Liu Bingbing is temporarily not going to work, so she got a prescription for low blood sugar. Pregnancy usually has a gestation period, and the job Liu Bingbing mentioned is basically optional.
During this time, she also saw what officialdom was like. She not only regretted choosing this path in the first place, but also realized that officialdom was all about interests. Women took the red path, while men took the yellow path. The red path was the body. If you wanted to get promoted, you had to have relationships with those above you. How powerful would a woman's background have to be?
If a man wants to get promoted, he needs to rely on his abilities instead of giving gifts? How many incredible opportunities would he have to have fall into his lap?
Liu Bingbing called Zhang Cai to ask for leave, saying she had low blood sugar, and asked Chen Chu to bring the order over. She didn't explain why she asked Chen Chu to bring it, and there was really no need to explain such a trivial matter.
Zhang Cai put down the phone, curled his lip, and thought to himself, "Damn it, such a good woman has probably been taken by that pig Chen Chu. Why is that? All the good women have been taken by that dog? I, a village chief, haven't even gotten my hands on one?"
He didn't know that not only the village chief, but even the county magistrate hadn't succeeded. Chen Chu had also relied on despicable means, using a combination of coaxing and deception to win her over. However, Chen Chu also genuinely wanted to be with Liu Bingbing. As for Ji Xiaotao, her older brother Ji Yang was so opposed, and Chen Chu felt there was nothing he could do. He couldn't very well kill Ji Yang, could he?
Chen Chu escorted Liu Bingbing to her doorstep and then touched her face. Liu Bingbing slapped him, preventing him from entering the house to avoid arousing suspicion at home, so she went inside by herself.
Seeing Liu Bingbing enter the room, Chen Chu's face suddenly turned cold, and he immediately contacted Long Qi.
He needed money to make Liu Bingbing's life better, but how could a young boy like him earn money?
Let alone a teenager, what can a grown man do? Money isn't something you can just earn by saying you want to, nor can you get it by saying you'll work hard. Ability, opportunity, and patience are all indispensable, unless you come from a wealthy family…
A short while later, Long Qi called back. Chen Chu said casually, "Brother Long Qi, I have a job. I don't know if you can take it. It involves beating up a few skilled martial artists. The reward is 50,000 yuan. It won't hurt anyone or cause any harm. It's just about getting revenge. The informant fee is 10,000 yuan, and we'll each take 20,000 yuan..."
Long Qi thought for a moment, then agreed, "Okay!"
...
When the two met, Long Qi was still carrying his leather suitcase, his hair was a little messy, and he looked a bit haggard. Chen Chu hurriedly said, "Brother Long Qi, what happened to you...?" He was too embarrassed to say that you hadn't washed your face.
Long Qi smiled and said, "It's nothing. I looked for a hotel yesterday, but they seemed quite expensive. I'm not familiar with Hancheng, so I didn't see any cheap hotels. I spent the night at the ticket office. I didn't touch the two thousand yuan you gave me, since I haven't found a job yet..."
Chen Chu was stunned. He thought to himself that Long Qi was skilled in kung fu, but his intelligence seemed to be quite low. People are strong in one area but weak in another. He felt that Long Qi shouldn't be the kind of person who couldn't find a cheap hotel.
It's possible that I'm being careful with my money, but the fact remains that I haven't found a job yet.
"Brother Chen Chu, when will that job you introduced start?"
Chen Chu nodded, then called Shao Xiaodong and heard a chaotic sound on the other end of the line, like a fight.
Chen Chu hurriedly asked what happened, and Shao Xiaodong said, "Hey, Brother Chu, come quick, take a taxi. I'm at No. 4 Middle School, and I've run into trouble this time..."
Chen Chu and Long Qi took a taxi to the Fourth Middle School and saw Shao Xiaodong leading more than 30 people, three or four of whom had bruises on their faces. On the other side was a middle-aged man, about 40 years old. The two got out of the car about 200 meters away from the school.
At this moment, Shao Xiaodong called to his group of teenagers, who were mostly students, around fifteen or sixteen years old, or sixteen or seventeen. Shao Xiaodong shouted "Charge!" and the teenagers rushed forward, while he retreated. The teenagers, who were carrying sticks, chains, knives, bricks, iron chains, and other weapons, nearly thirty of them charged forward together. The middle-aged man, wielding a large iron shovel, also charged forward.
