“Boss, there is absolutely no way we can buy Ling Xue SOHO!”

“I agree — I’m against it too!”

“That’s basically a stalled development. Whoever buys it is a complete fool!”

“One point four billion? Since when does Wang Xiancheng think he’s a charity?”

In the Sansheng conference room, waves of opposition rose from the executives and partners, one voice after another.

Who knew better than Jiang Han what this was? This was Wang Xiancheng digging a trap for him.

This scheme wasn’t even subtle enough to be called a scheme — it was a brazen, open-faced power move, laid out right in the open for everyone to see.

Jiang Han’s slight frame stood alone, silhouetted against the last glow of the setting sun beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, a picture of solitary bleakness.

“Old Wang says: I only need to put in one billion cash. The remaining four hundred million is to be settled in Longquan shares.”

He paused, drew his hands out of his pockets, and turned to face the room.

“Longquan’s thirty percent stake?!” The most vocal partner shot straight to his feet. “Boss, I want to take back what I just said! The ones buying Ling Xue aren’t fools — they’re utter idiots!”

“Exactly! Longquan’s share price has been climbing very well. Thirty percent of the stake is worth at least five or six hundred million. When you do the math, Old Wang isn’t just selling us a stalled project — he’s marking up the price without adding anything of value!”

“The Garden Expo ended ten years ago. What’s anyone supposed to do with Ling Xue now? Open another one?”

“If you ask me, just adjourn the meeting. This is pointless to discuss. I’ll drop the contract off at Wanheng’s front desk on my way home tonight!”

“I’ll come with you — I don’t mind the detour!”

“Wang Xiancheng is a mad dog! I’ve heard that with all his money, he’s been taking short positions in small companies for years — buying low, selling high, stirring up the market like a muck-rake. The whole market’s been thrown into chaos by him.”

“And what can anyone do about it? Old Wang has money! Whoever falls behind gets beaten, whoever has no money gets beaten.”

“That’s got nothing to do with us! Sansheng won’t buy Ling Xue — and Old Wang can hardly come to Sansheng’s offices and choke Jiang Han with his bare hands!”

The mood in the room erupted.

Everyone vented for a good long while. Jiang Han simply stood there, watching in cold silence.

After a long moment.

Jiang Han turned back to face the glass curtain wall and the fading evening outside.

The lyrics to that Renxian Qi song rang true: One step forward is the twilight, one step back is life itself. The wind won’t settle, the waves won’t still, and the heart finds no peace — a wall, sealing a person inside.

But in his heart, he had long since reached his answer. Ling Xue SOHO had to be bought.

Not only because it was the place where Liang Meng’s parents had met their end — but because it had once been the place where their dream began.

If not for the land at Ling Xue and the building they set out to construct there, they would never have taken on such crushing leverage.

And there was another crucial reason: he had heard that in order to raise capital back then, the elder Liang had mortgaged the formula for their flagship product — Longquan herbal tea.

With the passing of Liang Meng’s parents, the whereabouts of that formula had become a mystery.

Although Longquan still produced the Baoquan herbal tea to this day, those who truly knew the drink could tell the difference — the taste wasn’t quite what it had once been.

Jiang Han had no shortage of money. He had accumulated more than several lifetimes could spend.

What he was short of now was a reason to live. Day after day, beyond counting his wealth, he was sinking deeper into the events of the past, unable to pull himself free, like a man mired in quicksand.

“Straight flush!”

“Full house!”

“Damn it.”

“Tribute time!”

In the haze of smoke from the card parlor, Liang Meng and Wang Zaiwu were keeping a group of cigar-smoking distributors company at a game of cards.

Liang Meng had set herself a goal: she intended to beat every last one of them.

Because in order to give the distributors who had previously put up fierce resistance a graceful way to back down, Daiwei had said — as long as Liang Meng could win at cards, they would all go off and do their live-streaming without complaint.

So for these past two days, Liang Meng and Wang Zaiwu had been run ragged: fishing in the morning, cards at noon — a packed schedule of social activities from dawn to dark.

