Chapter 1953

Fang Haotian's Haotian Construction Company was established four years ago. Over these past few years, they have taken on many of the projects in Chongjin County. Fang Haotian's pockets swelled rapidly; he bought a car, kept a group of lackeys, and basically monopolized the construction market in Chongjin County. He even monopolized the building materials market.

If other companies wanted to take on projects, that was fine—it was possible—but they either had to pay his Haotian Company, or Haotian Company would take the project first and then resell it to the other company, allowing him to collect a fee directly.

Although the economy of Chongjin County is not developed, there are at least tens of millions in construction projects every year. With Fang Haotian eating alone, how could he not get rich?

Of course, Fang Haotian is able to do this because he is the nephew of Deputy County Magistrate Bi Xinguo. Bi Xinguo has been a deputy county magistrate for several years, always in charge of industry, transportation, urban construction, and other work. Although these tasks are not the most significant in Chongjin County, allowing his own nephew to rely on contracting projects to make money is still something he can manage.

Naturally, Fang Haotian is also very savvy; after making money, he also shows filial piety to Bi Xinguo, and Bi Xinguo then shows filial piety to his own superiors. This is the ecology of officialdom; with such an ecology, everyone can live in peace.

This time, Su Xinghui wants to carry out a levee renovation project and suddenly came up with a budget of 350 million. Fang Haotian was naturally tempted. All the projects he has ever taken on combined do not even amount to a fraction of this one. He naturally wants to devour this enormous cake.

Of course, his company does not have the strength to undertake such a large project, but he thought that if he could take on the entire project, he could then subcontract it out. The subcontracting fees alone would be at least tens of millions. Making tens of millions just by changing hands—wouldn't that be delightful?

To subcontract it out, he must first take on the project, but as it happens, this county magistrate wants to hold public bidding this time. He cannot directly receive the project; he has to go through some complicated bidding procedures.

If the normal bidding procedures were followed, his Haotian Company would not be able to win the bid because his company lacks the strength. He went to find Bi Xinguo, but Bi Xinguo said he couldn't help him this time because this is work under Nie Xin's jurisdiction.

However, Bi Xinguo's mistake was that he did not warn his nephew not to set his sights on this project again. He thought that after he had spoken, Fang Haotian would give up the idea.

Unexpectedly, since Fang Haotian did not get help from Bi Xinguo, he came up with a crooked idea. Aren't you going to hold bidding? Then I will rely on the group of lackeys I keep to fight. For every bidding company that comes, I will beat them away. Once all the capable companies are beaten away, wouldn't the final winner still be his Haotian Company?

Over the past few years, Fang Haotian has done this kind of thing quite often in Chongjin County. After he did such things, Bi Xinguo would naturally help him smooth things over. As long as there is money, what can't be done in Chongjin County?

But Fang Haotian is, after all, just a frog in a well. He knows nothing about the world outside the well, or rather, he knows nothing about true power. He thought that in this Chongjin County, no one could deal with him.

Thus, he sent his most capable henchman, Chang Mao, and told him to take men to deal with the construction companies coming to Chongjin County to participate in the bidding.

Currently, other capable construction companies have not yet received the news. Only Haimin Construction Company and the Mi Group Construction Company have already come to Chongjin County to set up branch offices, so Chang Mao took action against those two.

Chang Mao considered himself quite sophisticated; he believed in "courtesy before force." Yesterday, he went to both companies separately to persuade them to leave Chongjin County and not to wade into these muddy waters. As a result, his persuasion was ineffective, so today he took men and smashed both companies.

After smashing them, he was still feeling smug and ran off to a dance hall they often frequented to have fun, only to be caught immediately by Zou Zhenguo, who understood their habits.

During the interrogation just now, Chang Mao had no intention of hiding anything at all. He directly stated Fang Haotian's name because he was very certain that Bi Xinguo was behind Fang Haotian. What could a small police station chief like you do to them?

Having caught Chang Mao and interrogated him, Zou Zhenguo found himself in a difficult position with the interrogation record in hand. This matter, unsurprisingly, involved Fang Haotian, and equally unsurprisingly, involved Bi Xinguo. What should be done about this? He dared not tell the victims and County Magistrate Su the results of the interrogation directly; after all, it involved Deputy County Magistrate Bi, and might even involve Secretary Yuan.

The only person Zou Zhenguo could ask was Gao Tongguang, so he took the interrogation record to find him.

Gao Tongguang looked at the interrogation record and began to ponder. In fact, when he heard the case narrated by the employees of Haimin Company, he had already vaguely felt that this matter was done by Fang Haotian. Now, this record did not exceed his expectations.

