Behind him, the door that Felix had originally closed suddenly emitted the faint sound of the handle turning.
Immediately after, the wooden door was pushed open slowly, and the delicate creaking sound of the old door hinges turning was exceptionally clear in the silent room.
Felix's movements came to an abrupt halt, a flicker of impatience passing between his brows.
He remained in a half-leaning posture, with Yun Yan protected within the crook of his arm. The shoulder strap of her moon-white silk nightgown had slipped down to her elbow during the previous struggle, hanging loosely and revealing half of her delicate shoulder.
He turned his head, his cold, sharp gaze sweeping toward the door, his eyes filled with undisguised anger.
Did the maids and the housekeeper in this villa not understand the rules? To open the door without knocking and getting permission was simply outrageous.
But upon seeing who was standing at the door, the hostility between Felix's brows dissipated slightly, replaced by a touch of amusement.
Standing at the doorway was a young girl wearing a pink nightgown; she was slender, and her features were similar to those of Yun Yan in his arms.
At this moment, she was frozen in place, her hands still resting on the doorknob, as if struck by a paralysis spell. Her almond-shaped eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the two people in the room, her face full of astonishment.
It was Yun Meng.
Ever since she had followed her sister to this foreign villa, Yun Meng had lived in constant anxiety.
The strange country, the strange language, and the man before her with his powerful aura and unpredictable temperament all made it impossible for her to sleep soundly at night. She always used fear as an excuse to run to her sister's room every night to squeeze into bed with her.
Just a moment ago, when she got up to go to the washroom, she was thinking that Felix should have gone to Su Ying's side tonight, so her sister's room must be safe.
She hadn't thought much about it and didn't even lighten her footsteps when pushing open the door. It wasn't until she saw the scene inside the room that her blood seemed to rush to her head instantly, her mind going blank with a buzzing sound.
The warm yellow wall lamp illuminated the room. Felix's dark bathrobe was tied loosely, the collar open to reveal his well-defined lines.
Her sister, Yun Yan, had disheveled hair and was leaning in the man's arms with her clothes in disarray. Her cheeks were flushed with an unnatural crimson, and her eyes darted around in panic.
Yun Meng's face turned bright red in a flash, the blush spreading from her cheeks down to her neck, and even her earlobes burned hot.
She hurriedly lowered her head, staring fixedly at her own toes, her fingers clutching the hem of her nightgown, trembling slightly from nervousness.
" So... Sorry! "
In her panic, she blurted out broken English, apologizing stammeringly.
" I, I came at... a bad time... "
Before she could finish her sentence, she scrambled to turn the doorknob, just wanting to escape this embarrassing place immediately.
Felix stood his ground, his gaze landing on the girl at the door who looked like a frightened rabbit, then he looked down at Yun Yan in his arms, who looked exactly like her and was currently keeping her eyes lowered, not daring to make a sound.
In his deep eyes, a dark light swirled, flashing with wicked interest and an intense desire for control.
Over the past few days, he had seen clearly that whether it was Su Ying or the Yun sisters, they were all Eastern women raised in seclusion, soft-natured and timid, like flowers swaying in the wind, unable to withstand the slightest storm.
Especially this pair of sisters, who were so timid; the looks in their eyes when they saw him always carried an unconcealable fear, as if he were some man-eating beast.
Having two similar people standing before him, the visual impact was far more interesting than facing just one person alone.
Furthermore, both of them were too soft-natured, and it was the perfect opportunity to let them understand more clearly who was in charge in this villa.
To just let Yun Meng run away like this—wouldn't that be too boring?
" Wait. "
Felix spoke up, calling her to stop, his voice carrying a touch of irresistible magnetism.
Yun Meng's hand on the doorknob froze abruptly.
She raised her head blankly, her eyes slightly red and timidly looking at Felix, her eyes full of helplessness, not understanding why he had called her to stop.
Felix did not let go of the hand protecting Yun Yan; he only freed his other hand, gesturing with his finger toward Yun Meng at the door, his tone brooking no refusal.
" You, come here. "
This sentence made Yun Meng instinctively want to turn and run, but her feet wouldn't move at all.
She remembered the rules that Felix had set.
In this villa, his word was law, and no one dared to disobey.
The two sisters had left their homeland and were without support here; the only thing they could rely on was Felix's momentary interest.