Wang Zaiwu had an extra layer of duty beyond Liang Meng’s — in the evenings, he was also expected to accompany the Longquan distributors to the bathhouse.

Though from the look of him, he seemed perfectly at home.

Wang Zaiwu wasn’t entirely sure what had come over him. Though this wasn’t all that different from his usual life, somehow it felt entirely different.

Before, he had whiled away every day from the moment he opened his eyes to the moment he closed them — when he wasn’t playing cards, he was gaming; when he wasn’t at the bathhouse, he was out at clubs. Yet he always felt somehow unenjoyed and unfulfilled, drifting through every day like a hollow shell — neither suffering nor content.

But now, following Liang Meng around each day, he felt genuinely happy.

He couldn’t quite explain why.

From an outside perspective, the Wang Zaiwu of the past had been “playing” just to kill time — frittering away the hours.

Now, Liang Meng had a purpose. Everything Liang Meng did was in service of advancing the goal of “live streaming.”

Liang Meng’s goal had become Wang Zaiwu’s goal.

When she was happy, it was as though some vein inside him ran directly into hers — and he was happy too.

Wang Zaiwu felt: these were the best days of his life! He got to have fun, and there was something to strive toward!

Wang Zaiwu was flourishing. But someone else was not quite so pleased.

In the past, Wang Zaiwu had idled at home with nothing to do, and whenever he wanted something, he’d cling to his mother for money.

Now, Wang Zaiwu’s mother couldn’t so much as glimpse her son’s shadow, whether she was home or out getting her facial done.

Something had clearly gone sideways.

Wang Zaiwu’s mother had sent him several messages over the past few days — each exchange following the same loop with no resolution.

And all of this had started its chemical reaction from the day of the blind date with Liang Meng.

Wang Zaiwu’s mother was deeply displeased, and channeled all her sullen resentment toward the “future daughter-in-law” she had yet to accept.

They say a mother-in-law looks at her son-in-law and likes him more with every glance — but a mother-in-law looking at a daughter-in-law? One look through the crowd, and the most unbearable person in the room is always the one.

One day, Wang Zaiwu’s mother was playing mahjong with a circle of wealthy socialites when she couldn’t hold it in any longer and started venting.

“They say a son forgets his mother the moment he takes a wife. But this one isn’t even through the door yet, and our Wang Zaiwu is already wrapped around her little finger. Every day he’s out with her from morning to night, and heaven only knows what they’re getting up to!”

“Ah! Young people — still in the fresh and exciting phase! Perfectly normal! Draw!”

“Our Zaiwu never stuck with a girlfriend before. He’s never paid this much attention to anyone. These days he’s out the door by seven or eight in the morning! He gets up at six just to do his hair! And back in the day, six in the morning was when he was only just getting home to sleep! Ridiculous!”

“Now that is unusual. Oh??”

“Maybe this time your Zaiwu has met his ‘true love’? They say only ‘true love’ can transform a person.”

“Don’t say that! What true love? The only thing going on is that Liang girl has clearly bewitched him!” Wang Zaiwu’s mother’s mahjong partner, a woman with impeccably high social intelligence, quickly jumped in: “Zaiwu is so devoted — everyone here has seen it for themselves, haven’t they? He used to bring everyone afternoon tea when we had our mahjong sessions! Who here hasn’t had a taste of that?”

“And no one here is saying Zaiwu doesn’t know how to behave! We’re saying it’s that Liang girl who’s upset our Wang Tai Tai! No sense of decorum!”

“Exactly! The way to fix this — just call off the whole engagement.”

There was some prodding.

Wang Zaiwu’s mother was not, at her core, a woman of decisive opinions. She was easily swayed by the crowd. But even so, she couldn’t quite bear having her own cover ripped off by her own friend like this, and so she forced herself to defend: “As long as the other party doesn’t feel it’s insincere, what’s the problem?”

“Oh! This round I can’t win.” Wang Zaiwu’s mother glanced at her tiles. “My husband specifically named that Liang Meng as his ideal daughter-in-law! And Zaiwu’s been gobbled up! It’s like the district magistrate paired with royal authority — that little snippet of a girl must be absolutely thrilled with herself!”

