Chapter 4 The Art of the Invisible Key

The “Golden Dragon” luxury car dealership was a temple of glass, chrome, and the kind of air conditioning that made you forget that global warming existed. It was located on the outskirts of the city, where the roads were wider and the bank accounts were deeper.

Lin Feng stepped through the automatic doors, his sneakers squeaking against the polished white floor. He felt out of place, not because he wasn’t wealthy—though he certainly wasn’t—but because he was the only person in the building who wasn’t currently experiencing a mid-life crisis or trying to compensate for a childhood spent in a cramped dormitory.

The manager, a man named Mr. Chen whose smile was as fixed and artificial as the headlight casing on a Huracán, hurried toward him.

“Mr. Lin! Thank you for coming on such short notice. I know it’s… well, past your usual hours.”

“It’s past my ‘give a damn’ hours, Chen,” Lin Feng said, pulling a crumpled bag of sunflower seeds from his pocket. “Where is the client? And why, for the love of everything holy, did he buy five of them?”

Chen leaned in, his voice dropping to a panicked whisper. “His name is Liu Dashan. He’s a former coal mine operator from Shanxi who recently pivoted into ‘lifestyle technology.’ He has more money than the city of Chengdu has spicy peppers, but he has the social grace of a runaway bulldozer. He bought one in every color because he couldn’t decide which one matched his favorite tracksuit.”

Lin Feng cracked a sunflower seed, the snap echoing in the cavernous showroom. “And let me guess: he’s currently sitting in the orange one, revving the engine and filming a Douyin video?”

“Worse,” Chen groaned. “He’s trying to tip the sales staff with gold bars. It’s a public relations nightmare. If the ‘nouveau riche’ tag sticks to this dealership, our high-end clients will flee to the Porsche center across the street. We need you to… ‘refine’ him.”

“Refinement costs extra,” Lin Feng said. “Teaching a man to drive a Lamborghini is easy. Teaching a man to drive a Lamborghini like he’s bored of it? That’s high art.”

They walked to the back of the showroom, where a man who looked like he had been constructed entirely out of square blocks and designer labels was standing. This was Liu Dashan. He was wearing a neon-green tracksuit that was so bright it was probably visible from the moon, and three gold chains that looked heavy enough to cause spinal misalignment.

“Mr. Liu,” Chen said, gesturing to Lin Feng. “This is the consultant I told you about. The best Face-Saving expert in the province.”

Liu Dashan turned, his face breaking into a wide, toothy grin that revealed at least two gold molars. “Ah! The expert! Good, good! Tell me, brother, how do I drive this thing so that everyone knows I’m successful, but also that I’m a very deep, philosophical person?”

Lin Feng stared at him. He looked at the five Lamborghinis lined up behind him—Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and a Verde Mantis green that matched Liu’s tracksuit.

“Step one,” Lin Feng said, his voice flat. “Get out of the green suit. You look like a highlighter that’s had a spiritual awakening.”

“But it’s Gucci!” Liu protested.

“Exactly,” Lin Feng said. “Wearing Gucci in a Lamborghini is like putting sugar in your tea—it’s redundant and shows you have no taste. True wealth in Chengdu is about contrast. You want to look like you just came from a two-hour Mahjong session in a basement, not like you’re auditioning for a rap video.”

Lin Feng led Liu to the sleekest of the cars—the matte black Aventador. “This is the car we’re using. Black. The color of secrets and people who don’t need to be noticed.”

“But people won’t see me!” Liu whined.

“They will feel you,” Lin Feng corrected. “Now, we are going to perform the ‘Invisible Key Protocol.'”

For the next hour, Lin Feng didn’t let Liu Dashan touch the steering wheel. Instead, he made him practice the “Exit.”

“No, no, no!” Lin Feng barked as Liu tried to climb out of the low-slung car with his chest puffed out. “You look like you’re proud of yourself. That’s a ‘Type C’ mistake. When you exit a car this expensive, you must look slightly annoyed, as if the door is too heavy and the pavement is beneath your dignity. You should look like you’re thinking about a very difficult poem.”

“A poem?” Liu blinked, sweating. “I only know the one about the goose!”

“Then think about the goose!” Lin Feng sighed. “But think about it with melancholy.”

They moved on to the “Driving Lesson.” Lin Feng insisted they leave the dealership and head toward the heart of the city—not the wide avenues of the financial district, but the narrow, chaotic streets of the old town near People’s Park.