The middle-aged man cursed, "You bunch of damn little brats, how dare you hit my son!"
Chen Chu also saw it; not far from the middle-aged man was a boy in a school uniform, trembling with fear, and he understood.
This damn Shao Xiaodong is going to do anything! He's started hitting the kids again. This time, the kid's dad won't let him, and he's coming to fight him to the death. Chen Chu watched the spectacle with his arms crossed. Shao Xiaodong's gang rushed forward, only to get beaten up by the kid's dad with a big iron shovel.
One by one, they were beaten until they were screaming and howling. The old man had risked his life. If you dare to touch his kids, he'll fight you to the death. These kids were being beaten so badly that they were crying for their parents. At first, Shao Xiaodong was watching from behind, smoking a cigarette and feeling quite smug. However, after a while, he got used to it. The old man was wielding a big iron shovel and came straight at him.
Shao Xiaodong threw away his cigarette and ran. The thirty-odd people were chased by the man's father, who was carrying a large iron shovel, for several hundred meters. Shao Xiaodong was tall and had long legs, so he ran fast. He ran around in circles a few times and disappeared from sight. Chen Chu looked at the group of boys. The oldest was only sixteen or seventeen years old. They were all students. He couldn't help but shake his head.
After a while, Chen Chu's phone rang. Shao Xiaodong had already hidden in a milk tea shop. Chen Chu and Long Qi went in. Long Qi was slightly taller than Chen Chu. Apart from his triangular eyes, he was very ordinary, the kind of person you wouldn't notice in a crowd.
Shao Xiaodong was still peering out of the milk tea shop when he saw Chen Chu and the other person walk in. He asked, "Has that idiot caught up with us yet?"
Chen Chu smiled and said, "They've all dispersed. By the way, Xiaodong, who are all these people you found... haha..."
"Damn! It was supposed to be cheap, they only paid five hundred yuan to beat up some high school freshman who was acting all high and mighty. I got five high schoolers, but they got beaten up by the guy's dad with a shovel. Later, when this kid was in class, I got twenty-seven or twenty-eight students, ten yuan each. These guys were bragging a lot, but you saw it just now, right? They got beaten to a pulp in one go..."
Chen Chu also laughed, thinking to himself that even the cunning Shao Xiaodong had his moments of failure.
At this moment, Chen Chu asked, "By the way, let's get down to business. Stop looking outside. His father has already gone back. What you just told me about that 50,000 yuan, is it true? What happened? Tell me..."
Shao Xiaodong took a drag of his cigarette and offered one to Long Qi, who waved it away. Shao Xiaodong then asked Chen Chu, "Brother Chu, who is this...?"
"A master." Chen Chu said simply.
"An expert?" Shao Xiaodong sized up Long Qi but couldn't see any expert in him. However, he knew Chen Chu's strength, and anyone Chen Chu called an expert was certainly not ordinary.
He hurriedly said, "Brother Chu, there are seven or eight of them, known as the Seven Heroes. In Ningjia Village, the higher-ups said they'd give 50,000 to whoever can take them down. Those Seven Heroes also said they'd admit defeat if we could defeat them..."
"What's going on?" Chen Chu was taken aback. He thought, "Is this for real?" He knew the Ning family; they were from a fairly large village not far from Yaohe River, and had been living in Da Yangshu for over forty years. "Poor mountains and bad waters breed unruly people," or rather, "masters come from the common folk." Many ordinary people had some martial arts skills, especially in big cities like Shenyang and Beijing, where hidden talents abound. Every morning in parks and places like Shenyang City Hall Square, you'd see people practicing Baguazhang and similar styles. Even though they were quite old, they could throw a 100-pound person a great distance with push hands—that was a testament to their skill.
