206: Suffocating gold

Cloud Garden Space Station, Headquarters of the Omni-Dimensional Trade Alliance.

This was a crystal palace suspended above the stellar corona. Massive floor-to-ceiling windows filtered out the sun's violent radiation, leaving only a warm glow like liquid gold that fell upon Augustus van Cole's dark gold uniform.

He stood before the window, holding a cup of black tea from a High-Dimensional Ecological Planet. The rising steam blurred his well-maintained face.

Behind him, three figures knelt on the expensive, handmade carpet.

They were the only three remaining senior directors of Giant Star Mining. Usually arrogant and domineering in the low-dimensional star sectors, they now resembled three stray dogs with broken spines, their foreheads pressed firmly against the floor, their bodies trembling violently with every slight sip Augustus took.

The room was terrifyingly quiet, save for the crisp sound of the tea cup touching the saucer.

“So,” Augustus turned around, looking down at the three men on the floor, his tone as flat as if he were discussing the day's weather, “this is the account you give me? A fully armed regular fleet, wiped out like chickens by a bunch of beggars with pickaxes and modified ships?”

“director! This... this was an accident!” The leading director suddenly looked up, his face drenched in cold sweat, his voice hoarse. “That Chen Feng has contraband technology! And that madman Xing Zhan... he underestimated the enemy! We...”

“Shh.”

Augustus raised a finger and pressed it gently against his lips.

The director's voice stopped abruptly, as if someone had seized him by the throat.

“I don't care about the process, nor do I care how that waste Xing Zhan died. If a dog fails to guard the door and gets beaten to death, that is the dog's problem.” Augustus walked up to the director and used the tip of his polished leather shoe to tilt the man's chin up. There was no anger in his eyes, only a heart-chilling indifference. “What I care about is that you have allowed the Alliance's badge to be tarnished.”

“That is priceless.”

Augustus withdrew his foot, turned toward his desk, and lightly tapped the holographic surface.

“In light of Giant Star Mining's incompetent performance and the resulting extremely negative public perception, I hereby announce, on behalf of the Board of directors, the immediate initiation of ‘Bankruptcy Reorganization’ procedures for Giant Star Mining.”

The three directors' faces turned ashen.

The so-called “reorganization” was dismemberment. The Alliance would act like vultures, devouring all of Giant Star Mining's remaining prime assets—navigation rights, mining planet ownership, patented technology—skin, bone, and all, leaving not a single scrap for them.

“Take them away,” Augustus waved his hand, as if shooing away a few flies.

Several guards in black power armor appeared silently and dragged the limp directors out of the office like dead dogs.

The heavy doors closed, cutting off their pleas for mercy.

Augustus sat back in the chair that symbolized the highest power in the star sector, his gaze falling on the glaring red curve on the holographic screen—the asset valuation chart of Hanhai Trade, which was skyrocketing.

“Chen Feng.”

He whispered the name, his lips curling into a sneer.

“Did you think that by snatching a few pieces of meat, you could sit at the table and eat?”

His slender fingers swiped through the air, pulling up a black command box.

“Since you like playing by market rules, I'll show you what the real rules are.”

[Command Confirmed: Initiating Level 3 Commercial Sanctions.]

[Target: Hanhai Trade and all its affiliated entities.]

[Scope of Execution: Entirety of Sector 9 through Sector 12.]

[Specific Measures: Blockade all conventional shipping lanes, freeze all associated accounts, and prohibit any Alliance member from engaging in physical, informational, or energy transactions with the target. Violators will be deemed enemies of the Alliance.]

Augustus pressed the confirmation key and watched as the black command transformed into countless data streams, instantly transmitting to every corner of the sea of stars.

“In a vacuum, no one can hear you scream.” He picked up his tea cup and blew gently. “And no one can breathe.”

...Ashen Earth Star, Low Earth Orbit.

The spaceport, which had been as busy as a bustling marketplace, was now witnessing a strange ebbing tide.

Dozens of smuggling merchant ships laden with goods had been queuing to enter the port and unload. Suddenly, as if receiving an irresistible order, these outlaws—who usually dared to trample on any law for the sake of profit—all turned their ships around in unison.

