Liu Yutong had been racing from city to city around Jingchuan for three or four days straight.
During that time, she visited more than twenty Hope primary and secondary schools built with funding from the Wanlong Charity Foundation. She met tens of thousands of children and handed out tens of thousands of gifts.
The Wanlong Charity Foundation had funded the construction of more than a hundred primary and secondary schools across BS Province. Naturally, it was impossible for her to personally visit every single one, so she could only select a number of schools at random for inspection. In addition to meeting the students, her main focus was checking whether the school buildings had been constructed to the required standards and whether they met the necessary earthquake-resistance ratings.
Fortunately, after completing the rounds of inspections, she found no obvious signs of corner-cutting or the use of substandard materials. This showed that quality control over the construction projects was still quite strict. Her original decision to have Yun Cheng personally oversee the work in BS Province had clearly been the right one.
After all, with a project of such enormous scale, it was inevitable that some people would be tempted to cheat the system and pocket a little money. She could not gamble on every contractor having a conscience. All she could do was issue strict orders and have the supervisory team keep a close eye on every stage of the process.
At the end of her inspections, in addition to an assessment report on the schools as a whole, she also obtained a list of nearly a thousand children in need of financial assistance. The list contained the names of children from exceptionally impoverished families identified during the visits.
Liu Yutong decided to pay for their education out of her own pocket and support them all the way through university.
Aside from inspecting the schools, Liu Yutong had also received a series of reports from her subordinates over the past few days.
The first concerned the disappearance of Wang Xiaoshu’s older brother, Wang Dashu. There had finally been some progress.
While the Wanlong Association Group’s family tour was passing along a certain provincial highway, the convoy had encountered a gang of local thugs who had set up a roadblock to extort tolls. The gang had taken control of several mentally disabled people and used them as enforcers and tools to extort money.
It was an extremely despicable tactic. If anything went wrong, they could simply pin the blame on those mentally impaired individuals. As long as they themselves were not caught, they could walk away completely clean.
Fortunately, the security personnel accompanying the tour had acted decisively, subduing the entire gang and handing them over to the police.
Unfortunately, Wang Dashu was not among the mentally disabled young men who had been rescued.
Still, Liu Yutong’s instincts told her that this lead could not be abandoned. She felt that the two incidents might be connected in some way.
Afterward, she specifically instructed Cheng Gang to keep a close watch on the men who had been arrested and see whether anything useful could be extracted from them.
Cheng Gang was the core member who had been injured and hospitalized the previous year while protecting his brothers. He had since been promoted by one rank. In Ma Da’s words, he was now a bona fide helmsman. He was capable, dependable, and could be counted on to get things done.
The second matter that caught her attention was a report from Yang Xin.
Yang Xin and Xu Shishi’s dinner meeting with Qi Tianhu in Jinchuan City had ended in a complete breakdown.
The Qi father-and-son duo had openly threatened to target the Wanlong Association Group’s projects in the area.
That same evening, Qi Licheng had deliberately driven a luxury car the wrong way down the road, repeatedly cutting them off and issuing personal threats. His attitude had been extremely arrogant.
At the same time, Yang Xin had also relayed Xu Shishi’s attitude toward the matter and her proposed course of action. After hearing it, Liu Yutong approved of both her judgment and her arrangements.
Aside from the conflict itself, the lithium mine Xu Shishi had mentioned had also caught Liu Yutong’s attention.
The Qingyan Mountains contained a large lithium deposit with astonishing proven reserves.
In 2009, the new-energy sector had yet to take off. Lithium prices were still relatively low, and most people had not yet fully recognized the value hidden in this mine.
But Liu Yutong knew very well that within just a few years, as smartphones became ubiquitous and shipments exploded, followed by the rapid rise of the electric-vehicle industry, lithium would become a strategic resource more coveted than gold.
By then, whoever controlled a mine would occupy a firm position on the future map of the new-energy industry.
In short, she was determined to have this mine.
And if the Qi father and son dared to lay their hands on it, she would simply send them to hell.
At the same time, Liu Yutong remembered that Uncle Zhu had briefly mentioned the lithium mine when they parted at the highway toll station.
At the time, she had found it somewhat strange and assumed he had only brought it up in passing. But now, in light of Yang Xin’s report, it was obvious that Uncle Zhu’s words had carried a deeper meaning.
