Chapter 651: Flowers Bloom Again After Another Year

February 2nd.

On the highway outside Xingcheng, over a dozen luxury cars were parked along the roadside.

Dozens of officials in official attire were also standing by the roadside waiting.

Li Lei was prominently among them.

Xingcheng's Provincial Military Commander, Lan Changqun, stood beside Li Lei, chatting with him with a smile.

After the previous Provincial Military Commander, Gu Zhenhui, stepped down, this new commander had once tried to suppress the forces in Xingcheng led by Li Lei.

After all, as the Provincial Military Commander, he could not sit idly by while Xingcheng possessed a force that even surpassed his own.

The two sides fought for nearly a year, but Lan Changqun was never able to gain the upper hand.

It wasn't until the news of Li Fei being enfeoffed as a Marquis returned that this ambitious commander completely lost his fighting spirit.

What was the point of fighting now?

Now, Lan Changqun had completely adjusted his mindset, changing his past attitude and taking the initiative to be on good terms with Li Lei.

At this moment, the two stood by the road, chatting and laughing, appearing to have a harmonious relationship.

The surrounding officials saw this scene and knew clearly in their hearts that the future Provincial Military Commander of Xingcheng would undoubtedly be Li Lei!

"They're here."

Someone suddenly shouted.

Everyone turned to look; a motorcade appeared on the distant highway, which lifted everyone's spirits.

They had specifically waited on the highway today to welcome the Marquis of Jing'an, Li Fei, back to his hometown.

Li Fei and his group had first taken a train from Datong Prefecture, arrived at Mingqi City, then switched to cars, and arrived in Xingcheng this afternoon.

The motorcade drew closer and closer, gradually slowing down until it finally stopped.

A group of people got out of the cars one after another.

"Brother Li, please."

Lan Changqun stepped aside, gesturing for Li Lei to go first with great grace.

Li Lei wore a smile on his face and stepped forward with some excitement.

Through the crowd, he caught sight of that dark golden figure at a glance.

"Xiao—"

Almost subconsciously, Li Lei opened his mouth to call out "Xiao Fei," but he immediately held back.

After all, this was a public occasion, and his Xiao Fei was already a Marquis.

"Uncle Li!"

But Li Fei did not mind these things and walked quickly toward them, followed by Li Tianyu.

"Uncle Li, why did you come all the way here yourself to pick me up?"

Li Fei arrived in front of Li Lei and said with a smile.

"Hahaha, it's only right, only right."

Li Lei was grinning from ear to ear.

He grabbed Li Fei's arm and looked him up and down:

"You've grown taller, your body is sturdier, and this outfit is nice; you have an air of distinction."

"Dad!"

Li Tianyu, standing to the side, was a bit displeased.

She had been standing there for a long time, and her own father hadn't even noticed her.

Li Lei looked at her, his smile undiminished:

"Tianyu has grown taller too, not bad, not bad."

The family chatted for a while, while the crowd of officials watched from the side with smiles, none daring to interrupt.

Eventually, it was Li Lei who stopped the reminiscing first, stepping aside to reveal the group of Xingcheng officials behind him.

On the highway, the group led by Lan Changqun bowed in unison to salute Li Fei:

"Greetings, Marquis of Jing'an!"

Li Lei watched this scene from the side, unable to suppress the corners of his mouth, with only one thought in his mind at this moment:

To have a son like this!

Soon, the motorcade set off again, driving back into Xingcheng.

Li Fei sat in Li Lei's car; he and Li Lei sat in the back, while Li Tianyu sat in the front passenger seat.

"The Qingyuan City Management Company has now become the company with the best reputation in Xingcheng; almost everyone is praising it!"

Li Lei told Li Fei about the changes in Xingcheng over the past year while in the car.

The biggest change among them was brought about by the Qingyuan City Management Company.

The rules Li Fei had established back then, after more than a year of "fermentation," had brought about a huge change in the appearance of the lower levels of Xingcheng:

There were no more endless protection fees; merchants no longer had to worry about paying one group today and another tomorrow.

There was no more forced buying or selling. Whenever a profitable business appeared, it would immediately be swallowed up by local bigwigs; such things rarely happened anymore.

The streets were regularly swept and repaired, and the cleanliness of the roads in the "slums" was comparable to that of the main city district.

Whether it was large shops or small vendors, they no longer had to worry about people causing trouble, fighting, brawling, or customer disputes; the Qingyuan City Management Company would handle it all.

In addition to this, there were services like fire and theft prevention, and handling water accumulation on rainy days.

The Qingyuan City Management Company also cooperated with the Inspection Academy to manage public order and help solve cases, which was an important reason why the case-solving rate in Xingcheng had risen sharply.

In just over a year, the situation here in Xingcheng had spread, and it had now attracted many new merchants.

Many well-known companies and firms from Datong Prefecture had chosen to come to Xingcheng to open branches.

"Now, many of our Xingcheng citizens want to send their children to work at the Qingyuan City Management Company."

Li Lei said with a smile.

Before the appearance of the Qingyuan City Management Company, being in a gang was not something that earned respect; on the contrary, it was detested!

Because the thing gangs did most was bully the common people.

But now, it was different.

As the reputation of the Qingyuan City Management Company grew better and better, the people of Xingcheng truly hoped that this largest local "gang" would grow big and strong, and ideally, remain the leader of the Xingcheng underworld forever!

Hearing this, Li Fei nodded with satisfaction.

When the local common people spontaneously wanted to send their own children to the Qingyuan City Management Company, it meant that the goal he had envisioned back then had been initially achieved.

When he first set those nearly harsh rules for the Qingyuan City Management Company, everyone, including Shangguan Xiao, did not understand.

