18. The Bully
The sun was rising high in the sky, and water was dripping from the icicles under the eaves.
Seven or eight muscular men waved aside the peddlers who were blocking their way and walked towards Fan Changyu's shop with great momentum. The man in the lead had a square face, a short beard, and a fierce look, but he limped when he walked.
It was none other than Mr. Jin, the boss of the casino thugs who had repeatedly gone to Fan Changyu's house to cause trouble.
"I want to see who is so bold as to do business on this street and dare not give money to honor the elderly..."
When Jin Ye saw Fan Changyu standing at the door of the shop with his arms folded, he stopped talking about the rest of his sentence. The faces of the few minions following him who had been severely beaten by Fan Changyu also changed.
The leg that was not lame also began to ache slightly.
This couple are more ruthless than each other. Will the other leg be broken here as well?
Several minions unconsciously dragged their limping legs and took half a step back.
The butchers near the shops saw that they were outnumbered and Fan Changyu was just a girl, so they couldn't help but worry for her. Only the butcher Guo across the street still looked gloating.
Master Jin managed a flattering smile with great difficulty: "Miss Fan... Miss Fan? You own this shop?"
The onlookers were dumbfounded when they saw this scene.
This direction... doesn't seem right?
Fan Changyu picked up the stick behind the door, and a group of street thugs immediately looked terrified and retreated in unison.
The leader, Mr. Jin, waved his hands repeatedly: "Miss Fan, it's a misunderstanding! We know that you own this shop, how dare we be disrespectful?"
The butcher Guo on the opposite side almost popped his eyes out, as he never expected that these street thugs were so afraid of Fan Changyu.
Fan Changyu looked at Master Jin coldly, and pointed at the smashed brick stove in front of his shop with his long stick, "Did you smash it?"
It was freezing cold, but Jin Ye's forehead was covered with sweat. He wiped it with his sleeves and said repeatedly: "We are also paid to do things for others. We will fix it for you! We will fix it for you!"
As he said this, he quickly winked at the minions behind him. The minions were frightened when they saw the long stick in Fan Changyu's hand. They didn't want to experience the pain of being beaten to the point of vomiting rice crumbs again, so they stepped forward tremblingly to build the stove.
Fan Changyu couldn't help feeling a little confused. She originally thought that these people really came to collect protection fees, but she didn't expect there was such an inside story.
She asked Mr. Jin directly: "Who ordered you to come to my store to cause trouble?"
"Miss Fan, this..." Mr. Jin looked embarrassed. Since they were paid to do things for others, they naturally had to be careful with their words.
Fan Changyu swung the long stick in his hand back and pointed it at Mr. Jin's throat. Mr. Jin didn't even have time to react before the stick went straight to his vital point. The cold sweat on his forehead immediately formed beads and dripped down. He didn't care about any industry rules and stammered, "It's... It's the owner of Wang Ji Salty Food on Main Street."
Fan Changyu frowned slightly. She was a complete stranger to the shopkeeper Wang Ji. Their shops were separated by several streets, so neither could influence the other. Her shop's halogen business had only been in business for a few days, so it was not possible for the other party to do such a thing.
She immediately shouted, "Nonsense, I have no grudge against Wang Ji's shopkeeper, why would he let you come and smash my shop?"
Mr. Jin said repeatedly: "What I said is true. Yesterday, Wang Ji's staff came to us in person with the money."
Fan Changyu's brows furrowed even deeper as he saw a few minions using clay to rebuild the bricks on the stove. More and more people were gathering to watch. Thinking that business could not be delayed no matter what, he retracted the wooden stick.
Before Master Jin could catch his breath, Fan Changyu called him back: "You, light the fire and warm up the stove first, and you guys go to the well at the corner of the street and fetch me some buckets of water."
She was braising meat on the spot at the store entrance, so of course the store needed to stock up on water. However, in order to deal with the issue of the stove being smashed this morning, she had not had time to go to the well to fetch water.
I have wasted half a day, and now it may be too late to do all these things myself. It is better to make use of the ready-made labor that has delayed me.
The minions had never expected that there would be a day when they would be ordered around by others. They stood there in a daze, but when Fan Changyu glanced at them, they dared not hesitate at all and hurried to fetch water with buckets.
