Myanmar, which borders China, is divided and unstable, with all kinds of criminal organizations spread across the country.

Its scam industry is divided among four major conglomerates: Hengxin, Changguo, Zhenyou, and Kaiwafan. On the surface, they control industries like real estate, tourism, and mining. In reality, they run all kinds of underground businesses, including telecom fraud, human trafficking, drugs, and gambling.

Not only that, the four conglomerates collude with one another. Militarily, they raise private armies and hire mercenaries to carve up territory and rule as factions of their own. Politically, they seize power and overthrow those in charge. The Myanmar government, meanwhile, runs on money and politics, with corrupt officials. As a result, the four conglomerates control half the country’s economy and military. Many locals follow their rules and ignore the government.

The government’s weakness wasn’t the only reason things had come to this. Organization K had been pulling strings behind the scenes, too. A divided group is easier to control—and easier to profit from on both sides.

This time, Organization K had accidentally stirred up a hornet’s nest in China. Under pressure from China’s top leadership, the Myanmar government finally showed some backbone and sent in the army to demolish three compounds one after another. Then the government troops turned into bandits, taking advantage of the chaos to burn, kill, and loot inside the compounds.

And then that was it.

Once Organization K was gone, the four conglomerates caught on and saw where things were headed. They moved at lightning speed to respond.

The response was simple: pay up and hand people over. Paying up meant handing some of their businesses to the government and bribing senior officials in each jurisdiction to ease the military pressure. Handing people over meant putting forward the power brokers from each conglomerate—the criminal suspects wanted by China—so the Myanmar authorities could answer to the Chinese police.

The four conglomerates took a serious hit, but not enough to bring them down. For one thing, they’d spent decades building their power, weaving a web of connections and interests that reached everywhere. For another, Organization K hadn’t said it was giving up this territory. Even if the Myanmar government wanted to swoop in and take it over, it would first need Organization K’s approval. So while the Myanmar military and the four conglomerates’ warlords fought fiercely on the surface, the actual damage was limited. After three compounds were destroyed, representatives from both sides sat down at the negotiating table—and dozens of other scam compounds were left untouched.

As for the power brokers handed over by the criminal groups, they were nothing more than scapegoats. The four conglomerates could put forward dozens, even hundreds, of people like that, and make up any number of stories to prove who they were.

The Chinese police didn’t believe them? So what? It wasn’t as if they were going to come over and attack in person, right?

“There are two reasons for threatening Zhou You. First, he’s Zhenyou Group’s largest shareholder. Zhenyou isn’t as close to Organization K as the other conglomerates—in fact, they’ve clashed several times. Second, Zhenyou Group mainly deals in addictive substances. The turnaround is short and the money comes in fast, so they can provide us with some financial support in the short term.”

“So we’re just shaking them down for some quick cash. You make it sound so respectable.” Gussy said, “What about the major shareholders of the other three conglomerates?”

Xu Fang opened a spreadsheet. “Here’s a list of the major shareholders you mentioned. There are sixteen in all. Go take them out—and complete the system’s mission while you’re at it.”

Only a small number of the four conglomerates’ shareholders had fled abroad. Most had stayed put, confident their businesses wouldn’t collapse.

“Oh~~ Will Organization K and the author stop me?” After spotting Yin Ya’s name on the list, Gussy decided he’d be the first to die. Gussy had a long memory.

“Organization K won’t get here in time. I’ll give you the coordinates when you arrive. Nothing can threaten you.”

“Great!” Gussy rose with a confident smile, his trench coat flaring as he struck a pose. “I shall bring death and terror to the forces of evil! The Flame Sovereign makes his grand entrance!”

……

At the Ba Pu Estate, twenty li from the YG compound, luxury cars filled the grounds. The place should have been deserted, yet guards stood every fifty paces, keeping watch over the heavily fortified estate.

After the government troops withdrew, Yin Ya summoned the Hengxin Group management to the estate.

Yin Ya was the man in charge of Hengxin Group, and half the compound’s telecom-fraud business was in his hands. He also controlled more military resources than anyone else. His age and background were shrouded in mystery. As far back as the armed conflicts of the last century, Yin Ya had already been controlling key military and political positions. Some said he was seventy. Others said he was a hundred. No one could say how long he’d been alive, and no one dared to find out.

Beyond his gray-market businesses, Yin Ya was also a titan of legitimate commerce. Real estate, logistics, infrastructure—his fingerprints were all over it. To those who knew little about him, he seemed like an all-powerful god. But those who knew a little more thought: A god? Yin Ya was far more terrifying than that.

With his hands tied behind his back, the warlord was shoved in front of Yin Ya.

Yin Ya looked younger than many people imagined, somewhere in his forties or fifties. He looked like an ordinary middle-aged man you could pass on the street. Without the armed guards around him, many people wouldn’t have recognized him.

