Generally, companies like this, when making such acquisitions, employ very strong top-tier teams. These individuals often have a need for stimulation and a sense of achievement when engaging in these risky endeavors. In such circumstances, if their status is stripped away, this team is unlikely to obediently let things unfold as planned.

“Of course, many people would find it uninteresting and choose to leave, while a portion would become curious. They would adopt a go-with-the-flow attitude, passing the time while trying to figure out what is really happening up top,” said Shorty Feng, taking a sip of water. “I am one of those people.”

“I’m curious—if, as you said, they have gained your big boss’s trust, then based on their style, they generally wouldn’t seek your assistance anymore, and your working style is quite different. Why are there Germans here, and how did you end up entering the snowy mountains with us? Would they allow that?”

“That’s a long story,” Shorty Feng replied. “It’s not just you Chinese who study military strategy; these Germans clearly don’t operate without flaws either.”

During the process of auditing all the acquired assets, the complexity of the documentation exceeded what an average person could handle, especially since there were many textual materials from before computers became widespread. Moreover, Jude Kao’s company was inherently romanticized and not rigorous in its organizational structure, leading to significant issues with the ownership and transfer of many previous documents.

Shorty Feng himself was a cautious person, and under these circumstances, the company handover work was continually delayed. In large companies, there is a common practice where there is a time lag between a decision being made and the final documents being distributed to all departments. This time lag typically spans one night or a weekend.

However, Shorty Feng, as a liquidator, held a unique position, making him the only one outside of the decision-making process who knew the exact decision. Before this decision was officially communicated, he utilized the weekend to review the records of that group using his authority over the existing documents.

He hoped to understand the backgrounds of these individuals from the company personnel records and why they could so significantly influence the boss’s behavior. As a result, after staying up for more than twenty hours and sifting through documents dating back forty years, he finally discovered the names of these individuals.

Among these Chinese individuals, there were over a dozen who had already joined the company forty years ago. If that were the case, many of these Chinese individuals should now be elderly.

However, he found that, in his memory, this group of Chinese people appeared to be mostly in their twenties to thirties, with none looking over sixty.

He pulled up photographs and compared them one by one with the current images of these individuals. To his shock, he discovered that the appearances of these dozen or so Chinese individuals from forty years ago were almost identical to how they looked now. At this moment, he vaguely began to understand the reason behind their boss’s change of stance.

“They are too old. These people, who have aged but possess everything, want their lives to continue for as long as possible,” Shorty Feng said. “I believe our big boss had already heard some rumors before; after those Chinese individuals showed him some evidence, he became even more convinced.”

“Go on,” I said, intrigued, knowing that this foreigner was not simple.
“But not all board members are elderly. If these old folks are not controlled by natural laws, it can actually be detrimental to the younger generation. Our company is different from Jude Co.; we are more rigorous. These Chinese people haven’t had time to infiltrate our company structure, so I took advantage of that and made it impossible for them to act freely like they did at Jude Co.” He pressed on his wound. “The first thing I did was to ensure that the company’s personnel had to work alongside these Chinese people.
In plain terms, those old men were not so trusting of the Chinese. When the young board members I orchestrated in the boardroom demanded additional conditions or even threatened to veto, they reluctantly complied. The Chinese, clearly anxious and pressed for time, had no room to maneuver. As a result, these Chinese must hate me to the bone; I knew they would look for opportunities to take action against me, but I didn’t expect them to choose this moment.”
“Why? You voluntarily participated in this event and then died on the way to it. That’s a great opportunity to get rid of you. If it were me, I would definitely support it wholeheartedly and even give you some benefits,” the fat man said.
“Because I hinted to them beforehand that if they took action against me during this inspection, all the information I had collected about them would be disseminated as widely as possible. I set up an automatic email distribution program at one of my secret residences. As long as I don’t deactivate it within two months, all detective agencies, as well as many relevant departments in China, including government agencies, will receive this warning email. I believe that, according to their usual practices, they cannot afford this risk.”
I thought for a moment and felt that the short man, Feng, was overly confident; this threat clearly seemed insufficient to me to constitute a deterrent. However, I had another idea. Given this possibility, these people could easily track Feng and wait until he returned to his residence to take him out. Even if it was a minor threat, these people would not completely ignore it.
“Is your secret residence really secret? It hasn’t been discovered by them, has it?”
“No one can find that place, and I won’t tell you where it is. I can only say that this place is absolutely foolproof; not only theoretically but in reality, it is impossible to be discovered.”
Seeing that Feng spoke with such conviction but was unwilling to elaborate further, I decided not to press him and let him continue. It turned out that from the very beginning, Zhang Haixing wanted to eliminate both me and the fat man. But Feng didn’t realize that Zhang Haixing didn’t even want to spare him; she intended to use Feng as bait to get rid of the fat man and then deal with me herself.
After the fat man saved him, he immediately returned to save me. However, Feng said that Zhang Haixing was quite skilled, especially adept at stealth attacks, making it difficult to defeat her. That’s why the fat man had made arrangements outside in advance, but he hadn’t expected such an incident to occur inside the cave.
I looked at Zhang Haixing and asked the fat man, “How do you plan to deal with her?”

I still felt a bit reluctant, but the fat man said, “Either leave her here to her own fate, or you’ve seen those three gunslingers, right? There’s a femme fatale in that novel who must be killed to completely eliminate the threat. Of course, if she survives, I wouldn’t kill her myself. Right now, she’s the one trying to kill me, so if she ends up dead, I won’t feel guilty.”

“God said that failing to save someone when they are in danger is equivalent to murder,” said the short man, Feng.

“So you mean to marry her?” the fat man asked. “You really are repaying evil with kindness.”

“No, what I mean is, you don’t need to make excuses for yourself. If you’re going to kill, then just do it without feeling guilty. You’re killing an enemy.”

“Stop talking nonsense. If she hadn’t tried to kill you, you’d definitely be on her side. We have a conditional alliance, so don’t preach to me.”

The short man, Feng, fell silent after hearing that. The fat man gave me a look, and I squatted down to take a closer look. Zhang Haixing hadn’t woken up; it was clear that she was seriously injured. I asked the fat man what we should do next.

The fat man said, “This place isn’t suitable for staying long. We need to go up, but with the current situation, lighting is a big problem.” I asked.

The fat man replied, “We need to lure it out and deal with it here. Either we can use a tactic to draw it away or take it down outside.”

I couldn’t help but smile wryly and asked, “With what?”

The fat man patted his grenade belt and pointed at Feng, “You tell us, Tian Zhen, what exactly is in here?”

Feng said, “I told you I don’t know.”

The fat man said, “You said you knew, based on what you just told me.”

Feng glanced at me and then at the fat man, clearly reluctant but with no choice. After a pause, he said, “Let’s put it this way: this thing isn’t appearing for the first time. The first time I saw it was at a smuggling dock in Germany.”