Early in the morning, the sky wore a sullen face, gray and overcast.
Four or five cars were parked in front of the electronics factory. One of them—the most high-end—had its engine still running, the heater on. Inside sat Zhou Ruo An.
As an assistant, Ren Yu still found it hard to fully trust his twenty-something employer. Zhou Ruo An was indeed cunning and ruthless, but being so young, he lacked the kind of authority that naturally inspired confidence.
“Fourth Young Master, can you really bring workers from the neighboring city’s electronics factory to get us running again?”
Zhou Ruo An lifted the Nanhong pendant in his hand, examining its patterns under the dull sunlight. “I don’t have that kind of ability—but if Old Master Jin speaks up, do you think it’s possible?”
“Old Chairman Jin?” Ren Yu’s face lit up. “If it’s him, then this won’t be difficult.”
“Bullshit.” Zhou Ruo An chuckled, slipping the pendant back into his pocket. “It’s year-end—everyone’s rushing production. Their factory is busy as hell. Why would they lend us workers? Just to fulfill my order, they’d have to sacrifice their own business. Even if I begged Old Master Jin, he wouldn’t make that request.”
“Then these workers…” Ren Yu hesitated. “Are they fake hires again?”
Zhou Ruo An lazily pulled out a cigarette. “Real. As real as it gets. Otherwise, how would I fool the Second Young Master?”
With the cigarette between his lips, he searched his pockets for a lighter. His speech came out muffled and sticky, like an undercooked fried egg, dragging and slurring. “I did ask Old Master Jin to help me borrow workers—but only for one day. One day of work, plus some overtime, and they can make up for it. That way, Old Master Jin won’t be putting the neighboring factory in a difficult position, and they can consider it repaying an old favor.”
“One day?” Ren Yu raised a finger. “What’s the point of just one day?”
Zhou Ruo An didn’t answer. After failing to find a lighter, he turned to his newly appointed assistant. “Got a light?”
“N-no.”
Zhou Ruo An smiled and raised a finger as well—except it was his middle finger. “You’ve been in the office four years, and when your boss wants a light, you’ve got nothing?”
Ren Yu looked slightly embarrassed. “President Zhou doesn’t smoke, so I never got into the habit of carrying a lighter.”
“Go borrow one.” Zhou Ruo An pointed toward a private car parked across the road. “Ask him.”
Following his gesture, Ren Yu looked over. The driver’s window of that car was half open. Occasionally, a hand holding a cigarette would extend out to flick ash. Smoke curled around half of a cold, hard face—his features blurred, but clearly not someone easy to deal with.
“He’s the ‘villain’ you hired?” Ren Yu asked.
Zhou Ruo An bit down hard on his cigarette filter. “Just a vicious dog.” He touched the bandage at his neck. “At least he’s useful.”
Ren Yu went to borrow a lighter. He was polite, a practiced smile on his refined face. Sitting in his own car, Zhou Ruo An cursed, “Acting differently depending on who you’re dealing with is one thing—but treating even dogs differently? What the hell.”
He lit his cigarette with the borrowed lighter and lowered his window halfway to let in some air.
The person in the car across the road looked over. Zhou Ruo An met his gaze without courtesy, then flicked his wrist and tossed the lighter into a roadside trash bin.
A faint smile suddenly appeared on the other man’s cold face. He brought two fingers together and slowly pressed them against his own neck.
Zhou Ruo An immediately covered the bandage on his neck, his expression changing at once. Between their locked gazes, only the cold wind drifting across the asphalt moved. Zhou Ruo An spat out some cigarette ash, turned his head forward, and shut the car window.
Ren Yu was still fixated on the earlier question and brought it up again. “Fourth Young Master, what’s the point of borrowing workers for just one day?”
Still irritated, Zhou Ruo An lifted his eyelids and saw two buses slowly approaching along the village road. “Did you spread the message I told you to release in the village?”
“I bribed one of the striking villagers. The news that the Fourth Young Master of the Zhou family brought in outside workers has already spread.”
Tilting his head, Ren Yu happened to see villagers rushing out from the wasteland, swarming toward the electronics factory. “They’ve come to confront us?”
Smoke drifted slowly from Zhou Ruo An’s lips, his smile deepening. “You’ll understand soon why I only borrowed workers for one day.”
The approaching crowd came with bad intentions—and they were carrying tools.
Zhou Ruo An turned his gaze back toward that private car. Sure enough, the driver’s door opened, and a tall man stepped out, bending slightly as he emerged. A long down jacket, a clean buzz cut, a short cigarette between his fingers—he took one last drag, flicked it away, and crushed it under his shoe.
With his movement, several vans parked by the roadside opened their doors. Faces appeared one after another—wild, untamed—making the words “danger” and “violence” take on a stark, vivid form.
Sometimes Zhou Ruo An would recall that morning—the pale, gray daylight, the quiet of the countryside shattered by sudden noise. On the village road, the buses rolled forward steadily, dust trailing behind them, swallowing the desolate scenery along the roadside.
The striking villagers, holding hoes and brooms, shouted as they blocked the buses, like defenders of their homeland, trying to drive away intruders.
That was when Lin Yi entered the scene. He seemed especially suited to winter’s bleak colors—like a blade coated in frost. Just looking at him made one’s skin ache.
At moments like this, he spoke little—no pleasantries, just warnings and restraint.
If restraint failed, then force followed.
When he stepped on the wrist of the loudest troublemaker, snowflakes began to fall from the heavy sky.
Snow gathered in his buzz cut. Amid curses and cries, he lit another cigarette. With a curl of his fingers, he beckoned Zhou Ruo An.