Seeing her frown, someone offered: “Wang Tai Tai, don’t get yourself wound up. We’re all here — let’s put our heads together and think of something.”

“What I’d say is, lock the door and keep Zaiwu home for a few days — don’t let him out!”

“That idea is as bad as it sounds!” An objection came right away. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Romeo and Juliet effect? Young people always push back — the more you try to separate them, the tighter they cling together!”

“Exactly! These days they’re all on WeChat anyway! What’s locking Zaiwu up going to accomplish? And illegal detention is a criminal offense, you know!”

“So what do you all suggest then? I’m running out of ideas. Can’t get on my husband’s bad side, can’t lock Zaiwu up.”

“Oh — I might have an idea!” The woman sitting across from Wang Zaiwu’s mother leaned in, lowering her voice with the air of someone who had it all figured out. “Do you all remember that gathering we used to organize — ‘Dreamstream Salon’?”

“Of course! We used to run it all the time! All the women in our social circle would come play!”

“We’re talking about Zaiwu’s situation, why bring that up?”

The woman across the table said nothing more, smiled, drew her tile, and declared — all her tiles in a matching sequence.

This “Dreamstream Salon” was, in essence, a “ladies’ circle” where the inner social set exchanged connections and resources.

Whenever there was something that couldn’t easily be put on the table directly, the wealthy families would send their wives and daughters to do the work of threading the needle — under the banner of a salon gathering for ladies.

Because the “salon” carried such influence, it eventually drew in not just the wives of wealthy men, but also female entrepreneurs who sought to join for the sake of their own business dealings.

Membership snowballed, and to maintain the standard of quality, the hosting criteria and requirements for attendees were set extremely high.

At the height of “Dreamstream Salon,” the minimum personal net worth for any woman attending was no less than one billion.

What was a Hermès bag worth in comparison to that?

Television drama writers were all poor people, and even in their biggest dreams they didn’t dare dream this large.

Writing a woman who flaunted Hermès in a photo while cropping out her Chanel — that was practically insulting this particular group of wealthy women.

“Oh!!! Oh, oh, oh.”

Someone caught on.

“I remember that Liang Meng’s older sister, President Liang of Longquan, used to be one of our ‘Dreamstream Salon’ members. Wang Tai Tai, why don’t you organize a salon gathering, invite President Liang along, and we can all band together to make things thoroughly unpleasant for her — so she decides to give up on becoming your in-law on her own?”

“That’s a good plan. And speaking of the Liang sisters — I haven’t met the younger one. But that President Liang — she was the first one I ever took a disliking to. Warm when she needs you, all smiles; the moment she doesn’t need you anymore, she walks around with the face of a woman whose husband’s been stolen.”

“Since you mention President Liang, I have some memory of her too. Small and slight, doesn’t say much — but once she starts talking business, she is absolutely formidable. At a salon a few years back, she sidled up to me saying she wanted to learn about beauty and skincare. Then she went back to Longquan and opened an entire cosmetics line — copying straight from all the major Western brands!”

The group rallied around Wang Zaiwu’s mother, urging her to go after President Liang.

Wang Zaiwu’s mother was, at heart, someone who couldn’t make up her own mind, and under enough prodding, she finally slapped her hand on the table with resolve: “Fine! Let’s do it! No more cards tonight — I’m going home right now to have the invitations printed.”

She’d barely gotten her phone into her crocodile-skin Hermès bag before her resolve had already begun to waver, still seated.

“But you tell me—” she sincerely turned to the group. “What should this salon be about? And where should we hold it?”

“Well, since the whole point is to put President Liang in her place, we ought to make it really sting!”

“How do we get under her skin?”

“Think of something we have that she doesn’t!”

“Like what?!” Wang Zaiwu’s mother was drawing a complete blank.

“Oh! Jewelry appreciation!”

That was the answer.

The combined personal wealth sitting around that mahjong table rivaled the GDP of an entire county in the western provinces.

Wang Zaiwu’s mother caught the meaning at once. She didn’t even bother collecting her winnings from the table — she was out the door like a woman on a mission.