Chapter 16: Chapter Sixteen: The New Realm of Authority

Time passed slowly amid development, and before he knew it, over two months had gone by.

During this period, Wang Yan sought out many national masters to study various schools of Chinese martial arts. Many martial artists had come to Hong Kong during the war years, all with legitimate lineages.

Wang Yan paid them high fees to teach him; whether they dared to deceive him was another matter—he himself was a Martial Arts Level 3 practitioner, and his eye for technique was impeccable. He had learned some real skills in Baji, Wing Chun, Southern Fist and Northern Leg. These old men still held to their principles; whether right or wrong, they truly carved rules into their bones. Wang Yan didn't treat them as fathers or grandfathers, so he couldn't learn the true transmissions—the key phrases they kept hidden.

In his spare time, Wang Yan read books on traditional Chinese scholarship to elevate his mental realm and resolve his own issues.

One day, Wang Yan was training in a martial arts school he owned when the head of Long Teng Technology rushed in.

Seeing him, Wang Yan immediately understood.

Sure enough, the man joyfully reported his results: the VCD was finally finished.

Wang Yan didn't waste words—he waved his hand and ordered payment.

After giving the R&D team a large sum, Wang Yan issued new improvement tasks and proposed the development direction for DVD.

He then flew directly to Shenzhen with the technicians to calibrate the production line.

Wang Yan had opened many factories—not just in Shenzhen, but in many other cities too—each producing VCDs at a terrifying monthly output. He had no intention of letting anyone else enter the market; monopoly was where the profit lay.

Wang Yan sent samples to his global big brothers, determined to make them rich with him. If he relied only on himself, how many lifetimes would it take to sell them worldwide?

Factories within China began overtime production and inventory buildup; advertising campaigns were also rapidly filmed and launched.

The big brothers, upon seeing the finished product, were ecstatic. None were fools—they knew this was a groundbreaking product, far easier and just as profitable as their traditional smuggling operations.

After negotiations, the wholesale price was set at two thousand U. S. dollars, while the factory price was under five hundred red bills. That was the advantage of monopoly. Anyone hoping to pirate it would need at least half a year—and by then, Wang Yan estimated he'd have sold them worldwide.

The big brothers all pushed hard, launching global advertising campaigns; before even hitting shelves, the VCD was already a worldwide sensation.

Domestically, Wang Yan established a separate import-export company, settling in U. S. dollars at one thousand per unit—helping the nation earn more foreign exchange, and besides, he had too many U. S. dollars to use anyway.

Domestically, Wang Yan sold directly himself. Though there were many rich people in this era, the poor were still the majority. The average income here was only two to three hundred red bills; Wang Yan priced it at ten thousand red bills—it was impossible to sell many.

After a month, the first million-plus VCDs were snapped up by the big brothers. As expected, once on the market, every single unit sold out within a day. Wang Yan netted billions of U. S. dollars.

With such vast funds in hand, Wang Yan obviously wouldn't let the money sit idle in banks.

Wang Yan bought several plots of land in the New Territories, hired domestic construction teams to build housing complexes, along with commercial centers, schools, and other facilities—all materials shipped from China.

He planned to sell these buildings at seventy percent of market price to his underlings. Most of the Triad members came from poor families, crammed with several relatives into tiny apartments. Now that their entire families worked for Long Teng, Wang Yan owed them care—and it would strengthen Long Teng's cohesion, inspiring loyalty unto death.

When news spread that Long Teng was buying land, building housing, and selling at seventy percent off to underlings, the members erupted in excitement, shouting to take on the East Star. Wang Yan was delighted. With so much money he couldn't spend, he openly recruited more people, steadily expanding and slowly devouring surrounding factions.

He moved steadily, occupying one area, then imposing Long Teng's rules—just like in Tuen Mun. He didn't need to worry about it; Li Yun handled everything perfectly.

He also had Long Teng Technology establish a mobile phone R&D team, poaching talent from Motorola and Nokia. Wang Yan had so much money he didn't know what to do with it—he was throwing it at anything he couldn't touch in the God of Medicine world.

Various tech factories gradually opened across China, with all kinds of compact machines brought in by his big brothers.

He also established a charity company within China, staffed entirely by his own people—to avoid corruption. He wasn't afraid of corruption, but he feared the trouble it brought.

