At the start, I had to choose one of four options, and I immediately picked the Brahmin from the cou

Hearing his father ask about serious matters, Zheng Hao's playful smile vanished instantly. He glanced instinctively at the door to make sure it was closed tightly before moving closer to Zheng Guodong's large desk and lowering his voice.

"Dad, Brother Xiao hasn't been in Jiangyang at all these past two days. The night the official document came down, he took Lao Lin and went to Tianshui City overnight."

"To Tianshui City?"

Zheng Guodong frowned. At this critical juncture, all the capital giants in the province were flocking to Jiangyang County like sharks smelling blood. What was he doing in Tianshui City?

Moreover, the city's land bidding meeting is at 10 a.m. tomorrow. The piece of land in the south of Jiangyang County is not just a small piece belonging to Li Xiao. Does he really not intend to get involved at all?

Zheng Hao spoke up at the right moment, clearing up Zheng Guodong's doubts.

"Yesterday, Brother Xiao called me and handed over the bidding rights for tomorrow's auction to me. He said that at the auction tomorrow, Lansheng will just be a spectator. No matter how high those people in the provincial capital drive up the land price, even if they fight tooth and nail, we will absolutely not raise a single paddle."

"He didn't hold up a sign?" Zheng Guodong was stunned. "Then what exactly did he go to Tianshui City for?"

"Do you remember Old Zhao from Tianshui City, who's in the real estate and earthwork business? He's the one who recently suffered a stroke and ended up in the ICU because his cash flow dried up."

"Old Zhao? Of course I know him. His downfall has been all over the news in Tianshui's business circles."

Tianshui is not particularly far from Jiangyang, less than an hour's drive away.

Zhao Kang is a minor celebrity in Tianshui City. In recent years, he has gained considerable influence in the industry by daring to fight and work hard, and now he owns several sizable commercial concrete mixing plants and earthmoving truck fleets.

As soon as the news of his accident broke, Zheng Guodong and the others naturally found out immediately.

After all, Zhao Kang's current predicament of suffering a cerebral hemorrhage and ending up in the ICU is, strictly speaking, inextricably linked to Jiangyang County.

If it weren't for the recent collapse of Wang Jianhui's powerful backer, who went straight to jail, causing the entire key riverside project in Tianshui City to go bankrupt, Zhao Kang's tens of millions of yuan invested in the project wouldn't have gone down the drain.

However, people go bankrupt and jump off buildings every day in the business world. What truly made Zhao Kang famous in Tianshui City and the talk of the town was not his bankruptcy, but his young and beautiful wife, Duan Xue.

"This is a joke. Zhao hadn't even breathed his last and was still in the ICU with tubes in his body when his mistress, Duan Xue, had her surgery done that very night. And that's not all. The most outrageous thing is that this woman was crying her eyes out in the hospital corridor one minute, and the next she was in Ma Bochang's car. That very night, the two of them were having sex in the penthouse suite of the InterContinental Hotel! That old lecher Ma Bochang is bragging about it everywhere, as if he's afraid no one will know he got a good deal off Old Zhao."

Zheng Guodong shook his head dismissively. "That old bastard Ma Bochang is blinded by lust. Trying to get close to Duan Xue now is just asking for trouble. But... what does this have to do with Li Xiao? Surely your brother Xiao wouldn't have the time to watch this kind of petty jealousy."

"Dad, what kind of person do you think Xiao-ge is?"

"Dad, haven't you noticed? Old Zhao may have collapsed, but his eight commercial concrete mixing plants and the city's largest dump truck fleet haven't been seized by creditors yet. That stupid woman, Duan Xue, isn't in such a hurry to find a buyer for money—she wants to use Ma Bochang to transfer Old Zhao's most valuable assets at a low price before the court officially intervenes. This is the price she's asking for privately."

He held out his hand and gestured a number that made Zheng Guodong's pupils shrink.

"Brother Xiao is going to Tianshui to get ahead of Ma Bochang before the court opens tomorrow and snatch Lao Zhao's concrete mixing plant and truck fleet directly from Duan Xue. At the same time as the land bidding meeting tomorrow morning, Duan Xue will sign the mediation agreement at the Tianshui Intermediate People's Court. Once this agreement is signed, that old lecher Ma Bochang will have to squeeze food out of Lansheng's mouth if he wants to get involved again."

Although Duan Xue was a bit greedy, she wasn't stupid.

When Lao Zhao was in the ICU and his life hung in the balance, Duan Xue's first thought was not to save Lao Zhao, but how to cash out Lao Zhao's most valuable assets and run away.

What she had her eye on were those eight commercial concrete mixing plants and the city's largest dump truck fleet—these assets were not part of the messy accounts of the Linjiang project; they were the foundation that Lao Zhao had held since he started his business, with clear property rights, intact equipment, and all in normal operation.

Through Ma Bochang's connections, she secretly contacted two buyers from the provincial capital, planning to transfer these assets at a low price before the court officially seized them, and then flee with a sum of cash. The price she offered was ridiculously low, almost 60% of the market price, but she didn't care, since it wasn't money she had earned herself anyway.

As for why Ma Bochang didn't eat it himself?

He did want to. On the afternoon of the day Old Zhao had the accident, he had his men pull out all the fixed asset details of the eight commercial concrete mixing plants and the earthmoving truck fleet, even calculating the depreciation rate.

With his years of experience in the Tianshui business district, he knew that these assets were the most valuable part of Lao Zhao's assets—not the buildings and shops frozen by the banks, nor the equity seized by the court, but these commercial concrete plants and truck fleets that operated day and night and generated stable cash flow.

Whoever gets these controls the building materials supply chain in Tianshui City.

But he dared not.

It wasn't that he didn't have the money—Ma Bo had been doing business in Tianshui City for over a decade, and even after mortgaging all his underground shops and real estate, he could still scrape together the money.

What he feared was something else entirely: when the provincial discipline inspection commission followed Wang Jianhui's lead and investigated further, his name would be mentioned in passing. Although there was no formal case filed or any notice of interview, just the mere fact that his name had been mentioned was enough to keep him tossing and turning at night.

Duan Xue, that foolish woman, didn't understand the implications. She thought Ma Bochang was haggling over the price because it was too high. She kept whining to him, saying that since Lao Zhao wouldn't wake up anyway, it was better for these assets to go to "family" rather than the court.

Ma Bochang dared not take over the deal, so he could only appease Duan Xue in bed while secretly connecting her with buyers in the provincial capital, hoping to pocket a hefty commission.

But nothing in this world is truly secret. Just as Duan Xue revealed her hand, Zhao Bin, Old Zhao's eldest son from his previous marriage, caught wind of it and came running.