Engines spat out panicked plumes of fire, tracing paths of frantic flight across space.

“Hey! Those are the medical bays we ordered! Where are you going?”

“That’s the coolant for the shield generators! The payment has already been made!”

The Hanhai Trade tower communicators shouted hoarsely into the channel, but the only response was a deathly silence and light points rapidly vanishing from the edge of the radar.

Inside the command center, alarms blared one after another.

“President Su! The three alloy procurement contracts we just negotiated—the other parties have unilaterally breached them!”

“President Su! The black market energy dealers sent word—they’d rather pay double the penalty than dare to ship the goods!”

“Our offshore accounts have been locked! Capital can no longer circulate!”

Bad news flew toward Su Li like snowflakes.

Su Li stood before the command console, her face as pale as paper. Her fingers trembled slightly as she adjusted her glasses, her eyes behind the lenses staring intently at the transaction nodes on the screen turning red one by one.

This was a massacre.

There was no smoke, no cannon fire, but it was more lethal than the previous fleet battle.

Hanhai Trade, which had just become filthy rich from defeating Giant Star Mining, had instantly become a starving ghost sitting on a mountain of gold but unable to buy a single loaf of bread.

“How long can our medical supplies last?” Su Li turned abruptly to look at the logistics supervisor.

“Under normal circumstances... three months.” The logistics supervisor was drenched in sweat, his voice shaking. “But there are too many wounded now. The intensive care units are running at full capacity. At the current rate of consumption... three days at most.”

Three days.

Su Li felt a wave of dizziness.

In three days, those wounded who had survived the battlefield would die in their hospital beds due to a lack of medicine and equipment. And those miners who had just cheered for victory would watch it all happen with their own eyes.

That would be the collapse of morale, the destruction of faith.

“Meeting.” Su Li took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the panic in her heart. “Everyone, to the conference room immediately.”

...Ten minutes later, in the underground conference room.

The atmosphere was suffocatingly oppressive. The air was thick with the smell of cheap tobacco. Reno sat in a corner, smoking one cigarette after another, his newly installed mechanical arm scratching unconsciously at the tabletop, making a piercing metallic scraping sound.

“Those sons of bitches!”

Reno slammed his fist onto the table, leaving a dent in the alloy surface.

“They don't dare to fight fair, so they play these dirty tricks! Boss, give me a fleet. Even if I have to rob them, I'll get those supplies back!”

“Rob? Where are you going to rob?” Su Li looked at him coldly. “The nearest trade hub is three light-years away, and every supply station along the way has refused to refuel us. Your fleet wouldn't even make it halfway before becoming space junk.”

“Then we'll hijack passing merchant ships!” Reno glared with his single eye, the veins on his neck bulging.

“And then what?” Su Li’s voice rose sharply. “Confirm the charge that we are interstellar pirates? Give the Alliance a reason to deploy regular troops to wipe us out? Reno, use your brain! This isn't a street fight, this is an economic blockade! You can't kill a mosquito with a cannon!”

“Then you tell me what to do! Just watch our brothers wait for death?” Reno stood up abruptly, his mechanical arm humming.

“I...” Su Li was at a loss for words, biting her lip until she tasted blood.

As a commercial actuary, she understood the horror of such a blockade better than anyone. This was a dimensional strike. The Alliance was using the rules they had established to build an invisible cage, intending to starve Hanhai Trade to death.

Within this system of rules, there was no solution.

Everyone’s gaze turned toward the man sitting in the head seat.

Chen Feng had not said a word.

He leaned back in his chair, hands crossed over his stomach, his deep eyes staring at a point in the void as if he were an outsider.

However, the index finger of his right hand tapping on the table was moving twice as fast as usual.

“Tap, tap, tap.”

The crisp tapping was the only rhythm in the conference room.

In Chen Feng's mind, countless pieces of information were rapidly reorganizing.

Augustus's move was indeed brilliant.

He didn't talk to you about justice or bloodshed; he only talked about “compliance.” He utilized the Alliance's absolute monopoly over shipping lanes and the financial system to sever all material exchange between Hanhai Trade and the outside world.

This was an open scheme.

