As Fu Haoran took over the ranch, one headache after another came his way.
Fu Haoran had bought up a huge amount of unsold soybeans. They were cheap, but who could have guessed that a grain silo supposedly capable of holding ten million tons of soybeans would split open down the middle, sending tons of beans cascading out.
The sight was spectacular.
The initial investigation concluded that the silo's structure had deteriorated. It was an accident.
But one disaster was soon followed by another.
His assistant, Lola, rushed over to report, "Boss! Another farm just sent over three hundred head of cattle! We don't have nearly enough hands!"
"Why can't we hire anyone?" Fu Haoran asked, puzzled.
Lola was instantly riled up. "Exactly! The union came around causing trouble again yesterday. They said they wouldn't let us hire anyone unless we tripled the wages!"
"They're also demanding hazard pay and a maximum of four hours of work a day. I refused, so they said they'd keep striking!"
Fu Haoran frowned. He was already offering the highest hourly wages, but these rednecks still weren't satisfied.
Even money that fell from the sky wouldn't last long if he spent it like this.
"Mr. Fu, I think we should raise our slaughter prices to ease the pressure."
Before his assistant could finish, someone screamed, "Wild boars!"
Dozens of black-maned boars were charging out of the bushes.
They were as big as calves, and the largest was nearly the size of a pickup truck.
As the boars upended a pile of grain, dust billowed everywhere.
"Run!"
Everyone paled. A wild boar's charge could send a person flying.
These boars were old hands at this. They wrecked the place like they knew it by heart, chasing everyone around.
When they saw someone with a hunting rifle, they scattered at once. But the moment the hunters let their guard down, the boars launched a sneak attack.
One boar knocked over a parked loader, grabbed half a sack of soybeans in its mouth, then took off, tossing its head as it ran.
More dark shapes poured out of the woods. Fifty? A hundred?
The mass of them was too thick to count.
Nearby, the cowboys watched with schadenfreude.
"Hahaha, that Asian kid's dumbstruck, huh? And this is only a small herd. With all these soybeans scattered around, more boars will come. This place'll soon turn into an all-you-can-eat buffet."
"That kid won't last a month!" A redneck sneered around his cigarette. "You can't kill all the boars, and the cleanup costs more than the ranch. Just wait till he goes bankrupt!"
The people around him joined in. "You bet. Small-caliber rifles can't kill boars, and it's hard to chase them down in a car. Even if you catch up, you've still got to worry about them flipping your vehicle."
"And hunting them from a helicopter costs a fortune. No matter how you look at it, it's not worth it!"
Just then, two pickup trucks marked with the Environmental Protection Agency rolled over the muddy ground and stopped at the ranch.
Calvin, a portly official with a cigarette in his mouth, climbed out.
Calvin tossed his cigarette butt into the mud and pulled a folder from under his arm.
"Mr. Fu." He opened the folder and tapped a line near the bottom. "I'm here to notify you."
"Your slaughterhouse hasn't been handling its offal in accordance with the Montana Agricultural Waste Management Regulations. The waste piles are in violation, and leaving these soybeans out in the open has attracted wildlife, creating an ecological hazard."
Calvin said smugly, "The total fine is 2.7 million dollars."
"You have two choices: pay up or suspend operations and make the necessary corrections."
"As for the correction process... environmental assessments, hearings, construction inspections—the whole works. It'll take at least three months."
"By then, slaughter season will be over. Who knows if you'll still be able to keep the ranch running?"
"Of course, there's a third option: within three days, you can clear away all the animal scraps piled at the slaughterhouse and deal with the wild boar problem, too."
He glanced at the chaotic slaughterhouse and the dark shapes of wild boars darting out of the woods, then sneered. "I'd advise you to just pay up. With so few hands, there's no way you can handle this."
Lola wanted to say something, but hesitated. She had always felt that buying a farm and a slaughterhouse, then expanding and renovating the farm on top of that, had been a terrible investment.
Aside from the slow returns, every step had been a headache.
"Mr. Fu, I think we need to cut our losses before they get any worse..."
Fu Haoran cut her off. "Thank you for the advice, Ms. Lola, but I have my own plans."
Seeing how firm Fu Haoran was, Lola chose to keep quiet.