But he hadn't figured out how to resolve this matter.

Bi Guoxin was, after all, one of Yuan Yifu's people. Although his personal friendship with Bi Guoxin was average, they could be considered to be in the same trench. If he let this matter implicate Bi Guoxin, he would appear somewhat disloyal.

However, Gao Tongguang is a smart man; loyalty is not worth much to him. If loyalty required him to pay too high a price, he would definitely choose to be disloyal.

On this point, Gao Tongguang is similar to Yuan Yifu; when Yuan Yifu senses danger, he will throw the blame away without hesitation.

But Gao Tongguang also had some hesitations. After all, he was promoted by Yuan Yifu, and Yuan Yifu is currently the top leader of Chongjin County. If he throws Fang Haotian out, would it make Yuan Yifu angry? In that case, it would also be very passive for Gao Tongguang.

After hesitating for a long while, Gao Tongguang said to Zou Zhenguo, "Zhenguo, don't take this record out yet. Just keep it for now and say the interrogation hasn't finished yet. Let's wait a day; anyway, the deadline I gave you is three days."

Zou Zhenguo nodded, took the interrogation record, and rode his sidecar back to the station.

That evening, Yu Ruizhi came to Su Xinghui's room. He said to Su Xinghui, "Xinghui, I asked Sister Sister Ruoqiu this afternoon. Sister Sister Ruoqiu did indeed run into trouble. At first, when I asked her, she refused to say, but later, under my persistent questioning, she finally told me."

Su Xinghui asked, "What did she run into?"

Yu Ruizhi then told the story. It turned out that Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu is already twenty-five years old now. Every time she goes home, Fan Xinyun busies herself with introducing suitors to her. However, Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu doesn't like any of the suitors she introduces. This cannot be blamed on Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu; the conditions of the suitors Fan Xinyun introduces are far worse than Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu's, so how could Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu possibly be interested?

Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu found it extremely annoying, so she simply started running around outside often and returned to the capital less and less. Even when she did go back, it was only to visit her grandparents. She did this just to avoid the suitors her mother introduced to her.

But more than a month ago, Fan Xinyun called Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu and said she wanted to introduce another suitor to her, asking her to return to the capital. She said the young man she was introducing this time had excellent conditions and was also a "Red Third Generation" who grew up in the same compound as Yu Ruizhi and Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu since childhood.

This young man is named You Jiayu, twenty-nine years old this year, four years older than Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu—the age is appropriate. He is the grandson of another founding General, General You. General You is also from the General County and was a fellow villager and comrade-in-arms of Elder Yu. The relationship between the two families is also very good.

This You Jiayu grew up in the same compound as Yu Ruizhi and Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu since childhood. He has superior intelligence; he was admitted to the Capital University at fifteen. After studying in the Economics and Management Department for four years, he went abroad to study, earning his master's and doctoral degrees in finance at Harvard University in the United States, and then worked on Wall Street.

Now he has been working on Wall Street for two years. More than a month ago, he returned to China to visit relatives and visited the Yu family, where he happened to meet Fan Xinyun. Fan Xinyun saw that You Jiayu was a man of talent and had such an astonishing resume, so she tentatively asked if You Jiayu was married.

As it turned out, You Jiayu said he was not married, and because he was devoted to his studies, he hadn't even dated anyone. Fan Xinyun then got an idea and told You Jiayu's mother that she wanted to introduce Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu to You Jiayu.

You Jiayu's mother actually knew Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu and liked her very much, so she told her son about this. You Jiayu agreed to meet Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu with an indifferent attitude.

However, Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu refused to return to the capital. Later, Fan Xinyun made the situation sound very serious, and only then did Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu reluctantly agree to return to the capital to meet You Jiayu. She had the intention of being cold to You Jiayu so that he would know to retreat.

But as soon as they met, You Jiayu was stunned by Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu's beauty. He launched a fierce pursuit of Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu, learning that Western style of sending flowers to Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu every day, and the mothers of both families were also fully trying to match this pair.

But Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu did not like You Jiayu, so she found an opportunity to leave the capital again. Anyway, her career is doing well, and she really had things to do. Last time she was in the General County, You Jiayu found out and chased after her. Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu left the General County and went to Jiangcheng, and You Jiayu chased after her again.

This time, Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu ran to Chongjin County. She originally didn't want to reveal her whereabouts, but when her family asked where she was, she had to say. Thus, You Jiayu found out her whereabouts again, and today he called again, saying he was coming to Chongjin County tomorrow.

This naturally caused Yu Sister Sister Ruoqiu a lot of trouble and made her very unhappy.