Wenjie narrowed his distance, locking his predatory gaze straight into her eyes. "The harder you struggle to secure institutional validation... the more apparent it becomes that you are fundamentally worthless. I genuinely pity your pathetic attempts... reaching for the spotlight, only to realize you are nothing more than a baseline extra in the boardroom."
The condescending insult struck flush against the deep-seated inferiority complex Meiling had harbored within, causing her jaw to tremble with a volatile, uncontainable rage. Beside her, Rongru, Meiling’s executive secretary, instinctively lowered her gaze, desperately feigning absolute ignorance to the corporate assassination unfolding before her.
"Do not harbor the delusion that being the Chairman’s direct heir grants you the sovereign right to speak to me with such unbridled arrogance," Meiling spat, her fists clenching so hard her knuckles turned white. She glared at Wenjie, whose soft, mocking chuckle was designed to provoke her ultimate limits.
"Why the hostility? You desired to draw the spotlight, did you not?... Intending to broadcast your capabilities to the gallery, hoping to extract a fraction of trust from the executive board," Wenjie taunted, his voice smooth yet venomous. "But it stands as a profoundly pathetic display of desperation... a legacy inherited from your father's generation, I presume?"
Meiling ground her teeth, her lips twitching with an accumulated suffocating wrath that made her throat burn. "To me... a creature of your caliber is nothing but low-tier, overpriced corporate debris. Utterly devoid of value, merit, or executive competence. Hah! If your father wasn't preserving your pathetic skull under his institutional umbrella, you would be nothing more than a stray, mangy dog rotting on the asphalt by now!"
"Why, you... Meiling! How dare you display such absolute, uneducated insolence to my face!" Wenjie erupted, his calculated composure fracturing instantly as she stripped away his armor, matching his humiliation pound for pound.
Rongru, standing parallel to the friction, lifted her head with a look of severe trepidation, terrified that this verbal warfare would trigger an uncontainable escalation through the corporate ranks.
"Wenjie!... Engrave this permanently into your mind: an incompetent creature like you will never ascend to the chairmanship of the CK Group," Meiling declared, her eyes scanning his entire frame from head to toe before letting out a sharp, mocking hiss from her throat. "Because I am the one... who will stand in your place."
Meiling delivered her final absolute declaration of war, spinning on her heel to storm down the corridor without a backward glance. Rongru flinched under the tension before rushing blindly behind her superior.
Wenjie stood entirely catatonic in the center of the grand corridor, his entire physical frame vibrating with unadulterated vengeance. The psychological trauma he had meticulously concealed for years had been violently torn open, leaving his pride bleeding on the floor. Moving forward... he would liquidate any adversary crossing his trajectory with zero institutional mercy.
Yet... amidst the ashes of their mutual hatred, Mingzhi slowly stepped out from the blind angle of the intersecting hallway, having observed the entire confrontation in silence. A subtle, sinister smirk crossed his features in profound satisfaction before he spun around and melted into the shadows.
Across the city, the evening air inside Rod Lom Restaurant remained entirely stagnant, save for the rhythmic whisper of the wind filtering through the propped-open windows. Tum stepped over the threshold into the dimly lit, shadowed interior. The culinary equipment, the familiar layout, and even the jars of preserved edible flowers remained completely frozen in time. The young Thai secretary maneuvered toward the primary counter, slowly bending down to retrieve a fallen iron spatula from the floorboards, holding it tightly as a profound ache tightened in his chest.
In that exact micro-second, a calculated footstep synchronized behind his frame.
"You possess a personal history with the proprietors of this establishment, I presume," Lu Rong’s voice vibrated through the quiet space.
Tum slowly stood to his full height, casually brushing the dust particles off the iron tool in his hand. "You already possess the absolute data, sir... You are well aware those two are no longer operating within this grid." Tum deflected smoothly, his eyes tracing the vacant tables.
Lu Rong scanned the tranquil perimeter of the ruined shop. "Your faction elected to dance with a volatile fire... fully conscious that escaping the operational reach of titans with absolute, sovereign authority is a mathematical impossibility. Stepping onto a trajectory this hazardous from the baseline was a severe strategic error."
Tum turned around deliberately to face the man, his fingers tightening around the spatula's handle.
"You speak as though... you have experienced the absolute depth of that crush before, sir."
The unprompted, highly invasive question forced Lu Rong into a sudden, tense freeze. His lips parted to deliver an immediate denial, but his throat turned entirely parched, rendering him incapable of projecting a singular syllable.
"The agonizing weight of being systematically pulverized... and forced to endure that chronic pain every single day because you are entirely conscious that no matter how aggressively you fight, you can never overturn the titans controlling the sky. Am I hitting the baseline, sir?" Tum delivered the psychological strike with a soft, chillingly placid smile.
Lu Rong narrowed his eyes, the ambient temperature within the room appearing to plummet under the sudden psychological weight. "Who are you people exactly... and what is your ultimate operational directive within this territory?"
