Siheyuan: My wife is Xu Huizhen

“Mr. He,” he deliberately dragged out the last syllable, his fingertips tracing the dense English markings on the Hong Kong map.

Look at these docks, banks, and department stores—British conglomerates have been rooted here for a full century since the Treaty of Nanjing came into effect in 1842.

The sound of cargo ship horns in Victoria Harbour drifted in from outside the office, mingling with the damp sea breeze as it blew into the air-conditioned room.

Madden pulled out his cigar cutter; the metallic click was as crisp as a gunshot.

"I heard that your company's warehouse suffered considerable damage in the fire in Sham Shui Po last month?" He squinted and exhaled a smoke ring.

"Under the framework of British law, any 'accident' can be reasonably explained."

Outside the glass curtain wall, the neon lights of Central began to illuminate one after another.

Madden twirled his platinum cufflinks, his tone suddenly shifting to pity:

"The Chinese Chamber of Commerce wants to compete with Swire and Jardine Matheson? It's like an ant trying to move a bridge across Victoria Harbour—even if you station 3,000 troops in Kowloon, once the customs ships stop, all your efforts will be in vain."

He pressed the unlit cigar onto the copper ashtray, the dented soot resembling an unhealed wound.

In the early summer of 1978, when He Yuzhu stepped onto the Tsim Sha Tsui pier carrying an old-fashioned leather suitcase, the salty sea breeze carrying the smell of diesel fuel hit him.

He gazed at the rows of glass curtain walls across Victoria Harbour, as businessmen in suits and sleek leather shoes hurried past him, the clatter of their heels against the ground mingling with the distant clanging of tram bells, creating an unfamiliar urban rhythm.

At that time, he was unaware that on this land dyed purple-red by neon lights, political and business relationships were intertwined, British-owned trading companies controlled the economic lifeline, and Chinese-owned forces such as the Chaozhou and Fujian cliques were surging beneath the surface.

He Yuzhu, a newcomer, rented a cramped room in a cheap hotel near Kowloon Walled City.

The densely packed traditional Chinese characters on the yellowed newspapers gave him a headache, while the English financial weekly at the newsstand on the street corner made him feel even more lost.

When he tried to contact his business partners in Hong Kong, the phone was always busy; when he attended industry parties, he could only stand in a corner and watch local businessmen chatting enthusiastically in Cantonese, while the ice cubes of whiskey in his hand gradually melted.

Flipping through my contacts, I found very few names that I could call acquaintances, and the business intelligence I bought through intermediaries was either outdated news from months ago or vague rumors.

Lying on the hard bed in the hotel at night, he stared at the swaying ceiling fan and remembered his father's words of advice before he left:

"The water in Hong Kong is much deeper than the well in our courtyard house."

Outside the window, neon lights shone through the dappled curtains onto the wall, silently telling the story of the city's mystery and complexity.

However, in the neon-lit late-night tea restaurant, He Yuzhu and Huo Yingdong's first conversation sparked a subtle chemistry.

From the cargo ship scheduling at the Tsim Sha Tsui pier to the undercurrents of capital in the Central office buildings, the two gradually became close friends despite their age difference, amidst the smoke of cigars and the aroma of Pu'er tea. On the day Huo Yingdong introduced Liao Lieying, a torrential downpour hit Victoria Harbour, and the three were trapped inside the revolving doors of the Peninsula Hotel. Liao Lieying took out her alligator leather notebook and sketched out a blueprint for the transformation of Hong Kong's manufacturing industry on the damp pages with a fountain pen.

Those coffee-stained notes, orders sent out by the fax machine late at night, and industry secrets inadvertently revealed at parties, like scattered puzzle pieces, pieced together a breathtaking business landscape of the city before He Yuzhu's eyes—a landscape that included both the mundane life of dockworkers carrying loads on their shoulders and the hidden machinations of capital giants.

Although He Yuzhu's own strength had already reached the realm of "Baodan".

That is a high-level realm that can be called a "watershed" in the path of martial arts. Countless martial artists have devoted their entire lives to hard training, turning their hair white and ruining their muscles and bones, but they may not be able to touch the threshold.

Those at this level have condensed their Qi and blood into a form as pure as a crimson gold pill, circulating day and night within their dantian. When they strike, they need no weapons; the mere force of their fists can shatter bluestone three feet away. Furthermore, the energy they generate can pierce through thick wood and injure people invisibly.

Even with such strength, in Hong Kong, it is still like a small boat adrift in the turbulent South China Sea.

It is important to understand that since Hong Kong opened as a port, the business community and the martial arts world have been inextricably linked, and the ironclad rule of "force equals power" has long been established.

Gang fights on the streets, turf wars at the docks and warehouses, and underhanded infighting between trading companies all ultimately depend on the fists of the powerful figures behind the scenes.

Top powers regard martial arts experts as "stabilizing forces." The vault of HSBC is guarded by experts of the Gang Jin level on a rotating basis. The guards of the Governor's Mansion contain masters of the Transcendent Realm. Even when ordinary foreign firms are discussing business, the hilts of martial arts practitioners may be under the table.

So what exactly caused only four of the many foreign firms to gain a foothold and thrive, while the rest of their counterparts failed one after another like candles flickering in the wind?

Behind this lies the most brutal and core survival rule in Hong Kong's business world: the strong rule and force is the ultimate guarantee.

To find out the secrets behind this, He Yuzhu spent three whole months conducting investigations—he disguised himself as a dockworker to sneak into the warehouse of a foreign firm, staked out high-end restaurants to eavesdrop on conversations of business tycoons, and even bribed a low-level clerk in the governor's office.

Persistence pays off, and he finally pieced together the truth: the reason these four trading companies were able to stand firm in the turbulent business wars was not just due to capital and luck, but because each of them had a powerful expert in the Gang Jin realm to oversee them.

A master of Gang Jin is a martial arts peak that is a level higher than the Dan Bao realm. When their Qi is circulated, it can condense into an invisible gale that can cut through iron like mud and destroy everything in its path. Even a pistol bullet fired at close range can be easily deflected by their Qi.

These powerful figures rarely show themselves, yet they act as pillars of strength for the trading company—when shipping is disrupted, a single word from them can make the gangs occupying the docks obediently give way.

When trade encountered setbacks, their connections could bypass customs and concessions; even government commercial policies had to be approved by the powerful figures behind them.

Just like the powerful patronage of Jardine Matheson, who single-handedly intimidated the Thirteen Factories Chamber of Commerce, which attempted to monopolize the opium trade, and managed to seize 30% of the market share for Jardine Matheson.

The resources and deterrent power they wield are enough to leave any competitor without a strong backer far behind, forcing them to struggle for survival in the cracks.

Besides these four major foreign firms, the two giants of Hong Kong's financial world—HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank—and even the Governor's Office, which held the power of life and death in the region, each kept a powerful expert as their "treasure."

The powerful energy master of HSBC's Central headquarters is said to be stationed year-round in the underground vault. The vault door is reportedly three feet thick, yet it cannot withstand a single strike of his energy.

When a gang attempted to rob the HSBC vault, he shattered the weapons of more than thirty robbers with a single gust of wind, and from then on, no one dared to target the HSBC vault again.