The comic version of this novel is available to read on
Webtoon Canvas and Tapas.
Miling thrust open the door to her private office, but her forward momentum instantly stalled. Her father stood waiting within the suite, his features carved into a mask of grim severity.
"Do not invest your trust in Li Ming," Lu Rong warned, his voice dropped to a low, ominous vibration. "Everything he orchestrates is designed for a solitary beneficiary himself."
Miling exhaled a sharp, mocking laugh, her lips curling into a dismissive sneer. "How many iterations of this identical sermon must I endure, Father? Last time, your panic was directed at Marc Rim. Now, you command me to fear the Chairman. Do not lose sight of the parameters: every entity you have repeatedly warned me against has ultimately served as nothing more than a stepping stone, a ladder I have systematically trodden upon to ascend to increasingly superior heights."
"Li Ming is not cut from that cloth! He bears zero resemblance to Marc Rim!" Lu Rong roared, his voice trembling as he fought to pierce her delusion.
"Good heavens... are you truly reverting to the exact theatrical threats you weaponized during the Marc Rim affair?" Miling feigned amusement, treating her father’s profound anxiety as mere paranoia. She closed the distance, locking eyes with him in an overt display of insubordination. "Following your dire warnings that day, I have yet to encounter a single variable that justifies your terror. On the contrary... every monument of opportunity I possess today was delivered exclusively by the very entities you commanded me to avoid."
"Li Ming is sub-human in his cruelty," Lu Rong whispered, his eyes vibrating with a deep, historical dread. "He is nothing like Marc Rim. He is unlike any entity walking this earth!"
Miling offered a vacant, glacial smile, her eyes entirely hollowed of maternal empathy. "I shall register your perspective."
Brushing past him, she advanced toward her executive desk. She paused before the metal placard that bore her previous designation
Director of Corporate Planning and Resource Control
and, with a single, indifferent flick of her finger, flipped the plate face-down onto the mahogany surface.
"Moving forward... please address me as the Director of the Hydrogen Project to celebrate my latest breakthrough, Father."
Lu Rong clenched his fists, suffocating under the weight of his daughter’s hubris. Turning on his heel, he accelerated out of the suite without deploying another word.
The rapid, rhythmic click of his leather shoes echoed violently against the vast, desolate expanse of the glass-paneled corridor.
Yet, his stride abruptly faltered. Tum stood waiting at the terminus of the long gallery.
Their gazes locked, holding a heavy, profound stillness. Tum evaluated the dark, volatile aura coiled around Lu Rong's frame a toxic heat born of an absolute thirst for retribution. He read the older man instantly: Lu Rong had surrendered his remaining corporate dignity and crossed the threshold of moral compromise. He was finally ready to accept the alliance.
"I have reached a determination," Lu Rong delivered, his voice vibrating with suppressed trauma. "I will play the game on your terms."
Tum let a slow, razor-thin smile trace his lips, watching the incendiary malice radiating from the older man, ready to reduce the throne of their shared adversary to ash.
"I possessed that certainty..." Tum murmured smoothly. "The exact second you initiated contact."
Prior to the dawn of 1990, the Pudong district existed merely as a bleak expanse of agricultural marshland and derelict industrial skeletons abandoned by time. The contemporary consensus among the elite of Shanghai was absolute:
"Better a cramped tenement in Huangpu than a mansion in Pudong."
But following the turning point of 1990, the central government unleashed an unprecedented torrent of capital, transforming the desolate wasteland into one of the most dominant financial matrixes on the planet.
The sovereign leadership had previously engineered successful Special Economic Zones across the southern territories, namely Shenzhen and Zhuhai. However, the state required an economic engine situated directly at the geographic heart of the nation. Shanghai was the definitive answer.
Initially designated as an isolated economic development zone, Pudong systematically absorbed neighboring administrative sectors, integrating the Chuansha district and segments of Huangpu to formally manifest the New Pudong District.
When the state initialized the grand mandate to build the new frontier, four working-class youths possessing zero inheritance but driven by a predatory ambition fused their destinies together, swearing an oath to sever the chains of generational poverty.
