168: Reason and Madness

"Suicide? No."

Chen Feng turned around, facing Su Li's eyes which were slightly reddened from anger; his voice remained calm, without a single ripple.

"Su Li, I'm just choosing a way to die."

"What did you say?" Su Li could not understand this madness.

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, and spoke in the professional tone of a chief operating officer: "Fine. Since you don't think this is suicide, then as the Financial Officer, I'll use data to tell you how deep this knife is stabbing and how fast the blood is flowing."

Her fingers slid rapidly across the light screen, and a brand-new Financial Simulation Model instantly took shape, with a red line representing capital consumption plummeting at a terrifying angle.

"According to your plan, our time until bankruptcy will be shortened from seven days to seventy-two hours!"

"For every energy block we sell, we take a net loss of thirty-five credit points! And that's not even counting storage, transportation, and labor costs!"

"The 'Tenfold Compensation for One Defect' promise is even more of a bottomless pit! Do you know what this means? Hoffman doesn't even need to engage in a PR war anymore; he just needs to organize a thousand-person fraud syndicate to intentionally damage products using the simplest methods, and he can ruin us beyond redemption in a single day!"

Every one of her words was like a scalpel, precisely dissecting the absurdity and lethality of this plan.

Technical Director Lao Mo also stood up, adding with a troubled face: "Boss, Director Su Li is right. And... and our production line is only rudimentary; it simply can't support the massive production demand that 'tenfold compensation' might bring. If we rush the work, the quality will only get worse, and then our reputation..."

"Do we still have a reputation?" Chen Feng asked back indifferently.

Lao Mo was instantly rendered speechless.

Chen Feng ignored him and walked slowly to the star map in the meeting room, his back to everyone.

"Hoffman's PR war targets our 'credibility.' And we no longer have any credibility."

He tapped his fingertip, and a red light representing Giant Star Mining lit up on the star map, along with a blue light representing Hanhai Trade that was so weak it was almost extinguished.

"So, in this war, we have already lost. Completely."

His words made the atmosphere in the meeting room even colder.

"Since one battlefield has completely collapsed, why struggle in it?" Chen Feng's voice suddenly became sharp. "We must immediately open a second battlefield—"

He turned around abruptly, his gaze like a knife, sweeping across everyone.

"Price!"

"I'll repeat my core logic once more." He walked to the main screen, pointing at those two lines of blood-red text.

"Dumping at thirty percent below cost is never for profit. Its sole purpose is to use a more extreme, more insane, and more illogical 'event' to overwrite the 'Product Explosion' event carefully crafted by Hoffman."

"When something is absurd to the extreme, it becomes the best advertisement in itself."

"I want every low-level mercenary in the universe who is suffocating because of energy prices, every speculator looking for opportunities in the gray zones, and every Independent Caravan being squeezed to the bone by Giant Star Mining to come and watch this show!"

"I want them to become our free promoters! Let them argue, let them question, let them try! Let them tell everyone that there's a madman challenging Giant Star Mining in a suicidal way!"

This madman-like theory left most people in the meeting room confused. They couldn't understand it, but the overwhelming determination radiating from him made them shiver.

Except for Su Li.

She was completely infuriated.

"Madman... yes, you are a madman!" Her voice trembled slightly with agitation, her eyes burning with flames of anger and... pain.

"My family's company, my father, was strangled by this kind of reckless financial game from the Omni-Dimensional Trade Alliance! They also used this so-called 'Strategic Loss,' this endless capital crushing, to turn a healthy, profitable company into ashes within three months!"

This was the first time she had mentioned her past so out of character in front of everyone. That scar buried deep in her heart was bloodily torn open by Chen Feng's plan.

"This isn't business, Chen Feng! This is gambling! This is betting everyone's future on a vague possibility! This is destruction!"

Chen Feng looked at her silently, seeing the sadness and anger that almost overflowed from her eyes.

After a long time, he finally spoke word by word, each one like a block of ice hitting Su Li's heart.

"That's why they lost."

Su Li's pupils shrank suddenly.

"Because they still wanted to follow the rules of the table and fantasized about being dignified." Chen Feng's voice was cold and devoid of emotion. "Su Li, you must understand, I'm not running a company right now; I'm commanding a war."

He took a step forward, looking directly into Su Li's eyes.

"What I need is a general who can execute orders without question, not a strategist who repeatedly advises me to retreat."

This sentence, like the sharpest dagger, precisely pierced through all of Su Li's strength.

She took a step back, as if pushed away by an invisible force. The anger and disappointment in her eyes intertwined, eventually turning into a cold, deathly silence.

She stared at Chen Feng for a full ten seconds; that gaze was like two worlds colliding and breaking apart.

Finally, she sat down, turning back into that terrifyingly calm chief operating officer.

Only, when she spoke, every word seemed to be fished out of a frozen deep sea.

"Fine."

"I will execute your orders."

"But I will also, from this second, prepare the most accurate and detailed Bankruptcy Report in human business history for you."

"This is my final duty to you and to this company as the chief operating officer."

The meeting ended in a suffocatingly oppressive atmosphere.

Chen Feng won the decision but almost lost the trust of his most important partner. Although the team was about to start executing the orders, every face was written with fear and confusion.

Everyone left silently, leaving Chen Feng alone.

He stood alone before the massive star map, looking out the window at the eternally unchanging, deathly silent wasteland of Ashen Earth Star.

His face still wore that calm, unruffled expression.

However, deep within those eyes that reflected countless data streams under the starlight, a flicker of loneliness flashed—one that even he hadn't noticed.

In this grand gamble, he had bet everything.

Including himself.