In the office, Qian Ziqiang was slumped on his chair. His face was pale as a sheet.
“I’m finished! Finished!” He mumbled with an expression of utter dejection.
He did not expect that ‘unruly peasant from a mountain village’ would have someone so powerful backing him!
Old Master He was a legend in Province Z. A District Secretary like him was not even qualified to polish his shoes.
Furthermore, he had heard before that Old Master He was an austere man who hated to see peasants being bullied by government officials abusing their authority. He would be utterly finished if Old Master He caught wind about it.
‘Dammit, this bastard only knows how to look for trouble!’
Qian Ziqiang had nowhere to release his anger when he thought about Ma Yongnian.
“No, I can’t let this continue!” He paced in a circle impatiently. Suddenly, he shouted to someone outside the office. “Prepare my car! I want to go to Tang Village.”
Meanwhile, on the road leading into Tang Village, Ma Yongnian became arrogant again.
“You, Tang kid, and you too, Gao guy, just you wait! I’ll teach you what it means to cross me!”
Ma Yongnian roared arrogantly as he pointed at Tang Hao and Captain Gao.
Captain Gao grinned. He did not look worried at all.
‘Is that self-centered, arrogant fool going to oppose Brother Tang? That’s such a big joke! He doesn’t know the extent of Tang Hao’s power!’
He smirked coldly when he looked at the bunch of hooligans and the trucks laden with sand behind Ma Yongnian.
‘What’s that, if not forced eviction? That guy is such a despicable person!’
He would have arrested Ma Yongnian on the spot, if not that he was still wary of his background.
The villagers were all clueless. They did not know what was going on.
Their brains could not process so many happenings in a short time.
‘Commissioner’. ‘Secretary’. Those were incredibly important people that they would not encounter on a usual day.
Now, those titles were being thrown around as if they were nothing special.
More surprisingly, their Lil Hao was connected to them all.
They had only expected that Lil Hao was connected to some rich bosses. However, now that they found out that he was connected to people in the police station and even the government, that was on a different level.
Tang Dashun pondered for a while, then said, “I think I understand now. Lil Hao is connected to the previous District Secretary, while this tyrant here is the brother-in-law of the current District Secretary.”
“That’s still bad news for us! The previous Secretary is gone. How can we stand a chance against the current Secretary?” Tang Hao’s uncle sighed and said miserably.
Ma Yongnian heard that, and he smirked gleefully.
He checked his phone for about five or six times per minute, waiting for the good news from his brother-in-law.
More than ten minutes went by. His phone was silent.
“What’s going on?” Ma Yongnian’s instincts told him that there was something not quite right.
His brother-in-law said that he would be talking to Commissioner Xia. The talk could not have gone on for so long!
‘Right! They must be discussing how to settle this! I can still wait!’ Ma Yongnian thought to himself and continued waiting patiently.
Another ten minutes passed with no news of his brother-in-law.
He was beginning to be anxious.
A few minutes later, a black car appeared at the end of the road driving toward Tang Village.
The car stopped nearby and the car door opened. A tall middle-aged man stepped out.
That person was none other than Qian Ziqiang, the new District Secretary.
He was dressed in a white shirt and black slacks. His appearance was plain, and he did not look as authoritative as Secretary Lin.
Qin Ziqiang scanned the area with his eyes after he got out of the car. He noticed the nearby farmland filled with sand and the demolished houses, and his face immediately darkened.
Then, the veins on his forehead bulged and pulsed when he saw the bunch of hooligans with their weapons.
‘What is this bastard doing? Does he want to throw me under the bus?’
Ma Yongnian was surprised to see Qian Ziqiang. He wondered why his brother-in-law came to the scene in person.
Jumping for joy, he immediately pulled Hu Dahai and ran fawningly toward Qian Ziqiang.
“You’re here, Brother-in-law! Look at our faces. The unruly peasant has assaulted us. You’ve got to avenge me!” Ma Yongnian spoke pitifully as though he was about to cry.
“You have to restore justice to us, Secretary Qian! That unruly peasant isn’t respecting the law!” Hu Dahai said.
The two people spoke with tears and snot running down their bruised and swollen faces. They looked as pathetic as they could be.
However, Secretary Qian was unmoved. He lifted his hand and slapped it fiercely on Ma Yongnian’s face.
Slap!
The sound of the slap was crisp and had shocked everyone who witnessed it.
“What… What’s going on?” The villagers were confused.
Captain Gao, Tang Hao, and the rest were also shocked. Ma Yongnian was the most shocked of all.
He was utterly dumbstruck. He could not believe that his brother-in-law did not take pity on him, but instead slapped him.
“You… You slapped me?” He said incredulously.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing, you bastard! Look at what you’ve done! Are you still human or are you an animal? Don’t you have any guilty conscience?” Secretary Qian said sternly, then slapped him again.
“I’ll have to uphold justice today, even if that means punishing my relatives. Let’s see all your past evil deeds being exposed once and for all!”
Ma Yongnian covered his face with his hand. He stumbled a few steps backward and his mind was blank.
He could not comprehend what caused the change in his brother-in-law’s attitude.
“Brother-in-law, I…”
“Shut up! You’re not related to me!” Secretary Qian roared and his eyes were glaring. “You’ve been abusing my title to commit so many evil deeds for the past few years. I didn’t want to say anything because we were relatives, and I thought you’d know how to check yourself. I didn’t expect you to become more and more brazen.”
Ma Yongnian was utterly dumbstruck. His face was ashen.
He could see that his brother-in-law was serious in bringing him to justice without regard to his familial relations.
Meanwhile, Hu Dahai was trembling with fear as he witnessed all that. His heart sunk into despair.
He knew that he was once again finished.
“Why are you standing there for?” Secretary Qian shouted at Captain Gao and the police officers. “Cuff these two up and bring them back to the police station for questioning. Arrest all those hooligans too.”
Captain Gao was immediately ecstatic. He had been raring to do that since he arrived at the village.
He turned to order the police officers behind him. “All of you, go and round up the hooligans. You, and you, follow me.”
He brought the police officers in front of Ma Yongnian and Hu Dahai and said coldly, “You’re under arrest!”
Then, he took out two pairs of handcuffs and cuffed them up.