The Billionaire's Multiplier System-Chapter 87 - 88 – Fault Lines Beneath Silk

The city didn’t know it yet, but the ground had already shifted beneath it.

Lin Feng sat in the center of his upper-floor operations suite, not in a suit, not posturing—just in dark slacks and a crisp mandarin-collar shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, reviewing the final outlines of the trap he’d built over the past four days.

Zixuan Xuanzhi hadn’t struck directly. But his fingerprints were starting to show.

And Lin Feng was going to make them impossible to ignore.

The Urban Renewal Initiative had been seeded with subtle markers—phrase choices, metadata signatures, embedded smart tags that monitored every edit, every comment, every attempt to game the system.

And someone had tried.

Three separate shell companies submitted proposals designed to fracture the funding model: one wanted to siphon permits to an illegal logistics firm, another inserted subtle clauses to enable rent arbitrage, and the third mimicked an NGO structure—but its owner traced back to a policy consultancy quietly affiliated with Nantai Holdings.

Lin didn’t go public right away.

He waited.

Because the moment of truth wasn’t when someone tripped the wire—it was when they thought no one noticed.

The system chirped softly.

[ALERT: Influence Surge Detected – Financial Narrative Manipulation]

Trigger: Anonymous article released via ’Beacon & State’ forum

Target: Urban Renewal Initiative

Tone: "Questioning Misuse of Private-Public Collaboration Models"

Shared by: 41 professional accounts with similar financial language bias

Root Cluster: Zixuan-affiliated media bridge node.

There it was.

Subtle. Polite. Anonymous.

But orchestrated.

It was time.

At 11:00 a.m., Lin Feng sent a discreet signal to Guo Yuwei.

By 11:30, she was in his office with her coat still on and a fresh black coffee in hand.

"No delays," she said. "Let’s move."

They launched the counter not as a press conference, not through a statement, but through something far more dangerous:

A data leak.

An anonymous dossier appeared on a civic research portal—signed by a fake name, time-stamped, untraceable.

Its contents?

A breakdown of the attempted manipulations against the Urban Renewal Initiative.

Evidence of ghostwritten proposals.

Metadata trails proving manipulation.

IP routes leading to known Zixuan-affiliated digital clusters.

Not proof of guilt—proof of intent.

The reaction was immediate.

By 2:00 p.m., the article had been reposted to over 300 verified professional accounts on JianDaoNet and linked to urban policy reform forums.

By 3:00 p.m., a city council member retweeted the file, calling it "a clear example of economic shadow play."

By 5:00 p.m., Beacon & State issued a quiet statement saying the previously anonymous article on their platform was "under internal review."

Zixuan hadn’t been named.

But his silence was becoming visible.

That evening, Lin Feng arrived at the Eastern Prominence to meet with Yuyan and Bingqing for a strategy touchpoint.

But something in the air felt different.

Yuyan was unusually withdrawn, fingers trailing her sketchpad without focus. Bingqing, normally sarcastic and energetic, had her legs tucked beneath her and was chewing on the end of her pen like a loaded gun.

"What is it?" Lin asked.

Yuyan glanced up, her voice quiet. "People are starting to talk."

"About the leak?"

"About the girls," Bingqing said flatly.

Lin looked at her.

"There’s a thread on one of the investor forums," she continued. "Started subtle, now it’s not. People saying you’re using us—decorative shields to soften your power plays."

Yuyan added, "They’re saying we’re not partners. Just... tools."

For a moment, silence filled the room.

Then Lin stood, walked to the window, and exhaled.

"I knew this part was coming," he said.

"Yeah?" Bingqing asked. "Because it sure doesn’t feel like anyone’s ready for it."

"I didn’t want to use you," he said. "But if I had excluded you from the core plan, they’d say you were irrelevant."

"So what now?" Yuyan asked.

Lin turned.

"Now I shift the spotlight back to where it belongs—on the problem."

The next morning, a multi-part editorial was quietly published on the Urban Ethics Digest, co-authored by Guo Yuwei and a respected urban development expert.

It broke down the core values of the Urban Renewal Initiative, described the importance of multi-disciplinary leadership in civic projects, and—without naming names—highlighted how "certain actors" were attempting to discredit legitimate female leadership by framing them as passive accessories.

The message was clear:

Attack the women, and you attack the movement.

Meanwhile, Lin met Ruoxi in a quiet, third-floor café near the legal district.

She looked sharp, as always—flawless hair, muted red lips, expression unreadable.

"You moved," she said. "And he didn’t stop you."

"He didn’t expect it to be so fast."

Ruoxi nodded. "Then expect the next move to be personal." ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

Lin sat back. "I’m already seeing the cracks."

"Good," she said. "Because Zixuan never attacks a wall. He drips water through its corners until the foundation gives."

She handed him a thumb drive. "Internal chatter. Not confirmed, but serious. He’s looking at two options—one financial, one emotional."

"Which is first?"

"I think he’ll attack your circle."

Lin’s jaw tensed. "That means Yuyan or Bingqing."

"Possibly," Ruoxi said. "But the more dangerous move? He doesn’t break your team. He turns someone in it."

Back at the operations suite, Lin stood alone, staring at the glass wall as the city lights came alive beneath him.

He could feel the pressure building, but it wasn’t panic.

It was focus.

He activated the system’s private module.

[System Function – Influence Surge Counter Module]

Status: Active

Emotional Drift Monitoring: 6 individuals

Behavioral Shift Risk: 2 subjects flagged

Options:

• Soft engagement

• Controlled release of loyalty trigger

• Redirect sentiment

He chose Soft Engagement.

For now.

That evening, he invited Yuyan for a solo dinner on the Prominence rooftop.

No suits.

Just simple food. Clean music. No agenda.

"You don’t have to keep us close out of obligation," she said mid-meal.

"I don’t," Lin replied. "I keep you close because you’re part of this. Not decoration. Not image."

"You didn’t ask me to fight."

"Because I trust you’ll know when to strike."

Yuyan looked at him for a long moment. Then she smiled softly.

"I already did."

She handed him a small USB. "Compiled posts. Tracked mentions. Early-stage bot traffic. The smear campaign? It’s structured. Someone’s paying for it."

Lin stared at the USB.

"Let me guess," he said.

"Nantai Holdings," she replied. "One of their media forks."

He nodded slowly.

Zixuan was trying to discredit them first—before the real fight began.

But now Lin had something he hadn’t before.

Evidence.

And allies who fought quietly, without waiting to be asked.

At 10:43 p.m., Lin sent a simple message to Guo Yuwei.

"Run the story. Don’t name him. Just connect the shell firms to the bots. The city can finish the sentence on its own."

By midnight, the article was live.

And Zixuan’s silence had become too loud to ignore.

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