If they were to truly anger him, they would likely not even have a place to stand in this strange country.
Thinking of this, Yun Meng bit her lower lip, the tears in her eyes swirling but forcing herself to hold them back from falling.
She took extremely stiff steps, one by one, inching slowly in front of Felix, her head buried low, her breathing kept very light.
Felix lowered his eyes, looking at the two women before him.
Two similar faces, the same delicate beauty and timid weakness, even the small action of clutching their clothes when nervous was identical.
They were clearly terrified of him, yet they dared not show the slightest defiance. This extreme contrast gave him immense satisfaction in his desire for control.
He didn't give Yun Meng a chance to retreat, reaching out to grasp her arm firmly.
Yun Meng shuddered, instinctively trying to shrink back, but with a slight force, Felix pulled her directly in front of him.
" Ah! "
Yun Meng let out a soft cry, staggering as she bumped into Yun Yan, pressing against her.
The sisters looked at each other, seeing the panic in each other's eyes, yet neither dared to make a sound.
Felix's arm tightened slightly, enclosing both of them within his reach.
He looked down at Yun Meng's flushed eyes, his tone revealing neither joy nor anger.
" Beautiful girl, why do you want to leave after coming here? I wouldn't eat you. "
Yun Meng's heart was beating rapidly, her chest heaving as she didn't dare to look up at him, her voice as faint as a mosquito's.
" Mr. Argyle, I... I really didn't mean to barge in. I th... thought you... you would be with Miss Su. I am very sorry! "
Hearing this, a playful smile curled the corners of Felix's mouth. He stroked Yun Meng's head, then lifted her chin and said in a gentle, hushed voice.
" It doesn't matter, beautiful girl. You don't need to feel sorry for this! "
" Huh? Wh... why? "
Yun Meng's flushed face was lifted, looking somewhat curious. Hadn't she just interrupted his good time with her sister?
Hearing this, Felix revealed a charming smile.
" Because you came at exactly the right time. "
While Felix was enjoying a different kind of pleasure in his villa on Fifth Avenue, the atmosphere in an extremely secret basement in the Lower East Side of New York remained solemn.
This basement had no windows, only a dim gas lamp swaying overhead.
The air was filled with a thick mixture of cheap tobacco and gun oil.
Timmy, the head of the Intelligence Department, stood in front of a wooden table.
The collar of his gray coat was turned up, covering half his face and revealing only a pair of dead fish eyes devoid of any emotional fluctuation.
Five men stood opposite the wooden table.
They were of different builds, some dressed like dock laborers, others like vagrants from a collective dormitory.
But they all had one thing in common at this moment.
That was the extremely fierce look in their eyes, carrying a dangerous aura of being ready to kill at any moment.
These were the core members of the Intelligence Department's action team in New York.
"Did you all hear clearly?"
Timmy's voice echoed in the basement, carrying a chilling calmness.
"A direct order from the Boss. Three days, I am only giving you three days!"
Timmy extended three fingers and tapped heavily on a list on the table.
"Ohio Valley Steel Works, the Susquehanna Iron Works in Pennsylvania. And those two generic drug factories in Boston and New Jersey. These three companies under Old Morgan's name must be completely paralyzed within three days. Whether it is a boiler explosion, a jammed gear, or a warehouse fire. I do not care what methods you use, or how much money you spend to bribe insiders. I only want one result: they should not be able to produce even a single screw!"
The scarred man standing on the far left, codenamed "Ketchum," chuckled and touched the Vanguard revolver at his waist.
"Boss, this job sounds exciting, but it is not too difficult. Our moles have been watching these three companies closely for a long time. At that Boston drug factory, the cheap coal tar they bought is piled up in the backyard. Just send a clever brother to climb over the wall at midnight and throw a phosphorus bottle, and that place will be burned to the ground in ten minutes. As for the new machines in the steel plant, just mix some emery into the lubricating oil tank, and within half a day, all those gears will be ground into scrap metal."
Ketchum licked his dry lips, a bloodthirsty fanaticism showing in his eyes.
"However, Boss. I have a question."
Ketchum leaned forward.
"Since the Boss is so anxious to bring them down, why do we need to go to such lengths to mess with the machines? If the machines break, those British bastards like Cavendish can just buy new ones as long as they have money."
He made a throat-slitting gesture.
