The scene inside the hidden compartment briefly short-circuited Jiang Daode's brain.

Feng Bujue was sitting on a chair inside the compartment, a laptop in front of him.

"You... you... how..." Jiang Daode stammered, unable to form a complete sentence.

"A few days ago, I infiltrated each of your mistresses' homes one by one." Feng Bujue stood up from the chair and approached Jiang Daode step by step. "Originally, I just wanted to collect some of your DNA samples as evidence to expose your identity, but... during the search, I made an unexpected discovery..."

As he spoke, Jiang Daode retreated from the room, back into the chairman's office.

Feng Bujue followed him out, saying as he walked, "I found that in each of your mistresses' homes, you had set up such a hidden compartment..." He paused. "Heh... don't look at me like that, it's not surprising... I've received professional training, I'm very sensitive to building structures, and I can tell where those secret rooms are just by looking and pacing."

As he spoke, Brother Jue had already walked into the chairman's office, glanced at Ouyang Jian and Jiutiao respectively, and raised his hand to greet them. "At that time, I understood..." he continued to Jiang Daode, "You are a person who has no sense of security in your life... Even though you have lived under the identity of Jiang Daode for twenty years, you still can't change the habit of a wily hare having three burrows."

After saying this, Feng Bujue casually unplugged the phone line on Jiang Daode's desk, then smiled and continued, "And habits... reveal a lot of information. I can easily deduce... that in your office, there must also be a secret room for you to hide in." He pointed to the entrance of the hidden room next to him with a smile. "As a result... it was as I expected."

"Hmm... the fingerprints and DNA needed to open that room were obtained from his mistresses' homes, right?" At this time, Ouyang Jian interjected thoughtfully.

"That's right." Feng Bujue replied, "The secret rooms in his mistresses' homes are set up the same way as this one."

"So... you infiltrated this building this afternoon after leaving my office, and hid in that room to wait?" Ouyang Jian asked again.

"Yes." Feng Bujue responded, then looked at Jiang Daode again, "If Mr. Jiang remembers, you should recall that this afternoon, after drinking a cup of coffee brought in by your secretary, you felt discomfort in your abdomen and then went to the toilet for more than half an hour."

"You... you were able to put drugs in my coffee?" Jiang Daode exclaimed in shock.

"Heh... it was easy..." Feng Bujue replied in a relaxed tone. "I put the laxative in... the sugar box... in the cabinet under... the coffee grinder... in the secretary's office... on this floor." He paused for half a second. "If you want to ask... why I knew roughly when you would drink coffee, and whether you would add sugar, and how many cubes..."

"You figured it out when you investigated his mistresses' homes, right?" Ouyang Jian interrupted before Jiang Daode could speak.

Hearing this, Jiang Daode suddenly turned his head to look at Ouyang Jian, with a look of surprise and doubt in his eyes.

"Heh... no need to be so surprised, Mr. Jiang." Ouyang Jian smiled, "Since our great writer Feng has already thoroughly searched your residence..." He glanced at Brother Jue, "Then don't even mention the habit of drinking coffee... how many dishes you eat in a meal, how you squeeze toothpaste when brushing your teeth, how many hairs you lose when washing your hair, or even how many sheets of toilet paper you use when taking a dump... he can know everything clearly."

"Just as Ouyang Jian said..." Half a second later, Feng Bujue quickly took over, and said to Jiang Daode, "That's how it is..." He took a few steps forward and lightly tapped the cigar box on the table twice with his finger, "Also... you should understand now why I knew there was a recording cigar hidden in your cigar box, right?"

"You..." Jiang Daode realized something and muttered, "You took advantage of my trip to the toilet..."

"Bingo~" Brother Jue snapped his fingers, then explained, "According to my estimation... a cautious person like you must have a few tricks up your sleeve. So... after finding the entrance to the hidden compartment, I didn't rush in, but first carefully checked your office... just in case." He looked up at the wall on the other side of the chairman's office. "As expected... I found a camera behind that painting over there."

Jiang Daode didn't respond. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised no matter what secrets Brother Jue revealed about him.

"And the footage from that camera, of course, wouldn't be transmitted to the security room..." Feng Bujue continued, "In fact, I did sneak into the monitoring room of your security department and saw... that in this entire building, except for the public areas, all the office areas are also equipped with cameras, but your chairman's office is the only exception..." He chuckled, "Heh... so where would the footage from this camera be sent? The answer is obvious..." As he spoke, Brother Jue patted the computer on Jiang Daode's desk, "Mr. Jiang... you really are a person without a sense of security, and that... can be exploited by me."

