DOOMSDAY MERCHANT

Chapter 9: The Panicked Monopoly

Chapter 9: The Panicked Monopoly

​The shattered stemware lay forgotten on the plush carpet of Long Wei’s penthouse office. Long Wei stood glued to the spot, the dead static from the tactical radio buzzing like a swarm of hornets in his ears.

​"Long Wei?"

​Long Tian’s heavy voice shattered the silence. The old man stepped into the office, his brow furrowed as he took in his son’s pale, sweat-sheened face. "What happened? Did Nightblade confirm the demolition?"

​Long Wei dropped the radio onto the mahogany desk. His fingers trembled violently. "They... they failed, Father. Han Qing took out the entire eight-man team in less than two minutes. He spoke to me through their channel."

​Long Tian’s face hardened, his cold eyes narrowing to slits. "Quiet yourself! You’re acting like a cornered rat. So the boy has private military bodyguards that change nothing. If we cannot crush him in the shadows, we crush his access to the real world."

​"How?" Long Wei stammered, pulling at his collar. "He doesn't need our concrete! He doesn't use the banks! He’s hoarding food and building an underground vault while our own stock price is hemorrhaging!"

​"We buy out the regional food grid," Long Tian said smoothly, his voice laced with venomous resolve. "Every farm, every distribution center, every grain silo within three provinces. We use our corporate leverage to inflate the price of basic staples by three hundred percent. We force him to exhaust his remaining liquidity just to buy a single grain of rice."

​A slow, vicious grin returned to Long Wei’s face. "A total agricultural monopoly. We choke out his supply chain at the root."

​"Precisely," Long Tian sneered. "Let's see his mysterious backing save him when the entire province's agricultural market is under our lock and key."

​[Subspace Vault Status: 9,200 Tons Stored / UNLIMITED]

[Current Trade Points Available: 20,500]

[Base Defense Rating: Level 2 (Spatial Traps Active)]

​At 2:00 AM, inside the high-tech command center of the Western Valley Citadel, giant holographic monitors displayed live financial tickers and commodity index charts.

​Su Lin stood behind Han’s chair, holding a steaming mug of tea. "Han, the Long Conglomerate just executed an aggressive buyout of five regional agricultural syndicates. They’ve spent over $200 million in the last six hours alone, securing exclusive purchasing rights for all grain, livestock, and canned goods in the southern territory."

​Old Man Chen walked in, wiping grease off his forehead, a dark scowl on his weathered face. "Those bastards are artificially inflating market prices! Wholesale wheat jumped four hundred percent forty minutes ago. The small distributors are panicking."

​Han took a slow sip of tea, his expression completely tranquil.

​"They're spending their real-world liquid capital to buy paper contracts," Han said softly. "Contracts that will become worthless trash in less than six months."

​"In the meantime, it limits our public procurement," Su Lin pointed out, her sharp analytical mind calculating the friction. "If we buy through standard markets now, we pay four times the value."

​"Then we don't buy from standard markets," Han replied, leaning forward and tapping a sequence into his private interface. "Su Lin, set up an encrypted, anonymous trading portal. We are going to launch the 'Citadel Pre-Supply Network.'"

​Su Lin blinked. "A pre-supply network?"

​"We offer independent farmers, local producers, and small-scale logistics companies a deal," Han explained, his voice carrying absolute authority. "We buy their harvests directly, bypassing the Long Group’s middleman syndicates completely. But instead of paying them solely in inflated paper currency, we pay them fifty percent in cash, and fifty percent in Citadel Storage Tokens."

​Old Man Chen frowned. "Tokens? What good are tokens to a farmer right now?"

​"Each Citadel Token guarantees them a reserved, climate-controlled storage slot and guaranteed family admission into our subterranean shelters when the climate event hits," Han said, his eyes gleaming with cold genius. "We aren't just buying food, Old Man Chen. We are securing the absolute loyalty of the region's best producers."

​Su Lin’s breath hitched. "They will jump at it. The smart ones already suspect something is wrong with the global climate data. You’re giving them a lifeline!"

​"Launch it immediately," Han commanded.

​[System Notice: Citadel Pre-Supply Network Initialized!]

[Target Acquisition: Independent Regional Farms & Supply Hubs]

[Initiating Direct Trade Reallocation...]

​Within three hours of the portal going live, the response was astronomical.

​Over six hundred independent farm owners, disgusted by the Long Group's predatory buyout tactics and alarmed by weird climate anomalies, bypassed the corporate syndicates entirely. Hundreds of agricultural supply trucks began quietly redirecting their routes, heading straight toward the Western Valley Iron Mine under the cover of night.

​By morning, Long Wei stood in front of his board of directors, clutching a panic-inducing market report.

​"What do you mean the independent farms aren't selling to our syndicates?!" Long Wei screamed at his chief procurement officer. "We offered them double the market rate!"

​"They... they refused our contracts, Young Master Long," the officer stammered, trembling under the young executive's fury. "A rival entity is offering them secure underground storage options and upfront cash. Over eighty percent of the regional harvest has just diverted toward the Western Valley!"

​Long Wei’s phone buzzed. It was an emergency notification from his father's secretary:

​[URGENT: Long Group Agricultural Futures Stock Suspended due to Supply Deficit!]

​Long Wei fell back into his leather chair, staring at the ceiling in sheer horror. They had poured two hundred million dollars into monopolizing a market only for Han Qing to completely rewrite the rules of trade overnight.

​High up in the Western Valley, a golden system notification flared before Han’s eyes as heavy cargo trucks lined up for miles outside the mountain gates:

​[Economic Counter-Attack Victorious! Antagonist Monopoly Crushed!]

[System Reward: 20,000 Trade Points Granted!]

[Subspace Vault Capacity: 25,000 Tons Secured!]

[Subspace Purchasing Engine Upgraded to Level 4: Unlocking Spatial Teleportation Nodes!]

​[Global Cataclysm Countdown: 176 Days, 19 Hours, 40 Minutes.]