No one knew that, faced with all this, Fu Haoran wasn't annoyed at all. If anything, he was a little excited.
Fu Haoran stood where he was and watched Calvin's pickup disappear down the road.
The townspeople who had gathered to watch the show saw that there was nothing left to see. Muttering to themselves, they gradually drove away.
At last, the entrance to the ranch fell quiet.
Lola didn't give up. "Boss, they're gone. But what do we do about the soybeans and the boars? And the slaughterhouse..."
"Take the workers to dinner. We're calling it an early day, and they'll still get paid," Fu Haoran interrupted, his voice calm. "Get them all out of the ranch."
"Boss?" Lola froze for a moment.
"Do it. Then go back to town yourself. No matter what you hear, don't come back before dawn." Fu Haoran's tone left no room for argument.
Seeing how firm he was, Lola had no choice but to give in.
Soon, the vast farm was left with only Fu Haoran and the grunting boars.
Instead of going inside, Fu Haoran headed deeper into the ranch.
Some rusty farm machinery was piled up there. Hardly anyone ever came by.
Fu Haoran looked around, confirmed no one was nearby, and called up the system.
[System, deploy troops]
The air a dozen or so meters in front of Fu Haoran began to silently warp.
There was no dazzling light, no sky tearing open.
Only a warped curtain of light quietly opened into a passage.
Then the heavy clatter of tracks and the rumble of engines shattered the silence.
One vehicle, then two, then three... armored vehicles rolled steadily out of the warped air.
A worn Aquila emblem was emblazoned on each vehicle.
The first vehicle came to a smooth stop in front of Fu Haoran.
The hatch opened, and Wade leaped down. He stood at attention and struck his right fist against his chest.
"My lord, the 1st Battalion of the 7th Engineering Regiment of the Planetary Defense Force has arrived: 3,320 personnel, with three Chimera armored personnel carriers, one engineering vehicle converted from a Leman Russ Tank chassis, six all-terrain transport vehicles, twelve Engineering Servo-Skulls, and one Leman Russ Battle Tank."
"All personnel are here. Awaiting your orders!"
Fu Haoran nodded. "Clean up this place. Pack up the grain and take it with you. Send one group out hunting, and have another group come with me to get to work."
"Yes!" Wade turned and made several hand signals to the convoy.
Soon, faint sounds like high-pressure gas leaking came from the edge of the woods.
Then came the dull thud of heavy bodies hitting the ground.
"Pssht... pssht, pssht..."
More similar sounds followed, short and rapid, accompanied by the boars' brief, muffled death squeals.
The other boars woke from their sleep. Before they could figure out where the danger was coming from, even more beams came streaking in.
In the blink of an eye, a herd of more than a hundred huge boars lay neatly on the ground.
Every one of them had a bowl-sized hole in its body, the tissue around the edges charred, with no blood flowing.
More beams swept through. The boars fell in swathes, like wheat cut down by a scythe.
There were no screams, only the dull thuds of bodies hitting the ground and the hiss of lasers burning through flesh.
Once Wade confirmed that the area had been cleared, he waved his hand. Groups of soldiers began loading the carcasses onto the transport vehicles.
A young guardsman lowered his lasgun and muttered to his comrade, "I thought we were in for something dangerous. Turns out we're just dealing with harmless livestock."
An old soldier grinned. "You idiot. They'll turn these things into canned food. We'll have plenty to eat later."
Meanwhile, thirty kilometers from the ranch, three Black Hawk helicopters skimmed low over the mountains, their rotors roaring through the night sky.
On the ground, more than a dozen military Humvees sped along, kicking up clouds of dust.
Gray Stone stood inside the command vehicle, staring at the intelligence on his tablet with a furrowed brow. "The 120-person Night Owl squad and the 130-person Lumberjack squad are both here. The client raised the offer to 120 million. We need to get the job done right."
The deputy handed him a communicator. "Captain, the drone spotted a lot of people moving around the ranch!"
Gray Stone sneered and touched the pistol at his waist. "I don't care how many they have. Pass the word: we move at three in the morning. Take out the other squads first, then grab the target."
"We're keeping the whole 120 million for ourselves!"
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