CHAPTER 90: CHAPTER 91 – PRESSURE POINTS

The air in the conference room wasn’t tense—it was still. Too still.

Lin Feng sat alone at the long glass table, the blinds drawn, the city skyline muted behind frosted panels. A single dossier lay in front of him, unopened. Not digital. Not shared.

Private.

Confidential.

A red-stamped envelope bearing only three words:

"Internal Surveillance Report"

He’d received it less than an hour ago through a trusted signal channel used only for high-level alerts. Inside: timestamps, bank pings, conversation logs flagged for pattern shifts.

The subject: Guo Yuwei.

His closest legal strategist. One of the few people who never asked for favors—only results.

And now someone was watching her.

He finally opened the file.

Inside, the evidence was clinical:

A pattern of late-night encrypted calls from a disposable overseas number

Subtle activity from an IP address linked to a known offshore pressure agency—one previously used by Zixuan’s media shells

And most damning of all: a silent request from Yuwei herself, buried in metadata—a disguised ping on a private channel she hadn’t used in over two years

It read like a whisper:

"Monitor me. Quietly."

Lin stared at that line for a full minute.

She knew.

She saw it coming.

And she was asking for backup without risking anyone’s trust.

He closed the file and stood up.

Time to act.

Three hours later, Lin walked into the private wing of a rooftop lounge under his control—not flashy, not public, just neutral ground. Yuwei was already seated, hands folded around a cup of untouched tea.

She didn’t greet him when he sat down. She simply asked:

"Am I compromised?"

Lin shook his head. "No. But someone wants you to think you are."

That landed.

Yuwei exhaled, finally relaxing the grip on her cup.

"They’ve been subtle," she said. "The calls came every night at 3:12 a.m. for five days. No voice. Just silence. Same pattern. Then they stopped."

"Any messages?"

"Only once. Yesterday. A text. One word: ’Remember.’"

Lin frowned. "From?"

Yuwei hesitated. "My father’s old number. The one that stopped working five years ago."

That... wasn’t random.

Her father had been a well-known prosecutor in another province. He disappeared under murky circumstances—one of Zixuan’s early power grabs. It was never proven, never spoken aloud. But everyone in Yuwei’s circle knew what it meant.

Zixuan wasn’t just sending a threat.

He was sending a memory.

Lin pulled out his own tablet, opening a layered encryption shell and sliding it across the table.

"See the lower-right logs. Traffic analysis shows that number was reactivated through a synthetic identity platform. One of the known ones Nantai’s old affiliates used. This isn’t just surveillance. It’s provocation."

Yuwei stared at the data without blinking. "They want me to act out. Flinch. Break alignment."

"They want you afraid," Lin corrected. "Because they can’t buy you."

She looked up. "Then what’s next?"

Lin’s eyes sharpened.

"We flip it."

The next morning, a carefully staged meeting took place.

Yuwei, flanked by two junior legal assistants, walked into the District Ethics Review Board and submitted a request for an official audit—not on the tech tender, but on foreign influence in legal negotiations across real estate contracts.

It was vague, but purposeful. The wording was designed to attract media, not trigger legal alarms.

And it worked.

By afternoon, two mid-tier publications reported:

"Top Legal Figure Calls for Transparency in Civic Contracts"

The article included a photo of Yuwei standing calmly, documents in hand, head high.

It sent a message.

She wasn’t intimidated.

She was in motion.

Lin, meanwhile, wasn’t done.

He reached out to Ruoxi, who had been monitoring known "pressure agencies"—international firms that specialized in private coercion: fake lawsuits, social leaks, psychological harassment. Legal in loophole zones. Brutal in their subtlety.

One of the red-flagged firms, Spectron Intermediaries, had a known contract history with Nantai’s old data arm.

And Spectron had just opened a "consultancy satellite" in Jincheng. Two blocks from the real estate bureau.

Coincidence?

Not to Lin.

He tasked Ruoxi and a cyber-ops freelancer named Han Jie to trace their activity—build movement maps, conversation overlaps, and—if possible—get access to internal directives.

It wouldn’t be fast.

But pressure has a rhythm.

And Lin had learned to dance with it.

Meanwhile, Zixuan wasn’t idle.

Inside Nantai’s strategic division, he stood before a group of six men and women—none of them local. All outsiders. Fluent in both business and manipulation.

"This wasn’t supposed to trigger a headline," one said, reviewing Yuwei’s media splash.

"Because you underestimated her," Zixuan replied coldly. "She’s not just a legal strategist. She’s a symbol now. We have to recalibrate."

Another leaned forward. "So we target someone else?"

Zixuan’s smile was slight. "No. We let her believe she’s winning. And we move the threat closer to Lin’s core."

He tapped a photo.

Not Yuwei.

Ruoxi.

Back in Celica HQ, Lin’s phone vibrated—an encrypted ping from Han Jie.

He opened it immediately.

"Intercepted metadata confirms Spectron has a shortlist of three targets tied to Lin Feng’s network. One confirmed as ’Y.W.’

Second name appears partially obfuscated. Begins with ’R.’ Last access point traces to ArtWalk district—Ruoxi’s last known gallery listing."

Lin didn’t wait.

He called Ruoxi directly.

"Are you at the gallery?" he asked.

"No, I left twenty minutes ago," she replied, puzzled. "Why?"

"Stay somewhere public for now. I’ll send security."

She didn’t ask questions.

Just obeyed.

That was why she was still in his circle.

By late evening, Lin and Bingqing convened privately in the boardroom—no assistants, no analysts.

Bingqing reviewed the known pressure patterns. She’d seen similar tactics used by competitors overseas, mostly against female executives with limited fallback.

"This is different," she said finally. "They’re not trying to discredit. They’re trying to fracture."

"Exactly," Lin agreed. "But they’ve overplayed."

He pulled out a new file—photos of Spectron’s new local staff, public registry filings, and an address connected to a known black-ops consultant formerly on Nantai’s payroll.

"Once we link them to indirect coercion attempts against civic players, we can go to the Public Oversight Committee and request a cease-review motion against all proxy firms under ethics audit."

Bingqing’s eyes sharpened.

"That would delay Zixuan’s infrastructure plays by six months."

Lin nodded.

"And expose him to open civic scrutiny. No more shadows. No more whispers."

The next day, as the sun rose over Jincheng’s east ridge, a small post appeared on the city’s civic ethics platform—one maintained by volunteers, barely noticed most days.

It read:

"If someone is watching you, walk louder.

If someone is threatening you, speak first.

This city doesn’t belong to shadows."

It wasn’t signed.

But everyone knew it came from inside Lin Feng’s circle.

And in the comments beneath it, one caught Lin’s eye:

"No matter how deep the mirror cracks, someone is always watching the watcher."