David Lin was stunned by Logan's question.
He hadn't really looked into it.
Being a shrewd person, David Lin immediately realized something after Logan's question, and quickly pulled out his phone to call the Taoist they had just met.
Thirty minutes later, Logan, David Lin, and the chubby Taoist were sitting in a restaurant.
The chubby Taoist stuffed meat into his mouth while mumbling, "That's the whole story. I didn't mean to hide anything; I've just been short on money recently."
He glanced guiltily at Logan after finishing.
Logan's face remained calm, revealing no hint of emotion.
It turned out that the Taoist had bought the land five years ago.
According to him, he had wanted to find a piece of good feng shui land to build a temple, and that mountain caught his eye.
He spent a lot of money building the concrete road first, then started constructing the temple. Everything went smoothly, and the chubby Taoist thought he would retire at the temple.
But unexpectedly, not long after the temple was completed, villagers from the mountain below brought a few people to his temple.
They claimed that the mountain was their village's dragon vein and that the Taoist's temple was suppressing their dragon vein.
The land had been purchased from one of the villagers, and the Taoist had made it clear from the start that he was building a temple.
At the time, the villager didn't say anything about not being able to build a temple on the mountain.
During the construction, no one raised objections either.
Yet, once the temple was completed, they came to cause trouble.
The construction of the temple had nearly drained the chubby Taoist's savings, and there was no way he could tear it down.
At first, the Taoist ignored the villagers, thinking his temple was legal and compliant, and there was no way the villagers could forcibly tear it down.
But things didn't go as he expected.
First, villagers began standing guard at the concrete road leading up the mountain, preventing any vehicles from going up.
The chubby Taoist had built the temple to attract visitors, and without visitors, he lost a significant source of income.
Then, elderly women started coming to the temple every day to shout abuse.
He couldn't chase them away, nor could he silence them, and the Taoist was tormented by the situation.
After several negotiations with the villagers, he eventually paid them $20,000, and the issue seemed to be resolved.
He thought it was over, but a month later, villagers blocked the road again.
The chubby Taoist, enraged, went to the village chief to reason with him.
Shamelessly, the village chief told him that the $20,000 was just last month's payment, and from now on, he would have to pay $20,000 every month!
This infuriated the Taoist, and he reported the matter to the police.
However, when the police arrived, all 400 villagers—young and old—testified that the money had been given to the whole village voluntarily by the Taoist.
It became clear that the villagers were no strangers to such schemes.
Twenty thousand dollars was enough to press charges for extortion.
After receiving the money, the villagers distributed it among themselves, with each person getting $50.
What was even more frustrating was that most of the villagers were elderly, in their sixties, seventies, and even eighties, or young children barely a few years old.
The police couldn't do much about the elderly, and the few able-bodied young men in the village were arrested but released shortly after.
After that, the villagers escalated their harassment. Several elderly women in their seventies and eighties would be brought to the temple in a tricycle every day to curse, demanding $100 each before they would leave.
If the Taoist called the police, the women would cry and claim they had fallen and injured themselves in the temple, insisting that the Taoist take responsibility.
With no choice, the Taoist eventually closed the temple, staying indoors as much as possible, but even that didn't stop the troublemakers.
Every now and then, the temple would lose power or water, either from cut wires or blocked pipes.
It was obvious the villagers were behind it.
The Taoist installed surveillance cameras, and finally caught someone cutting the wires.
He sent the culprit to the police station, thinking he had won a small victory, but it was like poking a hornet's nest.
From then on, the villagers intensified their harassment.
The villagers had an endless array of tricks, and with just one person against 400, the Taoist was physically and mentally exhausted.
In the end, he had no choice but to abandon the temple and seek another path.
...
After hearing the Taoist's story, David Lin was both angry and ashamed, so much so that he couldn't even look Logan in the eye.
"I'm sorry, boss. It's all my fault for not investigating thoroughly..."
Feeling deeply embarrassed, David Lin was mortified. He was being paid a high salary by Logan, but had messed things up.
"I'll look for another suitable location. I'll buy this land myself and you can dock the cost from my salary."
Logan glanced sideways at him.
This made Logan regard David Lin in a new light.
Although Logan had offered David Lin an annual salary of $500,000, it was essentially an empty promise, as the money hadn't been earned yet. But for David Lin to offer to cover the $500,000 loss out of his future salary showed a level of responsibility and boldness that wasn't common.
Logan waved his hand.
"No need. We'll go with this land. It's late today, so contact a reliable construction crew and start work tomorrow."
Now it was David Lin and the chubby Taoist's turn to be shocked.
"Boss, this..."
"I have a way to deal with it. Just do as I say," Logan said, standing up and ending the meal.
This matter didn't really need to be dealt with.
Would he be afraid of trouble once the shelter was built? Of course not.
By the time the shelter was completed, at least two months would have passed.
Once the extreme cold arrived, the villagers would be too busy dealing with their own problems to cause trouble.
And as for dealing with troublemakers, Logan was experienced—he just had to be more ruthless than they were.
"Wait!"
The chubby Taoist swallowed the food in his mouth with great effort, pulling out a yellowed booklet from inside his greasy robes.
"Young man, you're a good person. I didn't handle this well. This booklet is something I used to strengthen my body. Now that the temple is gone and I've decided to return to secular life, it's not important to me anymore. I'll give it to you. I feel like you're someone I can trust."
Logan frowned as he looked at the yellowed booklet, which still had visible grease stains on it, but seeing the sincerity in the Taoist's eyes, he accepted it in the end.
"Thank you."
Leaving the restaurant, Logan returned to his hotel and spent the night drawing up the shelter design that had already formed in his mind.
The design showed a dome on the upper half, exposed above ground, and a square basement below.
From an architectural perspective, a round structure reduces wind resistance and is sturdier.
From a heat transfer perspective, a circular shape loses the least heat, making it more efficient for insulation.
The people who lived in the Arctic built igloos with this principle in mind.
The outermost part of the structure would be welded with alloy, while Logan planned to use explosion-proof steel walls, commonly used in banks, for the interior. These walls would be at least one meter thick, with an extra layer of the most cold-resistant insulation material inside, followed by standard multi-layer protective materials.
Logan also planned to build a fireplace in the center of the circular building. If generating electricity became inconvenient, the fireplace could be used for heating.
A ventilation pipe would be installed at the top to allow airflow.
The building would have two separate power circuits—one for the upper part and one for the lower.
Water wouldn't be an issue. The water purifiers and filtration tablets he had bought were more than adequate.
The finer details of the design would need to be adjusted by professionals, but the general idea was set.
After finishing the design, Logan, about to go to sleep, glanced at the booklet he had casually set aside.
It was the one given to him by the chubby Taoist.
Out of curiosity, he picked it up and started flipping through it.