Shen Tianlong's road to a business empire was not as simple as one might imagine.
Shen Tianlong began in the electronics business and, as it blossomed rapidly, quickly amassed a good deal of capital. He then invested this capital in the real estate industry, a sector he believed to hold great promise, embarking on a career in property development.
At first, Shen Tianlong bought a piece of land and collaborated with others to build a building, making a tidy sum of money. However, Shen Tianlong was not satisfied because he wanted to go it alone to increase his share of the profits.
For this purpose, he bought another piece of land. This time, his undertaking of building residential complexes laid a solid foundation for his rise, earning him a wide network of contacts and staff.
He persisted and consecutively bought four or five plots of land. At this point, some financially weaker business owners approached Shen Tianlong, hoping to cooperate with him and get a share of the profits from the lucrative real estate market. But why would Shen Tianlong agree to share the profits with anyone else?
He turned down those smaller business owners and, by leveraging these four or five plots of land, he made a big profit and became a multimillionaire.
The more famous you are, the more exposed you are to envy. Shen Tianlong became a real estate tycoon, incensing those business owners he had rejected.
As a result, when Shen Tianlong continued to buy land, he faced significant resistance. The other owners banded together, greatly increasing the capital Shen Tianlong had to invest. Yet, he went through with the purchases because he believed they wouldn't result in losses.
Shen Tianlong, with his keen vision, indeed did not incur losses and continued to earn huge profits. Moreover, at this point, Shen Tianlong decided to construct a commercial street.
This time, Shen Tianlong was planning something big. The plot he purchased was much larger than before, and the capital invested amounted to tens of millions.
He found a partner and together they bought a large piece of land to develop into a commercial street. After two years of construction, the commercial street's floors sold out. However, due to an uneven distribution of profits, cracks developed in his relationship with his partner, and they stopped cooperating.
By then, Shen Tianlong had become a real estate titan, and many people wanted to collaborate with him on various projects. But at that time, Shen Tianlong was young and quite prideful. Unless there were special circumstances, he rarely collaborated with others.
In the process, he managed to offend quite a few people. As time passed, Shen Tianlong matured significantly, but his rivals also grew stronger. Business magnates from the coastal regions entered Zhongshan City, presenting Shen Tianlong with several formidable opponents.
Shen Tianlong established Longjia Group, becoming one of the biggest business conglomerates in Zhongshan City.
He had three main rivals.
The first rival was from the same industry, the Hengye Group, headed by Wang Jiahao.
However, according to Ye Qiu, although this person was a competitor, he had always been amiable and was unlikely to strike against Longjia Group in secret, especially not against Shen Tianlong's daughter.
The second was Shen Tianlong's old friend and the partner he had fallen out with, Nie Guangsheng, who dealt in materials. Since their fallout, Shen Tianlong completely stopped procuring construction materials like gravel and sand from Nie Guangsheng, severing all ties with him.
The third was the person Shen Tianlong most suspected and whom Ye Qiu thought most likely to act against him in secret.
Rongda United Group, financed by the same small business owners who Shen Tianlong had previously spurned. By now, Rongda Group had grown quite substantial and was constantly eyeing Longjia Group with predatory intent.
Ye Qiu inquired about the location of Rongda Group and went straight to the Rongda Group Building.
The Rongda Group Building was located at the southeast corner of the Longjia Building, directly opposite it. Both buildings looked similar, with a spire at the top of each, as if neither wanted to give in to the other.
Ye Qiu glanced at it and found it interesting, then he entered the building.
Ye Qiu was, of course, looking for several key players in Rongda Group. Ordinarily, meeting the higher-ups of Rongda would require an appointment scheduled in advance, but Ye Qiu wasn't there to meet old friends, so he couldn't proceed in the usual way.
He glanced at the security and the building's surveillance cameras, then slightly lowered the brim of his hat. Ye Qiu quickly slipped into the elevator.
Anyone could enter the office area below the twenty-fifth floor, but above it, one needed a card to access the floors. Ye Qiu initially thought about following a Rongda employee to enter the floors above twenty-five, but he quickly dismissed that method.
He watched inside the elevator for a while and saw very few people who had access to the twenty-sixth floor. The elevator went up and down, and Ye Qiu didn't see anyone going to the twenty-sixth floor.
Feeling it was a waste of time, Ye Qiu first entered the twenty-fifth floor, then evaded the surveillance cameras and entered the restroom.
Looking out the window, the twenty-fifth floor was already quite high, at least a hundred meters up. The restroom was empty at the time, so Ye Qiu opened the window, lightly jumped up, and landed on the windowsill.
Immediately after, he secured his hand on the outside of the building, and his body hung freely, sticking to the side of the building.
