Nominal: Hou Liangping blocking the door? He was slapped away!

Xishan Sanatorium, the study on the second floor of the Zhong family home.

The crisp sound of the keyboard clicking echoed in the dark room, sounding particularly jarring.

Zhong Xiaoai's fingers danced wildly across the laptop screen, the screen's pale blue backlight casting a desperate, maddening glow on her face.

Handong's business has been completely ruined. Li Dakang forcibly cut off the 3 billion yuan financial chain, and the 8 billion yuan overseas has been directly locked up by the military.

The political situation has completely collapsed. My grandfather can't even leave the house. Those powerful families who used to be on friendly terms with each other didn't dare to utter a word in the face of the military's swift and decisive actions.

The Zhong family is now just an empty shell.

The only chance she can have to turn things around is to use public opinion on the internet to completely muddy the waters.

The document on the screen was filled with lengthy and elaborate writings.

Throughout the entire piece, the author portrays himself as an honest and upright family member of a retired cadre who suffered violent persecution at the hands of local warlords, while the words are full of accusations against the overreach of law enforcement by the Handong military.

The document even fabricated false details about how Shen Zhong used torture and persecuted innocent businessmen, attempting to smear this anti-corruption campaign as a farce of warlordism.

Simply package these distorted facts and send them to a few overseas media accounts with tens of millions of followers, and you can create a huge uproar internationally.

At that point, in order to consider the international impact, those in power would have to step in and stop Shen Zhong's operation.

"Die, Shen Zhong!"

"The Chung family hasn't lost yet!"

Zhong Xiaoai gritted her teeth and slammed her right index finger down on the Enter key.

Just as the progress bar popped up a loading dialog, something unexpected happened.

The previously bright screen went completely black without warning, and even the underlying operating system was forcibly shut down.

Immediately afterwards, a string of glaring blood-red numbers began to flash in the center of the screen.

【00:59:59】

【00:59:58】

This is an extremely oppressive countdown to death.

At the same second, the luxurious crystal chandelier overhead flickered twice and went out completely.

The entire villa was plunged into deep darkness.

Even the expensive backup diesel generator in the basement didn't start at all.

Zhong Xiaoai grabbed the spare satellite phone on the table and frantically pressed the power button, but the signal bars on the screen were completely blank red crosses.

She then pulled out a tablet computer and two other personal cell phones, and without exception, all the electronic devices were malfunctioning.

All communication channels were physically cut off.

Heavy footsteps echoed from outside the corridor.

Grandpa Zhong, leaning on his sandalwood cane, walked to the door of the study in the dark.

"What's the panic?"

"This is the Xishan Sanatorium, and the residents outside are all retired senior citizens."

"The fully armed guard station is located three kilometers away."

"Even if the sky falls, there's a tall guy to hold it up; who dares to cause trouble here?"

The old man's words revealed the arrogance cultivated over decades of ups and downs in officialdom, and he still stubbornly believed that this was just a political intimidation tactic.

In his ingrained mindset, as long as he didn't leave the compound and still held the title of "veteran cadre," no one would dare to use force to break down the door.

He walked to the landline in the study, picked up the receiver, and wanted to dial the internal line to contact the security bureau.

All that came through the receiver was an annoying busy tone.

10,000 meters above the ground.

Inside the spacious command cabin of the early warning aircraft, various electronic instruments emitted regular ticking sounds.

Shen Zhong leaned back in the control chair, looking at the huge tactical screen in front of him.

In the center of the screen, the 3D model representing the Zhong family villa was completely surrounded by a dazzling red halo.

Zhou Weiguo stood to the side, rapidly operating the control panel in front of him, summarizing various data.

"Sir, regional electronic suppression has been completed."

"All communication base stations within a five-kilometer radius of the Zhong family have been forcibly taken over by our side, and the external network links have been completely cut off."

"The surveillance cameras around the sanatorium have all been replaced with the looping footage we prepared."

"That villa is now an isolated information island cut off from the world."

Shen Zhong picked up the warm water beside him and took a sip, looking at the countdown still ticking on the screen.

"What's going on with the security detail around here?"

Zhou Weiguo immediately pulled up another set of satellite images.

"Everything is normal inside the base. Our electronic warfare unit has cut off their alarm link with the sanatorium."

"They received no unusual signals at all before the countdown ended."

Shen Zhong put down the water glass and crossed his hands in front of him.

"Since they think they can rest easy while hiding in the sanatorium."

"Then lower it."

"Let them hear what absolute strength really means."

The command was transmitted directly to the special operations formation flying at low altitude via an encrypted channel.

West Mountain.

The once tranquil night sky was suddenly torn apart by an extremely suppressed low-frequency roar.

The guards patrolling the perimeter of the sanatorium stopped in their tracks and looked up at the dark sky.

The clouds were churned up by violent air currents.

Four massive heavy attack helicopters turned off all their navigation lights and completely concealed themselves in the night, brazenly lowering their fuselages from mid-air.

The massive steel silhouette obscured the starry sky, carrying an overwhelming sense of oppression as it hurtled towards the Zhong family villa.

The powerful propeller airflow creates a storm that is visible to the naked eye.

The precious flowers and plants that the old man usually took such good care of in the yard were uprooted and shredded into pieces that flew everywhere.

Security cameras on the courtyard wall shattered one after another in the strong winds, towering landscape light poles were blown down, and the windshields of luxury cars parked in the courtyard were smashed.

The gale-force winds, carrying sand and gravel, pounded against the villa's thick bulletproof glass, producing a teeth-grinding scraping sound.

Zhong Xiaoai's legs went weak, and she collapsed onto the expensive Persian carpet.

The four dark, steel monsters outside the window were less than ten meters away from the lightning rod on the roof.

The storm generated by the rotor blades even seeped into the study through the cracks in the window, messing up her hair.

Her brain completely shut down, and she lost all ability to think.

Those supposedly clever political maneuvering and media manipulation tactics appear utterly ridiculous in the face of absolute military violence.

Grandpa Zhong stood at the door, his withered fingers trembling violently.

Clang!

The sandalwood cane that had been with him for over a decade, a symbol of power and status, slipped from his hand and fell onto the wooden floor.

He lived to be eighty, spending most of his life manipulating power within the bounds of propriety, accustomed to deciding the life and death of others at the conference table with documents and official approvals.

This was the first time he had truly witnessed pure military oppression that disregarded all political principles and focused solely on violence.

Beneath the short wings on both sides of the helicopter, the barrels of the heavy machine guns began to rotate at a constant speed, emitting a crisp mechanical clicking sound.

The air-to-ground missile launchers, loaded with live ammunition, had their protective covers removed, and the cold, metallic sheen was extremely intimidating in the night.

Countless red laser beams pierced through the glass, weaving a deadly net that precisely targeted every exit and every window of the villa.

Several blinding red beams struck Zhong Xiaoai and Grandpa Zhong directly in the chest.

The onboard high-power loudspeaker is turned on.

Shen Zhongna's electronically processed instructions echoed throughout the night sky over Xishan.

"Zhong Xiaoai, come down and confess your sins."

"Or, the whole house will be razed to the ground."