The Financial Street Attraction

Shen Bing was quick to grasp Wei Changjia's intentions.

"Who's in charge of building the public restroom?"

"The Golden Dragon District Sanitation Bureau."

"Good. Get us that contract, even if we have to do it for free," Shen Bing said without hesitation.

The Sanitation Bureau was only overseeing the project. It certainly wouldn't build the restroom itself, so the job would normally go out to public tender.

Tendering took time, and Shen Bing didn't want to wait. But if someone offered to build it for free, that changed things. Once the site was designated, work could begin immediately.

With Shen Bing's instructions, Wei Changjia agreed confidently.

He worked fast. The next day, he reported to Shen Ice that he had secured the restroom project—and snatched it from someone else, no less.

What could anyone do? Phantom Immortal Technology was offering to build it for free!

As the saying went, people would take a bad deal, but no one wanted a deal that lost money.

Free? Whoever wanted the job could have it.

The Golden Dragon District Sanitation Bureau almost took Phantom Immortal Technology for some huge company with money to burn.

Shen Bing then transferred the emergency reserve of five hundred thousand yuan from his account, and construction officially began.

Shen Ice found time to visit the site. It sat midway along Financial Avenue, where foot traffic was heavy. No wonder the authorities wanted a public restroom there.

Better still, it stood at a crossroads that everyone had to pass to reach or leave Nancy Group headquarters.

To speed things up, Shen Bing reassigned a crew from the team building his factory and paid half the construction cost—two hundred thousand yuan—up front.

It was only a public restroom, so there was no need for a reinforced-concrete structure. Nor could they keep a site cordoned off for long in such a busy area. They used composite materials throughout, and construction moved at an astonishing pace.

For the sake of a dramatic reveal, though, they put up a Gao fence around the site.

While Shen Bing inspected the site on Financial Avenue, two people sat whispering in an upscale Gao café at the end of the street.

One of them was Chang Lu, the Nancy Building Project Procurement Department Manager. His face was covered in bruises. Someone had clearly beaten him up.

Chang Lu had had a miserable couple of days.

At Wei Family Restaurant, he'd been unable to pay his bill. An argument with the manager had ended with angry onlookers giving him a beating.

Who knew why so many people had gathered to watch?

In the end, he'd called a subordinate to bring money and get him out of trouble. Unfortunately, a reporter dining there had photographed the whole thing.

And just like that, Chang Lu was famous.

"Nancy Building Project Purchasing Manager Dines and Dashes!"

"Dine-and-dasher gets beaten up—and deserves it!"

It should have been a trivial incident, yet somehow it made the front page of the Greater Rong Network.

What the hell?

Then Chang Lu was suspended from work.

If he hadn't had a well-connected brother-in-law, he would probably have been fired. He might even have faced an investigation into his finances.

Purchasing departments were always under scrutiny.

Instead of reflecting on any of that, he blamed Phantom Immortal Technology. That was why he was here now.

The other man was someone Shen Bing knew too: Young Master Yu, whom he had met at Romantic Fish Restaurant outside the University of Electronic Science and Technology a little over ten days ago.

"Why did you call me out in such a hurry, Old Chang?" Young Master Yu leisurely sipped his coffee. Genuine Kopi Luwak wasn't something he could get just anywhere.

Chang Lu had none of the arrogance he'd shown when he met Shen Bing and the others. His voice was ingratiating. "Young Master Yu, I'd already handled the matter you asked me to. But a company called Phantom Immortal Technology has suddenly barged in. I was worried it might complicate things, so I asked you here to discuss it."

Young Master Yu frowned. "That's all? Didn't your Procurement Department already make its decision? Besides, I spoke to Manager Zhou. What could change?"

"It's not that simple, Young Master Yu." As he spoke, Chang Lu took a piece of Glass from his briefcase.

"Take a look at this."

Young Master Yu put down his coffee cup and curiously accepted the palm-sized piece of Glass.

"Where did you find this artwork? It must have cost a fair bit," he said with interest.

Chang Lu gave a bitter smile. "It isn't artwork. It's a sample of Glass curtain wall material. It costs only five hundred yuan per square meter."

"What? How is that possible?" Young Master Yu's composure vanished, replaced by open disbelief.

"It's true."

Chang Lu didn't look as though he was lying. Young Master Yu grew serious, a powerful desire gleaming in his eyes.

He had promised Lin Zijian the Nancy Building Glass curtain wall contract, and it certainly wasn't just because of some damned friendship. The two of them had shady dealings.

If the project fell through, who knew whether Lin Zijian might panic and expose them?

"I'll handle this. You've done well this time. Once things settle down, I'll put in a word with my father. Then you can go back to being the Procurement Department Manager."

With that, Young Master Yu took the Glass and left.

Chang Lu remained seated, a cold smile flickering across his face.

Phantom Immortal Technology? Who did they think they were? Business competition could be cutthroat without spilling a drop of blood.

No one could ignore the profits that piece of Glass represented.

After leaving, Young Master Yu went straight to Rongcheng People's Hospital.

Lin Zijian was still hospitalized after the car accident that had broken a bone, compounded by a fishbone piercing his throat.

The small wound in his throat was easy enough to treat. But broken bones took time to heal. Even a young man couldn't expect to leave the hospital in less than ten days or two weeks.

The two plotted in a private ward for a long time before Young Master Yu left, satisfied.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

Wang Siguo worked at the Minsheng Bank branch on Financial Avenue. Every morning, he drove to the south end of the street, parked, and walked to the bank.

Today, halfway down the avenue, he found a crowd gathered ahead. Over their heads, he could make out what seemed to be a landscape painting of a garden.

He was too far away to see it clearly.

"What's going on? Weren't they building a public restroom here? Why did they turn it into an art wall?"

Wang Siguo thought a Gao landscape-themed art wall would lend the whole Financial Street some elegance. But he remembered the occasional walk through here with a bursting bladder, and he firmly believed this spot needed a restroom.

He hurried closer, then Wang Siguo stared wide-eyed. What was he looking at?

A dreamlike little building stood before him, the kind he'd only ever seen in an architectural rendering. It took a careful look to realize it was a building at all.

At a glance, anyone would have taken it for a small garden—a real one.

Financial Avenue had originally been designed in a traditional style. Set here, the landscape garden looked anything but out of place. It made the street more beautiful.

It was a breathtaking painting come to life...

Every finely rendered line, every rich wash of color, every stroke filled with spirit drew the eye.

Most astonishingly, the plants inside seemed to sway ever so slightly, almost as if they were alive.

To the naked eye, the pavilions and galleries had clear depth. This was unmistakably Naked-Eye 3D Technology.

"Damn! What kind of Gao-tech stuff is this?"

"Is it made of joined-up LED Screens?"

"Come on. LEDs can only get down to about P1.2 right now—that's 1.2 millimeters between pixels. Up close, you'd see nothing but pixels. Do you see any here? I think it's some new kind of LCD Display Screen."

"Maybe it's a new technology."

"Would you use brand-new technology to build a toilet?"

"Uh..."

But Wang Siguo knew it was neither an LED Display Screen nor an LCD. Whether it was an LED screen finer than P1.2 or a seamless LCD video wall, the cost would be well over a hundred thousand yuan per square meter.

How much wall space did this restroom have? At least a hundred square meters.

Over ten million yuan just to decorate a restroom's walls? The Sanitation Bureau's leaders would have to be out of their minds.

Wang Siguo wasn't happy with everyone working in government offices, but he knew no one that foolish could make it into a leadership position.

This dreamlike public restroom had to be hiding some secret.

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