I spoke with great force, which startled my second uncle. I continued, "Tell me the truth, is someone behind this instructing you to do this? You actually know that your village committee withheld 30% of this compensation under the pretext of developing village affairs, and it has nothing to do with the hotel at all... What exactly is your purpose in bringing people to the hotel to cause trouble?"

The second uncle replied incoherently, "I still haven't received more than 20,000 yuan in compensation... I'll make a scene if anyone doesn't give it to me."

"More than 20,000 yuan, right... I'll give it to you right now... Remember, I'm giving you this money because I don't want my girlfriend to suffer in there, and it's also to save you... If you're still so ungrateful, you can call someone to lock me up right now... I want to see who will end up in trouble... I'm not trying to scare you, but if you lock me up too, it'll be adding insult to injury, and you can just wait to eat jail food until you die!"

A standoff had formed, and my heart was pounding, fearing that I had failed to intimidate him and had instead made things worse.

My mind raced, and I said to the young man standing beside me, "Young man, you're a sensible person. You should quickly persuade your second uncle for me. I've already agreed to pay out of my own pocket to cover his compensation... He hasn't suffered any loss at all. If he continues to be so unreasonable, not only will he face legal consequences, but you'll also have to go to jail with him... You're still so young, you certainly don't want to have such a big stain on your record, do you?"

The young man was clearly anxious. He grabbed his uncle and said, "Uncle, let's not worry about whether he works at the hotel or not... He really did a good job, so let's let him go."

The second uncle hesitated for a moment, then said, "We can't let her go. If we release that woman, your eldest brother won't be able to become the village chief!"

Realizing he had let something slip in his haste, the second uncle's face turned extremely ugly... And after probing step by step, I finally saw through the trickery involved... Unless there was a huge profit motive, a normal person should have been persuaded long ago by my combination of soft and hard tactics.

I calmed myself down and said, "I don't know what you mean by not being able to become the village head... but I have to tell you, the village committee's act of registering the land requisitioned for the hotel under its own name without your knowledge is itself a violation... You can go to the municipal government for administrative review and ask the Land and Resources Bureau to revoke the 'Collective Land Ownership Certificate' previously issued to your village. If the municipal government does not agree to your administrative review... you can also file a lawsuit in court, with the municipal government as the defendant and your village committee as the third party; if there are indeed unclear facts regarding the specific administrative actions, your chances of winning are very high!"

I didn't expect my second uncle to understand what I was saying. I just wanted to show him that I am a lawyer who really understands the law, so that I could have a deterrent effect on him. What I am saying now is a similar case that I saw online before I came here.

I continued, “I’m a lawyer, and I’ve handled many cases like this. Releasing them now is your only way out… Don’t you think about it? They can open such a big hotel in your village, do you think they’re afraid of suing you? This is a society governed by law. Even the ‘government’ can be a defendant, let alone people like you who have actually broken the law… I advise you not to have any more illusions… This will only hurt yourselves.”

My second uncle had been completely rendered speechless by what I had said, so I seized on the key point and asked the young man, "What did your second uncle mean when he said that your eldest brother couldn't become the village head?"

The young man replied, "This year, our village is having a re-election of village officials, and my older brother is running for office."

I vaguely understood something, and softened my tone as I said to my second uncle, "Uncle, what I just told you was from the bottom of my heart... I know that when you went to the hotel to cause trouble, someone must be behind it. Can you tell me the truth... Please don't think this is helping your son. This is a political struggle. If you are really used by someone, it's the same as ruining your son's future... Think about it yourself. If you really go to jail because of this, can the country accept your son, a cadre with such a tainted reputation... You are harming him, do you understand?"

Under my constant prodding, my second uncle finally broke down. He looked at me timidly and said, "I didn't want to do this... It was the current village head who asked me to do it... He wants to find fault with the village secretary, but the village secretary has powerful connections, and he doesn't dare offend him, so he came up with this plan; he told me to find people to cause trouble at the hotel, and make a big scene, so that someone from higher up will investigate this land compensation money... The village secretary has already embezzled a lot of this money, and as long as someone from higher up comes down to investigate, the village secretary will definitely be finished... That way, he can become the village secretary himself... He told me that as long as he becomes the village secretary, he will definitely find a way to make my son the village head... No one in our family has ever been an official in our entire lives..."

At this point, the second uncle was already on the verge of collapse...

The truth finally came out... and my heart, which had been pounding in my chest, finally settled down... I could sense that I would be able to meet Ye Zhi soon. And through handling this matter, I also realized how important it is for a person to remain calm.

If I had directly asked for directions from the beginning instead of pretending to ask for directions, thus lowering the young man's guard, the situation would definitely not be like this now.

...

Just as I was about to ask for the key, the young man, his eyes already brimming with tears, said to his second uncle, "Second Uncle, are you sending me to jail so that my older brother can become the village head?... Is it because I have no parents that my life is worth less than my older brother's?... I don't want to be without parents, and I don't want to be looked down upon living in your house... But what can I do? I'm just a jinx, born of parents but uneducated... Second Uncle, remember, even if I go to jail... I won't hate you. I'll only hate that my parents died young... That's why I'm so unloved and uncared for. I deserve to be worse than an animal!!"

My heart is heavy. It feels as if I have inadvertently torn open the darkest side of human nature once again...

At this moment, I really hope that this second uncle, while blinded by greed, can still remember that he has a brother who died young and such an orphan.

What's truly terrifying is that village chief... In order to advance his career, he actually schemed against Ye Zhi, who was in Shanghai and had no connection with him whatsoever... Then what in this world can't be schemed against?

It seems that the evil in human nature is something that can expand infinitely... but most of the time, we lack the ability to protect our kind selves.

...

Just as I was thinking about all this, my second uncle finally took a key out of his pocket, handed it to the young man, and said, "I'm sorry, second uncle. Go and release them... Be quick, Li Dalai (probably the village chief) didn't just collude with me. If more people come later, they won't be able to leave!"