"Is it true that as long as we can make the three companies go bankrupt as soon as possible, any trick can be used? If so, can we just be direct? Send a few brothers with good marksmanship to blow away the people in charge of the two drug factories in Boston, and those subordinates Cavendish left in Philadelphia? Eliminate everyone Old Morgan has in America. If the people are dead, the companies will naturally collapse. Wouldn't that be much easier?"
Once these words were spoken, the other men in the basement nodded one after another.
In the eyes of people like them who licked blood from the edge of a knife, killing was always the most direct way to solve problems.
Timmy's eyes turned cold instantly.
'A brute...'
He stared fixedly at Ketchum, his gaze like looking at a dead man.
"Fuck you, Ketchum, is your head filled with nothing but cheap whiskey?"
Timmy's voice seemed to drift out from hell.
"This is the American East, not the lawless Western wilderness! Those companies are the rice bowls for hundreds of workers right now. If you break the machines or set fire to the warehouse, the local police will at most treat it as an accidental industrial accident or retaliation by laid-off workers. As long as we spend some money to grease the wheels, it will be over."
Timmy walked up to Ketchum, his tone extremely stern.
"But if you send people to line up the executives of those companies and Old Morgan's agents and shoot them in the head on the street, that is an extremely vicious series of murders! Old Morgan will certainly take advantage of this to use the London newspapers and diplomatic channels in Washington to force the FBI to intervene! By then, even if the Boss can protect us, the reputation of the Argyle Family will be completely ruined!"
The FBI, or the Federal Beaureau of Investigation was founded by Abraham Lincoln after the civil war, to deal with southern discrimination, and make sure the post war reonstruction efforts don't involve any corruption.
Timmy scanned his lawless subordinates.
"You all listen to me well, until the Boss issues a kill order. Killing is always the last resort for our Intelligence Department! This is a business war, not a gang fight. Using your brains to destroy is a hundred times more effective than using bullets to kill! Do things by the rules! If anyone dares to open fire without authorization and causes trouble for the Boss, I will be the first one to snap his neck!"
The five subordinates were stunned by Timmy's warning and lowered their heads.
They knew Timmy's methods; they were even more aggressive than the previous boss, Flynn.
"I understand, Boss. We will go do it now."
Ketchum put away his arrogant attitude.
"Go. Ketchum, you plan it, distribute the actions among yourselves. Go to the safe upstairs to get the funds. In three days, I want to see the obituaries of these companies shutting down published in the newspapers."
Timmy waved his hand.
The five men immediately left the basement like bats merging into the darkness.
After they left, Timmy turned and walked to the telegraph machine next to the table.
He sat down himself, put on the headset, and his fingers began to tap skillfully on the keys of the telegraph machine.
This was a top-secret direct line that did not need to go through the Metropolitan Trading Company and connected directly to the transatlantic submarine cable.
He was sending a telegram to "Echo," the head of the Intelligence Department far away in Europe.
"To Echo, suspend contact regarding the House of Bourbon. Highest directive changed."
Timmy translated Felix's instructions in the codebook.
"Immediately utilize all resources of the European branch. Collect detailed information for me on all large financial families or consortiums in the City of London that are at odds with the Morgan Family and have conflicts of interest. Especially those families that have seats in Parliament and have healthy capital chains recently. The Boss needs to find a local ally who can launch a fatal blow against the Morgan Bank in London at any time."
The telegraph machine made a ticking sound, turning these deadly intelligence requirements into electric currents, rushing to the other side of the Atlantic.
Subsequently, Timmy typed out the last instruction.
"In addition, send men to inquire in the London aristocratic circles. That Clive Cavendish who ran to America to cause trouble for us. Go check his family situation in London. His wife, children, whether there are any unknown scandals, or any dirty gambling debts owed outside. The deeper you dig, the better."
After typing the last letter, Timmy turned off the telegraph machine.
He stood up and walked to the heavy iron door of the basement.
Since Old Morgan dared to use that kind of low-class political poison on the Boss in Washington, then do not blame the Intelligence Department for stripping his agent's pants off in London.
Since the business war had reached this point, there was no bottom line to speak of in terms of methods.
Timmy pulled down the brim of his hat, completely hiding his dead-looking face in the shadows, and muttered to himself in a low voice, his voice echoing in the empty basement, carrying chilling absolute loyalty and cold-bloodedness.
"Sir."
"I will clear everything for you."