At this moment, Ye Qiu was like Spider-Man, his hands like iron hooks. Despite being in mid-air with no safety measures, he continued to climb upward calmly.
Whoosh!
Ye Qiu's speed was extremely fast as he scaled the building effortlessly; in the blink of an eye, he bypassed the 25th floor's restroom and eventually stopped at the rooftop. He touched the tightly closed window of the restroom with one hand, exerted a slight force, and with a clever tremor, he actually managed to open the window.
With a swoosh, Ye Qiu jumped into the restroom. Fortunately, he had observed earlier that the restroom was unoccupied; otherwise, being seen jumping in from the outside of a 28-story building would certainly have scared someone to death.
"This floor must be where the top executives of Rongda Group have their offices," Ye Qiu observed as he exited the restroom and found the corridor empty. Moreover, the décor here was distinctly different from that on floors below the 25th. The walls were all golden, painted with a special kind of paint that emitted a faint fragrance, and various rare green plants were placed in every corner, bringing life to the area.
The absence of people in the corridor eased Ye Qiu's worries significantly and facilitated his movement. As for the surveillance cameras, Ye Qiu completely disregarded them, unabashedly exposing half of his face without fear of being recorded.
As for the security guards, they were even easier to deal with. Ye Qiu stealthily approached one from behind and, with a simple touch, instantly froze the guard in place, motionless. After taking care of the potential threat the security might pose, Ye Qiu casually strolled through the corridor, and soon found the Chairman's office.
Through the glass, he saw a middle-aged man reclining inside. Ye Qiu gently pushed the door without any resistance; it opened easily, obviously, the man inside never expected someone could so easily access this place.
Ye Qiu stood quietly in front of the middle-aged man, glanced at the desk, and gently tapped it, immediately waking the man who had been sleeping in his chair.
"Who?" the middle-aged man, upon opening his eyes and seeing Ye Qiu, was momentarily stunned and asked in shock, "Who are you? How did you get in?"
Ye Qiu smiled and said, "Who I am is not important. I'm here to notify you about something."
The middle-aged man regained his composure; he didn't call for security but listened as Ye Qiu said, "I've come here to kindly ask you not to take action against Shen Mengchen, otherwise, you'll end up like this teacup!"
As he spoke, the middle-aged man watched as Ye Qiu grasped the teacup in his hand. With a slight movement of his palm, he then opened his hand, revealing something shocking.
The teacup... had turned into powder!
The middle-aged man was truly startled; he had never seen someone with such crushing strength able to turn a teacup into powder—an incredible feat.
"Did you understand what I said?" Ye Qiu asked calmly while picking up a napkin from the table to wipe the powder from his hands.
The middle-aged man remained silent, but Ye Qiu smiled, turned around, and walked towards the door. Just before reaching the door, he looked back and said, "If you doubt my strength, you can try to challenge me."
"But let me warn you, if I find out it was you who took action against Shen Mengchen, I believe you will regret ever being born." Ye Qiu's tone suddenly turned colder, dropping nearly ten degrees in the whole office, causing the middle-aged man to shiver.
Seeing this, Ye Qiu smiled slightly, said nothing more, and strode confidently out of the office.
It took a long while for the middle-aged man to recover from the imposing presence of Ye Qiu.
The first thing he did was to make a phone call, shouting at the other end, "Hurry up and check the surveillance. Damn it, someone entered my office without my knowledge, what are you guys doing in the surveillance room, go check it immediately!"
The middle-aged man's tone was somewhat hysterical; now, he realized that if Ye Qiu had wanted to kill him, he likely wouldn't even have had a chance to wake up, possibly being finished off by Ye Qiu in his sleep.
Such a feeling was very unpleasant!
Having one's life completely out of one's own control was deeply unsettling.
"Shen Mengchen... Shen Mengchen..." The middle-aged man murmured the name, quickly coming to a realization, "Well played, old man, bringing such a person to deal with me, well done... well done..."
The middle-aged man made another call, saying, "You have one hour. If you can't bring me the photo of the man who entered the 29th floor, you're all fired."
Then, with a slam, the middle-aged man hung up the phone. Ye Qiu's sudden appearance had dealt a hefty psychological blow to him, astonishing that someone could enter his office silently and unnoticed. Damn the security, they all should be fired.
It must be said that Ye Qiu's proactive attack had caused substantial psychological pressure on the middle-aged man.
That very day, Rongda hosted a large meeting, and many employees were dismissed, causing a significant stir in the business community; outsiders could not comprehend why Rongda Group had suddenly gone mad.
Little did they know that such drastic actions by Rongda were all because of one man!