tazhai.

Old Zhao personally drove the lead car, honked the loudspeaker, and the convoy drove into the county town in a grand procession.