Midnight. A bright moon, stars like pins.
Su Tianyu stopped at his brother's door and knocked. "You still up, bro?"
"Coming." The door swung open. Su Tiannan, still in a suit, lifted a brow. "Not asleep?"
"Couldn't. Wanted to talk," Tianyu said with a small smile.
"Heh. Come in." Tiannan stepped aside.
The room looked the same as years ago—clean, spare, nothing extra. Light low, a stick of sandalwood smoking on the desk. Tiannan shut the door, poured tea, and set a cup in front of Tianyu. "Little brother, your timing isn't great. The family's a mess. I can't keep you company for a bit—have Miaomiao take you around tomorrow."
Tianyu sat on the sofa. "I'm not here for small talk."
Tiannan took the opposite seat. "Go on."
"I listened earlier," Tianyu said after a beat. "I've got a couple thoughts."
A flicker of surprise crossed Tiannan's face. "Let's hear them."
"In my view, the turning point in Second Uncle's case isn't in court," Tianyu said bluntly. "We can pour money into 'connections' and still get nowhere. Dragon City's corruption runs deep. If Changqing lined up both the district police and the city bureau, they wouldn't leave us space to flip a verdict. Be crude about it—if it's a spending war, can we outspend them? Unless we find a power that checks their power—someone whose one sentence makes the police listen—any operation is just lighting money on fire."
Tiannan leaned back, cheek in hand, leg crossed. He nodded slowly. "Keep going."
"Two points," Tianyu said. "First, internal unity is everything. Eight voices don't carry; eight hundred do. Second, you said the other three families in Zhanan got hit too. Then unite them. We don't have the cash or patrons to stand behind us, so we need to make the people upstairs see us."
Maybe it was their father's influence, but Tianyu had a knack for boiling chaos down to clean levers. He liked turning messes into two or three decisive moves.
"In the days since your uncle went in, our people have scattered," Tiannan admitted, frowning. "They don't think we can ride this out, so they're hiding. A couple of managers even want us to subcontract the district to them while we're weak. Rallying them won't be easy."
"I don't think it's hard," Tianyu said, smiling a little. He knew his brother too well. "It'll mean tearing a few faces… and you hate doing that."
Tiannan blinked.
"Management is the bridge to the workers," Tianyu went on. "A company binds them with interest. Using people is normal. If you don't want to play the bad cop, I will."
Tiannan fell quiet.
"Call the managers," Tianyu said. "If we settle the internal problem, then we will sit the other three houses. Uncle's case could be defined any day. If they stamp it as smuggling restricted goods, it'll be too late to move."
After a pause, Tiannan stood. "Alright. I'll call the foremen tomorrow."
"It's not that late," Tianyu pressed. "Why not tonight? The sooner, the better."
"…Fine. Let's head to the yard now," Tiannan was convinced.
Changqing Company HQ, Zhanan District
A heavyset man in a black suit lounged on a leather sofa, ankle on knee, cigarette between his fingers. "What did Su Tiannan say?"
"He asked for five more days," Lu Feng replied from the opposite sofa, idly rubbing his buzz cut. "Kid won't give up. Probably thinks he can work for the police and pull his old man out."
The heavyset man was Li Hongze, top dog of Changqing Group's Dragon City branch.
"Then why give him five days?" Li asked.
"There were a hundred people about to brawl," Lu Feng said simply. "If I don't agree, it blows up. Too much attention does us no good. And that old cop, Wang, is mediating—no need to cross him on something we already have in hand. He's not our ally, but he's not someone we need to offend."
Li laughed. "Zhanan's number-one blade is learning to use his head. Good. The company's in better hands by the day."
"Boss, once we fold Su, Bai, Liu, and Kong," Lu Feng grinned, "I want half the districts."
Li flicked him a cigarette. "Five years from now, I'll make you Dragon City's first blade."
"Done."
An hour and a half later, on the second floor of the Su depot office, a dozen managers gathered—street and block leads. Some drew profit shares; some held a few points of equity. The backbone.
The room was a fog of smoke and low whispers. Tiannan sat stone-faced on a wooden chair.
"Xiao Nan, we've been with the Su family a long time," said a fortysomething man, blunt and direct. "No outsiders here—let's be plain. If the Su family goes under, how are you arranging for us? Pensions, benefits, year-end bonuses—are they getting paid?"
"Yeah," another cut in, sharper. "If you hand the district to Changqing, what happens to our worker registries? Our files? Who handles them?"
Before Tiannan could even ask for support, they moved first—pressing hard. In a crisis, talk of sentiment isn't worth a nail.
"It's like this," Tiannan said at last. "My little brother just graduated and came home. The family handed him company affairs." He gestured to Tianyu. "I'll sit here and listen. You talk to him."