Tum casually slipped a hand into his trousers pocket, his eyes shifting focus to trace the subtle, fluctuating aura swirling behind Lu Rong’s physical form. He hoisted an amused eyebrow.
"You are actively hunting for a strategic alliance, aren't you, sir...?" Tum murmured softly, his eyes flashing with a cold, enigmatic brilliance.
Lu Rong’s brows locked tightly, his pulse executing a violent drop as the profound precision of the offer fractured his defensive posture.
"How could you possibly calculate that?" Lu Rong demanded, his voice dropping into a harsh rasp as Tum stepped directly into his immediate perimeter.
"In that case... let us draft the baseline parameters of a compact," the Thai secretary proposed, his smile expanding with layered, sophisticated intent.
"What parameters...?" Lu Rong inquired. Despite his disciplined attempts to stabilize his composure and conceal his internal vulnerability from the foreigner, the sheer, intoxicating gravity of the opportunity compelled him to bite the bait.
"The party that succumbs to the pressure must confess the absolute truth... while the victor commands the operational board," Tum articulated with slow, unyielding precision, his gaze remaining thoroughly unflinching.
"Tell me... are you prepared to play this game with me, sir?" Tum flashed a warm, disarmingly gentle smile. Yet, Lu Rong found his chest tightening, his breathing restricted. How could this Thai national read his absolute psychological makeup and internal state with such terrifying transparency?
High-heeled boots struck the polished floorboards in a rapid, furious cadence. Meiling violently breached the threshold of Adisorn’s executive office, halting directly before the strategist clad in a pristine, cream-toned tailored suit. He remained turned away, his gaze tracing the expansive skyline of Shanghai beyond the glass.
"This was your ultimate objective from the start, wasn't it...?" she demanded, her voice vibrating with compressed exhaustion and rage. "This is why you commanded me to dismantle Kawin."
Adisorn executed a slow, calculated pivot to face her. His handsome visage remained entirely unreadable, yet his eyes gleamed with a dangerous, intoxicating intelligence. "Have you executed a restructuring of your perspective, Miss Meiling? Initial calculations suggested you would completely disregard my strategic counsel."
"If I am incapable of ascending to a corporate coordinate that mirrors Kawin, I will never possess the leverage required to stomp Wenjie into the dirt... isn't that the baseline reality?!" she pressed, maintaining an iron-clad stare.
Adisorn let out a soft smile, closing the physical distance between them with measured, fluid strides. "Right now, your operational system is experiencing fear... fear that you will never reach the summit where Wenjie currently sits."
He closed the final perimeter, leaning his frame down to whisper a venomous directive directly against her ear. "Purge the fear... and deploy every conceivable methodology to violently drag him down from his pedestal. Do it so you can seize the absolute objective you crave."
Meiling clamped her fists tightly, tilting her face to lock eyes with Adisorn, her gaze entirely illuminated by the fires of absolute vengeance.
"Construct the path for me to seize the absolute summit... execute it precisely the way you envisioned."
Adisorn let out a soft, dark hiss of laughter from his chest, his lips parting into a broad, satisfied smile. "Consider it done... I shall refine you into the premier sovereign of this empire and systematically evict Wenjie from his throne. But remember this clearly, Miss Meiling: once this game is initiated, there remains zero structural pathway to retreat back to the creature you once were."
The ultra-luxurious Private Jet carrying the executive steering committee of the Green Hydrogen Enterprise touched down smoothly on the tarmac of Beijing Daxing International Airport. The vanguard delegation was led by the supreme Chairman, Li Ming, alongside Kawin and Zhangwei. The exact second the cabin pressure sealed and the doors retracted, a secure convoy of midnight-black Hongqi Guoya luxury limousines established an immediate perimeter. Black-suited security operatives executed synchronized door openings, welcoming the upper-echelon executives into the opulent, whisper-quiet cabins before the entire motorcade rolled out, charting a direct course toward the Xiong'an New Area.
The convoy glided effortlessly across the vast expanse of the Beijing-Xiong'an Expressway. The horizon was flanked by endless, highly structured matrices of solar panel grids and advanced 5G telecommunication arrays, systematically tracking and modulating traffic velocity to guarantee absolute operational security. As they neared the designated coordinates, the architectural landscape shifted dramatically. Clusters of contemporary, mid-rise sustainable masterpieces materialized, seamlessly integrated with lush, protected forest reserves and rolling green hills, all divided by the pristine water channels flowing from Baiyangdian Lake.
Within moments, the motorcade breached the inner threshold of the Xiong'an New Area the supreme national strategic zone of China, universally recognized as the "City of the Future." Spanning a colossal geopolitical footprint of over 1,770 square kilometers, this massive techno-metropolis stood as an industrial colossus, dwarf-mapping the entire geographic scale of metropolitan Bangkok.