The morning sun shone through the massive arched glass windows of the Fifth Avenue villa, casting mottled light and shadows on the carpet.
Felix walked out of the second-floor bedroom and headed down the wide oak staircase.
His steps were steady; two hours of Chinese language study last night hadn't tired him out too much.
On the contrary, his eyes held the satisfaction and clarity that only come after a good study session.
"Chinese is good; Chinese must be learned!"
By this time, the first-floor dining room was already filled with the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee and fried bacon.
As Felix reached the corner of the staircase, he saw a somewhat unexpected scene.
The housekeeper originally arranged for this villa by Federal Realty, an elderly Irish widow, was currently standing at the entrance of the dining room, looking somewhat at a loss.
And the silver tray filled with breakfast, which she should have been serving to Felix, had already been taken by someone else.
It was Hu Mei.
This thirty-two-year-old oriental woman, whose charm was like that of a ripe peach, was not wearing the somewhat drab traditional Great Qing attire today.
She had changed into a silk dress purchased from San Francisco that featured a certain Western-style cut.
This dress had evidently been hand-altered by her; the waist was cinched extremely tight, accentuating her alluring, curvaceous figure to the fullest.
Seeing Felix walk down the stairs, Hu Mei's eyes instantly lit up.
She didn't shyly lower her head like the other women; instead, she carried the tray with a swaying gait and walked toward Felix.
Upon reaching the dining table, Felix pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat down.
Hu Mei immediately leaned in, placing the coffee, fried eggs, and toast from the tray one by one in front of Felix.
In the moment she bent over to set the tableware, she skillfully adjusted her standing angle.
The silk dress, with its neckline deliberately lowered, allowed Felix a glimpse of her snowy white skin as she bent over.
Even more lethal was that, under the guise of reaching for the coffee pot, she seemingly unintentionally, but in reality, with extreme precision, lightly brushed her ample assets against Felix's shoulder.
Felix's movement of picking up the coffee cup paused slightly.
He raised his eyelids, looking at Hu Mei, who was within arm's reach.
There wasn't a trace of panic on Hu Mei's face. She met Felix's gaze, her eyes, which seemed capable of dripping water, clearly filled with seduction.
Not even pretending anymore.
Last night, she had sat on the edge of her bed in her room, waiting all night long.
She had assumed that after her daughter had taken the lead, based on a man's freshness after several consecutive days, he would surely come to find her next, or perhaps look for the clever Liu Wanqing.
But she never expected that last night, in the second-floor corridor, the man's footsteps would end up stopping in front of Yun Meng's door.
Moreover, the sounds of Chinese language learning coming from that room lasted intermittently for most of the night.
This gave Hu Mei, who had seen through the true nature of men in the Music Registry, a strong sense of crisis.
"Ying'er is still too weak, and Yun Yan and Yun Meng have the advantage of looking exactly alike. If we just keep waiting like this, sooner or later, in this villa, our mother and daughter will become marginalized people eating leftovers."
Hu Mei calculated inwardly.
She didn't intend to maintain any elder's reserve anymore. In this steel city that only recognized power and dollars, reserve couldn't buy bread, nor could it buy a sense of security.
She had to take the initiative and display her greatest asset without reservation to this man who could determine their life and death.
Looking at Hu Mei's pitiful yet extremely eager-to-be-conquered expression, Felix immediately understood all her thoughts.
"Interesting."
Felix chuckled inwardly.
He didn't dislike this kind of purposeful seduction; in fact, he had been waiting for it on purpose.
This kind of ambition, using every trick in the book for survival, was much more interesting than those "white lotus" flowers who only knew how to cry.
Felix put down his coffee cup.
He used the Chinese he had'studied' late into the night, speaking with deliberate awkwardness.
"You, very good."
Then, he reached out his large, bony hand and gave Hu Mei's extremely full and alluring posterior a firm, yet not too heavy, pat.
"Smack."
A crisp sound echoed in the quiet dining room.
Hu Mei's body shuddered violently, and two red clouds instantly flew onto her cheeks. Then, she lowered her head with extreme submissiveness, a faint, imperceptible smile curling at the corners of her mouth.
She didn't even have time to think about the slightly awkward Chinese Felix had spoken.
She knew this meant the man before her had accepted her probing.
"Breakfast is good."
Felix picked up his napkin, wiped his mouth, and stood up.