At the nucleus of the syndicate stood
Li Ming
, a recent university graduate born to absolute destitution. The entrenched elite had routinely exploited his intellect, forcing him into backbreaking manual labor rather than administrative leadership, reducing his existence to a daily battle for subsistence. Refusing to succumb, he consolidated a brotherhood from his academic past.
First was
Chen Guoqiang
, a peasant’s son who had ceased his education at lower-middle school; despite his absolute lack of pedigree, his work ethic was industrial, fueled by a desperate hunger to command an enterprise of his own. Next was
Wang Guanyu
, a university classmate from the scientific disciplines who had languished in unemployment for a year after graduation; he had systematically liquidated his academic ego to survive as a courier and construction laborer. Finally,
Song Wenbin
, a vocational graduate in baseline finance who lacked the capital to pursue superior credentials, survived by tracking ledgers as a clerk before a grain warehouse.
The four entities unified under Li Ming’s central coordination, pooling their meager savings to form a microscopic enterprise operating out of a storefront block. They named it the CK Group.
Their initial operations were primitive: hauling sand, transporting cement, and contracting the removal of jagged brick debris from active construction sites, ferrying the cargo across the volatile currents of the Huangpu River via tugboats. They endured every iteration of corporate fraud, extortion, and systemic oppression from established cartels. Yet, because their resilience was absolute, they absorbed the punishment, keeping the CK framework alive through sheer iron will.
During the foundational phase, as the state demolished slums and graded agricultural fields to pave modern arterials, the primary infrastructure sites encountered a crippling bottleneck: violent civil protests from displaced locals and an unmanageable surplus of industrial waste with zero designated disposal zones.
Li Ming deployed a high-stakes, fearless strategy, embedding himself directly within negotiations with local organized syndicates. He surrendered almost the entirety of their immediate profit margins to appease the underworld. Because he executed the labor without demanding concessions, the governing authorities began to recognize the group's tactical utility.
The political returns were massive. The state rewarded the syndicate with exclusive concessions to supply raw earth for filling the marshlands, alongside an absolute transport monopoly over the debris clearing out of the high-value Lujiazui sector. With their enterprise established as the solitary operator, the first substantial torrents of liquid cash began to flood their treasury.
By the turn of 1992 and 1993, the four partners identified a critical operational deficit within Pudong’s aggressive skyscraper boom. In the frenzied race against the clock, standard industrial cement required prolonged periods to cure, entirely halting construction teams from pouring the subsequent floor plates.
Wang Guanyu resurrected his abandoned university thesis, adapting his research into a commercial application: a proprietary chemical accelerator compound engineered to dramatically catalyze the curing speed of cement while reinforcing structural integrity.
The CK syndicate bundled this chemical formula as an exclusive tie-in with their existing sand and cement distribution. The market responded with frantic demand; contractors lined up in droves to secure the chemical matrix, pushing their production facilities past maximum capacity. This breakthrough served as the primary catalyst for their vertical expansion, paving their trajectory toward a massive chemical fertilizer conglomerate years later.
Between 1994 and 1995, the ferry terminals serving the Pudong waterfront descended into maritime gridlock. Tugboats and cargo vessels routinely collided due to the total absence of a regulated queuing protocol or logistics scheduling.
Song Wenbin engineered a revolutionary management matrix, mapping out a precise time-slot schedule for tugboat operations and establishing temporary bonded warehouse infrastructure. Li Ming, operating as the chief diplomatic asset, weaponized the blueprint in covert negotiations with local bureaucrats to secure prime real estate concessions along the banks of the Huangpu River.
The site manifested as the first integrated logistics and distribution hub in Pudong. Any commercial entity seeking to transport steel or cement into the developing frontier was compelled to route through the CK logistics matrix, paying an absolute premium to Wenbin for a single transit ticket.
As all three operational divisions generated astronomical revenue streams, the four founders permanently shattered the cycle of poverty, elevating their storefront operation toward a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. To sustain this exponential velocity, the four architects prepared to transition the closely-held CK Group into a publicly traded corporate behemoth, poised to dominate the newly established Shanghai Stock Exchange.