The provincial authorities had certainly known for some time that a major lithium deposit had been discovered in the Qingyan Mountains.
Under normal procedures, a strategic mineral resource of this level would be developed under the leadership of the provincial government. Of course, the most likely arrangement would be a joint venture between state-owned capital and private enterprise.
Something like this could not simply be claimed outright. No one could expect to keep the entire pie for themselves. At the very least, they would have to bring the local state-owned enterprises in on the deal.
When Uncle Zhu had suddenly asked her about it, perhaps he had been inviting her to take a stake—to give her a share of the benefits.
After all, before the projects invested in by the Wanlong Association Group in BS Province—especially the aerospace project—had been fully implemented, Uncle Zhu was probably not entirely at ease. He was just like Uncle Li back then, who had been driven to distraction over the Longxin matter.
So perhaps he wanted to further bind their interests together through this arrangement. By developing the lithium mine in cooperation with local state-owned enterprises, he would essentially be presenting her with a major gift.
It was a case of one good turn earning another—a mutually beneficial exchange.
Apart from that, she could not think of a better explanation.
Could it be that Uncle Zhu also knew what kind of person Qi Tianhu was and wanted to use her hand to eliminate this problem?
That seemed somewhat unnecessary.
Given Uncle Zhu’s position and influence, taking down a local underworld boss would be as easy as saying a few words.
Of course, she could not completely rule out that possibility.
Perhaps Uncle Zhu’s side had already received reports implicating Qi Tianhu and his Tiger Might Group, but had never found the right opportunity to act. There might also be deeply entrenched resistance at the local level, so he wanted this outsider—this powerful dragon crossing into another river—to stir up the stagnant waters.
If that was truly the case, then there was certainly more to it than met the eye.
The Qi family had operated in Jinchuan for nearly twenty years. They monopolized the coal market, controlled the supply of construction materials, meddled in transportation and logistics, and maintained influence in both the legal and criminal worlds. They had long since become a malignant tumor in the business community of BS Province.
But no matter how one looked at it, bringing them down required solid evidence.
Qi Tianhu had a complicated network of connections in the region. The fact that he had managed to establish monopolies across several cities showed that he possessed considerable influence. If they wanted to build an airtight case and take him down in the shortest possible time, they would have to use some special methods.
If Qi Tianhu wanted to bite a chunk out of the Wanlong Association Group, he would inevitably have to make the first move.
Once he acted, he would expose a weakness.
Once he exposed a weakness, it would become much easier to obtain evidence.
At that point, Uncle Zhu’s side would have grounds to move against him—and even to follow the trail and uproot the network of connections behind him.
The more she thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed.
Still, Liu Yutong could not help wondering whether Uncle Zhu had heard some rumors and thought the Wanlong Association Group was becoming a little too much...
After giving it some thought, Liu Yutong decided to call Uncle Zhu and test the waters.
Before long, the secretary put the call through to Uncle Zhu.
“Uncle Zhu, the lithium mine you mentioned last time—is it the newly discovered Qingyan Mountain mine here in Jinchuan?”
A smile colored Uncle Zhu’s voice over the phone. “You’re pretty well-informed. So, are you interested in getting involved?”
“The smartphone market is taking off rapidly, and lithium is a core raw material. I know your side is preparing to make phones too.”
“Nothing gets past you. I do have some ideas, but there are still a few specifics that need to be discussed carefully. Before that, though, could you send an investigation team over? There are some problems that would be difficult for our company to handle on its own.”
Liu Yutong did not say outright what she intended to do. Some things were better left unsaid.
There was a brief silence on the other end before Uncle Zhu spoke again, his voice slightly more serious.
“Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll give you someone’s number. If you run into any problems, you can contact her.”
The moment Liu Yutong heard this, she felt reassured.
It seemed she had been partly mistaken in her earlier assumptions. Uncle Zhu had actually been keeping an eye on the situation here for quite some time—he had simply been waiting for the right opportunity.
After hanging up, Liu Yutong stood by the window, gazing at the undulating green mountains in the distance. Her eyes gradually sharpened.
Since someone wanted to play games, she would be happy to play along—and give them a game to remember.
