Take Advantage of a Weakness

After news of the Dragon King Palace's annihilation overseas spread, undercurrents surged through the Jinling business world.

No one knew the specific details, but those with a keen sense of smell had already noticed the shift in the wind.

The atmosphere surrounding the Lin family began to turn subtle.

Some began to distance themselves.

Some watched from the sidelines.

Some probed for information.

But Lin Ruobing knew nothing of this.

She only knew that her company had finally come back to life.

With a single phone call, Shen Fei had taken out Yuanhang Logistics. The clients returned, the capital chain was restored, and the stock price bounced back.

Lin's Logistics didn't just survive; it was doing better than ever.

Because the framework for cooperation with the Shen Group had already been established.

The Shen Group's logistics division in East China had a massive demand for transport capacity, which used to be scattered among seven or eight small logistics companies.

Now, it was entirely consolidated under Lin's Logistics.

An exclusive monopoly.

What did this mean?

It meant that the business volume of Lin's Logistics would at least triple within the next six months.

Leaping straight from the top three in East China to number one was no longer just a dream.

Lin Ruobing knew very well in her heart that all of this was because of Shen Fei.

This afternoon, Shen Fei invited her to visit the Shen Group's smart logistics base.

"For a deep cooperation, we must first understand each other's trump cards."

That was what Shen Fei had said over the phone.

Lin Ruobing changed into a sharp pair of black suit pants paired with a white shirt, tied her hair into a high ponytail, and stepped out the door in eight-centimeter high heels.

Passing through the living room, she saw Lin Tian squatting on the balcony, watering the flowers.

He was wearing that eternal, worn-out gray sweater, a pair of slippers on his feet, holding a watering can, earnestly watering every single pot of flowers.

The sunlight shone on him, making him look utterly pathetic and like an eyesore.

Lin Ruobing did not stop walking.

She didn't even spare him a glance.

The crisp sound of her high heels echoed through the living room, crossed the threshold, and disappeared outside.

Lin Tian squatted on the balcony, listening to those footsteps gradually fade away.

His hand was still watering the flowers.

His movements were slow and steady.

But he had already squeezed a deep fingerprint into the handle of the watering can.

...

On the outskirts of Jinling, the Shen Group's Smart Logistics Base.

This was a fully automated logistics hub that the Shen Group had invested 1.5 billion to build last year.

It covered an area equivalent to twenty football fields.

The moment Lin Ruobing followed Shen Fei through the base's main gates, her footsteps halted.

The scene before her completely exceeded her comprehension.

There wasn't a single worker in the massive warehouse.

It was entirely filled with machines.

Hundreds of unmanned automated guided vehicles silently shuttled across the floor, operating precisely along magnetic tracks.

The shelves were fifteen meters high, with fully automated stacker cranes rapidly ascending and descending between them. The speed of storing and retrieving goods was twenty times faster than manual labor.

The sorting area was even more exaggerated.

Over a thousand parcels passed by on a conveyor belt every minute. Each parcel was automatically identified, weighed, and categorized by a visual system, then precisely tossed into the corresponding sorting chute by a robotic arm.

The error rate was one in a million.

The control center for the entire base had only three people.

Three people operating hundreds of machines, handling a workload that previously required two thousand people to complete.

Lin Ruobing had worked in the logistics industry for six years.

She believed she understood this industry well enough.

But standing in this base right now, she suddenly felt like someone still using an abacus seeing a computer for the first time.

A gap.

Not a gap of one or two years.

A gap of an entire era.

The flight routes and client resources that Lin's Logistics was so proud of were like cold weapons going up against missiles when faced with this level of infrastructure.

They were simply not in the same dimension.

"This system was jointly developed by the Shen Group and a company in Silicon Valley."

Shen Fei walked beside her, his tone as casual as if he were introducing his own living room.

"Currently, this is the only one in the entire East China region, and there are no more than five globally."