Decades of martial arts training isn't something that can be achieved overnight. Traditional Chinese martial arts emphasize the foundation of skill. Even after decades of practice, a person is already in their forties or fifties, becoming an older man. At that age, it's not easy to use martial arts to pick up girls, especially that "virginity-preserving skill"—it's the most damn deceptive thing, even worse than the Sunflower Manual. At least the Sunflower Manual allows you to castrate yourself; you don't have that thing anymore and don't think about it. But the "virginity-preserving skill" forces you to suppress that urge—isn't that just deceiving people? It's inhumane, isn't it…?
At this moment, Shao Xiaodong said, "I don't know what happened either. It was said from above that it was originally 100,000 yuan. As long as we beat these seven kids, we would get 100,000 yuan. But I only got 50,000 yuan left... Anyway, they don't want us to kill or cripple anyone. We just need to take those seven down. Brother Chu, we need to find a few more good fighters. If Ji Yang hadn't been injured, Jin Xing and the others would have been fine..."
"No need, just the three of us will go," Chen Chu said with a sigh of relief.
Shao Xiaodong blinked, grinned at Chen Chu and Long Qi, and said, "Brother Chu, I trust you, you're definitely a good fighter, but there are seven of them... well, even a tiger can't withstand a pack of wolves..."
Chen Chu laughed: "You don't need to worry about that. I've brought some experts with me. Let's go!"
"A master?" Shao Xiaodong couldn't find any master, but after glancing at Long Qi beside him, he smiled wryly and said, "Brother Chu, the master you're talking about is him..."
...
Although Shao Xiaodong didn't trust Long Qi, he did trust Chen Chu. Anyway, if the sky fell, Chen Chu would hold it up; if they couldn't win, they could just run away. It wasn't a big deal!
Shao Xiaodong immediately had Yan Zi bring a van, already prepared to run away if he couldn't win the fight.
The three got into the car and headed straight for Ningjia Village. Shao Xiaodong kept calling the other party, but this time he was exceptionally polite. The other party smiled and said okay, and then transferred the 20,000 yuan deposit to his card.
The van swayed and bumped along the very difficult road. Around noon, before even reaching the village, they saw a row of houses built next to a sandpit, surrounded by wire mesh, and there were quite a few dogs living in the sandpit.
Chen Chu asked, "What's going on?"
Shao Xiaodong nodded and said, "Brother Chu, this is a sand pit that the county is going to develop. However, right next to the sand pit is the home of this family surnamed Hou. Knowing that the county is developing it, they fenced off this land and claimed it as theirs. The county officials have come several times, but it hasn't worked. This Hou family are all fierce fighters and are desperate criminals. They said that if anyone can defeat them, they will give up the land; otherwise, they want 200,000 yuan. The county offered 100,000 yuan, but they wouldn't agree. So they took out the 100,000 yuan and went to the underworld to settle the matter..."
"Why didn't you contact Fatty Yin and his gang?" Chen Chu asked. Sometimes that's just how things are in officialdom. It's not that officials collude with the underworld, but sometimes things that officials can't handle have to be dealt with by people from the underworld. For example, in this kind of situation, they usually find someone with some influence to settle things...
Shao Xiaodong sighed and said, "Isn't this when Fatty Yin, Monkey Ma, and Ji Yang are really locked in a fierce battle? These past few days, Monkey Ma and Fatty Yin have been fighting tooth and nail, and Ji Yang has also come out of retirement. The three sides have already had dozens of fights. Ji Yang is backed by the deputy director of the Hancheng Public Security Bureau, so he has powerful backers... Therefore, County Chief Liu delegated this matter to lower levels, and I took on this job..."
Shao Xiaodong's words exposed County Chief Liu. He covered his mouth, but then thought that it was fine to tell Chen Chu since they weren't outsiders.
...
Chen Chu was taken aback. He had heard Liu Haiyan mention before that County Chief Liu was involved in organized crime, but he didn't expect it to be true. Besides, being an official in such a small place is not an easy thing. If you can't navigate both officialdom and the underworld, you might not be able to hold office.
Chen Chu smiled faintly and said, "So, of these 100,000 yuan, County Chief Liu kept 50,000?"
"Well, County Chief Liu will take the lion's share, then I'll take ten thousand, and the rest is yours, Brother Chu..."
Chen Chu nodded. Shao Xiaodong was good in this respect; he kept family and money separate.