Chapter 1

I came to Brightvale with ten million dollars, to hold an investment aid assembly.

I was in the middle of my speech when Curtis Mason, the resident representative, suddenly stepped forward and snatched the mic out of my hand. "Mr. Johnson, you talk a real pretty game. All this talk about investing to help us. What you really want is our land, so you can line your own pockets."

"You ask me, if you actually wanted to help us, you'd just split that ten million between us instead of dragging us through some project."

The mood in the room stiffened right away.

"Yeah, calling it an investment, but we've still got to work before we see a dime."

"And you take our land while you're at it. What are we supposed to live on after that?"

"Mr. Johnson, what kind of help is this? I've seen bosses on TV go help villagers, and they hand out cash to people straight up."

Curtis stared at me, sneering. "Mr. Johnson, if you haven't got the money to invest, don't come to our town playing the big man, putting on airs."

Hearing that, my assistant went hot with anger and started to step forward to say something, but I raised a hand and stopped him.

I looked at Curtis and smiled. "You're right. I really don't have it in me to just hand you cash. If you people don't need an investment project, someone else will."

I turned and left, and on the way out I fielded dozens of calls. Before long the project was locked in with the next town over.

A month later, Curtis was crying, begging me to come invest in his town.

......

The assembly wasn't even over, and the villagers were only getting louder.

"No money, then clear out. Our town doesn't want your type."

"Won't hand out cash, but still putting on a show. We can do without an investment like that."

I got up and got in the car.

Inside the car!

My assistant said, furious, "Mr. Johnson, these people don't know good from bad. This is going way too far!"

"Never mind them."

Back at the hotel in town, over the course of one afternoon I received a dozen or so applications "requesting investment."

I read through them carefully. The wording was earnest enough.

But I wasn't about to pick a town based on the applications alone.

I planned to go down to the towns myself and see them firsthand, to find out whether they genuinely needed the help.

I'd been busy in the hotel all afternoon when there was a sudden bang, bang, bang at the door.

The knocking was urgent.

I opened the door to find my assistant standing there, his face tight with alarm. "Mr. Johnson, this has blown up."

"Hm?"

"That bastard Curtis put today's assembly online. He cut the front and back off the video and claims you never came here to help anybody. He says your real goal is to trick the villagers into giving up their land so you can exploit them."

"Let me see."

He handed me his phone, already playing the video Curtis had posted.

It was hot. The likes alone had topped two hundred thousand, and with numbers like that the views had to be in the millions.

In the video, Curtis was saying, "The land in our town has zero pollution, everything we grow is all natural. He comes here saying he's investing to help us, but the truth is he wants to bleed us dry and then exploit us to the bone."

"Our town's poor, sure, but the folks here don't lack backbone. We will never fall for his con!"

"If he really had what it takes, if he was really sincere, he'd hand us the cash straight up."

The netizens who didn't know any better were all commenting. "He's right. Too cheap to part with the money, and he's talking about running some investment project?"

"Con men these days are ruthless. They target the out-of-the-way towns, waiting for the young people to leave for work so they can prey on the elderly."

Beside me, my assistant was shaking with rage. "Mr. Johnson, is Curtis even human? He's smearing you!"