Wang Yan poured in massive investments, continuously importing key technologies and carrying out charity. Though his billions of U. S. dollars meant little on a national scale, he was actually doing tangible work.

The domestic leadership saw Wang Yan's determination and were highly satisfied with his performance—thus, he received a green light everywhere in China.

Altogether, this went on for nearly half a year, and now it was April 1993.

Wang Yan's VCDs were no longer selling well—mainly because the big brothers were too aggressive, flooding too many channels. Those who could afford them had already bought them; those who couldn't were saving up or waiting for a price drop.

He'd also heard rumors of counterfeits—likely to hit the market soon.

During this time, Long Teng's growth had been insane, with over ten thousand underlings. A large organization was hard to manage, especially since Wang Yan commanded remotely from China, inevitably missing things.

Early on, they followed Wang Yan's plan, slowly devouring surrounding territories. Later, with more members and underlings eager to prove themselves and rise in rank, they lost all restraint—directly going to war with East Star and other gangs. East Star was reduced to a second-tier organization; Long Teng now dominated the entire New Territories, and at least a hundred thousand people in Hong Kong depended on Wang Yan for their livelihood.

Due to Long Teng's massive expansion, it had offended nearly every Hong Kong gang. Now they had formed an alliance, tightly guarding against Long Teng, determined to prevent it from becoming the sole dominant force. Their combined strength was formidable—Wang Yan couldn't fight them, and Long Teng's expansion had stalled.

Honestly, since learning of their alliance, Wang Yan hadn't returned to Hong Kong. He stayed in China, afraid that if he went back, he'd be killed.

Now, it was time—he finally set out for Hong Kong.

After returning and carefully assessing the situation, Wang Yan understood everything.

The growth over these past months had been too rapid—Long Teng couldn't handle such a vast territory.

First priority: quiet development. Fully absorb the territories already seized, embed Long Teng's rules into every member's mind—only then could expansion resume. With larger territory and more people, control became harder—this process would surely take time.

Wang Yan also needed time to reflect, for his own abilities had fallen behind Long Teng's growth. Controlling so many people and such a vast territory, he clearly felt overwhelmed.

To develop peacefully, he needed the other gangs' consent. There was no choice—they were too powerful, and he couldn't afford to provoke them. He had to stabilize them first, then proceed gradually. He surrendered part of his profits—the VCD sales rights—to several countries. That would keep them busy for a while; and since every gang wanted the biggest share, they'd fight each other bloody.

His big brothers were all well-fed and knew Wang Yan's current situation. He had made them rich—they were grateful. They were all gangsters; they couldn't be too foolish.

So they readily agreed—he gave up markets with poor sales potential.

Even though Long Teng's VCDs weren't selling well now, they were still exclusive—someone would always buy them.

No matter how powerful Wang Yan was, he couldn't sell them all. With six months of frantic production capacity expansion, he'd max out at a few tens of millions sold.

So many markets remained—good products never lacked buyers. What he gave them was a meaty bone.

No matter how the alliance eventually divided the spoils, some would get more, some less—unequal distribution would become a seed of conflict.

Wang Yan successfully diverted their attention by releasing sales rights, breaking their unity and intensifying internal strife.

With external threats stabilized and no more fighting, what else was there to wait for but steady development?

Long Teng still held many territories it had occupied for too short a time—continue expanding new areas, and many places remained chaotic. For lasting peace, the slow way was the only way. Wang Yan issued orders: sweep street by street, and open offices street by street.

The New Territories visibly improved at a rapid pace.

Aside from daily time spent managing the company, Wang Yan spent all other hours reading and studying in his newly purchased villa.

Now he read mostly traditional Chinese scholarship and philosophy, aiming to elevate his personal cultivation. These subjects were obscure, and Wang Yan's level was insufficient—so he paid heavily to hire professors and scholars from the University of Hong Kong to teach him personally.

Though these studies seemed mystical, they were genuinely effective—progress was encouraging. Wang Yan clearly felt himself slowly recovering, gradually returning to normal.

Wang Yan held out until early 1994 before temporarily resolving his personal issues.

Traditional Chinese scholarship and philosophy were profound, complex, and difficult to grasp—Wang Yan had studied for over half a year and had barely reached Level 1 beginner status.

Wang Yan had once considered returning to the real world and using his attribute points to solve his problems. But as his understanding of traditional scholarship deepened, he realized this wasn't something that could be fixed by boosting mental stats. Attribute points increased the quantity of spirit; persistent learning and self-improvement enhanced its quality—two entirely different directions.

