158: Chapter 158 The Ultimate Strike at the Heart

"Old Zhou."

Old Zhou trotted over, holding up a tattered plaid umbrella with a black waterproof briefcase tucked under his arm.

Old Zhou's shoe soles were caked in mud, and he was panting as he ran.

When he reached them, he held the plaid umbrella steadily over Lu Chen's head.

"Brother. I'm here," Old Zhou said.

The colonel strode over from beside the tracks of the infantry fighting vehicle.

His military boots splashed through the pools of dirty water.

He stopped half a meter from Lu Chen and, in front of the thousand or so heavily armed soldiers on the perimeter, abruptly raised his right hand in a salute.

"Factory Director Lu," the colonel said in a deep voice, "the insects that snuck in from outside have been cleared out. This territory is now under your jurisdiction. Handle the aftermath however you see fit, according to your own rules."

Da Biao laughed from the side. He shook the dirty blood off the back of his hand.

"These bastards wanted to run to their master and tattle just a moment ago," Da Biao spat. "They should've pissed in a puddle and looked at their own reflections to see what kind of trash they really are. Now they've all been reduced to spare parts."

Lu Chen pressed his cigarette butt into a rainwater puddle at his feet. With a sharp hiss, the spark was completely extinguished.

He bent down. Davis was curled into a ball, shivering uncontrollably from the pain, his face smeared with a mixture of mud and blood.

Davis stared fixedly at the hundreds of armed soldiers, his mind filled with nothing but despair.

Lu Chen didn't look at him. He reached out and ripped open the waterproof zipper on the inside of Davis's tactical vest.

With two fingers, he reached in and pinched out a thick, black, encrypted satellite communication terminal.

"What are you doing!" Davis's voice cracked.

Da Biao stepped forward and stomped his foot onto Davis's neck.

"Shut up. My big brother is just taking your piece-of-junk phone, and you're already squawking," Da Biao said with a mocking grin.

Lu Chen wiped the water droplets off the screen with his thumb. He swiped up to unlock it. The screen lit up.

He opened the recent call history, pressed the redial button at the very top, and casually switched it to video mode.

The transoceanic connection was established almost instantly. The screen flickered for two seconds, and Anderson's bloodshot face filled the frame.

The background was a top-floor office in Manhattan, New York.

"Davis! Did you finish off that piece of trash!" Anderson roared at the top of his lungs, spraying saliva all over the screen.

Lu Chen held the terminal. He slightly rotated his wrist, aiming the camera at his own face.

"Mr. Anderson," Lu Chen said in a calm tone, "your dog's teeth aren't very sharp."

The other end of the screen went instantly silent. Anderson stared fixedly at the screen, mouth half-open, the ecstasy on his face freezing instantly.

"You… Lu Chen?" Anderson gasped, "That's impossible. Davis brought our most elite Red Devil squad."

Lu Chen didn't answer. He moved his arm, panning the camera around.

The camera slowly swept across the muddy ground, past the severed limbs shattered by large-caliber autocannons, and over Davis's leg, which was still spurting blood.

Finally, the lens locked onto the dozens of heavy infantry fighting vehicles on the perimeter, their gun barrels still steaming. Armed helicopters hovered in mid-air, their infrared beams weaving a web.

Rapid, ragged breathing came from the phone.

Thump. The sound transmitted through the microphone. Anderson's legs gave out, and he collapsed completely into his leather chair. A coffee cup on the desk fell to the floor and shattered.

"Did you see clearly?" Lu Chen aimed the camera back at himself. "This is just the interest. Touch this land in Jiangcheng again, and I'll chop off both of your claws."

"What kind of monster are you?" Anderson's voice trembled violently.

His fingers tightened abruptly. Snap.

The crisp sound of plastic and circuit boards breaking rang out. Lu Chen had crushed the military-grade communicator, which cost tens of thousands of dollars, with his bare hand.

The screen went dead black. He tossed the pile of scrap into the puddle of blood at his feet.

"Da Biao," Lu Chen said as he stood up.

"At your command, Big Brother."

"Clean up these piles of minced meat. We're laying the foundation tomorrow, and I don't want the workers smelling this stench when they clock in."

Lu Chen pulled a tissue from his pocket and slowly wiped the blood from his knuckles.

Da Biao grinned.

"Leave it to me. I'll call over a few excavators; it'll only take a couple of scoops. I guarantee not even a speck of bone will be left."

Dawn broke. The rain had stopped completely. A pale, fish-belly white appeared in the eastern sky.

Six in the morning. A marching song played over loudspeakers right on time across the three-hundred-acre prefab housing area. This was the new wake-up call for Chenguang Electronics Factory.

One hundred thousand migrant workers, holding double happiness washbasins and towels, rushed out of their rooms in high spirits to line up at the sinks to wash up.

"Time to eat! Time to eat! We've got big meat buns this morning, all you can eat!" the cafeteria lady shouted at the top of her lungs, banging on a stainless steel basin.

Li Tiejun wiped the water off his face haphazardly, grabbed two meat buns, and shoved them into his mouth. While chewing, he shouted to the young man next to him.

"Hurry up. Once you're done eating, get to Construction Site Six. We need to clear all the waste soil from the main factory area today. Boss Lu paid out real settlement money yesterday; we men have to live up to that cold, hard cash."

No one knew what had happened on the outer grounds in the middle of the night. The muddy ground had been repeatedly leveled by several heavy bulldozers, burying even the smell of blood dozens of meters underground.

The entire living area was filled only with the lively atmosphere of everyday life.

The main gate of the old factory area was wide open.

On both sides of the muddy access road, over twenty Maybachs and Rolls-Royces with license plates from various regions were lined up.

Their hazard lights flashed in unison, illuminating the access road brightly.

The heads of the twelve major financial conglomerates of Jiangnan, along with dozens of core executives from the East China General Chamber of Commerce, all stood obediently in the cold morning wind.

Each of them was dressed in a suit and leather shoes, clutching a thick stack of documents tightly in their hands.

President Wang's face was swollen like a leavened bun, with traces of blood at the corner of his mouth. He was shivering, huddled at the very front of the crowd, not even daring to breathe loudly.

A black Mengshi off-road vehicle drove out of the factory area and stopped at the main gate.

Da Biao jumped out of the car and yanked open the back door.

Lu Chen stepped out in his old leather shoes. He had changed into a clean black jacket.

Dozens of financial tycoons, who were usually arrogant and looked down on everyone, bent over simultaneously. Their backs were aligned perfectly, their heads almost touching their knees.

"Good morning, Boss Lu," President Wang said with a tremble, handing over the documents with both hands. "As you instructed yesterday, we've brought the 30% stake in the Jiangnan logistics routes, along with the free transfer agreements for the eighteen building materials factories under our names. Please, take a look."

After returning home in the middle of the night, they had used all their top-level connections to try and find out what exactly was going on with this land in the north of the city.

The news that came back almost scared them out of their wits.

The entire Chamber of Commerce's overseas capital reserves had been wiped out in an instant, and signs for a National Special Military Control Zone had been hung up directly outside the factory area.

If they didn't cut their losses and bow their heads now, they'd all be lining up to eat prison food by this afternoon.

"Good morning my ass. Quit stalling," Da Biao said, walking up and kicking over a fat man standing next to President Wang. "Weren't you acting pretty tough yesterday morning? Talking about cutting off the electricity to our factory."

The fat man fell into the mud, his suit covered in black sludge. He scrambled to get up, then fell to his knees with a thud.