"You... you tampered with the video..." Jiang Daode's tone was already lifeless as he said this.

"That's a must." Feng Bujue said, "Since you installed such a camera, it means... that every time you leave this office and return, you will quickly check the video to confirm whether anyone sneaked in during that time." He tilted his head and smiled, then said, "This afternoon, you were in great pain from your stomach cramps, so you left in a hurry and didn't lock the screen in time, which saved me the trouble of cracking the password... When I came in, the computer's screen saver hadn't even started, so I could use it as I pleased."

"So you intercepted a section of the monitoring footage, changed it to loop playback, and continued to cover the few seconds before you entered the compartment." Ouyang Jian followed Brother Jue's train of thought and added.

"Yes~" Brother Jue nodded and looked at Jiang Daode, "And when our Mr. Jiang returned to the office, he must have immediately opened the video and checked it at a fast-forward speed. However... under the premise that no one had come in, the picture was originally static, and even if he slowed down and looked carefully, he might not be able to find the splice point in the video. The way he looked at it... he wouldn't be able to see any flaws."

"It seems... Mr. Jiang never dreamed..." Ouyang Jian smiled, "That someone... had already sneaked into his hidden compartment, which he used to deal with emergency situations, five or six hours ago."

At this point, everyone fell silent for a few seconds.

A few seconds later, Brother Jue looked at Jiang Daode and said, "Alright, Mr. Jiang, who is about to become Mr. Feng again, I've explained almost everything that needs to be explained." He stretched out a hand and made a "please" gesture, "This bet... are you convinced that you lost?"

"Lost?" Jiang Daode's eyes narrowed, and he snorted coldly, "Did I lose?" As he spoke, he moved a few steps to the side and began to untie his tie.

"Aiya ya... what are you going to do?" Feng Bujue smiled playfully, following the other party to the more open carpet in the middle of the room.

"What do you think?" Jiang Daode moved his neck from side to side.

"Hmm... considering that the soundproofing of your chairman's office is as good as the hidden compartment next door, shouting loudly for help恐怕is not very useful." Feng Bujue analyzed in a pretentious manner, "And turning around and running away... is obviously not a good idea either. Given the distance between you and me, if you turn around to open the door, I'm afraid you'll be knocked down before the door is even opened..."

Brother Jue licked his lips and frowned, "Then... your choices are really not many." He sized up Jiang Daode, who was moving his limbs, and smiled, "Heh... looking at you taking off your tie and cuffs, and doing some meaningless warm-up exercises with a murderous look on your face, are you planning to fight me?"

"Aren't you going to slap me?" Jiang Daode said, striking a pose, "I want to see who slaps who..."

"Mr. Jiang, I have to remind you." Feng Bujue said, "I have investigated you in detail... I know that you have a purple belt in karate, and that you specifically learned it after obtaining your current identity. It was also based on knowing this that I... proposed the bet."

"Hmph... bluffing is just wasting your own time." Jiang Daode showed a ferocious expression, instead raising his aura a bit. This was, after all, a bet related to his future life, so even a desperate struggle was better than waiting for death.

"Mr. Jiutiao." Feng Bujue smiled noncommittally, and turned to look at Jiutiao, "How much time is left until the five-minute deadline?"

Jiutiao's peripheral vision was always fixed on the pocket watch in his hand. Almost as soon as Brother Jue asked the question, he replied, "Seven seconds... six, five..."

When he said the words "seven seconds," Jiang Daode felt that he had already won. What could be done in less than seven seconds? Even a KGB agent might not be able to subdue a strong adult man with a purple belt in karate in such a short time, right?

Besides, what Brother Jue said was "a beating," not "knocked to the ground" or "hit a few punches and kicks on the body"; so seven seconds, no matter how you looked at it, was not enough.

However...

In that instant, Feng Bujue's figure flickered and disappeared directly from the sight of Jiang Daode and Ouyang Jian.

In that instant, Jiutiao's eyes changed slightly, but his expression remained cold and calm, and the countdown in his mouth did not stop: "Four, three..."

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Daode's body twisted in an extremely strange posture and slowly knelt on the ground.

During this process, a black shadow kept flashing around Jiang Daode's body, and the latter's body kept making dull thuds of fists hitting flesh and crackling sounds of joints being hit...

"Two, one... time's up." Jiutiao finished counting the time.

Feng Bujue's figure also reappeared.

