Chapter 3: The Chamber Banquet

The black luxury car stopped before the chamber of commerce building in central Riyadh, the engine cut off, terrifyingly quiet. Inside the car, a suppressed silence hung, broken only by the occasional faint sound from the air-conditioning vent, like a taut string. Zayed straightened his cuffs, his movements unhurried, fingertips lightly tapping the car door, his perception spreading outward like a spider's web.

The air still held the scent of Amir's deployed bodyguards, cold and oppressive, the smell of a hunter locking onto prey. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, but the depths of his eyes were a cold pool. Tonight was not only a banquet, but a battlefield.

The car door opened, and heat mixed with dust rushed at him. Omar was already waiting at the entrance. Seeing Zayed, the host stepped forward to greet him, his smile warm yet tentative. He stepped aside to clear the passage and said softly: "Mr. Zayed, this way. Elder Tariq and several important people are in the main hall. Your seat has been kept."

Zayed nodded, his gaze sweeping the glittering crystal lamps and the mingling crowd in the hall, without answering Omar's pleasantries, walking straight into the hall.

In the center of the hall, under a huge glass dome, representatives of various ethnic chambers of commerce gathered. The air mixed expensive perfume, the burnt scent of coffee, and a certain indescribable anxiety. Layla stood in the shadow by the window, swirling half a glass of red wine, her eyes calmly scanning the room.

She noticed Zayed's arrival, not surprised, only taking a light sip of wine, her sharp eyes catching the subtle changes in the expressions of people around her. She knew this young man, burdened with his family's sunken debt, was tonight's true variable.

Maya's team then appeared, led by Maya herself in a crisp tailored suit, her gaze stabbing at Zayed like a knife. A faint mocking curve hung on her mouth, her voice not loud, yet enough for those around to hear: "I hear that in Muscat's old families, there is also such a young master living by selling off ancestral property? How regrettable. The tide of the times will not pause for old dreams."

Zayed stopped, did not turn back, only gently turning an ancient seal between his fingertips. The ancient-method revelation ability activated instantly, and through the tablet in Maya's hand, he saw the tangled chain of interests behind her, her hidden anxiety in urgently seeking a non-oil export growth point.

He spoke lightly, his voice calm enough to chill the heart: "Ms. Maya, whether it is regrettable depends on whether you can see the new opportunity in the old road."

Maya raised an eyebrow, the contempt in her eyes turning to scrutiny. Just then, a crisp sound of clinking glasses came, and Amir sat beside the host's seat, lightly swaying his wine glass, the wine gleaming amber. He deliberately raised his voice, his gaze locked on Zayed, with an arrogant smile: "Zayed, now that you are here, don't think of leaving.

Tomorrow I will personally notify you of the termination of the core mining supply contract. In this Muscat, my word is the rule."

The air in the hall instantly froze, several representatives showing alarm, yet no one dared to speak. Zayed turned around, his gaze colliding with Amir's, without anger, only cold reason. He did not refute, but slowly walked toward the corner where Tariq was.

There, Tariq sat with eyes closed, seemingly a conservative old-school elder, yet his fingertips tapped lightly under the table, steady in rhythm, a signal of encouragement that only Zayed could read.

Tariq opened his eyes, a trace of approval flashing in his cloudy eyes. He nodded slightly, signaling Zayed to sit. Zayed sat down, composed, as if the threat just now were merely wind past his ear. Layla glanced sideways, inwardly startled: this young man's tactic of advancing by retreating was so profound.

Seeing Zayed unprovoked, Maya grew even more curious. She stood up, stepped closer, her tone provocative: "No talk of resources, only sentiment? Zayed, your debt crisis hangs over your head like the sword of Damocles. Unless you can produce a logic that convinces the board, annexation is only a matter of time."

Zayed raised his head, looking directly at Maya, using his reading of hearts to pinpoint her anxiety precisely: "You are eager to find a new non-oil growth point because traditional exports face policy barriers. And my plan does not rely on monopoly, but on connection." He paused, his voice steady. "The ancient trade route logic is not nostalgia, it is efficiency."

The whole room fell dead silent, only the sound of ice clinking in glasses. Maya's pupils shrank, her originally arrogant posture freezing for a moment. She had not expected this debt-burdened young man to hit, with a single needle, the current pain point of multinational capital. She looked at Zayed anew, the contempt in her eyes fading, replaced by a complex shock.

Unwilling to be bested, Amir suddenly stood up, slamming his wine glass heavily on the table, a few drops splashing out. He glared at Zayed and roared: "Playing tricks! What ancient-method logic, nothing but a swindler's gimmick! Before absolute strength, your petty cleverness is worthless!"

Zayed did not look at him, only gently swirling the empty wine glass before him, his tone cold: "Young Master Amir, your power is built on resource monopoly, but my power is built on information gaps and trust networks. What you cut off is material; what I open up is people's hearts." These words were like ice piercing bone, turning Amir's face instantly iron-green, the scene falling into suffocating silence.