“Why are we here?” Liu asked, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. The engine of the Aventador growled like a caged beast, drawing stares from every pedestrian within a three-block radius. “It’s too crowded! Someone might scratch the paint!”

“That is exactly the point,” Lin Feng said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “True ‘Face’ is shown in the presence of a radish cart. If a grandmother on a bicycle with three crates of cabbage wobbles toward you, and you honk your horn, you have lost. You are just a man with a car. But if you stop, wait patiently, and look at your watch with the expression of a man who owns time itself… then you are a King.”

As they crawled through the traffic, a delivery scooter darted in front of them, missing the carbon-fiber bumper by inches. Liu Dashan let out a strangled yelp and reached for the horn.

Lin Feng’s hand shot out, pinning Liu’s wrist to the seat. “Don’t you dare.”

“He almost hit me!”

“He didn’t,” Lin Feng said calmly. “And even if he did, what is a bumper to a man who owns five of these? If you react, you admit that the car is valuable to you. If the car is valuable to you, it means you’re not truly rich. Wealth is the ability to be indifferent to the destruction of beautiful things.”

Liu Dashan stared at him, his mouth agape. “Indifferent to… destruction? Brother, that’s deep. That’s Shanxi-mine-collapse deep.”

“It’s just physics, Liu. Social physics.”

By the time they reached a small, traditional tea house—the very one Lin Feng had been trying to nap in earlier—Liu Dashan was transformed. He was no longer revving the engine. He was gliding through the chaos of Chengdu with a face of Zen-like boredom. He had even tucked his gold chains inside a plain grey linen shirt Lin Feng had made him buy at a local market.

As they parked, a group of teenagers rushed over, phones out, filming the car.

“Look at them,” Liu whispered, his ego beginning to itch. “Should I go out and give them some advice on entrepreneurship?”

“No,” Lin Feng said, opening the door. “You’re going to walk past them without looking at the car once. If they ask who you are, tell them you’re a retired librarian. It will drive the internet crazy. They’ll spend weeks trying to find out which billionaire librarian owns a matte black Aventador. That, my friend, is ‘Legendary Face.'”

Liu nodded solemnly. He stepped out, ignored the crowd, and walked into the tea house with the weary grace of a man who had seen too many geese in his time.

Lin Feng stayed behind for a moment, leaning against the warm metal of the car. His phone buzzed. It was a message from the dealership manager, Chen.

Manager Chen: Mr. Liu just called. He’s ecstatic. He said he finally understands ‘the burden of the goose.’ He’s tipped the dealership another 100,000 yuan for the referral. Your cut is being transferred now.

Lin Feng checked his bank balance. The number was finally starting to look like something his mother wouldn’t cry over.

But then, another notification popped up. It was from the WeChat group titled: “The Hotpot Disaster & The Gavel.”

Wang “Little” Bao: Lin Ge! Emergency! Su Meili just saw a photo of a ‘Billionaire Librarian’ in a black Lambo near her office. She thinks it’s a rival firm trying to intimidate her! She’s filing an injunction against ‘Flashy Automotive Harassment’! I told her it might be you, and now she wants to subpoena your client list!

Lin Feng closed his eyes and let his head thud against the car’s roof.

“Phase 1,” he whispered to the sky. “The ‘Freelance Fiasco.’ I called it that for a reason.”

He looked at the tea house, where Liu Dashan was likely currently trying to order ‘philosophical tea’ from a very confused waiter. He looked at the teenagers still filming the car. And he thought about Su Meili, a woman who would probably try to sue the concept of ‘Face’ itself if she could find a legal precedent.

“I need a vacation,” Lin Feng muttered. “Or at least a very, very long nap in a place where Lamborghinis don’t exist and hotpot heirs don’t have internet access.”

He pushed himself off the car and headed into the tea house. He had an injunction to dodge, a lawyer to appease, and a very confused “librarian” to keep under control.

The sun was setting over Chengdu, casting long, golden shadows over the city of slow-living and high-stakes nonsense. Lin Feng’s day was far from over, and the spicy tofu he’d promised himself was still nowhere in sight.

In the distance, the clack-clack of Mahjong tiles continued, a rhythmic reminder that no matter how much you saved face, the game of life always had another round waiting to be played. And in Lin Feng’s case, the stakes were just getting started.