Jiang Daode fell to the ground with a bruised and swollen face, his body twitching slightly, and the expression on his face... was as if he had picked up a bar of soap in front of several burly men an hour ago.

That kind of shock, fear, pain, and hopeless expression made his heavily plastic-surgeried face extremely distorted.

"Mr. Feng." From this moment on, Jiutiao's address for "Jiang Daode" changed, "I think you should understand even without me saying it... you lost."

"Ke... ka... ah..." Mr. Feng's mouth made a few syllables, but he couldn't say a word, and even if he could say it now... he wouldn't know what to say.

Kneel down and beg for mercy? That's useless. Mr. Feng knew best... In front of Gambling Emperor Zhai, no matter who it was or what method they used to plead, they couldn't stop them from collecting gambling debts. Even if the winning party took the initiative to say that they no longer needed the losing party to repay, Gambling Emperor Zhai would not stop the execution of debt collection.

Twenty years ago, when the real Jiang Daode lost his life... he had also begged for mercy, but even if he broke his head, he couldn't change his ending.

It was precisely the miserable state of that Jiang Daode before his death that made Mr. Feng feel uneasy for the past twenty years...

Because he always understood deep down... that he was essentially still that "hooligan Xiao Feng," a professional gambler.

At the age of twenty-five, he spent his days cheating, stealing, and picking pockets. Going in and out of the detention center was commonplace. Until one day... he met a young master from South Korea in an underground casino.

That night... his life changed.

That rich second-generation Jiang Daode was actually a member of Gambling Emperor Zhai. But... his gambling skills were not much better than ordinary people. After being won all his money by Xiao Feng, Jiang Daode, fueled by alcohol, proposed a separate gambling game and called in a "supervisor."

Thus, an opportunity was presented to Xiao Feng... and he seized it.

Gambling... is like that. When Jiang Daode lost his "life," he sobered up. He went from shock, to anger, to fear, to grief... those distorted, hateful, pitiful, and pathetic aspects of human nature... were vividly displayed by that dying person.

After that night, "hooligan Xiao Feng" disappeared. Half a year later, he became the current "Jiang Daode."

In the next twenty years, he used other people's wealth, education, appearance... and his own talents, as well as some less-than-honorable means, to create a career. He got everything he dreamed of... money, women, social status, and he even thought of getting involved in politics.

Unfortunately... all of this was still a "dream," a dream that should have belonged to someone else.

When the dream ended, he looked back on these twenty years, and what welled up in his heart was a trace of rejoicing... because this dream was long enough and beautiful enough. Even if what he had to face after waking up was death, he no longer had any regrets.

"Are you leaving?" After a moment, Jiutiao looked at Feng Bujue and said.

"Yes, I still have things to do." Feng Bujue said, "I'll temporarily 'deposit' Jiang Daode's life at Gambling Emperor Zhai, is that okay?"

"Yes, contact us whenever you want to use it." Jiutiao replied.

"As for this person..." Brother Jue glanced at Mr. Feng on the ground, "How do you plan to deal with him?"

"It's not difficult to restore his identity." Jiutiao replied, "Mr. Feng doesn't need to worry about the details."

"Heh... I can probably guess a little." Brother Jue responded with a smile, then said to Ouyang Jian, "What are you still standing there for? Want to stay and eat a midnight snack?"

"I..." Ouyang Jian seemed to have not yet recovered from the scene just now, "Do you really have superpowers?"

"What did you think?" Brother Jue asked back.

"Of course I thought you were just bullshitting me as usual..." Ouyang Jian's voice grew louder and louder as he spoke, because the more he thought about it, the more outrageous it seemed, "Just now I was still thinking... were you going to make a pretense of mystery, and then pull out pepper spray or a stun gun or something... but you directly performed some *Shun Goku Satsu*..."

"Heh... alright, I'll tell you in detail on the way back." Feng Bujue just smiled awkwardly. It was rare for him to see Ouyang have such an uneasy吐槽expression.

As they spoke, the two walked towards the door.

Just before they were about to go out, Jiutiao suddenly opened his mouth and said, "Mr. Feng... before you leave, I would like to remind you in my personal capacity..."

"Oh?" Brother Jue turned his head and looked back, "Mr. Jiutiao, do you have any advice?"

"People like 'us'..." Jiutiao replied coldly, "It's not that we can't attack ordinary people, it's just... before we do, it's best to think clearly... whether we should, whether it's worth it."

Hearing this, Feng Bujue was silent for a few seconds, and replied solemnly, "Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Jiutiao, Feng will... definitely keep it in mind."