"The operating cost is a quarter of traditional logistics, and the efficiency is eight times that of traditional logistics."

"In the next three years, the Shen Group plans to deploy twelve bases of the same specifications nationwide."

Every piece of data struck Lin Ruobing's heart like a heavy hammer.

A quarter of the cost.

Eight times the efficiency.

Twelve bases.

This meant that once they were all completed, the Shen Group would possess a near-monopoly level of competitive advantage in the logistics sector.

And Lin's Logistics, by cooperating with the Shen Group, would be hitching a ride on this high-speed train.

What if they didn't cooperate?

Then they would be crushed.

There was no third option.

Lin Ruobing took a deep breath, trying hard to keep herself calm.

But her eyes had already betrayed her.

In those astute eyes, besides shock, there was something else.

A re-evaluation of Shen Fei.

She used to think Shen Fei was just rich.

You could grab a handful of rich people anywhere in Jinling.

But now she realized that Shen Fei wasn't just rich.

He had vision.

He had the big picture in mind.

He had the strategic thinking to completely subvert a traditional industry.

Such a person was exceptionally rare in the entire business world.

"President Shen."

Lin Ruobing stopped in her tracks and looked earnestly at Shen Fei.

"Why did you choose to cooperate with Lin's?"

"Lin's is completely not worth mentioning in front of you. You could entirely do this yourself; you don't need us."

She had been holding this question in for days.

She just couldn't figure it out.

Shen Fei glanced at her.

"Lin's route resources are ready-made, and the networking web is also ready-made. It would take me at least two years to build it from scratch myself, but cooperating with you only takes two months."

"Time is more expensive than money."

Simple and direct.

Pure commercial logic.

Not a single extra word.

But Lin Ruobing heard another layer of meaning.

He wasn't giving charity.

He was investing.

He saw the value in Lin's.

In other words, he saw her value.

Lin Ruobing had been in business for six years and had been fooled, used, and schemed against by countless people.

But the people who truly treated her as an equal business partner could be counted on one hand.

Shen Fei was one of them.

And he was the one carrying the most weight.

The two continued walking forward.

Shen Fei took her to tour the control center, the R&D laboratory, and the data processing center.

With every place they visited, Lin Ruobing's shock deepened another layer.

She wasn't shocked by the hardware.

She was shocked by Shen Fei's level of familiarity with these systems.

He wasn't the kind of hands-off boss who only knew how to throw money around.

He knew every technical detail like the back of his hand.

The scheduling algorithms for the AGVs, the training models for the sorting systems, the energy consumption optimization plans for warehouse temperature control.

He could explain them all clearly.

There were even a few times when the base's technical director misspoke a parameter while explaining on the side, and Shen Fei casually corrected him.

The technical director's face flushed bright red as he apologized profusely.

Watching this scene unfold, a complex emotion surged in Lin Ruobing's heart.

This man wasn't just rich.

He wasn't just powerful.

He didn't just have methods.

He also had a brain.

A brain that was even more terrifying than his wealth.

After the tour ended, the two walked out of the base.

The setting sun dyed the skyline a shade of tangerine.

Shen Fei's car was parked at the entrance.

The driver opened the rear door.

"President Lin, need a ride back?"

"Yes."

Lin Ruobing got into the car, and Shen Fei got in from the other side.

The two sat in the back seat, separated by the distance of one person.

The car drove steadily out of the base's main gate and merged onto the suburban highway.

Lin Ruobing leaned back in her seat, watching the shadows of the trees rapidly receding outside the window.

After a moment of silence.

President Shen, thank you.

For what?

For saving the Lin Group. And for letting me see all of this today.

She turned her head and looked straight at Shen Fei.

To be honest, I've been in the logistics industry for six years and always thought I was doing pretty well. But after seeing everything today, I realized how narrow my perspective has been.

If it weren't for you, I might have spent my entire life trapped in my little corner of East China, thinking that was the whole world.

Her tone was very calm.

But Shen Fei could hear the weight behind her words.

