Chapter One Hundred and Eight: Hitting the Wall

In the study.

“Chengze, are you familiar with the second-generation circle in this province?” Lu Kun licked his lips and, after a hesitation, spoke.

“Eh?” Sun Chengze paused, then said carefully, “I can only say I know them by name, but there’s never been any real relationship. On small matters, they might give me some face, but if it becomes…”

Lu Kun nodded.
He understood Sun Chengze’s meaning. As friends, if it was something that could be handled by him alone, he would step in and resolve it. But if it required calling on family influence, that was another matter.

The Hua-Kun Group looked as if it had momentum in full surge; everything seemed peaceful on the surface, yet danger simmered beneath.

Yesterday the head of the Information Department had called Lu Kun to report on the newly opened branches in Yuheng and Shalin.
Across the two cities, five branches had been smashed.

Even though those five stores were all small campus supermarkets with no proper security, the sight still made Lu Kun sharply alert.

The Hua-Kun outlets had not been free of disturbances before, but most of the troublemakers were ordinary thugs, desperate ruffians; frightened by the security strength behind Hua-Kun’s main supermarket operations, they did not dare to run wild.
This time, however, the disruption targeted Hua-Kun’s campus supermarkets.

Lu Kun was troubled.
These campus stores usually had only three or four staff on duty. If each had a dedicated guard, the profits of these tiny shops would be badly cut.

More importantly, this was likely not a random outburst for the sake of vandalism.
When he spoke with Sun Bowen earlier that day, that old fool still thought he could hide this from Lu Kun.
In truth, Lu Kun already knew everything.
Lu Kun guessed the fool had probably been frightened by his own previous aggressive move.
When Lu Kun had sent Stone in with his men and marched straight into Baolin County, forcing the entrenched bullies there to bow down, the fellow had been shaken to the core.
At the time, Lu Kun had no choice; to enter Baolin County’s retail market, the Hua-Kun Group had to speak through force.

But times are different now.
Even now, many media eyes are still fixed on the Hua-Kun Group, and even the slightest move is magnified.
That is why Lu Kun is cautious.

On this campus-store smashing, the Information Department, by tracing leads, had uncovered some clues.
At bottom, it was that second-generation interests had been hit in their profits.

In recent weeks, the Hua-Kun Group has been waging an all-out push, its advance so fierce that local small and medium retailers are close to being squeezed out.
What the other side has done now is probably just a warning—neither too light nor too severe.
If the Hua-Kun Group only wanted to get rich, then getting along with other small retailers in harmony, all making money through wind and storm together, would be the smart way. But Lu Kun wants more than riches: he wants to completely monopolize Angui Province’s retail market.
Angui Province is the Hua-Kun Group’s backyard; that goal cannot be shaken.
For the group to truly grow big and strong, there can be no other noise in Angui’s retail market.

Liu Dexin can still strut in Gui A County, and in Fengyang City he can still make a few moves, but in other prefecture-level cities and the provincial capital, he truly has no strength at all.
The trouble now facing the Hua-Kun Group cannot be solved through Liu Dexin. That is why Lu Kun considered taking a path through Sun Chengze.

“Zheng Wei—do you know him?” Lu Kun asked, his brows lifting.

“Him?”

Sun Chengze’s brows drew together; he bit his lower lip and then shook his head.
“Don’t know him?”

“I don’t know him, but I do know him. Yet by myself, I can’t settle things with him,” Sun Chengze said, shaking his head.

Silence settled.

Lu Kun lowered his head to think for a moment, then raised it with a bright expression: “If your family were to intervene, how confident are you that it would be handled?”

The fake antique walnut in his left hand was rattling now.

“Certain. One hundred percent.”
Lu Kun’s brows twitched in surprise. “So sure of it?”

“If my family insists on stepping in, the Zheng family would not pick a fight with our family over so trivial a matter. It would help neither family,” Sun Chengze said after a pause.
Lu Kun nodded; he understood.
Politics, in the end, is about mutual compromise. It is not merely a matter of who fears whom.
That is the strange way of the second-generation circle.
If you were not born among them and yet labor to force your way in, you will end up like drawing water with a broken bamboo basket—nothing to show for it.
People in that circle are extremely united. In private they may spar with each other, but when outsiders appear, they often bind together as one and face outward in unity.

“If I ask your people to step in, what price will I likely have to pay?” Lu Kun asked after a moment.

Sun Chengze did not answer immediately. He thought seriously for a while and finally, somewhat uncertainly, said, “At a minimum, two-tenths of the Hua-Kun shares.”

Lu Kun made a small sound.
Damn.

...
After seeing Sun Chengze out of the study, Lu Kun’s face had gone as dark as soot.

“Cousin, are you coming? I have to go,” Sun Chengze called to Liu Shixun, then bade farewell to everyone in the hall: “Kun, sister-in-law, Big Daughter, Little Daughter, we’re leaving for now. See you another day.”
Lu Kun, in a very bad mood, managed a nod.

Liu Shixun found it odd. He glanced at Lu Kun, then at his own cousin, and all sorts of wild thoughts sprang up in him.
“Kun’s face is so bad. Did he try to get the better of my cousin and fail, then get slapped around?” Liu Shixun scratched his head and followed Sun Chengze downstairs.

...
“Are you all right? Not feeling well?” Liu Liping came before Lu Kun with a trace of concern.
“It’s nothing. I’m just a bit tired. I’ll be fine after a rest. Don’t overthink it. I’ll go back to the study and clear my head,” Lu Kun gave his wife a forced smile, then walked back to the study.
Liu Liping sighed.

Watching Lu Kun’s figure disappear toward the study, Liu Liping’s face was full of a sorrow she could not smooth away.
She knew her husband better than anyone.
He had come up against something difficult.

Such is it, she thought. She was just an ordinary woman; she could keep the household well in order, but when it came to her husband’s career, she truly could not help.

“Eat quickly, then bathe at once. Once done, head back to bed,” Liu Liping pushed aside her worry and told their two children.

When Lu Kun returned to the study, he flung the open book Thick-Black Theory over his face and slumped listlessly in a chair.
For a long time.
Then he got up, opened the window, and shouted out into the night:

“Don’t you dare, you bastard!!”