As soon as the hooligans left, the pedestrians who had been blocking the way outside Fan's shop and watching thought the matter had been resolved, so they dispersed and went about their own business.
Only the neighbors almost dropped their jaws in shock when they saw Fan Changyu directly summoning this group of hooligans who were doing evil things, and they looked at Fan Changyu as if he were a freak.
Fan Changyu didn't notice anything. She saw that Mr. Jin was standing at the door of her shop and no one dared to come to the shop to buy meat. She quickly drove people aside and said, "Stay aside and don't stand here and affect my business. After I sell the meat today, you come with me to Wangji and I want to ask for an explanation. If you said some lies to fool me..."
She glanced at Mr. Jin's other leg: "I'll break this leg too!"
Master Jin recalled the man's sinister look and the cruel kick he gave him that day. His leg, which hadn't fully healed yet, felt a sharp pain. His face turned pale and he quickly shook his head: "I, Jin Lao San, would never cheat on Miss Fan!"
Seeing how scared he was, Fan Changyu couldn't help wondering in her heart, how badly did that guy beat those people? She said that his other leg was also broken, and this guy was so scared.
A few minions quickly came back with some water. Fan Changyu was afraid that they would put something in the water, so he gave them a ladle and asked them to scoop up the water in their buckets and drink a sip before he felt comfortable using the water to wash the pork that needed to be brined.
As for the water for cooking, there was still some left over from yesterday in the water tank in her shop.
As soon as the big pot was put on the shelf, the aroma of salt began to waft across the entire street.
Yesterday I went to Fan Changyu's shop and queued up to buy brine but failed to buy any. Today I came early specially to buy it and finally got it.
However, most people saw Mr. Jin and his companions squatting next to Fan Changyu's shop, and they did not dare to go up to buy anything.
Their faces are full of flesh, and even if they have suffered a lot and have a deep hatred, they still look ferocious.
Fan Changyu also noticed this. In order to prevent this group of people from affecting her business, as the first pot of freshly-salted meat was almost sold out, she bought six more pig heads and three buckets of stew from a nearby butcher shop. She gave each person a pig head and asked them to pluck the hair off the pig heads. She also let the remaining people wash the stew under her nose.
They lowered their heads and worked, so people who came to buy meat naturally didn't notice their ferocious faces.
Fan Changyu was a supervisor while she was butchering meat and cutting salt. If she saw anyone cheating or not cleaning thoroughly, she would poke them with a stick: "There are still pig hairs in the pig's head! Wrap the large intestine with plant ash and rub it, then wash it clean and brush it from head to tail with straw!"
It's three times worse than a bully.
A group of street thugs trembled in fear, secretly regretting their bad luck for offending this girl again.
Fan Changyu, however, seemed to be able to read his mind and said with a fierce face, "If you do something wrong, you must be punished. Otherwise, what do you regard the law as?"
A group of people shrank like quails and nodded in agreement.
Seeing that they had a good attitude in admitting their mistakes, Fan Changyu asked when he had some free time: "Aren't you working in the casino? Why are you everywhere?"
Speaking of this, the group of street thugs all felt a little embarrassed.
Jin Lao San said in a low voice: "The brothers are no longer working in the casino."
Fan Changyu couldn't help but feel a little strange and asked why.
A gangster holding a pig head said in a sullen voice: "We followed the third brother to the casino to be thugs, but we did it just to make a living. This time, we failed to collect the debts for the casino. If we really wanted to chop off Fan Da's hand and take it back to report, the casino would not agree. Besides, we have been collecting debts for so many years, but we have never really made anyone lose limbs. Later, his leg was injured... and he was kicked out of the casino..."
Fan Changyu frowned: "Aren't you still collecting protection fees on the streets?"
Jin Lao San said, "It's not like the protection fee is ours just because we collect it. We are just collecting it for others."
Seeing that Fan Changyu didn't seem to understand what he meant, he said bluntly: "We can ask for money from merchants so brazenly, it must be because the government turned a blind eye. There must be someone protecting us from the higher-ups, so if something goes wrong, there will be someone to cover the bottom. The majority of the money we collect is naturally used to honor those officials."
Fan Changyu kept a sullen face and said nothing for a long time.
