679: Chapter 674 A Treasure Trove Nobody Wants

The old man clearly mistook him for one of those scavengers who came running at the mere sound of it.

Shen Yan smiled and offered him a cigarette.

"Grandpa, I'm not here to buy scrap metal."

"My elders used to work at this factory. I was just passing by and came over to take a look."

A perfect excuse.

The old man took the cigarette, and his expression softened slightly.

"Oh, so you're a descendant of the factory workers."

He lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. A trace of reminiscence surfaced in his cloudy eyes.

"Alas, what a pity. Such a good factory, gone just like that."

"Grandpa, I heard this land is going up for auction?" Shen Yan asked casually.

The old man snorted and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.

"Auction? Who would want it?"

"The land under your feet—the wastewater from steel refining was dumped casually back then, ruining the soil. Forget building houses, not even crops will grow here."

"Besides, the factory is buried in debt. Whoever buys this land has to take on the debt. Only a fool would do that."

The old man's words confirmed the information Ning Ke had provided.

This piece of land was considered a hot potato in everyone's eyes.

As they were talking, several SUVs roared up and screeched to a halt in front of the main gate.

The car doors opened.

A burly man with a buzz cut and a gold chain around his neck walked down, accompanied by seven or eight underlings, all muttering curses.

The leading burly man was precisely Wu Heng.

In the area of Qi City, Wu Heng had made some petty money using unsavory methods, started a construction company, and was accustomed to being overbearing.

His eyes immediately landed on Shen Yan, who was standing by the entrance.

Shen Yan was wearing a well-tailored casual outfit, his demeanor completely out of place in the dilapidated factory.

Wu Heng sized him up a few times, his eyes filled with undisguised contempt.

"You, where did you come from?"

"What are you looking at?"

His tone was full of provocation.

The old man in the guardhouse changed expression and quickly signaled Shen Yan with his eyes, urging him to leave quickly.

However, Shen Yan acted as if he hadn't seen it, looking calmly at Wu Heng.

"Just passing through."

"Passing through?"

Wu Heng scoffed, walked up to Shen Yan, and poked him in the chest with his finger.

"Kid, I don't care who sent you to gather information."

"Listen up, I, Chen Wu, have taken a liking to this land."

"If you know what's good for you, scram. Don't obstruct my view here."

His underlings also gathered around, flexing their fists and looking hostile.

In their view, this pretty boy from out of town was probably scared silly.

Yet, there was not the slightest trace of fear on Shen Yan's face.

He merely glanced lightly at the finger Wu Heng had placed on his chest.

"You can take your hand away now."

The voice was not loud, but it carried an undeniable force.

Wu Heng paused for a moment, then became furious.

No one in Qi City had ever dared to speak to him like that.

"Oh ho? Quite arrogant, are we?"

"I won't take my hand away today, what can you do..."

Before he could finish speaking.

He suddenly felt a piercing pain in his wrist.

Shen Yan had seized his hand at some unknown time, his five fingers clamping down like iron pincers, tightly gripping his wrist bone.

"Ah—!"

Wu Heng let out a wretched scream, cold sweat instantly breaking out on his forehead.

He tried to break free but found that the other person's grip was unmoving.

That kind of strength was simply not something an ordinary person should possess.

"You... You damn well let go!"

Wu Heng's face turned pale from the pain.

Shen Yan released his hand.

He stepped back, adjusted his wrinkled collar, as if he had just brushed off some dust.

"At the auction, it's every man for himself."

After saying that, he turned and left without sparing Wu Heng another glance.

Wu Heng clutched his wrist, which felt on the verge of breaking, and watched Shen Yan's retreating back, his eyes filled with resentment and shock.

"Brother Wu, you're just going to let him go like that?" one of the underlings asked unwillingly.

"Investigate him!"

Wu Heng gritted his teeth, squeezing out a few words through his teeth.

"Dig up everything on this kid!"

"In Qi City, the person who dares to touch me, Chen Wu, hasn't been born yet!"

After getting into the car, Shen Yan dialed Chen Guangke's number.

"Guang Ke."

"Look up a man in Qi City named Wu Heng, he's in construction."

"I want all his information, the more detailed the better."

Chen Guangke on the other end sounded a bit confused, but he immediately agreed.

"Yan Zi, you ran off to Qi City? What happened?"

"Nothing much."

"Just a fly buzzing around the gold mine, it's a bit annoying."

Chen Guangke was extremely efficient. In less than half a day, the information regarding Wu Heng was sent to Shen Yan's private email in an encrypted format.

Shen Yan clicked it open and scanned it in a few lines.

It was just as he expected.

Wu Heng, a local, was less of a construction businessman and more of a local thug.

Relying on an uncle who held a deputy position in the Municipal Construction Department, he gathered a group of idle social elements and opened a so-called 'Hengtong Construction Company'.

The work they usually did involved dirty business like forced buying and selling and violent demolitions.

In the territory of Qi City, he was considered a figure of some standing.

But in Shen Yan's eyes, this kind of character didn't even qualify to be his opponent.

Merely a stepping stone, nothing more.

"Yan Zi, this guy doesn't have much of a background. He's just a stubborn rogue, smelly and hard."

Chen Guangke added over the phone.

"In a small place like Qi City, sometimes these kinds of people are the most troublesome."

"Do you want me to send a few people over to help you deal with him?"

Shen Yan's voice was calm.

"No need."

"To deal with a dog, there's no need to turn myself into a dog as well."

"When does the auction start?"

"Ten o'clock the day after tomorrow morning, at the Municipal Property Rights Trading Center."

Chen Guangke paused, but couldn't help himself.

"Are you really going to bid on that land? I asked around. The situation is even worse than Ning Ke said. I heard the groundwater is polluted, and the remediation costs are a bottomless pit."

Shen Yan chuckled lightly.

"Guang Ke, when have I ever made a losing deal?"

Silence followed on the other end of the line.

Indeed, since Shen Yan's comeback, every decision he made seemed bizarre at the time, but afterward, every one was proven to be a stroke of genius.

"I understand."

Chen Guangke asked no further questions.

"For funding, I have prepared an emergency credit line of one billion for you."

"Good."

Shen Yan hung up the phone, shut down his computer, leaned back on the sofa in the hotel room, and closed his eyes.

A good show was about to begin.

Two days later, the Qi City Property Rights Trading Center.

It was less a trading center and more like an old auditorium.

The red curtain was faded, and a thin layer of dust covered the wooden chairs.

The air was filled with a mixed smell of tobacco and dust.

There weren't many people attending this judicial auction. They sat scattered in small groups, mostly local faces who knew each other, chatting in low voices.

What they discussed was nothing more than which storefronts were worth getting today, and which bankrupt enterprise's equipment could be picked up cheaply.

As for the troublesome Hongxing Steel Plant plot, almost no one was interested.