“So cool…” Ren Yu murmured sincerely from inside the car.
Zhou Ruo An glanced at him, pushed open the car door, and stepped out. Along with the cold wind rushing in came a single remark: “Your glasses are fogged—wipe them.”
That day, using those “new workers” who were only there temporarily, Zhou Ruo An forced the villagers—who had been on strike for two months—to reassess their own value.
After several rounds of confrontation, someone finally broke ranks and accused the instigator. “The factory benefits were actually pretty good. It was Cui Liu who said we could stay home these two months and still get paid.”
“Yeah, he said in a few days we could go back to work, and not a single cent would be missing.”
“He even said we’d get an extra two thousand yuan for New Year goods.”
Here is your edited version with all Chinese text removed and “kang cavity” replaced with “brick bed cavity”:
⸻
When all his thoughts were focused on careful, step-by-step strategy, everything else inevitably loosened. Zhou Ruo An’s body shifted into instinctive reaction—his fingers lifted slightly, rubbing his knuckles. It was a silent gesture asking Lin Yi for a cigarette.
This movement had been carved into his bones over years, as natural as shivering after urinating, feeling hungry when eating too little, or sleepy when eating too much.
Lin Yi watched as snow settled on that outstretched hand, then melted into water. It was pale—like cream spread over a cake base. After a moment of silence, he removed the cigarette from his lips and passed it over.
The crowd chattered noisily, their words laced with anger.
Zhou Ruo An took the cigarette with clear satisfaction, not minding how damp the filter was.
“Which one of you is Cui Liu?” he asked around the cigarette.
The crowd turned and pointed toward a man shrinking back among the trees. “That’s Cui Liu! He’s the one who told us to stop working and go home.”
The man being pointed at by dozens of fingers was fiddling with his phone. Seeing the crowd turn against him, he hid the phone behind his back and tried to defend himself. “Don’t falsely accuse me—I just wanted everyone to get higher wages.”
“What Cui Liu says makes sense too. People naturally strive for better opportunities—there’s nothing wrong with that,” Zhou Ruo An stepped in at the right moment to ease the tension. “You can argue all you want about who’s right or wrong, but my order can’t wait. The new workers are going into the factory first.”
With a wave of his hand, the buses started moving again. The exhaust burst out like pent-up gas, scattering the freshly fallen snow across the ground.
“Do whatever you want—I’m going back to work,” a female worker pushed through the crowd. “A few thousand a month is way better than scraping by in the fields.”
She hurried forward and entered the factory before the buses arrived.
“I’m going back too.”
Like firecrackers going off one after another, the reaction spread. The villagers threw down their tools and rushed toward the factory, afraid that if they were even a step late, someone else would take their place on the production line.
Ren Yu stood there dumbfounded. When he looked at Zhou Ruo An again, there was now respect—and admiration—in his eyes. He thought to himself that from now on, he must always carry a lighter.
The best one available.
Now, only one person remained standing in front of Zhou Ruo An—Cui Liu, still holding his phone.
The call hadn’t been hung up. Every second ticked by.
On the other end of the line, Zhou Zhe’s secretary frowned deeply, covering the receiver as he asked his superior, “All the workers have returned to work. What should we do now?”
Zhou Zhe, still dressed in his usual plain clothes, spoke with a rare edge of irritation. “I didn’t expect that bastard to snatch the credit. But without those missing components, the order still can’t be completed.”
He raised his eyes, a cold glint sharpening within them. “I went through all this trouble to stage this whole play. I can’t let Zhou Ruo An take center stage and steal it entirely. Get the car ready—I’m going to the county.”
…
In front of the electronics factory, the wind and snow intensified.
Snowflakes seemed to sting Zhou Ruo An’s eyes, his gaze turning icy.
Dropping his pleasant smile, he looked at Cui Liu and asked bluntly, “Were you the one who stole the components from the production line?”
“No.” Cui Liu gripped his phone so tightly his knuckles turned white. “How could it be me? Don’t frame me.”
Standing too long made his legs ache. Zhou Ruo An crouched down with the cigarette in his mouth, then glanced upward—only to realize that this position made Lin Yi beside him look excessively tall. Clicking his tongue, he stood back up, bracing on his knees, and asked, “Has Bai Ban come back?”
Lin Yi watched Zhou Ruo An moving up and down, his voice steady like the wind turbine spinning in the distance. “Just got back.” He tilted his chin. “Over there.”
As he spoke, a small truck pulled up beside them, its tires carving long tracks into the fresh snow. Before the vehicle even fully stopped, the person inside had already jumped out.
Bai Ban swaggered over arrogantly. Seeing Zhou Ruo An, he snorted lightly and tossed something over.
Pointing at Cui Liu, he said, “You tricked this old guy into coming here, so I went through his house three times. Found it hidden in the brick bed cavity. Pretty damn well concealed.”
Cui Liu’s expression changed drastically. “You broke into my house and stole things!”
Bai Ban squatted down on the spot. “What, you gonna report me? Thief crying ‘catch the thief’?”
The item was wrapped in several layers of newspaper. Zhou Ruo An opened it and saw that it was exactly the missing set of components. He flicked away his cigarette butt and brushed the snow off his clothes. “Everything’s settled. Let’s go.”
He had just turned around when a sudden rush of wind came from behind.
“Watch out!” The whistling sound of a swinging hoe cut through the air. Lin Yi pulled Zhou Ruo An into his arms, spun, and took the heavy blow squarely on his back!
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Futile Devices Scans 
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