The driver of the black sedan took out a match, lit his cigarette, and took a deep drag. "I'm not much better off than you. I've tried to quit too, but I've almost gone bankrupt because of this stuff."

The driver of the second car agreed: "Yeah, the cigarettes on Paradise Island are damn expensive! More expensive than the heroin we sell here!"

The two chatted as they waited for their respective bigwigs to discuss matters.

The three sat quietly in the back seat of the black sedan.

As soon as two of them got into the car, they nodded slightly to the man who was already seated and respectfully addressed him as "President Cao".

Cao He, who had been resting with his eyes closed, gently lifted his eyelids and said in a deep and steady voice, "You've come."

The two men exchanged a glance, and one of them asked with some doubt, "Mr. Cao, you said you had urgent business requiring our face-to-face discussion, so we immediately arranged our schedule. Why did it suddenly become you contacting us alone? Where are Jiulong, He Dadong, and the other two? Has something happened?"

Cao He's face was tense, and his voice was heavy: "The three of them are gone."

Upon hearing this, the two froze, shocked, and exclaimed, "What... what's going on?"

Cao He frowned, a hint of confusion flashing in his eyes. He spun two shiny walnuts in his hand, making a "crackling" sound.

He didn't really know why things had developed to this point; perhaps it was all foreshadowed from the moment Susan rescued the hacker.

However, he could never forget the look in Jiulong's eyes before he died, and the little girl's trembling finger pointing at the City of Cubes.

What exactly is Jiulong trying to tell himself?

Cao He had a vague feeling that Jiu Long was referring to Chuan Liu.

Cao He roughly recounted what had happened that day to the two of them, then rubbed his forehead and said, "The most troublesome problem now is that Huang Chunling used this incident to greatly weaken my power. She gave the red-light district business to Susan, and she still holds the '7 of Hearts' and '8 of Hearts' in her hands. This was basically a power grab targeting me."

Huang Chunling's ability to consistently hold the "Ace of Hearts" title for so many years is naturally due to her own reasons.

Caohe, formerly known as "King of Hearts," was able to compete with its rival by leveraging its red-light district business. Now, it has lost three key members, and its core business has been handed over to its arch-rival.

On the surface, the losers are Jiulong, He Dadong, and Zhuang Qiang, but in reality, Cao He is also a loser.

On the surface, the winners are Susan and Jihu, but in reality, Huang Chunling is also a winner.

Cao He's tone revealed an undisguised hatred for Susan and Chuanliu, and the sound of the walnuts in his hand grew clearer.

"If it weren't for that woman Susan stirring up trouble and creating problems; if Chuanliu hadn't sought help from '10 of Spades' and blocked Aaron's path, Aaron would have had a chance to turn things around!"

"Chuanliu? Is Mr. Cao referring to the Chuanliu of Cube City?" one of them asked.

Cao He nodded. "This brat appeared out of nowhere and actually arranged for someone to protect Huang Chunling beforehand! It's a real pity we couldn't take this opportunity to suppress Huang Chunling's power!"

"Chuanliu is no simple person."

The former said, a hint of wariness in his eyes.

Cao He was intrigued by this statement and asked curiously, "Oh? Why do you say that?"

The former replied, "Last time 'The Ten of Spades' caused trouble in Plum City, she suddenly appeared like this. The incident escalated so much that Xiao Hou and I were reprimanded by the higher-ups. However, the very next day after those people left, I unexpectedly bumped into her again in Plum City. She claimed she was going to talk to Butterfly, but my intuition tells me there's something fishy going on."

Cao He nodded thoughtfully.

The two people who met with Cao He were Hou Yifan, "Plum Blossom 9," and Li Quanyou, "Plum Blossom 10," from the City of Plum Blossoms.

Li Quanyou continued, "I immediately sent my capable men to deal with her. After all, in Plum Blossom City, it's normal for someone to die. But what I didn't expect was that my men disappeared without a trace after that, as if they had vanished into thin air."

Cao He remained silent, seemingly pondering Li Quanyou's words, or perhaps reviewing the cause and course of the deaths of the three Long Dongqiang brothers.

Hou Yifan chimed in, indignantly saying, "I think Chuanliu, Wu Fangming, Susan, and Qian Chuan must have reached some kind of cooperation, otherwise why would she be involved in everything!"

The car fell silent, except for the cracking sound of the walnuts Cao He was playing with.

After a long silence, Cao He slowly spoke, breaking the silence: "If it really is a collaboration, there are ways to deal with it. Every collaboration is based on interests. As long as we offer more favorable terms than Susan and the others, we can naturally break their alliance. However, I suspect that little girl from Cube City has other motives for helping them."

Hou Yifan frowned: "What could their purpose be?"

Cao He did not answer the question because he was unsure.

However, after pondering for a moment, he still voiced his conjecture: "As far as I know, in the previous dispute over the '9' and '10' of diamonds, only Chuanliu and Qianchuan survived; and the dispute over the '9' and '10' of spades also took place in the City of Diamonds, where the '9' of spades met a tragic end far from home, and the '10' of spades won. Now, our dispute over the '9' and '10' of hearts has also come to an end, and unfortunately, Chuanliu and Qianchuan have reappeared."

Based on your previous situation, the "10 of Hearts" and the "6 of Diamonds" are tied, and the "10 of Spades" and the "10 of Diamonds" are also tied. If the "6 of Diamonds" and the "10 of Diamonds" have escalated to a four-way cooperation, that would be a huge threat to us.

Li Quanyou and Hou Yifan both knew the seriousness of the matter, as it concerned their interests, so their expressions became solemn.

Li Quan drew out his words and asked, "Does President Cao mean... to make a move from among them?"

Cao He nodded, stopping what he had been fiddling with. "The City of Hearts just had an accident, so it would be too blatant for them to target Susan now; the 'Ten of Spades' family behind that hothead Wu Fangming isn't someone to be trifled with; and as for the Money String from the City of Diamonds, too many people are on good terms with him, so he could easily get himself into trouble..."

That leaves only...

I'm all alone now...