Chapter 1: Breaking Free from Shackles

  Mephistopheles: To dispel your gloom, I've chosen a noble gentleman's attire for you. A red coat with gold embroidery, a sturdy cloak draped over it, a hat adorned with a cockerel feather, and a long, pointed sword at your side. My simple advice to you is this: don the same garb, and you shall be freed from your fetters, free to experience life as you please.

  Faust: ...with a thousand ugly realities of life, you obstruct my lively heart and chest's creative enthusiasm... My inner divine being can deeply probe my own mind; but the divine being that dominates all my powers cannot move external things by an inch. I feel existence is already a burden, I would rather die than live!

  Faust: Then from that dreadful chaos, a familiar sweet voice drew me in deeply, with the remnants of happy times, evoking my remaining childish emotions, so I curse it all! ...I curse hope! Curse faith! Especially curse the idea that patience is a virtue!

  Mephistopheles: ...Life is short, what are you seeking? Enjoy yourself in time, don't delay! Fewer empty words!

  These are my countrymen! To avenge themselves on me for my interference with their gold digging, to avenge themselves on me for the deceit they think I have practised upon them, they have madly sprinkled the most filthy of all filth over the pure white sepulchre of my ancestors.

  This is my fellow countryman! To get money, they stole the heirlooms passed down from my ancestors and dug up their eternal resting place!

  This is my fellow countryman! To get the underground gold, they don't mind killing each other, and shamelessly trample on my Bear Mountain!

  This is my fellow countryman! No longer will there be any form of gratitude towards me, instead using unbearable language to humiliate me, and no longer remembering my sincere contributions to them!

  This is my university professor, the great teacher I have always trusted and respected! In front of more gold, his conscience and commitment seem so pale, even he can't resist temptation, how can I still have confidence in my subordinates?

  That's human nature! For the sake of money, they will cast aside all scruples and for that gold which can satisfy their desires more, they will certainly cast aside all scruples and timidities. Who can conquer in the face of desire? Who can surmount this insurmountable wall?

  Everything is for desire! The products produced by enterprises are to meet the needs of the market, and this market demand is the requirement of human desire. I have worked hard to develop the group's products, but in fact, they are all contributing to others' desires. My hard work, my frugal life, my resistance to vulgar enjoyment... I never thought that all my efforts were purely ignorant!

  All living beings are for the desires of their lifetime, and only by tearing apart all aspects of life can one understand that the origin of life is nothing but desire. Even love and friendship are just the psychological and spiritual pleasure generated when people get along with each other, and this pleasure is also just another interpretation of desire.

  Don't take everything as sublime, life is originally selfish and humble. Once the logical shackles are thrown away, you will know that even "selfishness" and "humbleness" have lost their value in conceptual judgment.

  Everything is just desire! From head to toe, I have never escaped the devil's claws of desire. From birth to my rapid death in the near future, I can only be within the towering castle walls of desire. I am always a slave to desire!

  All living beings take themselves as the world, taking from the world and letting the world revolve around their own lives. Our genetic instincts drive us to do so, and we cannot escape this fate.

  Genes are the insurmountable, cunning opponents that have been our instinctual masters since birth, predetermining the path of desire we must follow. They control us through our feelings of satisfaction, pain, and joy. You are not a selfless contributor; you have your own preferences, family, and desires. Your happiness is a result of having experienced suffering and hardship. When you blame others for hurting you, perhaps you haven't realized that the hurt was merely the deprivation of one of your desires.

  Why must I continue to live such a tiresome life? Since it's destined that no one can conquer desire, why not break free from all restraints and live recklessly? Heaven has restricted the length of my life out of vengeful desire, imposing shameless prohibitions on my life. Why should I still take those prohibitions and curses seriously?

  What standards and purposes, what norms and constraints, the most essential thing is to protect safety and go wherever you want! Freely and unrestrainedly live life, and substantively experience and enjoy that desire for life!

  Once I'm dead, nothing will be left, and this world will have nothing to do with me from then on...

  Longbiao immediately found out the villagers who splashed feces and women's menstrual blood on the ancestral tomb, and the Tianlei Township Police Station did not dare to slack off. They immediately detained these people. Longbiao also took away all the charitable funds and even ordered the command center to be demolished.

  What's most terrifying is that he sent people to set up electric nets around the ancestral tomb and surrounded it with even higher walls, also hiring twelve villagers from Dafeng Village to patrol day and night.

  Tianlei Township no longer holds any significance for him; from now on, he will live solely for himself.

  The business contract in the US was finally grabbed by Longpo, but the conditions became extremely harsh and the profit was very low. However, this contract brought a 30% surge in the group's stock price within just five days.

  In order to minimize production costs and maximize the input-output ratio, Longbow strictly promoted product zero inventory; in order to better manage employees and improve their enthusiasm for work, on the one hand, he improved employee welfare benefits, and on the other hand, he was ruthless in punishing employees who violated management regulations.