Doing so not only made the Qingyuan City Management Company earn much less money, but also required a large amount of manpower, material resources, and energy.

Fortunately, the current results made Li Fei very satisfied, and it also proved that his choice back then was correct.

Suppressing a place with force is indeed easy, but if one wants to stand here for a long time, the hearts of the people are the key.

Although the Green Face Villa had previously unified the underworld of Datong Prefecture, that was only on the surface.

Lacking a foundation, the Green Face Villa could not do things the way the Qingyuan City Management Company did.

Now that Li Fei was back, after conveniently wiping out the Bai family and that Provincial Military Commander in Mingqi City, he intended to let the Green Face Villa truly control the underworld of Datong Prefecture, and then proceed according to the methods of the Qingyuan City Management Company.

As for the problem of lacking manpower, once his Marquis manor was established in Xingcheng, there would be no need to worry about not being able to recruit people.

"The situation of the Chen family is also very good now; Lixin is doing very well. Everyone, including me, underestimated him."

Li Lei continued.

Back then, Li Fei had used the Chen Family Village incident to topple the Chen family in one fell swoop.

But he did not choose to swallow the Chen family then and there; instead, he let his childhood friend Chen Lixin take charge of the Chen family.

After all, the Chen family had been in Xingcheng for so many years and was deeply rooted; if one were to forcibly swallow them, one would only end up with a fragmented "corpse."

But using the Chen family members to govern the Chen family had a different effect.

Although Chen Lixin was from a side branch and not the direct line, with all the direct descendants in prison, he successfully took over the Chen family quickly after receiving strong support from Li Lei, and the resistance he faced was very small.

Chen Lixin was only one year older than Li Fei; a twenty-year-old head of the Chen family was indeed unexpected.

But over the past half year or so, Chen Lixin had indeed governed the Chen family very well, not only sweeping away the decline but also making great progress in business.

This business student from the Martial University had displayed his extraordinary business talent!

Previously, there was no platform for him to display it, but now, holding the entire Chen family in his hands, Chen Lixin finally had the opportunity to showcase his talents.

Li Fei showed a look of curiosity.

That night when he and Chen Lixin talked in the hotel, the other party guessed at once that he intended to move against the Chen family; he knew then that his childhood friend was not simple.

"What has he done?"

Li Fei asked.

So Li Lei told him about what Chen Lixin had done in the Chen family over the past half year:

"Taking advantage of the prestige of his new position, and with me backing him, he audited the Chen family's accounts for the past thirty-plus years within a month and ferreted out dozens of people who were either embezzling or keeping fake accounts!"

"He didn't send all of these people to prison; in the end, he only let me arrest half of them. The other half, in order to protect themselves, handed over all their family assets."

"Next, Chen Lixin used this newly acquired capital to have over a dozen of the Chen family's shops stop business for rectification, renovate, and prepare to change their trade."

"What did he have these shops change their trade to?"

Li Fei asked curiously.

"Haha, you definitely wouldn't guess; this is the new specialty of our Xingcheng now—food delivery!"

"Ah, this..."

"What's wrong?"

"It's fine, Uncle Li, please continue."

"In the past, we either went to restaurants to eat or cooked at home, but now that's no longer necessary; we can have it delivered.

Chen Lixin first used my connections to establish a partnership with the local government, specifically to deliver meals for us. Now, the three daily meals for the six academies of Xingcheng are all delivered to us by the Chen family's delivery company.

Later, he continued to expand the scale, sending people to various shops every day to ask what they wanted to eat and from which restaurant. After recording it, the Chen family's delivery company would send people to deliver the food to these shops at the designated times.

Now, all the restaurants in Xingcheng are scrambling to cooperate with the Chen family. I estimate that the profits of the Chen family's delivery company are already enough to cover the losses caused by the Chen family's previous setbacks."

As Li Fei listened to the story Li Lei was telling, he had a sense of déjà vu, as if he were reading a transmigration novel.

In fact, the concept of "food delivery" was something he had mentioned offhandedly when he was talking with Chen Lixin back then.

He hadn't expected that the other party would actually implement this concept.

When Li Fei first arrived in this world, he had the arrogance of a transmigrator, always feeling that with the advanced ideas in his mind, he could easily become the richest man.

But he soon discovered that he was too naive.

In a world like this, creativity, talent, capital, and the like are not the most important things.

The most important thing is to have backing!

If there hadn't been a sufficiently powerful background, if Li Fei had established a delivery company in the first month, it would have belonged to someone else by the next month.

That was why Li Fei's only choice for making money back then was to fight in underground boxing matches.

But Chen Lixin was different.

He had Li Lei as his backing, which was equivalent to having the greatest background in Xingcheng!

Coupled with the Chen family's foundation and capital, there was naturally no reason for him not to succeed.

Of course, in this era, there was no internet, no mobile phones, and even telephones were not widespread. To implement the delivery concept Li Fei had proposed, a lot of work still needed to be done and many difficulties had to be overcome.

Chen Lixin had solved all these problems one by one.

"That is indeed very impressive."

Li Fei said with a smile.

Whether it was the Qingyuan Management Company or the Chen family, the seeds planted back then had now begun to sprout.

Li Fei looked out the car window; the wildflowers by the roadside were blooming brilliantly, just like the scene he saw when he left Xingcheng by bus a year ago.

We parted last year amidst the flowers, and today the flowers bloom again after a year.

Xingcheng, once crushed by the powerful and the gangs, was now glowing with new life.

The once insignificant youth was now famous throughout the world!

The forty-seventh year of Hongguang, the second day of the second lunar month, the Dragon Raises Its Head.

Marquis of Jing'an Li Fei had returned to his hometown.

Requesting monthly tickets.

(End of chapter)