Yet one look from this ordinary-looking man was enough to make the warlord wet his pants.

Those eyes were far too calm. They held no emotion, and his expression was utterly indifferent, as if he were looking at a dead man.

Being watched by an evil spirit was terrifying. Being watched by Yin Ya left the warlord with nothing but despair.

They said the last person who tried to betray him still hadn’t been found in one piece.

“Boss…” The warlord could only look at him pleadingly.

He regretted it. If only he’d kept serving the boss that day.

Yin Ya’s deep voice rang out. “What can you still do?”

“I’m sorry. I deserve a thousand deaths. I hope you’ll let me resign from military affairs and offer you all my property.”

After saying this, the warlord lowered his head, not daring to look at Yin Ya’s expression. Each passing second of silence afterward was agony.

“Get out. You don’t need to see me again.”

The warlord came to his senses and lowered his head. “Thank you… Thank you for forgiving me. I’ll work like an ox or a horse to repay you.”

The guards pushed the warlord out of Yin Ya’s room.

The warlord’s heart pounded wildly. He gasped for breath, nearly in tears. He blinked hard to clear them and saw the dark end of the corridor ahead.

Confused, he was just about to speak when a rope suddenly looped around his neck and jerked tight, biting into his flesh.

His first instinct was to shout, but all that came from his throat was a short, strangled squeak, like a chicken being choked. His mouth hung open as his jaw jerked upward against his will. His neck stretched taut, and a rasping wheeze came from his throat, but he couldn’t draw in a single breath.

Yin Ya still hadn’t let me go.

The thought flashed through the warlord’s mind. As suffocating despair and pain engulfed him, his vision slowly went black.

……

Yin Ya met with all the key members one by one, then invited them to gather together.

On the villa’s second-floor open-air terrace, a deep-red carpet ran straight across the floor. A long black-walnut table stood in the center, laid with luxurious fare: black-gold abalone, caviar, wagyu, and fine liquor that would cost an ordinary person several months’ wages. There were also cigarettes, betel nuts, syringes, and some strange drugs.

Servers brought out the dishes and arranged them on the table. Armed enforcers stood nearby.

The Hengxin executives had endured a nerve-racking wait. At Yin Ya’s signal, they came to the table, but no one dared sit down. They glanced around and noticed a few people were missing. Everyone understood without a word and asked no questions.

The meal was tense from start to finish. The managers reported on their work one by one, covering business operations, the postwar cleanup, and more.

Before long, several people were kneeling on the floor. Yin Ya wasn’t satisfied with their reports, and the terrified presenters didn’t dare remain standing. They could only kneel and await their punishment.

Hengxin Group fostered a culture of servility. Subordinates had to obey every order from their superiors. Getting beaten or tortured for a mistake was commonplace, so kneeling and kowtowing was nothing.

After living in a company like this for so long, everyone from top to bottom had been molded by it. Even humiliation and kneeling before a superior seemed perfectly normal to them.

“Boss, we captured 127 employees who tried to escape. They’re all Chinese, and 35 of them are women,” said the mercenary commander.

This was a newly appointed commander. The previous commander, who had fled after being defeated by the evil spirit, had disappeared.

“Why so few?”

Yin Ya’s question made the commander tense. “Most died at the hands of the People’s Alliance troops or while trying to escape. Some others died after we captured them…”

“No one chose to stay?”

These were the lowest-ranking workers, lured into the compound and treated like livestock every day. How could anyone willingly stay?

“Ten people did,” the HR manager replied.

“Promote the ones who chose to stay. As for those who tried to escape… bring them into the courtyard. Separate out the women.”

Watching the boss count them on the spot, the commander felt relieved. Good thing he hadn’t dared to falsify the numbers.

A few minutes later, more than a hundred men and women, disheveled and listless, were driven out of a van. Enforcers whipped and cursed at them as they were made to squat in the courtyard.

Once all the employees were squatting, the enforcers counted them, then pulled the women aside, stripped them naked, and locked them in cages.

The women’s terrified screams rose over the enforcers’ shouts and curses.

Yin Ya looked down at the employees from above. “Our employees have no sense of belonging. The moment something goes wrong, they think about running. Chen Ze, tell me what the rules of the compound say.”

Chen Ze was the HR manager. He rubbed his hands together nervously. “If you slack off or refuse to work, your ransom is tripled. If you evade work or escape the compound, you’re demoted to a piglet and locked in the water dungeon for three days. In serious cases, you’re executed on the spot. Boss, we’ll reinforce the rules and increase the punishments to make sure this never happens again.”

“When one prospers, all prosper; when one suffers, all suffer. The company is everything. I want you to drill that into every employee. Do you hear me?”

“Yes!”

“That’s right!”

The people below chimed in, agreeing one after another.