  The reason he did so is simple: humans are animals of desire, and they choose to succumb in the face of desire. Human nature is just a reaction machine with input and output, and Li Heng is also a machine. Employees are just parts of this machine, and their value lies only in their labor. The rewards they receive from their labor are used to satisfy their individual desires. Their ways of living may be diverse, but can be summed up as "fearing what they think they should fear, and benefiting themselves when they think they should benefit". That's all.

  Long Bao, who had never drunk coffee before, started drinking it. He felt that caffeine could accelerate the functioning of his brain and body, not only keeping his mind awake but also producing a kind of pleasant stimulation.

  He also learned to drink a little wine every night at dinner, the stimulation of the wine on his throat made him uncomfortable, but he liked this discomfort, because after this discomfort, it would always make him feel a slight dizziness, and this dizziness would in turn allow him to reason more logically.

  He began to pay attention to the subtleties of his diet, as he knew that his brain power consumption was very large every day and had to be fully replenished from a nutritional point of view. He hired two top-grade Hunan cuisine chefs to take care of his daily life.

  He sent someone to negotiate with a well-known cigarette factory in Yunnan, and cooperated to develop a special cigarette. The taste of this cigarette is purer and more fragrant, and the production process is similar to that of Zhongnanhai's special supply cigarettes. He then jointly established a sales company with the factory, specializing in promoting this high-cost tribute-grade cigarette to wealthy people. Soon, this cigarette was promoted among the wealthy circles, and he also bid farewell to his previous days of smoking ordinary cigarettes, switching to this cigarette that symbolizes status and identity.

  He wore a Rolex worth millions, every item on him was exquisite to the extreme, luxurious to the extreme, and he had four bodyguards following him wherever he went. He even bought a business jet in the name of the group.

  In negotiations, he was resourceful and versatile, leading his think tank and negotiation team to complete many difficult tasks; in the international financial market, he had a keen eye for opportunity and made bold investments that paid off handsomely.

  In the years that followed, the group formally stood out in the ranks of multinational corporations with a brand new development posture. As chairman and president, he naturally gained respect from wealthy people around the world, friendly receptions from politicians of many countries, and unanimous admiration from journalists and investors. To outsiders, he was an unfathomable dragon who could only be friends and not enemies; within the group, he was the emperor of profit.

  However, in the eyes of these bodyguards from Mengyuan, he has become a lustful demon, especially since Longbiao learned that with the wealth of many villagers in Tianlei Township, secret casinos and brothels have been set up everywhere, and Longbiao became a lustful demon in those hidden private gatherings.

  Long Bao was extremely friendly to them, never scolding them without reason, and gave them a high salary of over 10 million yuan per year. They only needed to work for one year to ensure a lifetime of food and clothing. For them, the responsibility of being a bodyguard was simply to protect his safety. Long Bao's craziness in secret gatherings had nothing to do with their responsibilities, and he also sternly warned them not to leak anything to anyone. However, they couldn't help but feel shocked and terrified when they saw Long Bao going crazy in such gatherings every time. They couldn't understand how a person could be so cunning and hypocritical: In any public gathering, Long Bao was always dignified and courteous, with the demeanor of a gentleman, but in secret gatherings with some wealthy people, he would indulge in extreme luxury, such as hunting wild animals on African savannas, catching sharks and whales in the ocean, personally operating cannons and rockets to experience the power of weapons, watching groups of beautiful women dancing naked on luxurious yachts on secluded islands, watching live performances of men and women **, watching women fight each other for the dollars they threw, watching men fight each other to the death for their reward money, watching humans and beasts fighting, watching lions and tigers killing prey, watching giant pythons swallowing...

  To be honest, they were very worried that Longbiao would be lured into gambling by others, very worried that Longbiao would contract AIDS due to his inability to control his desires and sleep with those women, and very worried that Longbiao would be tempted to take drugs. However, Longbiao turned out to be beyond everyone's expectations - he wouldn't gamble no matter how others tried to persuade him with words, calmly watching the other wealthy people gamble while he helped cheer them on from the side; he could watch those women and men indulge in carnal desires right in front of him without batting an eye, never once touching a woman's body.

  These wealthy men couldn't understand how Longbiao managed to do this, but they knew that Longbiao had an astonishing talent for gambling, able to accurately judge the outcome of every game of Pai Gow. They also knew that although Longbiao was extremely potent, he had a strange control over women. The wealthy men thought Longbiao was gay.

  But Meng Yuan and others knew that Long Bao was already in great pain to restrain his own desires, they also knew that not only were there four girls in the Li Heng Group who deeply liked Long Bao, Jing Er, Qiu Ya, Xue Bingying, and Jiao Siwei. Any of these four girls could go with Long Bao to make love, and there were many virtuous female stars and socialites who wanted to marry Long Bao and have a friendly battle with him. However, Long Bao was very polite to them and never made a move, not even with Jiao Siwei, who often went out with Long Bao for fun.

  They worry that Long Bao will collapse if he continues like this, and become more indulgent than anyone else. However, they don't know how to persuade Long Bao to make a normal confession, and they vaguely suspect that Long Bao is in **.