Zhengqiang watched from the driver's seat as Xu Tao emerged from the tenement building, his silhouette stiff against the peeling gray paint of the alley. The expensive silk bag containing the souvenirs was gone—likely left on a doorstep or shoved into a trash bin—and the expression on Tao's face made Zhengqiang's grip tighten on the steering wheel.
It wasn't the cold, calculated mask of the Xu Group's heir. It was the look of a man who had just watched his empire burn and was looking for someone to blame for the heat.
"Drive," Tao commanded, his voice a low, vibrating serration.
"Sir? To the hotel?"
"No. Call the property management for the district block. The one where she lives." Tao stared out the window, his eyes bloodshot and fixed on nothing. "I want the rent tripled. Effective immediately. Find a 'structural maintenance' clause or a tax adjustment. I don't care about the legality—Yuren will bury the paperwork later. Just do it."
Zhengqiang felt a cold stone sink in his stomach. "Sir, a triple increase... a single mother on a floor-staff salary won't be able to—"
"Then she can work," Tao snapped, turning a gaze on Zhengqiang that was bordering on unhinged. "Give the hotel manager a directive. Cut her base salary and move her to a commission-heavy structure with double shifts. If she wants to stay in that sanctuary she's built for her dead husband, let her earn it."
*******************
The following week was a slow-motion car crash that Zhengqiang was forced to document.
Following Tao's orders, he trailed Yinlin from a discreet distance. He saw the moment she received the rent notice; her shoulders didn't slump, but she leaned against the brick wall of her apartment for a long, shuddering minute before straightening her spine.
Then came the grind. Because of the "restructuring" Zhengqiang had been forced to coordinate, Yinlin was now working fourteen-hour days. He watched her through the glass of the hotel cafe, her movements becoming leaden, her skin turning a translucent, sickly pale under the harsh fluorescent lights.
She had no choice but to pay Ah Jia, the teenager from the fourth floor, extra hours to stay with Mei. Zhengqiang watched from the shadows as Yinlin handed over crumpled bills—money that should have gone to food or heat—just so her daughter wouldn't be alone.
By the time Yinlin reached her doorstep past midnight, she looked like a ghost. But the moment the door cracked open and Mei's small voice called out, the exhaustion vanished. For a fleeting second, Yinlin's face transformed into something radiant and protective. She would scoop the girl up, hiding her trembling hands behind Mei's back.
Zhengqiang snapped some photos with the camera, taking a shuddering breath at the pitiful scene.
*****************
The car was a silent pressure cooker as they sped away from the residential complex. Tao was slumped in the back, the shadow of his hand across his face, but his eyes were wide, glowing with a manic, obsessive light.
"The rent isn't enough," Tao said, his voice a jagged whisper. "She still has the neighborhood. She has that neighbor, the girl, the market across the street—she has a support system. That's why she's still standing."
Zhengqiang watched him through the mirror, his heart hammering. "Sir, we've already tripled the overhead for her unit. She's working twenty hours a day. She's reaching her limit."
"No, she isn't. I can see it in her eyes. She thinks she's safe as long as she has that small, pathetic world." Tao sat forward, his fingers digging into the fine leather of the seat. "Buy it. All of it. The tenement building, the grocery store on the corner, the laundry downstairs. I want the whole block under the Xu Group's umbrella by Friday. Evict the neighbors. Terminate the leases. I want her to walk out of her door and see nothing but my name on every brick."
Zhengqiang's foot almost slipped on the brake. "Sir, that's... that's an entire residential block in a protected district. Buying that out would cost hundreds of millions in liquid capital. There's no ROI. It's a sinkhole."
"I don't care about the return!" Tao roared, slamming his fist against the door. "I want her isolated. I want her to look at the sky and see me. Do it."
"Sir, I must advise strongly against this," Zhengqiang said, his voice trembling but firm. "The Chairman—your grandfather—monitors every major acquisition over fifty million. If he sees you moving funds to purchase a crumbling residential alley in Shanghai with no development plan, he will intervene. He will ask why his grandson is playing Monopoly with a single mother's life. He will pull the audit, sir. And if he finds out..."
Tao went deathly still. The mention of the Chairman was the only thing that could pierce through the fog of his obsession. The old man didn't care about cruelty, but he despised waste.
"You're not wrong. The old man likes results," Tao hissed, though the manic energy wavered.
"He likes profit, sir. This is a personal fallout," Zhengqiang pressed, sensing the narrow window of opportunity. "If the Board sees this, they won't see a shark. They'll see a liability. Please. Let's keep this within the hotel structure. It's cleaner."
Tao leaned back, his chest heaving. He didn't concede, but he didn't repeat the order. He just stared out at the passing streetlights, looking like a man who was ready to burn his own house down just to see the smoke.
Zhengqiang gripped the wheel, his knuckles white. The line had been reached. He knew then that he couldn't wait for things to get worse. Tao was already there, and perhaps he needed to inform Yuren of the contingency plan.
Tao was his employer, and no doubt his loyalty was to him.
But there was no point in supporting a man who stood on the ruins of his own madness. That was precisely he had to think further than his loyalty for him.