Heads turned to the bookish young man—too polished for garbage work. Dissatisfaction flickered across a few faces.
"A kid like him? Never ran sanitation. What are we supposed to talk to him about?"
"Does he even know the business?"
…
"I said I'll be right here," Tiannan repeated. "I won't leave."
Grudging silence.
Tianyu adjusted his glasses. "Then I'll keep it short."
The managers stared—some whispering, some dragging on cigarettes.
Tianyu drew out the notes he'd organized in the car. His face was impassive. "My brother went to the city and sounded out the police. It didn't go well. To put it simply, there's almost no room to 'operate' Uncle's case. If we want to save him, we have to pay—and hand over our district. The family talked it through. We can't change toe-to-toe Changqing. So the plan is: surrender the district to save the man."
No surprise. No one spoke.
"Before that," Tianyu continued, frowning, "we'd prepared termination agreements. Your files and sanitation registries will be returned to you individually. This month's wages will be settled. There will be no year-end bonus. Managers' profit shares were canceled. It's only midyear—the Bureau won't settle bonuses anyway. Once you have your paperwork, you'll need to find your own way."
The room detonated.
"What do you mean, terminate us and cut the bonus? On what grounds?"
"So you fire us and hand back our files—doesn't that make us as good as rejected? What about pensions and benefits?"
"Su Tiannan, what the hell is this? We've worked half a year—how can the bonus just vanish? Your family made this mess—why should we pay for it?!"
Shouts piled over shouts.
Tiannan watched with a frown and said nothing. Tianyu's eyes stayed cool, almost emotionless.
"When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter," Tianyu said lightly. "If we can't protect ourselves, we can't protect you."
"Bullshit!" the lead manager snapped, practically nose to nose with Tianyu. "Maybe there's no 'feelings,' but there are ties. If Su Lao'er weren't inside, he'd never handle it like that!"
"Brother, you started with interest, now you're pulling feelings," Tianyu said with a slight smile. "You're making it hard for us to be consistent."
"You know nothing!" The man stood and jabbed at Tiannan. "If this is how you're going to play it, then we should stop making sense. Tomorrow we will bring our crew to your house and eat on your tab."
Tiannan sighed, head down, still silent.
Tianyu pushed up his glasses and rose. "Is that a threat?"
"Get lost," the man sneered. "This has nothing to do with you."
Calmly, Tianyu pulled a thin stack of employee records from his bag. His tone stayed flat. "Worker registries and files sit with the company. Hiring and separation go through us to the Bureau. If I say you're formal—you are. If I say you're temporary—you are. Isn't that how it works?"
Silence fell like a slap.
"You see? You try to push without shame; capital can be even more shameless." He set the papers down. "Big Brother—are we talking interest, or feelings?"
No one answered.
Tianyu looked around the room. "You think the Su family's fall won't touch you. That the Sanitation Administration can't run without workers. But is that true? If we hand over the district, do you think you still eat from sanitation? Dream on. Why is Changqing stomping us? Our whole family—what, thirty-some actually doing sanitation? What do they gain by targeting us? Wake up. They're here for the eight hundred registered slots under our name. Take the district, feed their own. It's a monopoly play. Understand, folks?"
The lead manager's face changed as the thought landed. He sat back down, expression dark.
"No unity is a death sentence," Tianyu said, tapping the termination stack. "So—sign these, or stand with us. Your choice. Oh, and if we liquidate, the dorm building the company allocated to you goes back on the table too."
"What if we still lose to Changqing?" an older man in his fifties asked, voice gravelly.
Tiannan finally stood. "I, Su Tiannan, won't shoot a single one of you. We can sign it now: if the Su family collapses and surrenders the district, all current equipment and assets are transferred to management, to distribute toward wages for the workers."
These managers were ordinary folk—most had dragged friends, fellow villagers, and relatives in with them. A year's grind barely kept rice in the pot. Their demand was simple: to live. When that's secure, people are docile and give the world their sweat. Touch it—and trouble follows. That's why so many tycoons shout "for the people" in public and "harvest" in private, then finish with, family, we're always together.
History's long. It's always been like this.
Tianyu had never meant to fight them; he just needed their weight behind him.
When the talks finally broke down, Tiannan sat alone in the empty room and sighed. "All old faces. Ugly way to end it."
He understood the calculus. He just hated being the one to make it.
Tianyu sipped his tea. "We've shored up the inside. Now we talk to the other three."
Downtown
Su Tianbei sat in his car with a phone to his ear. "Can you get me two pieces?"
"Are you out of your mind? Your dad's inside already, and you still want to pull this? You trying to get the whole family killed?"