Chapter 48: Caught in the Net (Triple Episode)

A private luxury VIP room spanning over a hundred square meters was decorated in a lavish, gilded style. The tables were piled with top-shelf cigarettes and fine liquor, accompanied by the endless clinking of glasses and cheerful chatter.

However, the lighting here was far from bright—it was deliberately dim, casting a heavy veil of privacy and indulgence over the room.

This was the private lounge of the owner of the entire Golden Coast, and one of the few secret banquet venues known to only a handful of people in Yuan City.

On the entire top floor, no one was allowed to set foot unless they held a special invitation.

Even the elevators could not light up the button for the eighth floor without scanning a dedicated access card.

Legend had it that the owner of this place was one of the most formidable figures in Yuan City. With a single word from him, anyone could become a prominent and influential person in the city.

The elevator doors, lined with dark red carpeting, slid open. The moment they parted, a shiny black shoe stepped out, followed by deep blue pinstripe suit trousers and a matching suit jacket worn unbuttoned over a plain black shirt.

A man with a bulging, greasy belly and thick, yellowish, glistening arms reached out, deftly shedding his outer garment and tossing it onto the person standing beside him.

"Third Master, the people below reported back. Those three tailers said those guys didn't squeeze a single result out of them." The man standing beside him wore a sycophantic smile, holding the coat and slightly bowing as he trailed after the man addressed as Third Master.

The man's face was covered in thick flesh and pockmarks, which, combined with his triangular eyes, gave him an extremely ugly and ferocious appearance.

Whenever he looked at someone, it would make them shudder involuntarily.

Take right now, for instance, as he gazed at the man who had just spoken: "Those criminal investigators aren't pushovers. You better get it done, or I'll have you thrown into a barrel of wet cement and dumped in the ocean."

"Yes, yes, yes... absolutely, I'll make sure it's handled properly!" The man's expression stiffened before he immediately forced his flattering smile back onto his face.

Pushing open the heavy doors of the VIP room, the man plastered an exaggerated smile across his face.

"You're all too kind to grace us with your presence! I thought you weren't going to make it!" He spread his arms, pulling two glamorous beauties close, and looked toward the rest of the occupants in the room.

Inside the room, several glass partitions had been wheeled in, fitted with one-way mirrors so that the people inside could see out, while those on the other side remained completely blind to them.

This was a new feature introduced for this month's selection banquet. They had felt that the Blossom Project was getting a bit too much exposure, so they had quietly shifted to a private corporate donation model, launching the Sunflower Project instead.

The target demographic had been shifted from high school students to middle schoolers.

The operations were also kept much more discreet to avoid drawing the attention of those meddlesome people.

After sitting down, Third Master lit a cigarette and, narrowing his eyes, brought up the recent investigation. "I had some people stir up trouble for the criminal investigation detachment before. I never expected the female investigator leading it to be so shrewd; she dismantled it completely. But no matter how formidable she is, she'll never trace it back to us!"

"Come to think of it, that Ye Hua was utterly useless. He was given a simple task and managed to lose his life over it. If not for him, they never would have caught wind of us in the first place."

The person sitting next to Third Master nodded in agreement. "If he hadn't fawned all over us, claiming how capable he was and how well he could handle things, we never would have given him the job. If we'd known, we wouldn't have wasted an opportunity on such trash."

"True, fortunately he didn't know much," Third Master remarked.

The others in the room nodded and echoed his sentiments.

"Third Master is as brilliant as ever, we all follow your lead. But by the way, why hasn't President Chen Xu arrived?" someone asked with a teasing grin.

Third Master tilted his head back, exhaling a plume of smoke. "He recently hooked up with some pure, innocent young thing. He's completely infatuated, didn't feel like coming."

Scenes like this seemed to happen frequently, and no one found it surprising. Hearing this, the others in the room broke into leering, obscene laughter.

A middle-aged man, slumped heavily into the sofa, raised his glass and toasted. "Whatever President Chen has his eyes on is bound to be top-tier. Pity he doesn't know what he's missing—we're in for a real treat today."

Third Master raised his glass as well, a smug and triumphant smile spreading across his face. "Indeed. They'd never guess that we've completely changed our targets. Now that we have something new, we can just leave those previous ones for them to investigate at their leisure!"

At these words, raucous laughter erupted from everyone in the room.

What these people pursued, ultimately, was novelty, and the control they felt knowing that the suffering of those young girls gave them absolute power.

Once they attained wealth, they inevitably craved power.

After laughing for a moment, Third Master gave a grand wave of his hand. "Alright, enough talk. Come on, let's begin!"

Soon, behind the one-way mirror, more than a dozen boys and girls wearing school uniforms and identical ponytails walked into view.

Judging by their ages, the oldest among them was no more than fifteen.

"Some high schoolers aren't all that innocent anymore. I still think middle schoolers are much purer, heh-heh-heh-heh..." The men murmured, eyeing them up and down.

The women sitting beside them exchanged glances in the dim light. Even though they had witnessed this several times before, their bottom line was being shattered all over again today.

The depravity of this group was sinking to new lows.

Third Master's eyes scanned the group before finally landing on a girl standing in the middle.

The sycophant standing beside him instantly understood his intentions.

The others began selecting their targets one after another.

Upbeat music began to play in the room, and the boys and girls in school uniforms started performing a dance to express their gratitude.

As far as they were concerned, they were simply here to dance in appreciation.

They had no idea why they had been arranged to perform in this specific venue.

They could never have imagined the kind of gaze fixed upon them from the other side—sticky, lecherous, and steeped in perverted obsessions, isolated safely behind the glass.

This wasn't out of any kindness on the part of the men; they simply relished this moment, anticipating the expressions of despair and pain that would soon cross those young faces.

When the performance ended, the students were led away.

Third Master looked around at the others. "Not bad, right? These are carefully selected fine saplings, every single one of them untouched. The usual rules apply! We have to make our donations before we can continue this game!"

Before long, bundles of cash were tossed onto the table, and madness flushed every face in the room.

The students who had been taken backstage soon returned, though they had been forced to change into red or brightly colored short *qipaos*, tasked with serving drinks to these men.

And the girl assigned to stand beside Third Master was precisely the one he had cast his eye upon earlier.

As the girl walked to the front, her frame trembled slightly.

Third Master was