Layla listened quietly to one side, her wine glass paused at her lips. Watching Zayed's unhurried manner, her analyst instinct made her recalculate the situation. This young man's strategy far exceeded expectations. He was not begging for mercy, but laying a huge trap, one where tradition and modernity merged.

Maya drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the turmoil in her heart. She looked at Zayed again, her attitude abruptly changing from arrogance to that of a cautious business partner. She extended her hand, her voice professional and pragmatic: "Mr. Zayed, I take back what I just said. Perhaps we can build a non-exclusive cooperation framework and explore a new path."

Zayed grasped her hand, moderate in strength, his eyes firm: "I look forward to further communication with you." At this moment, he not only defused the provocation, but also won recognition from top capital. And in the corner, Amir, hearing the phrase ancient-method logic, had his pupils contract sharply, whispering an instruction to the bodyguard behind him.

Night fell, and the crowd began to disperse. Amir did not leave, but hid in the shadows, his gloomy eyes fixed on Zayed's departing back. He gritted his teeth and whispered through his earpiece: "Keep an eye on him. Tonight, I want to know exactly what ancient-method logic means." Late at night in Muscat, a secret pursuit targeting Zayed quietly began.

As Zayed walked out of the banquet hall, the night wind carrying the slightly salty air of the Arabian Gulf rushed at him, blowing away the cold sweat still on his brow. Behind him, the brilliantly lit domed building stood in the night like a golden fortress, and he had just peeled away from it, stepping into true shadow.

He knew Amir's eyes were spread over every pore of this city, especially those hidden cleaners specially responsible for clearing away "heretics."

Zayed did not immediately return to the hotel, but turned into the narrow lanes of the old city. Here, stone roads polished smooth as mirrors by a thousand years of footsteps flanked mottled earthen walls, the air filled with the distinctive mixed scent of frankincense and old paper. He deliberately slowed his steps, adjusting his breathing, trying to physically erase the tension of the banquet from his body.

However, just as he turned a blind corner, he keenly sensed the trackers' presence, not from any direction visible to the naked eye, but from the narrow sky above, where two faint yet regular red dots of drones hovered silently over the lane.

A very faint cold smile curved Zayed's mouth. Amir's wariness was deeper than imagined. This was not only human tracking, but round-the-clock electronic surveillance. He stopped, seeming to straighten his cuffs, while in fact flicking two specially made magnetic interference chips silently into the sewer grate with his fingertips.

Seconds later, the red dots overhead flickered a few times, finally losing signal and falling onto a distant rooftop.

Seizing the opportunity, he quickly crossed the lane and slipped into a black, older-model off-road vehicle parked at the end of the alley. No light was on inside the car, and the air carried a faint cedar scent, Zayed's specially made repellent that could mask the unique human body heat and metabolic odor.

Sitting in the driver's seat was not a bodyguard, but his old servant and driver, a Bedouin who had spent a lifetime roaming the desert. The old man said nothing, only glancing at Zayed in the rearview mirror, his eyes carrying deep reverence and inquiry.

"What did the elder see?" Zayed asked softly, his voice hoarse.

The old man was silent for a moment, then took from his bosom a piece of obsidian carved with ancient symbols and handed it to Zayed: "Before leaving, Elder Tariq told me through gestures that the 'ancient trade route logic' you just mentioned triggered in his memory some long-buried resonance. He urges you to be careful of the 'Night Watchers.'"

The Night Watchers. Zayed gripped the obsidian, a bone-chilling cold coming through his fingertips. In this region, this was a taboo codename, referring to those guardians of traditional secrets who would not hesitate to use violence to eliminate anyone trying to tamper with the historical thread.

Amir might be merely an agent of capital and power, but the Night Watchers were executors of faith deep in the marrow. If Amir had truly mobilized this force, then tonight's pursuit was no longer merely commercial espionage, but a life-and-death game.

Zayed looked up out the car window, the city's skyline cold and distant in the moonlight. He recalled the flicker of doubt in Maya's eyes as she shook his hand, and the almost instinctive fear in Amir's pupils when he heard ancient-method logic. That was not merely shock at an unknown business model, but more like a physiological rejection of an ancient order being broken.

At this moment, his phone screen suddenly lit up, not with a call, but with an anonymous text message, only a short line of code. It was an encrypted instruction sent by Layla, meaning that after the banquet, she had already obtained, through other channels, some data on Zayed's actions that night, and had anticipated the current danger.

The engine roared, and the off-road vehicle quietly drove into the dark streets. Zayed clutched the obsidian tightly in his palm, its gravel-like edges embedding into his palm, bringing a real pain.

He knew that from this moment, he was no longer just the young talent who had debated the crowd at the banquet; he was a chess piece thrown into a deep pool, stirring countless unseen undercurrents beneath the surface. And Amir's pursuit team was advancing step by step along the route where he had vanished, toward the center of this city's underground network.