Victory came quietly. No parades. No applause. Just a subtle shift in the air.
Game Zone was breathing again—barely. But Shen Fu knew better than to celebrate. In Yuncheng's underbelly, a win only meant your enemies started paying attention.
So he moved.
Fast.
Hana's Cafe & KTV
Hidden on a worn-out strip between a pawn shop and a vape store, Hana's Cafe looked like a building begging to be put out of its misery. The signboard was cracked, the karaoke booths had mold in the corners, and someone had spray-painted "R.I.P." on the bathroom door.
Perfect.
His eyes scanned every crack and corner. His mind was already reconstructing it.
"This is it?" Xiaodie asked, her hands tucked in her hoodie. "Looks like the kind of place people go to disappear."
"Exactly," Shen Fu muttered. "We'll make it a place they want to be seen in."
He pushed open the rusted door.
Inside Hana's café
The air reeked of stale beer and abandoned dreams.
Auntie Mei, the aging owner, sat behind the dusty counter, flipping through old receipts with shaking hands. She barely looked up.
"I'm not selling," she said immediately. "Even if I wanted to, I can't. My brother signed half the property over to some loan guy before running off. He hasn't been back in two years."
"Who holds the paper now?" Shen Fu asked.
"Qin Han," she said bitterly. "Or one of his people. They stopped calling last month. I think they're waiting for me to default so they can snatch it clean."
Shen nodded slowly.
Of course, it was Qin Han.
Outside
Xiaodie lit a cheap cigarette and leaned against a pole. "So what's the play? We walk?"
"No," Shen Fu said, slipping his phone back into his hoodie. "We dig deeper."
He'd already made some quiet calls the night before. Through a burner line, through someone who owed him a favor. By the time he walked away from the building, he already had access to the back-end property records and a name tied to the old lien.
An opening.
Meanwhile – Qin Han's Office
High above the city, Qin Han scrolled through a spreadsheet while sipping espresso. His face was unreadable.
An assistant stepped in, holding a folder.
"Update: Shen Fu is poking around a site on West Yi Road. Hana's Cafe."
Qin Han lips curled ever so slightly. "He moves fast."
"Should we escalate?"
"Not yet," he said. "But get legal ready. If he gets too close—tighten the screws."
The assistant bowed. "Understood."
Qin Han turned back to the window. From his view, the streets looked like veins in a dying beast.
"You survived Game Zone," he whispered. "Let's see how long you last when the map starts bleeding."
Two Days Later
First came a delay on the business permit.
Then, a "random inspection" by the fire department.
Then, the local power office flagged his temporary generator as illegal.
Then, an anonymous tip to the press questioned whether Shen Fu was laundering money through Game Zone.
Xiaodie paced the cracked sidewalk, furious. "He's playing dirty."
"Of course he is," Shen Fu said calmly. "But he made a mistake."
"What?"
"He assumed I'd fight fair."
By midnight, Shen Fu was working in silence—emails flying, fake profiles warming up, shell companies linked and unlinked in carefully timed moves.
He filed a quiet appeal with a clerk who liked milk tea and discreet envelopes.
He used an obscure business policy to file a community redevelopment proposal on Hana's zone.
He activated a proxy buyer—an old man with no social media and a habit of playing mahjong near the courthouse.
Every move was subtle. Every trace led nowhere.
By the end of the third day, the lien on Hana's had been put into dispute, halting any claim from Qin Han's side.
The building was still a mess—but now it was Shen's battlefield.
Back at Game Zone
Xiaodie tossed a bottle of cold soda his way. "You didn't even flinch. You knew this would happen?"
"I didn't know," Shen Fu said, cracking it open. "But I planned for it."
He looked up at the sky, dark clouds hanging low.
"This isn't about buying buildings. It's about sending signals. If I cave once, people start calling Qin Han first."
Xiaodie grinned. "Then let's make sure they remember your name."
News reached Qin Han quickly.
The lien? Frozen.
The city filing? Under review.
The buyer? Unknown.
The hold? Untouchable.
Qin Han stood motionless in his office, one hand tapping the rim of his glass.
"So," he said softly. "You have claws after all."
He stared at the file with Shen Fu's name. The same kid who once polished his car windows for a tip.
Now, he was walking into Qin Han's domain and building nests.
"Let's see how well you fly when the storm starts."