He didn't look at Hu Mei again and walked straight toward the villa's main entrance.
Outside the door, the security captain had already opened the carriage door, waiting to take him to the Empire Bank Building.
As the door closed, the suffocating pressure in the villa gradually dissipated.
Only then did the other women, hiding at the second-floor stair corner and the edge of the first-floor living room, begin to emerge.
Liu Wanqing held a glass of water, looking at Hu Mei, who was clearing the table, with an extremely complex expression.
Shen Yue walked over to help Hu Mei tidy up the plates. Her face was as red as a ripe apple; she had seen the whole scene just now, and such a bold act made her, a Jiangnan woman, too shy to even lift her head.
"Auntie Hu."
Liu Wanqing walked to the dining table and lowered her voice.
"Just now... weren't you too impatient? If you angered him..."
"Anger him?"
Hu Mei stopped what she was doing, turned her head, and let out a clear, cold laugh at Liu Wanqing.
"Wan Qing. You are a clever girl, but you still think too much of yourself as a young lady of a noble family."
Hu Mei stacked the empty plates heavily together.
"Do you still think this is our Great Qing, where you have to worry about playing hard to get or maintaining the demeanor of a noble lady? Don't you see? That man doesn't care at all what we think. He is like a hungry wolf. A hungry wolf only cares if the meat is fat, not what kind of plate it's served on."
Hu Mei pointed toward the direction of the second-floor corridor.
Yun Yan and Yun Meng's room was still tightly shut even now, without even a sound.
"Before it was Ying'er, and last night it was that pair of sisters. If you don't fight for it, do you think your pride-and-joy knowledge and schemes will last you more than a few days in front of this foreigner who can barely understand our language?"
Su Ying also walked out of her room at this moment, holding onto the stair railing, and lowered her head silently upon hearing her mother's words.
She knew her mother was right; she indeed lacked the ability to keep a man tightly bound to her.
Amur sat on the sofa, peeling an apple with a small knife.
"I think Auntie Hu is right."
Amur chimed in with the tone of a Western Regions girl.
"In a wolf pack on the grasslands, only those who charge to the front can snatch the best bones. Those who retreat only get to eat bloody mud."
Liu Wanqing fell silent, her fingers gripping the water glass turning slightly white.
She had to admit that although Hu Mei's survival philosophy was crude, it was the most effective under the current absolute suppression of power.
These women, who originally held different classes and statuses in the Great Qing Empire, were now locked in the same canary cage.
Their previous identities were all useless now.
Now, whoever could climb into that man's bed and make him happy was the queen of this villa.
"Perhaps I, too, must put down those useless airs."
Liu Wanqing silently told herself, then turned to look at her aunt, Shen Yue, who was also somewhat at a loss, and began to calculate a new strategy in her mind.
Vienna, capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The sky was so overcast it felt as if it were pressing down upon the spires of St. Stephen's Cathedral, and the cold, early winter rain was mercilessly scouring the cobblestone streets of this ancient city.
In a basement within the inner city, the air was filled with the faint scent of ozone produced by the operation of a telegraph machine.
The general head of the Intelligence Department's European division, a man codenamed "Echo," was sitting in front of that heavy telegraph machine.
His brows were tightly furrowed, and holding a pencil, he swiftly translated the encrypted telegram that had just arrived via the transatlantic cable from New York, line by line, into readable text.
"To Echo: Suspend contact regarding the House of Bourbon. Supreme directive changed."
Upon seeing this, Echo's movements paused slightly.
He knew this meant something must have definitely happened over in New York. Otherwise, the boss wouldn't change instructions so casually.
He continued translating.
"Immediately utilize all resources of the European division to collect detailed information on all large financial families or consortiums within the City of London that are at odds or have conflicts of interest with the Morgan Family... Find local allies capable of launching a fatal strike against Morgan Bank in London at any time."
"Also, investigate Cavendish's family situation in London; the deeper, the better."
Echo threw the pencil onto the desk and let out a long breath of cold air, visible as white mist.
"What kind of stupid thing did that madman Old Morgan do in America to provoke the boss to this extent?"
Echo muttered to himself.
He understood the boss's style of operation.
If it were just ordinary commercial competition, the boss would never resort to this kind of extreme investigation directly targeting the enemy's lair and family.
