The Titan's Arrogance
Fang Yun watched Li Changfeng's retreating back through the glass of his office door. A short, mocking laugh escaped his lips as he shook his head in disbelief. As the General Manager and a major shareholder of the Hengtai Group, Fang Yun was a man who lived in a different world. His net worth exceeded 100 billion yuan, placing him permanently on the Forbes list. He traveled in custom-made bulletproof Rolls-Royces, surrounded by a small army of elite bodyguards.
In his eyes, Li Changfeng was nothing more than a ghost—a man withered by advanced stomach cancer, whose physical strength was likely inferior to that of a seventy-year-old. To Fang Yun, Li's threat was the desperate rambling of a dying ant. He quickly lowered his head, refocusing on an international tourism project. He didn't have another second to waste on a man who was already halfway in the grave.
The Hunter's Research
Back in his cramped, twenty-yuan-a-night room, Li Changfeng sat on a rickety stool, lost in thought.
"Killing Fang Yun alone isn't enough," he whispered to the damp walls. Hengtai Group was the true culprit—a hydra that needed to be dismantled piece by piece.
He opened his phone, his fingers trembling as he searched for the architects of the group's bloody rise. Six years ago, Hengtai was merely a local power in Donghai City. Today, it was a global titan. He began to list the names of the senior shareholders, matching their polished corporate headshots to the names that haunted his memories.
"Yang Chusheng..." "Hedong Chu..." "Chen Sicheng..."
"Fang Yun must be the first," Li muttered. He knew Fang Yun would ignore his warning, but once the people around him began to drop like flies, that arrogance would turn into a paralyzing terror.
Suddenly, a sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his abdomen. He leaned over and spat a thick glob of blood onto the concrete floor. His vision blurred, a wave of cold exhaustion threatening to pull him under.
"Death doesn't scare me," he hissed through blood-stained teeth, his eyes burning with a fierce, unnatural light. "As long as I can take them all with me."
6:00 AM. The Anniversary.
The alarm clock shrieked at dawn. Today was the anniversary of the Old Principal's death—the perfect day for the first payment.
Li Changfeng sat at the table and opened the Death Note. With a steady, unwavering hand, he wrote the first name: Fang Yun.
"Letting you die in your sleep is a mercy you don't deserve," he whispered.
He chose a silent death. If Fang Yun died in his sleep, the authorities would likely attribute it to the immense stress of his position or a hidden heart condition. It was a tactical necessity to keep the spotlight away from himself. He was a dying man, but he wasn't a fool; he wanted his revenge to be a long, slow burn.
He waited. Thirty seconds passed in absolute silence.
Suddenly, the black pages of the notebook shimmered with an eerie light. A new line of text, written in that same impossible, ancient script, bled into existence on the first page.
Rule 4: By harvesting the life of a criminal, the wielder may extend their own existence.
At the bottom corner of the page, a glowing symbol appeared. Though he had never seen the mark before, its meaning was instantly clear: [Lifespan + 10 Days].
In that instant, a surge of warmth—an unseen vitality—poured into Li's body from the void. The gnawing ache in his stomach didn't vanish, but it dulled significantly. The crushing fatigue that had made his limbs feel like lead lifted just enough for him to breathe deeply without a coughing fit.
Li's eyes widened, shimmering with shock and a new, dangerous hunger.
"It can extend my life..." his voice trembled. "Killing them... gives me time."
His original plan was a suicide mission. But now, the rules had changed. Even an ant wants to survive, and Li Changfeng was no longer an ant. He was the judge, jury, and executioner. A bright, blood-stained future was waving at him from the horizon.
A cruel, predatory smile spread across his face.
"There is always a way out," he whispered, looking at the list of Hengtai executives. "Next... all of you. One by one."