Jin Lao San quickly added: "But no one used to come to this street to collect protection fees. Otherwise, if we had known that Miss Fan's shop was here, we would never have dared to come..."
Fan Changyu's heart was shrouded in a fog. She suddenly asked, "When did this street start to be closed?"
Jin Lao San thought for a moment and said, "Last month."
Fan Changyu's brows furrowed even deeper. Her parents also died last month after being attacked by bandits. Could there be any connection between them?
But she rejected it after just a brief thought. Her father had been wandering around for many years and had great martial arts skills. It was not possible that he had lived in Lin'an Town for more than ten years and then suddenly suffered a disaster.
Fan Changyu collected his thoughts and said to Jin Laosan and his group with a fierce look, "You are a man of seven feet tall, why don't you do anything else but do the business of these hooligans!"
"Let's change! Let's change! We must be good people in the future!"
When the group of people saw her get angry, they trembled like quails with their necks retracted.
Fan Changyu stopped getting angry. Today's rough work had been done by others, so she had a rare chance to relax.
The reputation of Fan's salted meat has spread. Today, the business in her store is better than yesterday. Before noon, all the meat that she brought from home was sold out, and the remaining salted eggs in the store were also sold out. She also sent a gangster to buy another basket of eggs, and sold most of them.
You can buy two salted eggs for three cents, which is really tempting.
Fan Changyu roughly calculated today's income, and it was more than four taels!
Naturally, some butchers in the nearby meat shop were interested in her business, but seeing that Jin Laosan and his group were all bowing and scraping to her, they didn't dare to say a single sarcastic word.
Fan Changyu was in a very good mood after making some money. She also liked Jin Laosan and his group much better when she looked at them. Since they had helped her with the work for the whole morning and had a good attitude when admitting their mistakes, she gave each of them a salted egg.
The hooligans, who had been ordered around for the whole morning, were as wilted as cabbages in the field. Suddenly, they were given a hot salted egg and were obviously stunned.
Fan Changyu continued to look at them with a fierce face: "After eating, follow me to Wangji for a confrontation!"
The hooligans, who had been smelling the aroma of salsa for the whole morning, were already ravenous and wanted to swallow the eggshells.
After finishing the meal, the group of people were obviously not satisfied and asked cautiously: "Ms. Fan... Miss Fan, can we come to your store to work in the future?"
Fan Changyu thought with a fierce face, this won't work. If all these burly guys come to work in her shop, they will just eat her out of money!
She refused mercilessly: "No."
The hooligans didn't dare to say a word and followed her to Wang Ji with their heads down. However, because of her fierce appearance, they didn't look weak at all.
Pedestrians along the street all gave way when they saw them. Anyone who saw this scene would think that a female bully was looking for trouble with her thugs.
-
In a tavern on the street, a man in brocade clothes stood up and poured a cup of tea to the person sitting opposite him. In the rising white mist, the brocade patterns on his wide sleeves became blurred:
"The situation in Huizhou is not stable yet. The Marquis is hiding here, so it is inconvenient for his confidants to come. But I am a businessman, and the hawks and dogs of the Wei family cannot find Zhao. As long as the Marquis trusts me, I am willing to serve him wholeheartedly."
The window was half-open. The man sitting opposite him had a profile like a jade sculpture, with clear eyebrows and eyes. His slender fingers covered with dark scabs were tapping lightly on the table, nonchalantly, yet with a kind of suffocating majesty.
A pair of narrow eyes half-closed looking out the window, as if admiring the snow scene along the street.
Seeing that he was hesitant and didn't respond, the man in brocade clothes followed his gaze and looked out the window. Only then did he realize that what he was looking at was not the snow scene, but a young girl walking on the street with a dozen gangsters.
The man in brocade clothes glanced at Xie Zheng again, his eyes moved slightly, and he smiled and said, "That must be the new wife that the Marquis married, right?"
The author has something to say:
Mini-theater:
Xie Zheng (unhappy): You beat someone up without asking me?
Wang's shopkeeper: Don't come over here!!!
Hai Dongqing (shocked): I guess the mistress is quite gentle to me?
Note: A new wife is a woman who has just gotten married or has been married for a short time.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