Apparently, this time Old Morgan had touched a red line that absolutely could not be crossed, leading the boss to decide to completely flip the chessboard and set the flames of war directly upon the banks of the River Thames.
"It seems the fog in London is about to turn red."
Echo did not waste a single second.
He immediately walked over to a triple-locked iron cabinet nearby and took out a miniature telegraph machine capable of only one-way transmission.
This was the top-secret communication network established by the Intelligence Department in Europe, used exclusively to contact the heads of the sleeper cells lurking in London.
Echo put on his headset and began sending the double-encrypted radio waves.
"Beep — beep-beep —— beep-beep-beep"
Crossing the English Channel.
London, an old pub on the edge of the City of London.
In the pub's basement cellar, piles of dust-covered oak barrels were stacked high. In a secret compartment, a man wearing a refined grey tweed suit and sporting an English handlebar mustache was quietly listening to the vibrations coming from a telegraph machine disguised as a ventilation pipe in the corner.
His name was Benson.
The top commander of the Argyle Family Intelligence Department stationed in London. On the surface, he was just a real estate broker who had spent the last few years specializing in reselling bankrupt estates among various old-money aristocrats.
Benson quickly deciphered the telegram.
After reading the contents of the note, a cold, excited glint flashed in Benson's grey-blue eyes.
"Collect Morgan Bank's deadly enemies? Investigate Cavendish's family?"
Benson stroked his handlebar mustache, threw the note directly into the furnace nearby, and watched it turn to ash.
"Yes, this is simply the best job I've received in the last three years."
Benson walked out of the cellar and into the pub's noisy main hall.
He ordered a pint of dark beer, walked to the corner of the bar, and tapped his fingers on the bar counter in an extremely concealed manner three times.
The bartender glanced at him and nodded almost imperceptibly.
Less than half an hour later, three men dressed in different attire entered the pub one after another.
They did not greet each other, but each ordered a drink, and then silently converged in a locked guest room on the second floor of the pub via different staircases.
Benson stood by the window, looking at these three local London informants he had cultivated himself.
"Guys, big business has arrived."
Benson's voice was very low, yet it carried an unquestionable authority.
"First thing: turn the City of London upside down for me. Find any bank, financial management firm, or family that has commercial competition or some level of conflict with Morgan Bank. In short, as long as they have clashed with the Morgan Family in business—even if it's just one of their dogs—I want you to find out exactly which street it pees on."
"Second thing: Clive Cavendish. Don't look at me like that, brother. Yes, that unlucky bastard who is currently working for Old Morgan in America."
Benson pulled a money pouch from his pocket and threw it onto the table; it was filled with gold pounds.
"Didn't we already pinpoint his residence? Go to his villa in the West End. Bribe the coachman in his house, or you can find a way to sleep with his maid. I want to know if his eldest son has bullied any classmates at Eton College. I want to know if his wife is cheating on him with some down-and-out baron. Within three days, I want to see Clive Cavendish's underwear hanging on my desk."
The three informants looked at the gold pounds on the table, greed showing in their eyes.
"Rest assured, sir. In London, as long as there are gold pounds, we can even find out what color pajamas the Queen wore last night."
...
Meanwhile, in America.
In that basement in the Lower East Side of New York.
The scarred man codenamed "Ketchum" was distributing dynamite and phosphorus fire bottles to his four companions.
"Guys, the boss said absolutely no one can know it was us."
Ketchum wiped his short-handled iron hammer while viciously beginning the internal assignments.
"Jim, take some men to the Sterling pharmaceutical plant in Boston. Didn't they buy coal tar at a high price from the black market? That stuff is highly flammable. Send people to climb into the warehouse in the middle of the night. You don't need to set a fire—just break a few of their glass jars containing nitric acid and let the acid flow into the coal tar barrels. The rest of the work will be done by chemical reaction. That's called a'spontaneous combustion accident caused by improper storage,' understand?"
"And you, Jack, take some men to Apotheke in New Jersey. Their reaction kettles are cast iron. I heard that if you tamper with the valve on the cooling water pipe and make it jam, then tomorrow morning when the workers start the machines, the temperature in the reaction kettle won't drop, and the pressure will break through the critical point. With a 'bang,' the entire workshop will be blown to pieces."
Ketchum turned to look at the last two companions.
"LeBron, Kobe, the three of us will take some men to Ohio and have some fun at two of Old Morgan's Federal Steel Company branch plants."
