106: Chapter 106 Morgan's Panic, the Unveiling Cards That Flipped the Table

The first blow created a large spiderweb crack, and the second smashed directly through the glass.

"Pull him out." Director Li Jianguo stepped back half a pace.

Two SWAT officers reached their hands into the shattered glass hole, grabbed the foreign man by the collar of his suit, and forcibly dragged him out of the narrow window frame. His high-end suit was shredded into rags by the broken glass, and his arms were covered in bloody scratches.

The SWAT officers pressed him firmly into a puddle on the asphalt, with a knee pinning his neck.

A black briefcase fell out of the car, hitting the ground and popping its latches open. Bundles of green US dollars scattered everywhere, rolling into the muddy water.

The foreign man, his face pressed against the dirty water, struggled to lift his head.

"I am a foreign guest... You have no right to arrest me... I want to contact someone at the Consul's office..." the man shouted, spitting out dirty water.

Director Li Jianguo stepped forward, lifted his heavy police boot, and kicked the half-smoked cigar out of the foreign man's mouth; the sparks sizzled and extinguished in the standing water.

"The Consul's office?" Director Li Jianguo crouched down, grabbed his blonde hair, and pulled his face out of the water.

"Fifty people, bringing military-grade thermite into the construction site to set fires, and one million dollars in cash to hire hitmen—the Consul's office can't handle this; the King of Hell will."

The foreign man turned pale, staring fixedly at the police badge on Director Li Jianguo's uniform.

"This is friction caused by legitimate business competition... You are overstepping your law enforcement authority..."

"Slap!" Director Li Jianguo backhanded the man across his left cheek, the sound dull and loud.

The man's head snapped to the side, and a molar mixed with blood was spat onto the muddy ground.

"You're blowing things up on my turf and you want to talk to me about business competition?" Director Li Jianguo stood up, pulled a pair of silver handcuffs from his waist, and threw them onto the ground.

"Take him back. Isolate him in a single cell. No one is allowed to visit, and interrogate him overnight."

Two SWAT officers picked up the handcuffs, clicked them shut behind the man's back, and dragged him toward the armored vehicle.

Director Li Jianguo kicked the money on the ground.

"Count all the money and secure it; this is all evidence of the crime." Director Li Jianguo looked at the deputy director next to him. "Tell that mole in the Municipal Public Security Bureau's records department that there's no need to run. All roads in Jiangcheng are blocked, and I'll go arrest him before dawn."

Manhattan, New York, the top-floor conference room of the Morgan Consortium building.

Time returns to the present.

Outside the window was blinding sunlight, and the air conditioning was set extremely low. The CEO sat behind a two-meter-wide oak desk, holding a cup of Burgundy black tea.

David stood in front of the desk, the back of his expensive shirt soaked through with cold sweat. David held a printed copy of an urgent, encrypted email in his hand, his hand shaking so much that the paper rattled.

"Useless," the CEO said, taking a sip of black tea in a flat voice.

"You wasted one million dollars and couldn't even level a foundation pit? Is your Asia division just a bunch of good-for-nothings who take money but don't get anything done?"

David swallowed a dry lump of saliva, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"Mr. CEO, that Director Li Jianguo from Jiangcheng led the team personally," David said in a shaky voice.

"Red Cross Street and the highway entrances are all blocked. Our people were dragged out of their car windows and pinned down as soon as they reached the highway toll station."

"If they're caught, they're caught. He's just a white glove; don't worry about him," the CEO said, putting down the tea cup. "Has the material supply cut-off been handled? Has that building materials merchant named Ma cut off their supply?"

David didn't dare to look up, his eyes fixed on the Persian rug beneath his feet.

"President Ma Jianping... has defected."

The CEO's brows instantly furrowed. "Defected? I gave him a written promise that after it was done, I would give him the position of General Agent for Building Materials in the Greater China region. He dares to refuse me?"

David pulled a photo from a folder and pushed it onto the desk.

"Lu Chen dumped two hundred million in cash directly."

David's voice was extremely hoarse. "Two hundred million in cash, arrived in one minute. President Ma Jianping immediately sent all his inventory to the construction site in the north of the city. Lu Chen led tens of thousands of people to trample the road administration's barbed wire fences, and the materials have all been delivered. Our supply cut-off plan was smashed by money."

The CEO stared intently at the photo, which showed a long line of heavy trucks.

"Two hundred million in cash?" The CEO sneered. "He's a failing factory on the verge of bankruptcy—where would he get so much liquid capital? Did The Big Four Banks give him an illegal loan?"

"It can't be traced," David said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "The source of the funds is impossible to find. It's all clean, legally taxed money, and it's pouring in like crazy every day."

The CEO stopped speaking and tapped his fingers heavily on the desk twice.

"Lu Chen recruited tens of thousands of people to build a workshop on the wasteland." The CEO looked up at David. "Does he really think he can solve the material deadlock for the Lithography Machine water curtain wall just by having a lot of people? Without the highest purity special alloy steel, his ultra-clean workshop is just a broken trash can leaking acid."

David's face turned whiter than paper. He scrambled to pull a high-altitude infrared spy photo from the back of the folder and handed it to the CEO.

It was a satellite overhead view; the pixels were a bit blurry, but one could clearly see a huge black box, as well as silver-glowing metal pipes next to it.

"This was taken by a military spy satellite two hours ago." David's finger tapped on the black box.

"That's the construction site in the north of the city. Lu Chen got three mysterious black shipping containers; they threw rusty scrap iron in, and five minutes later, steel came out at room temperature."

The CEO grabbed the photo.

"Steel output at room temperature? Have you lost your mind? Doesn't smelting require a blast furnace and high temperatures?"

David closed his eyes, his chest heaving violently. "No blast furnace, no chimney, no heat radiation or infrared signature whatsoever."

David's voice changed completely, revealing a deep sense of fear. "Our mole at the Jiangcheng Chemical Research Institute spent one million to buy a copy of the on-site inspection report. That metal ingot has a purity of 99.999 percent."

There was a deathly silence behind the desk. The CEO's eyes went wide, and the muscles at the corners of his eyes twitched violently.

"99.999 percent?" The CEO gritted his teeth as he recited the numbers.

"ASML has invested tens of billions over thirty years in their laboratories for special steel, and the highest they've reached is 99.98 percent. Now you're telling me that in a mud pit in an obscure backwater county, a bunch of bricklayers used broken kitchen knives to create a material that crushes our work of thirty years?"

"Yes, and without adding any rare metals," David opened his eyes. "It was purely through some unknown gravitational field technology, directly stripping and reorganizing the metal molecular bonds at room temperature. This completely violates the existing First Law of Thermodynamics."

The CEO stood up abruptly. The leather office chair beneath him slid back half a meter, hitting the wall with a heavy thud. He grabbed the bone china tea cup from the desk and swung his wrist with great force. "Bang!"

The cup smashed against the floor-to-ceiling glass and shattered instantly. Brown tea flowed down the transparent glass, leaving an ugly stain on the carpet.

"Impossible!" the CEO roared at the top of his lungs. His once high-and-mighty aristocratic demeanor was gone. "That is a deadlock in physics! Does Lu Chen know God's magic!"

David stepped back one pace, keeping his head down and not daring to make a sound.