This mystical "spirit" thing—he didn't know if quantity could ever turn into quality. Even if it could, how many attribute points would it take? How many lifetimes to trigger a change? All he could do was keep improving himself, keep refining his spirit.

This long period wasn't just about studying—could he just ignore such a massive company and let it collapse?

As Wang Yan participated for a long time in company management, decision-making, and other affairs, his abilities rapidly improved, and his management skill reached LV3 professional level.

His survival-oriented sales skill also broke through to LV3 professional level. This confirmed to Wang Yan that the thing really depended on sales volume; the experience and insights gained from large deals differed from those of ordinary transactions.

Long Teng's development was astonishing—it now firmly controlled the entire New Territories.

After Long Teng purged the entire New Territories, the local triads, petty thieves, drug dealers, and other criminals lost their foothold and fled en masse to Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

With these people flooding in, crime rates in both areas skyrocketed. Fights, riots, robberies, thefts, and drug dealing became frequent. The police were overwhelmed daily, running nonstop and utterly exhausted.

Compared to police in the other two areas, police working in the New Territories were in a completely different state.

Long Teng's administration of the New Territories was drug-free, and it directly posted bounties for tips—reward for reporting. Loan sharks and gambling were not strictly banned, but you couldn't go too far. Otherwise, victims would go to Long Teng; once verified, they'd be eliminated without hesitation, the ringleaders dumped straight into the sea. Long Teng wasn't a do-gooder—everything had a price. Those who came with real problems, those who falsely reported, those who stirred up trouble for no reason—Long Teng would let them personally experience what organized crime meant.

Rules mattered. Long Teng set the bottom line.

As long as you didn't go too far, Long Teng had no time to meddle in others' messes.

For major cases, there was no need to call the police—Long Teng would break their legs and deliver them straight to the station. Police spent their days gathering to brag, or idly poking cats and dogs. As for the Major Crimes Unit, unless occasional murders or Gao Zhishang crimes required them, otherwise the unit might as well be disbanded.

Being a police officer in the New Territories, aside from low pay and virtually no promotion prospects, boiled down to two words—comfortable. Compared to the daily hell of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, no further explanation was needed.

With his subordinates increasing, Wang Yan had no choice but to enter labor-intensive industries like services and manufacturing. It was unavoidable. Previously, subordinates' families were placed in logistics companies, garment factories, shoe factories, and similar industries. Now, things were different: Long Teng Security had twenty to thirty thousand subordinates; their families numbered at least three or four times that—eighty to ninety thousand people.

This didn't even count upstream and downstream industries—if you included them all, the number was astronomical.

The Hong Kong market was only so big; how many people could logistics and garment factories possibly absorb? Thus, Wang Yan had to continuously expand labor-intensive industries to accommodate his subordinates' families.

He didn't even know how many companies he'd opened—he did everything. Management difficulty kept rising, so Wang Yan formed a think tank, hiring outside elite talent to manage and supervise all of Long Teng's industries.

How could such a massive organization lack talent? Wang Yan had promoted several people during this time. Li Yun remained the nominal leader, but Wang Yan had also promoted others to create mutual checks. After all, entrusting everything to one person in such a powerful force was foolish.

Wang Yan could have avoided this—Long Teng was built step by step by Wang Yan himself; subordinates and their families remembered only Wang Yan. Long Teng could truly be said to rest entirely on Wang Yan's shoulders. Without Wang Yan, Long Teng would instantly collapse—it was a matter of personal authority.

He did this purely to practice his wrist—hone his methods of control, study the art of balance—the so-called "imperial tactics," an essential skill for any superior.

When Long Teng first seized the New Territories, a group of old bastards joined forces to suppress it, with Hong Xing's Jiang Tiansheng shouting the loudest. Wang Yan wasn't a saint—he didn't have that much tolerance. Especially since these bastards blocked his path and not one of them was good; pull any one out, and he'd deserve half an hour of gunfire.

Wang Yan had waited this long—the New Territories were fully secured. His subordinates and various talents were sufficiently cultivated, and money—the most crucial thing for fighting—he'd never lacked. Now, everything was ready. It was time for revenge.

He immediately issued a notice: all Long Teng Security personnel ranked ten or higher must report to Long Teng's newly acquired headquarters building for a meeting.