Either Chen Feng knelt and begged for mercy, handing over all technology and assets in exchange for a way to survive, or he would slowly rot away on this barren planet.

“Heh.”

Chen Feng suddenly chuckled.

The laugh was light, but in the deathly silent conference room, it sounded exceptionally piercing.

Reno and Su Li were both stunned and turned to look at him.

Chen Feng stopped tapping, leaned forward, and braced his hands on the table. There was no trace of despair on his face; instead, it carried an inscrutable excitement, like a gambler seeing the most insane hand of cards.

“Augustus wants to use rules to trap us to death.”

Chen Feng looked around at everyone, his voice calm and powerful.

“He thinks that by cutting off the roads, we’ll have nowhere to go. But he forgot one thing.”

He stood up, walked to the star map behind him, and tapped heavily on the blockade zone marked in red.

“We were already a group of people with no path to begin with.”

“Since the open roads are barred, and since following the rules means starving to death...” Chen Feng turned around, the cold light in his eyes sharper than the freezing wind outside, “then we will take the dark path.”

“Meeting adjourned.”

Chen Feng offered no further explanation and walked straight out of the conference room, leaving the others looking at each other in confusion... Underground secret chamber, Chen Feng's private space.

The heavy alloy door locked, isolating him from all the clamor outside.

Chen Feng stood alone in the darkness, with only the void before him glowing faintly.

“System.”

He thought to himself.

[Interstellar Exchange System activated.]

The familiar blue light screen expanded across his retina. Countless data streams washed down like a waterfall—transaction information from billions of dimensions.

Chen Feng’s gaze bypassed the conventional material trading zones. Under the Alliance's blockade, any transaction through conventional logistical means was a dead end.

His finger slid across the interface, finally stopping on an icon at the very bottom that flickered with a dark gray light.

It was a symbol of a skull crossed with a scale.

[Black Market / Gray Zone].

This was a special section opened by the system for extreme situations. The traders here were mostly outlaws like himself or dangerous entities existing outside mainstream civilizations.

They didn't recognize Alliance law; they only recognized profit.

Chen Feng clicked on the icon.

The interface shifted instantly, the once neat and orderly list becoming chaotic and wild.

[Sale: Decommissioned Stellar-Class Star-Destroyer Cannon (Pick-up only, no shipping)]

[Purchase: High-dimensional biological live samples (Dead or alive, bulk preferred)]

[Service: Planet-level environmental terraforming (Includes indigenous population cleanup service)]

Chen Feng’s gaze swept quickly over these heart-stopping items, finally locking onto a gray avatar named “Black Water Conglomerate.”

This was a cross-dimensional private military contractor.

Or rather, a group of interstellar mercenaries with the firepower of a regular army.

And in their pinned trade column hung a newly updated intelligence trade request:

[Purchase: All data concerning the ‘Titan Project’.]

[Offer: Negotiable (Supports arms, rare materials, or even mercenary services for a small-scale war).]

Chen Feng’s pupils constricted slightly.

The Titan Project.

The forbidden experiment he had seen in Xing Zhan's secret files, which transformed humans into biological weapons.

It turned out that Giant Star Mining wasn't the only one eyeing this prize.

Augustus thought he could trap him by blockading the shipping lanes?

Too naive.

As long as there was enough profit, there were plenty of people in this universe willing to sell the rope to the hangman for money.

“You want to play at blockades?”

Chen Feng looked at the gray icon, his lips curling into a cruel, cold smile.

“Then I’ll stir this stagnant water until it's completely muddied.”

He reached out and pressed “Contact Seller” heavily on that trade request.

[System Prompt: Establishing encrypted connection...]

[Warning: The other party's credit rating is ‘Chaotic Neutral’; transaction involves extremely high risk.]

[Connection established successfully.]

In the dark secret chamber, a hoarse voice filled with a bloody aura echoed in Chen Feng’s ear, spanning countless light-years.

“This is Blackwater. As long as the price is right, we’ll even blow up the gates of Heaven for you.”

“I am Chen Feng.”

Chen Feng spoke softly into the void.

“I don't need you to blow up Heaven. I want you to bring Hell to Earth.”