Summer 2019 arrived early, bringing stifling humidity that clung to everything like wet cloth. Inside Fortress Zero the air conditioning hummed steadily, keeping the underground levels at a crisp 22°C while outside temperatures pushed toward 38°C. Li Wei stood in the command center watching multiple drone feeds: perimeter sweeps, thermal scans of nearby roads, and one long-range feed pointed toward central Beijing.
The team had grown to nine core members now. Two more had passed the brutal loyalty filters — a former signals intelligence officer named Liang Min and a mechanic specialized in heavy vehicles, Guo Feng. Training had shifted from individual drills to coordinated squad tactics. Chen Hao led morning PT, Tang Ning ran marksmanship, Dr. Xu taught trauma care, and Li Wei personally oversaw strategy sessions every evening.
That afternoon a new system notification appeared while he reviewed inventory logs.
[Ding! Daily spending streak: 120 days maintained!]
[Reward unlocked: Passive "Wealth Aura" — all future large expenditures (≥10 million RMB) receive an additional random multiplier between 1.1× and 1.5× on top of current base rate. Duration: permanent.]
Li Wei's eyes narrowed. Random extra multiplier on big spends. That could turn a 100 million purchase into 150 million cashback… or more.
He immediately tested it.
Called the offshore supplier for a bulk order: fifty high-capacity lithium battery packs suitable for solar farms, plus industrial-grade inverters. Total: 120 million RMB.
Payment processed.
[Ding! Large expenditure detected: 120,000,000 RMB]
[Base cashback (105×): +12,600,000,000 RMB]
[Wealth Aura bonus triggered: 1.38× multiplier applied!]
[Additional +4,536,000,000 RMB]
[Total received: 17,136,000,000 RMB]
Li Wei exhaled slowly. The system was evolving faster than even he had anticipated.
Meanwhile the PI reports had taken on a darker tone.
Li Jian Guo's arm had healed crooked — no money for proper surgery. He now limped visibly in street photos taken by the investigator. Zhang Mei had started working part-time as a cleaner in a nearby mall, earning less than 3,000 RMB a month. Li Na had found a low-paying job as a waitress but was fired after two weeks for "attitude problems." The tiny rental room they shared was photographed through a cracked window: peeling wallpaper, single electric fan, three thin futons on the floor.
A voice message forwarded from a blocked relative reached Li Wei's burner phone:
"Gege… it's Na-Na. Mom is sick. Coughing blood. We can't afford the hospital. Please… just one call. Just tell us you're okay. We know we were wrong. We're sorry…"
Li Wei listened to the entire thirty-seven-second message without expression. Then deleted it.
Old Huang, sensing the shift in mood, pressed his head against Li Wei's leg and whined softly.
Li Wei knelt and scratched behind the dog's ears.
"Not yet," he murmured. "They haven't suffered enough."