Adisorn straightened to his full height, his shadow looming over the stacks of documents like a Reaper pronouncing judgment upon souls. The gaze that was once calm now sparked with a superior scheme, ready to crush Lu Rong's paper cage into dust.
"Stop focusing on this trash," Adisorn said, a slight smirk playing on his lips as he looked at the cardboard boxes with pity. The rest of the team stood in confusion, stunned by his sudden transformation.
"But we have less than two weeks! If we don't hurry and sort these..." Jing Yi protested anxiously, but Adisorn raised a hand slightly, demanding absolute silence.
"We will not waste our precious brainpower on such nonsense anymore," he cut her off with a smooth yet commanding tone. He then turned to Dong Fang. "I will request direct cooperation from Chairman Zhang Wei and Chairwoman Mi Ling. I want 20 operational staff pulled into a dedicated Data Entry team. Have them sent to the CK Group grand conference room immediately."
"What are you going to have them do, sir?" Dong Fang asked, bewildered. Adisorn crossed his arms, his eyes gleaming with an icy light.
"Scan and convert everything into PDF and Excel within 48 hours. I want a database where I can find what I need with a single 'snap' of my fingers... not by sitting here smelling paper dust."
He swept his gaze around the room before adding with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "As for the internet speed... the IT team has the power to limit speed, but they have no right to limit the 'frequency' of data requests."
He dragged a fingertip slowly across the spine of a folder. "I'll have ZX's outsourced team write an Automated Data Request script. It will fire repeated requests every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day. Imagine if tens of thousands of requests are slammed into the system at once. How long can CK Group's network hold out? Eventually, they'll be forced to give us the green light. Because if they keep blocking us, their entire corporate system will collapse by their own hands."
"And the final step..." Adisorn turned to Jia Rui with a piercing gaze. "Draft a progress report to Dr. Li Ming. Report the delays caused by the 'over-enthusiastic goodwill' of the CFO's department. Emphasize that if this deal fails because of an ocean of paper, who will take responsibility for the ten-billion-baht damage?"
He looked out the window, the city lights below looking small and insignificant. "We don't need to save face for anyone anymore. Whoever stands in my way... I will crush them all with my bare hands."
On the other side of Shanghai, where the golden lights failed to reach, Tum stepped along a narrow walkway thick with the musty scent of old bricks and woodsmoke from roadside stalls. A flickering neon sign buzzed rhythmically in the wind, casting a jittery light against the mold-green walls of the buildings.
The sixth sense he had possessed since birth was screaming in warning. Someone was in the shadows. Tum glanced out of the corner of his eye, listening to footsteps so faint they almost merged with the wind. A dark brown aura, tinged with black, radiated faintly from behind—a malevolent intent so concentrated it sent a chill down his spine.
Lu Rong's man? Or that fox-like strategist's? Tum pondered as he pushed open the heavy wooden door of the "Ros Lom" restaurant.
Inside, it was quiet, with only classical music serenading the darkness. Ohm looked up and saw Tum, instinctively raising a hand to wave in greeting as old acquaintances do. However, Tum shot back a harsh, warning look, shaking his head slightly and glancing toward the door.
Ohm read the play in a split second, quickly shifting his demeanor to that of a humble shopkeeper welcoming a stranger. "Welcome, sir. Please, come inside first."
But then... heaven was not on his side. Feng and Zhenhao came rushing into the shop, panting and looking panicked as if they were fleeing a storm.
"Master! We have urgent news regarding Yongchang!" the two blurted out, their voices echoing through the room.
Tum closed his eyes, let out a long sigh of utter despair. His effort to stay under the radar had crumbled due to the sheer sincerity and stupidity of his two students.
"Oh... Secretary Tum!" Feng stopped dead, looking at Tum with suspicion before offering an awkward smile. "What are you doing here? Or... are you having financial troubles and had to sneak into a small place like this?"
The question was like shining a spotlight on a victim in an open field. Tum immediately became the target of the shadows outside, lurking behind the lamppost at the corner of the alley.
Tum adjusted his expression to be as still as a rippleless pond. He locked eyes with Ohm for a moment before answering in his most normal tone. "I just happened to pass by and thought this place looked interesting. I didn't expect to run into a board member in a place like this either, sir."
He spoke coldly, though his peripheral vision remained locked on the dim silhouette outside. That dark brown aura remained still, like a hunter assessing whether the prey before him was a "friend" or a "foe" that needed to be eliminated.