Ketchum dragged a burlap sack out from under the table, which was filled with fine, hard emery.
"New converters shipped from Europe, right? Hydraulic air supply equipment, right? Let's go feed those precision British gears some of our American specialty sand."
Early the next morning, before the sun had pierced through the thick fog over the Ohio Valley, the piercing steam whistle of the Federal Steel Company branch plant had already sounded.
Plant manager Horace, sporting two heavy dark circles under his eyes, stood on the dispatch platform of the blast furnace workshop.
Ever since Tom Harris had led over a hundred skilled workers to defect collectively a few days ago, Horace had been, to use a phrase from the ancient East, living like every day was a year.
Cavendish had given a strict order: no matter the cost, the newly purchased European converter must be ignited and put into operation today.
Horace had spent double the price to temporarily cobble together a group of foundry workers and apprentices from the surrounding towns who had never even seen a converter before.
"Listen up, you idiots, keep your eyes on the pressure gauge! Open the hydraulic air supply valve!"
Horace shouted through a megaphone.
Several inexperienced workers scrambled to push the massive brass levers.
The new converter shipped from Europe began to emit a dull roar, and the massive gear train began to mesh, preparing to tilt the furnace body, which weighed hundreds of tons.
However, just as the gears turned halfway.
"Click—creak—"
An extremely harsh sound of metal grinding suddenly erupted from the bearing housing of the main drive shaft.
Immediately followed by a loud, muffled sound of metal snapping.
"Bang!"
The entire blast furnace workshop shuddered violently.
Because the gears had suddenly jammed, a massive hydraulic press could not release its internal pressure and snapped its thick connecting rod.
The broken connecting rod flew out like a cannonball, smashing through the iron sheet roof of the workshop.
Sparks flew everywhere.
The heavy oil used for lubrication instantly caught fire due to the extreme heat of friction.
"Oh shit—stop! Damn it, stop the machine!"
Horace roared in terror, his voice cracking.
But it was already too late.
The extremely fine emery powder that Ketchum had quietly stuffed into the main bearing housing the night before had, in these few short minutes of the machine starting, completely ground the precision European bearings into irreparable scrap metal.
The entire blast furnace system, on its first day of operation, was completely paralyzed and ruined before it had even managed to produce molten steel.
Almost at the same time.
Boston, the backyard of the Sterling Chemical Brotherhood plant.
An old gatekeeper was dozing off with a cup of coffee.
Suddenly, he smelled a pungent acidic odor.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw strange yellow-green smoke billowing from Warehouse No. 5, where black-market coal tar was stored.
"What? Holy shit—fire! Someone come and put out the fire!"
The old man scrambled towards the alarm bell.
But obviously, this was not an ordinary fire.
The strong acid leaking from the sabotaged nitric acid tanks mixed with the mountains of coal tar, causing a violent chemical reaction.
"Boom!"
A deafening explosion tore through the silence of the Boston morning, blowing the roof of Warehouse No. 5 straight off.
A violent column of fire shot into the sky, and the high temperature instantly ignited all the chemical raw materials stored nearby.
The fire spread so quickly that a few workers carrying buckets could not possibly extinguish it.
Arthur Sterling rushed out of his office in his pajamas, watching the plant area that had turned into a sea of fire, and collapsed in despair into the mud.
"Holy Mary—"
This was the life-saving raw material he had bought on the black market for nearly ten times the price, his trump card intended to cover the breach of contract penalties, and in this moment, it had all turned to ash.
Meanwhile, at the Apothek Pharmaceutical Factory in New Jersey, an explosion caused by a reactor overheating due to an "accidental" jamming of the cooling valve also reduced more than half of the plant to ruins at almost the same time.
Philadelphia.
A secret import-export firm on the banks of the Delaware River.
Clive Cavendish sat behind a large desk.
In front of him sat a half-eaten ham sandwich.
Just as he was about to finish it in one go, the office door was shoved open violently.
Assistant Bates looked like he had just been fished out of the water, drenched in sweat, clutching several urgent telegrams that still smelled of the telegraph office's ink.
"Sir... it's over... it's all over..."
Bates's voice was trembling, and he didn't even have the strength to walk to the desk, tossing the telegrams directly onto the carpet.
"The converter gears in Ohio jammed, the main shaft snapped, and the entire set of machinery is ruined."
