With the CK Group’s foundation secured, the next target on Li Ming’s liquidation list was Wang Guanyu Lu Rong’s sworn brother and the sole surviving co-founder possessing executive leverage equal to his own.
In the wake of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, Shenzhen had transformed into a sovereign Special Economic Zone, prioritizing mass manufacturing and low-cost labor to pull in foreign capital.
Li Ming had calculated the geopolitical currents with terrifying precision. He pivoted the conglomerate into foreign original equipment manufacturing (OEM) and precision plastic molding, securing high-yield export contracts for the CK industrial plants. The strategy poured astronomical dividends into the board's accounts while ingratiating the syndicate with state officials by generating over a hundred thousand domestic jobs. The CK Group mutated from a mid-tier operation into an industrial leviathan, establishing Li Ming as its absolute master.
Wang Guanyu, conversely, was mocked across the corporate sector dismissed as a delusional romantic obsessed with green energy infrastructure that the market deemed impossible.
None foresaw that the vision branded as madness would, decades later, become the crowning achievement Li Ming would plunder for himself.
Weaponizing the massive revenue from the Shenzhen assembly plants, Li Ming convinced the board that aggressive expansion was mandatory to absorb additional foreign OEM contracts. He introduced an equity dilution motion a strategic capital raise engineered specifically to erode Guanyu’s ownership stake. Knowing Guanyu had bled his personal wealth and dividends dry to fund hydrogen research, Li Ming knew his partner lacked the liquidity to exercise his subscription rights.
Once the capital raise diluted Guanyu's position, Li Ming used his board majority to strip him of executive authority and freeze the hydrogen research budget. To finalize the execution, Li Ming manufactured fraudulent ledgers alleging Guanyu had illegally siphoned corporate funds into his clean energy projects without board authorization.
With Guanyu backed into a corner, Li Ming donned the mask of an innocent mediator. He claimed a rogue faction of the board was persecuting Guanyu, insisting that as Chairman, he was bound by corporate protocol, but offered to intervene privately out of brotherhood. Exploiting Guanyu’s sentimentality, Li Ming guided him into a trap: resign from the board and transfer all proprietary hydrogen patents to the CK Group to "protect" the infrastructure.
Next, Li Ming counseled Guanyu to establish an independent entity funded by foreign venture capital. It was the ultimate snare.
On the eve of Guanyu’s independent launch, the CK Group formally unveiled its sovereign Hydrogen Initiative, showcasing the very patents Guanyu had surrendered as the breakthrough innovation of CK’s internal engineering corps. Simultaneously, CK’s legal apparatus launched a devastating lawsuit against Guanyu for patent infringement and theft of trade secrets. Terrified by the legal blitzkrieg, the foreign institutional investors abandoned the venture overnight.
Guanyu was branded a fraud who had plagiarized his own life’s work.
During the fallout, Lu Rong detected critical anomalies in the ledgers, discovering that the hydrogen program’s financial metrics had been systematically falsified. He compiled an independent forensic audit for the board. But Li Ming outmaneuvered the junior executive, using his executive authority to compromise the accounting division while manipulating Guanyu into believing Lu Rong was too naive to comprehend high-stakes corporate politics. Lu Rong was left helpless, forced to watch his revered mentor driven into total ruin.
They met one final time inside a private lounge.
"My dear brother... what a pleasure to reunite," Li Ming murmured smoothly, pouring a glass of vintage wine with total composure before letting a thin, mocking smile trace his lips.
"Guanyu... you were a brilliant engineer, but a profoundly pathetic businessman. Did you truly believe those foreign investors cared about your vision? Do you honestly think the board acted on their own initiative? Hah... every single stroke of your execution was orchestrated by my hand."
Li Ming tossed a stack of chump change onto the table before Guanyu, whose eyes overflowed with bitter, silent tears.
"The world remembers only the victors. Delusional dreamers like you are merely... forgotten myths. But do not fret. Your hydrogen legacy... I shall execute it in your honor. Rest easy."
The suffocating agony shattered Guanyu’s spirit beyond repair. Left with zero leverage and no path to vindication, he took his own life, leaping from the roof of a derelict building.
Only later did Lu Rong uncover the final, horrifying truth: the foreign venture firm Li Ming had recommended was a ghost entity a shell corporation engineered by Li Ming himself to purge his final brother from the throne.
Lu Rong carried that incendiary hatred in his chest for two decades.
When the CK Group eventually encountered a catastrophic liquidity crisis, Li Ming had no choice but to secure a massive credit facility to stave off collapse. As CFO, Lu Rong managed the negotiations, secretly embedding a lethal covenant within the contract with the VCC investment syndicate: should the CK Group default on a single debt installment, VCC retained the sovereign right to seize and convert the entire debt into common equity at a steep discount to market value.
Lu Rong had calculated the burn rate with precision; CK would run out of liquid capital within months, surrendering everything to VCC and annihilating Li Ming’s empire.
Li Ming recognized the poison pill, but with insolvency hours away, he was forced to sign the VCC agreement.
Yet, salvation arrived unexpectedly. The strategic intervention of CEO Kawin and the ZX Capital conglomerate neutralized the default, shattering Lu Rong’s trap to pieces.
Now, inside the quiet corridor, Lu Rong stood face-to-face with the mysterious figure before him uncertain whether this shadow was an asset of Li Ming’s or the executioner destined to tear the Chairman down.
Lu Rong met Tum’s gaze as the final light of dusk surrendered to the horizon, the city lights beginning to sparkle across the skyline beyond the glass.
"This may be... my final opportunity to execute it," Lu Rong delivered, his voice barely above a whisper.
Tum evaluated the luminescence emanating from the older executive a slow, surging tide infused with deep navy blue and flashes of brilliant silver, the undeniable signature of absolute, unvarnished truth.
Tum offered a faint smile. "Your ambition shall manifest..." He paused, taking in the radiant energy coiling through the space. "However, the cost is absolute... You must surrender everything. Are you prepared?"
Lu Rong clenched his fists at his sides, his eyes trembling as he swallowed the suffocating weight in his throat before responding.
"Everyone has surrendered enough... including myself. At this point... there is nothing left for me to fear."
Tum held the stare, watching the deep indigo aura weave tightly around Lu Rong a tapestry forged from twenty years of suppressed vengeance, irreversible loss, pure vow, and profound agony.
The man who had appeared ruthless and deceptive to the outside world was, beneath the surface, more fragile than anyone could ever comprehend.