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

He parked his car next to a gas station on the ring road, took out another spare phone from the glove compartment, and dialed a number. The phone rang for a long time before being hung up. He dialed again, and it was hung up again. On the third try, the other end finally answered, the voice sounding like it was being squeezed out between clenched teeth: "Director Ma, you dare call me again?" It was the voice of General Manager Liu from the provincial capital.

"Mr. Liu, let me explain—"

"Explanation my ass! You've messed with Lansheng. Now everyone in Tianshui knows you, Ma Bochang, are fighting with Lansheng for business! Do you know how many people were asking about my relationship with you this morning? I, Liu, have been in the provincial capital for so many years, and this is the first time I've been treated like a plague!"

Mr. Liu's voice carried a sense of anger at being implicated, but beneath that anger lay something that Mr. Ma was very familiar with—fear.

"I'm warning you, don't call me again, and don't mention to anyone that I discussed the acquisition with you. If this mess of yours makes me a target of Li Xiao, I'll be the first to block your building materials company's loan from the bank!"

The call was disconnected again. Ma Bo sat blankly in the driver's seat, the phone screen going dark.

Outside the window was a hazy, early autumn sky. Several large trucks roared past, kicking up dust that lashed against the windows with a rustling sound.

He rested his head on the headrest and closed his eyes. He finally understood a truth—he was no match for Li Xiao, he wasn't even worthy of being Li Xiao's opponent. Li Xiao hadn't even given him a second glance from beginning to end; what Li Xiao was really after was the assets in Duan Xue's hands. He, Ma Bochang, was merely a byproduct of being in Duan Xue's bed, and that one mistake was enough to cause him pain for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, in the VIP private room of Junyue Teahouse in Tianshui City, Sun Dewang was propping his legs up on a mahogany tea table, laughing so hard he almost rolled off his chair.

"Holy crap, did you guys hear? That old lecher Ma Bozhang ran out of the InterContinental Hotel this morning without even wearing shoes! Duan Xue chased after him, crying like a madwoman. The parking attendant was dumbfounded, thinking it was an anti-prostitution raid by plainclothes officers!"

Sun Dewang wiped away tears of laughter with a towel, his fat face jiggling. "I told him long ago not to touch Lao Zhao's woman, but he wouldn't listen. What did he say again—'To die under the peony is to be a romantic ghost'? Now look what's happened, the peony is still there, but the ghost is about to die."

Bald Liu sat next to him, a smug smile playing on his lips, but he kept it very restrained.

It wasn't that he didn't want to laugh, but he still felt a lingering fear. Last time at the teahouse, he almost followed Lao Zhao into the Linjiang project. If Lao Li hadn't poured cold water on him, he might have been one of those being liquidated by Li Xiao.

He had no grudges against Ma Bochang, but they weren't particularly close either. Now that he saw Ma Bochang in such a bad mood, he felt both that he deserved it and that a chill ran down his spine.

Sun Dewang slammed the towel he'd used to wipe his sweat onto the table, picked up his teacup, and gulped down a large mouthful. "So, where does Ma Bozhang hide now? I called him three times, and his phone was off. Old Qin called his company's receptionist, and she said he was on leave today. Leave—leave my ass! He's run away!"

"He can't run away; he doesn't have the guts."

Sun Dewang chuckled, put his legs off the coffee table, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.

"But then again, I really admire this old lecher. You could say he's cowardly, yet he dared to steal Old Zhao's assets right under the nose of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection. You could also say he's audacious, yet last night Young Master Li was forcing Zhao Bin to sign documents at the Nightclub, and this morning he was sleeping soundly with Duan Xue in his arms at the hotel. Haha, he's only ever suffered this one thing in his life—when lust takes over, he'd even dare to touch the King of Hell himself."

Old Li took a sip of tea, his wrinkled eyes peering out the window through the rising steam, as if watching a story whose ending he had already foreseen.

"I've always felt that Ma Bochang was destined to fail sooner or later. His mistake wasn't sleeping with Lao Zhao's woman. In business, that kind of thing happens all the time; people might laugh a bit behind his back, but nobody really cares. His mistake was thinking that by sleeping with Lao Zhao's woman, he could conveniently take over Lao Zhao's assets. Did Duan Xue earn those eight concrete mixing plants herself? Lao Zhao built them up truckload by truckload of concrete back in the day. Ma Bochang wanted to use Duan Xue's connections to buy those concrete mixing plants at rock-bottom prices and then resell them to those real estate speculators in the provincial capital, making a profit from the difference. He wasn't greedy; he knew he couldn't take the whole thing. He just wanted to be a middleman, profiting from the information gap. The idea itself wasn't wrong. Brokerage business—buying low and selling high—no risk, no debt. If I were young, I might have been tempted too."

"His mistake was that he couldn't see the situation clearly, let alone his real adversaries. He thought he was picking up a bargain, but he didn't realize he was already standing on the meat grinder's conveyor belt. What are those eight commercial concrete plants? They are the lifeline of the entire building materials supply chain in Tianshui City and even Jiangyang County! The High-tech Zone is about to break ground, and whoever controls this lifeline will be able to strangle all the developers in the upcoming infrastructure boom. This kind of strategic heavy asset is being closely watched by the provincial capital's out-of-town powers, and Li Xiao is determined to get it. Who does Ma Bochang think he is, daring to collect tolls from these living devils?"

He sighed, "In our line of work, greed and lust aren't the biggest problems. The biggest problem is not knowing your own limitations."

"Old Li... so you're saying Old Ma is completely finished this time?" Sun Dewang swallowed, his voice dropping eight octaves without him realizing it, all traces of his earlier sarcasm gone. "Then where can he hide now? He's staked everything on Tianshui, he can't go far."

"Run?" Old Li chuckled and shook his head. "In Tianshui City, he might be considered a boss, but outside this province, his abilities are nothing."

Old Li turned his head, his gaze piercing through the window glass, looking towards the highway exit leading to Jiangyang County, like a prophet who had seen through life and death.

"He's a smart man, and smart men, when faced with a desperate situation, are often more ruthless than anyone else. If I'm not mistaken, he's not only not running away, but he's already on his way to Jiangyang."

"Go to Jiangyang?!" Bald Liu exclaimed in surprise. "Going to run into the Li family at this time? Isn't that just courting death?"

Meanwhile, there's a gas station next to the ring road.

Ma Bochang, who had been sitting in the car for a long time, suddenly opened his eyes. His eyes, which were originally filled with fear, were now bloodshot and revealed a kind of madness and determination driven to the edge of a cliff.

Old Li guessed exactly what was going on, and Ma Bozhang finally understood.