"The raw material warehouse at the Sterling pharmaceutical plant in Boston experienced spontaneous chemical combustion; the fire is still burning, and the entire inventory is destroyed."
"The reactor at the Apothek plant in New Jersey exploded, and half of the factory building collapsed."
Bates swallowed hard, looking at Cavendish, who sat in his chair, plunged into silence.
"Sir, the preliminary reports from the local police and fire investigators are out. In Ohio, it was because the newly hired workers made an operational error and didn't add lubricating oil in time. In Boston, it was because the warehouse manager violated regulations by storing strong acid and coal tar together. In New Jersey, it was due to equipment aging..."
Bates's voice grew quieter.
"All the reports say this was an extremely unfortunate... chain of accidents."
Cavendish didn't speak, curling his lip.
He looked at the telegrams dropped on the carpet, the muscles in his face twitching slightly, and then let out a strange laugh.
"Heh... accidents? A chain of accidents?"
"Even God wouldn't dare say that."
Cavendish continued to eat his breakfast silently, his voice filled with helplessness.
"If one company has an accident, it's an accident. If two companies have accidents, it's a coincidence. But three companies in different states and different industries, all completely scrapped on the same morning due to 'operational errors'!"
Cavendish stared at Bates.
"Buddy, in this godforsaken America, besides that person sitting on the top floor of the Empire State Building in New York, who has such terrifying execution? Who could do things so cleanly right under the nose of the federal government, without leaving a single trail?"
Cavendish chewed his food; he understood everything.
He recalled a few days ago, following Old Morgan's secret instructions from London, he had gone personally to pick up that lobbyist who understood the rules of New York. He had personally arranged for someone to go to the Philadelphia branch of the Imperial Bank to issue that one-million-dollar pure gold cashier's check, and then sent it to the Democratic Party box in Washington.
"It was political poisoning... that angered the arrogant King of New York."
Cavendish shrugged indifferently.
"Look—Argyle has seen through our tricks. Not only did he see through them, but he was completely enraged. He no longer intends to continue playing that civilized commercial game of mutual price-cutting and poaching with us."
"This is flipping the table; this is pure physical destruction."
Cavendish muttered to himself.
He looked at the map of North America hanging on the wall.
The bridgeheads that Old Morgan had spent millions of pounds and painstaking effort to build in America to counterbalance the Argyle Family had, this morning, been uprooted by someone as if they were pinching a few ants to death.
There was no room for maneuver or possibility of recovery.
Without machinery and raw materials, those plants were now just festering sores that would only bleed madly.
"Sir, then what should we do now?" Bates asked with a sobbing tone.
"Since it was Argyle who sent people to do it, should we go to the police and demand the FBI intervene? This is clearly sabotage!"
"Oh—naive Bates. Call the police? Do you have evidence? All the investigation reports are written in black and white saying it was worker operational error!"
Cavendish let out a sneer, looking at his assistant as if he were an idiot.
"And even if there were evidence, do you think those bureaucrats in Washington would take action against Argyle, that monster who controls the economic lifeline of nearly half the United States, just for the sake of our British assets?"
Cavendish reached out and rubbed his throbbing temples.
Actually, at this moment, a strange sense of relief welled up in his heart.
Because he knew very well that Old Morgan could not possibly be a match for Argyle in America.
If he stayed in America to continue resisting, the only outcome would be getting thrown into the Delaware River by Argyle's people on some dark and windy night.
More importantly, these destroyed machines and raw materials were not Cavendish's money.
This was Old Morgan's money, the Grosvenor family's money.
It was also the money of those European gentlemen who sat in high-end clubs in London, smoking cigars and pointing out the landscape.
"I have had enough of being a scapegoat for those vampires," Cavendish said to himself in his heart.
He intended to just lie flat anyway.
Cavendish picked up the pen on the table and scribbled a line on a piece of white paper.
He handed the note to Bates.
"Go to the telegraph office. Use the highest-level code to send the 'accidental situations' of these three companies in full to 22 Broad Street in London."
Cavendish leaned back in his leather chair and closed his eyes, his tone carrying the rogue attitude of someone who had given up.
"Tell Mr. Junius Morgan directly that most of the investments in America have turned into scrap iron and ash."
"As for what to do next?"
Cavendish's mouth curled into a malicious smile.
"Let the old man figure it out in front of his fireplace in London."