Chapter 65: Plunging the Entire Tazhai into Terror!
"Just what kind of background does this Tazhai have?"
In the Golden Triangle, within the Xia family estate.
Xia Fei raised an eyebrow as he looked over the dossier in his hands.
The task of collecting the debt from Niu Youde had fallen to him, and naturally, he was in full charge of it.
He decided to start with Tazhai first!
For no other reason than that the village's name simply sounded easier to bully.
The current head of the Xia family was a man named Xia Zhier.
And Xia Fei was Xia Zhier's third son.
Right now, the internal factions within the Xia family were in their most turbulent period!
Because Xia Zhier was failing fast, and all of his sons were eyeing the position of the next patriarch with undisguised ambition.
"If this business is successfully concluded, it will net eight million! This achievement will naturally be credited entirely to me!"
The corners of Xia Fei's lips curled up into a sinister, ruthless smile.
With this, he would take another step closer to the coveted position of the family head!
What he held in his hand was all the intelligence they had managed to gather on Tazhai.
It was only a single page, containing just a few scrawled lines of text.
It wasn't that the Xia family lacked the capability to unearth more information, but rather...
There simply was no more information to be found on Tazhai!
Why was that?
Because this was nothing more than an ordinary Chinese village!
As unremarkable as any other village out there, every detail about it could be seen at a single glance!
There was simply no further intelligence for them to gather!
Xia Fei's gaze swept rapidly across the few lines on the document.
Having absorbed the entirety of Tazhai's profile, a smirk broke across his face!
"Just an ordinary Chinese village?"
He felt profound contempt for it in his heart. He had assumed that any place where Niu Youde failed to collect a debt must be some perilous dragon's lair or tiger's den.
And yet, it turned out to be nothing more than a completely ordinary, impoverished village?
"What could possibly be difficult about collecting money from a place like this?! This is eight million dropping straight out of the sky!"
***
As expected of a professional, even though he had never undertaken a debt-collection mission before...
Yet...
Upon receiving the intelligence, a plan immediately surfaced in Xia Fei's mind!
"That is, intimidation!"
However, the intimidation he had in mind was completely different from Wang Dalong and his thugs, who would swagger into Tazhai in a boisterous mob.
'As the saying goes! People are most terrified of the unknown!'
'Without showing our faces, we will secretly make the people of Tazhai feel terror, shrouding the entire village in fear! Within three days, someone is bound to crack under the pressure!'
Xia Fei's mouth split nearly to his ears, as he deemed his newly hatched plan to be nothing short of absolute perfection!
To put his idea in plain terms:
'Send our professional assassins to sneak into Tazhai, let all the villagers know that killers have infiltrated the place, but without revealing their identities. Today, secretly kidnap a child; tomorrow, pick a lucky target and beat them half to death!'
'And spread the word: the moment anyone calls the police, the kidnapped child will be executed immediately!'
'The moment the debt is repaid is the moment the assassins withdraw!'
...
After one or two rounds of this, quite a few villagers would inevitably break under the strain!
Yet while this sounded simple, executing it presented immense difficulties!
First: It required assassins of exceptional caliber, capable of guaranteeing they could infiltrate the village and remain undetected.
Second: It required absolute loyalty from the assassins. The moment the targets called the police or captured them, they had to be willing to throw away their lives in a one-for-one trade to completely terrify the locals!
Assassins meeting both of these criteria might be in short supply elsewhere.
Yet... the Xia family had these kinds of killers in abundance!
***
The Xia family maintained a mature and rigorous training regimen.
Every year, they would acquire a batch of toddlers around the age of two, subject them to intense brainwashing, and follow it up with every conceivable kind of devilish training.
Countless individuals died during the training process every year.
Only those who achieved absolute loyalty to the Xia family and possessed ironclad skills managed to survive!
And those who survived spent nearly their entire lives molded by brainwashing, possessing absolute, unquestioning loyalty!
Compared to the loyal retainers of ancient times, the people cultivated by the Xia family were much more akin to emotionless machines!
Even if commanded to immediately draw a blade and slit their own throats, they would obey without a single second of hesitation.
Because anyone who hesitated for even a moment would not have survived to this day!
***
The next morning.
After three days and nights of uninterrupted production, Mang Village finally finished manufacturing all of its products.
Packed into crates in successive batches, the goods were hauled off to customs.
Since they consisted merely of steel pipes and refined iron, shipped in disassembled components, they cleared customs without a hitch.
That very afternoon, the cargo arrived in Cambodia.
The Tazhai arms factory officially commenced operations!
Tazhai, Dongshan City, China.
Upon receiving the report, Lin Yaodong repeatedly cautioned Lin Yaohua over the phone:
"This is the very first order our Tazhai Arms Company has received since opening its doors, so we must not be careless! We must strive for perfection!"
"You must personally oversee the quality of every single product manufactured!"
Beside him, Lin Wendong twitched the corner of his mouth. As expected, no matter which Uncle Dong he was dealing with, and no matter what the product was, he remained fiercely responsible to his customers!
***
That same evening.
The Golden Triangle, the Xia family estate.
Standing before Xia Fei were three gaunt men clad in tight-fitting black tactical gear.
"Did you all remember my instructions?"
Xia Fei asked indifferently.
The three men remained silent, giving a simultaneous nod. Their nodding motions were eerily, identically synchronized!
"Bear my words in mind. Move out now!"
With a wave of Xia Fei's hand, all three sprang into action, making their way swiftly toward Tazhai.
According to Xia Fei's vision, these three assassins would sneak into Tazhai and plunge the inhabitants into terror!
When the time was ripe and the targets could no longer bear the psychological toll, they would willingly hand over the money!
One had to admit, when professionals handled matters, the difference was stark!
Compared to Wang Dalong and his gang of petty thugs who only knew how to rely on brute force and sheer numbers, Xia Fei's strategy was immeasurably more reliable!