You dare hit me?

Under a glittering night sky, three vans rolled in on the evening breeze and stopped on the road less than three hundred meters from the Su Family Garbage Dump.

The man in the floral shirt led the others out without covering his face. Holding his phone, he asked Lu Feng, "Boss, how do you want this done? How far do we go?"

"Don't kill them, but the worse you hurt them, the better," Lu Feng replied curtly. "The Su Family wants to resist, right? Then beat the hell out of them. Make them submit first, then sit down and talk."

"Got it!" Floral Shirt nodded.

Lu Feng hung up and lazily went back to playing mahjong with the people at the company.

Some might wonder why a business as large as Changqing Company still bothered with all this violence. Wouldn't it be better to settle things without fighting?

It wasn't hard to understand. Leaving aside the chaos of the current era and Dragon City's complicated political landscape, even before Year Zero, when the world was peaceful and stable, plenty of enormous companies and conglomerates had eventually been exposed for their involvement in heinous crimes and brought down for good.

So that raised a question: once you'd already amassed your initial capital, why keep doing things like this?

Because breaking the rules and using violence to solve problems was often the fastest, most effective way to see a return. But the potential price was also the highest, and your end could be the most miserable.

If Lu Feng hadn't immediately gone after the four companies' management, frightened them, and divided and dismantled their middle ranks, could the petitioning have ended in less than four days? Would their bosses have been scared? His methods were vile and utterly lacking in basic decency, but they had certainly worked in the short term!

Otherwise, if he'd sat down for a proper discussion and haggled with the four companies, how long would it have taken to settle everything? Li Hongze could afford to wait, but Zheng Fu'an, who had only just taken office, couldn't!

For Lu Feng and interest groups like Changqing Company that survived in troubled times, settling disputes through simple, brutal methods had long since become second nature.

If you wouldn't submit, they would beat you until you did. Whoever stuck his neck out would get the fucking beating.

The Su Family kept taking the lead, so naturally, they were the target.

That was why Floral Shirt and his men had come: three vans carrying more than a dozen undocumented desperadoes recruited from who knew where, destined to unleash a bloodbath that night.

Outside the scrapyard, Floral Shirt put on knitted gloves and ordered expressionlessly, "Hand out the weapons."

At his words, more than a dozen lackeys pulled gleaming blades, steel rods, and other weapons out of the vans and quickly gathered together.

"Let's do it!" Floral Shirt led them briskly into the Su Family Garbage Dump compound.

At the same time, Third Sister, Su Miaomiao, had collected the personal belongings she'd left in the main building and was about to head home.

In the main lobby, Da Xiong, who was also on duty that day, volunteered, "Th-third... Third Sister... it's late. Let me take you home."

"You can't even drive. How would you take me?" Third Sister replied with a smile. "Stay here and do your shift."

"It's... dark outside... y-you... be careful." Da Xiong already had a stutter, but it grew even worse whenever he saw Third Sister. His face flushed red with the effort of speaking.

Third Sister carried her things outside. Da Xiong followed without thinking and stood beside her car, reminding her, "D-drive slowly. The streetlights around here are broken..."

While the two were talking, Floral Shirt and his dozen-plus men had already charged inside. A worker on night duty looked up and called, "What are you here for?"

Floral Shirt ignored him and kept walking, while two men beside him rushed toward the night worker with weapons in hand.

Realizing something was wrong, the worker turned and ran, shouting at the top of his lungs, "People are coming! They've got weapons!"

"Brother Bao, she's one of the Su Family! She's Su Tiannan's sister!" a lackey hired by Changqing Company shouted, pointing at Third Sister as she was about to get into her car.

The man in the floral shirt, whose name was Brother Bao, immediately shouted, "Get her!"

At his command, more than a dozen men brandished their weapons and charged straight at Third Sister.

Third Sister had only just pulled the car door open and hadn't gotten in yet. There was no time to drive away, so she immediately shouted to Da Xiong, "Run! Get into the main building!"

Hearing her shout, Da Xiong immediately set his long legs moving and ran toward the main lobby. But he was simply too big-over a meter ninety tall and weighing at least 120 to 125 kilos. He looked cumbersome as he ran, and he wasn't fast.

Floral Shirt and his men caught up. One lackey slammed a steel pipe into the back of Da Xiong's head with a thud. "This has nothing to do with you! Squat down!"

After taking the blow, Da Xiong turned to look around. Seeing that all dozen or so men had caught up, he didn't dare make any sudden moves and obediently squatted on the ground. "D-don't... hit me... I... can't afford treatment."

The lackey was stunned. What normal person would say not to hit him because he couldn't afford treatment?

"Fuck, he's an idiot!"

They stopped paying attention to Da Xiong and rushed into the main lobby of the Su Family's building.

Inside, seven night workers had heard the shouting and rushed out, but their nerve faltered when they saw so many men, all carrying weapons.

"Get against the wall and squat down!" Floral Shirt roared, pointing his knife at the workers. Then he looked up and ordered, "Beat that woman! Go for her face!"

The point of raiding the Su Family Garbage Dump wasn't to attack ordinary workers. It was to hurt members of the Su Family, cripple a few of them, and make them afraid. So Floral Shirt's men charged straight at Third Sister.

When the workers in the lobby saw that they were going to beat Third Sister, they instinctively started forward. But as soon as three armed lackeys approached, they obediently squatted on the ground without resisting at all.

"So you're taking the lead, huh?! I'll slash that face of yours, then have people beat your dad every day inside!" A man grabbed Third Sister's arm and raised his knife to cut her face.

Third Sister was no pushover either. Though she wasn't as strong as a man, she turned her head and sank her teeth into his arm.

"Aah!" The lackey screamed and kicked Third Sister to the floor.

At the same time, Floral Shirt rushed over and raised his arm to swing his knife at Third Sister's face.

Thud!

At that critical instant, a duty chair from beside the entrance flew through the air and struck Floral Shirt squarely in the back.

The blow sent Floral Shirt stumbling forward. He whipped around and saw that Silly Xiong had actually charged inside.

"D-don't... hit women!" Silly Xiong rushed toward them. He hadn't dared fight back when they hit him, but when Third Sister was being beaten, he had run over without a second thought.

"You fucking idiot! You dare throw things at me?!" Floral Shirt turned, ready to leap forward and slash Da Xiong.

At the same time, Su Tianyu came running down from the second floor in a very thick military coat. As he rushed down, he saw Da Xiong towering above the crowd, gripping the registration desk by the entrance with both hands and lifting it clean off the floor.

The sight left Floral Shirt dumbfounded too. Although the registration desk wasn't as heavy as a solid-wood office desk, it was still at least a meter and a half long and eighty centimeters wide. Yet Da Xiong had lifted it as easily as a bucket of water.

"You dare hit me...?" Floral Shirt started stepping backward.

Da Xiong stretched to his full height and, as though dunking a basketball, slammed the desk straight down onto Floral Shirt's head.

Thud!

Crash!

With a dull impact, Floral Shirt went straight down.

"Th-third... Third Sister, run!" Da Xiong shouted at the top of his lungs, clumsily swinging the desk.

The thugs swarmed him. While Da Xiong was shouting, they slashed him three times, but he didn't fall. He simply kept swinging the desk clumsily.

Su Tianyu rushed downstairs and turned sideways to let Third Sister run past, then planted himself at the foot of the stairs. At some point, he had taken off his glasses.