Lin Ruobing was not a woman who would easily show vulnerability to others.

For her to admit that her perspective was narrow meant she was genuinely moved.

Shen Fei didn't reply.

He simply looked at her and gave a slight nod.

The setting sun outside the window cast a golden outline on the side of his face.

Looking at his profile, Lin Ruobing's heartbeat involuntarily skipped a beat.

She immediately turned her head back to look out the window.

Forcing herself to stay calm.

The car remained quiet for a while.

Lin Ruobing's phone buzzed.

She looked down at it.

A WeChat message.

From Lin Tian.

Wife, what do you want to eat tonight? I'll cook.

Accompanied by a goofy smiling emoji.

Lin Ruobing stared at the message for three seconds.

The image of that man wearing an old gray sweater, crouching on the balcony watering flowers, surfaced in her mind.

Then she looked at the man beside her, wearing a crisp white shirt, controlling a three-hundred-billion empire.

The two images flashed alternately in her head.

One was watering flowers.

The other was changing an industry.

One didn't even have a decent piece of clothing.

The other could casually pull out 1.5 billion to build a logistics base.

The contrast was so cruel it was suffocating.

Lin Ruobing locked her screen.

She didn't reply.

She turned the phone over and placed it face down on her lap.

And continued looking out the window.

The sun was half-set.

The sky was growing dark.

Shen Fei sat right next to her.

Less than half a meter away.

She could smell the faint scent of cologne on him.

Crisp.

Clean.

Completely different from the smell of laundry detergent mixed with cheap soap on Lin Tian.

Lin Ruobing closed her eyes.

A rift in her heart was quietly widening.

She didn't want to admit it.

But the rift was indeed growing.

...

9:00 PM.

Shen Family Villa, Study.

Shen Fei sat in his chair, looking at the system panel.

[Lin Ruobing's affection for the host has increased!]

[Current affection of Lin Ruobing for the host: 48 to 61 (Appreciation + Trust + Sprouting Infatuation)]

[Lin Ruobing's affection for Lin Tian continues to decrease!]

[Current affection of Lin Ruobing for Lin Tian: 25 to 19 (Disappointment + Apathy + Ignorance)]

61 to 19.

The gap had widened to an irreversible degree.

But Shen Fei knew this wasn't enough.

An affection level of 61 meant the seed of infatuation had just sprouted.

For it to grow into a towering tree, it still needed time and nourishment.

However, time might be running out.

Because Lin Tian was already assembling his forces.

He would make his move within three days.

Shen Fei needed to tighten all the strings within these three days.

Lin Ruobing's string.

The military's string.

The Dragon King Palace's intelligence string.

None of them could afford a single mistake.

Shen Fei picked up his phone and glanced at the latest surveillance report sent by Ling Shuang.

[Lin Tian's activities today are abnormal. On the surface, he acted as usual during the day, doing chores and watering flowers at the Lin residence. However, the usage frequency of the encrypted communication equipment in the basement was four times higher than the previous three days.]

[Azure Dragon and White Tiger have left the Lin family mansion. Their whereabouts are unknown.]

[Vermilion Bird is still at the stronghold, suspected to be conducting anti-reconnaissance sweeps.]

[Black Tortoise appeared near an abandoned factory in the southern part of Jinling City, suspected to be deploying troops.]

The Four Heavenly Kings had begun to disperse and act.

The assembly had already begun.

Shen Fei turned off his phone and leaned back in his chair.

Three days.

In three days, this prosperous city of Jinling would welcome a war without visible smoke.

Two thousand elites against one villa.

Four Grandmasters against two Grandmasters and one Great Grandmaster.

On paper, Lin Tian held an excellent hand.

But what he didn't know was that Shen Fei held a trump card he could never dream of in his hand.

A trump card that could be summoned with a single phone call.

Shen Fei closed his eyes to rest his mind.

Outside the window, Jinling was brightly lit.

The final peace before the storm.