0119 128 Clouds Surge (Part 2)
Under the cover of night, the barbecue stalls were bustling with people, their laughter and chatter blending together. Even more striking were the police officers on duty almost everywhere around the stalls, their police cars flashing their lights.
Zhou Xiye deftly ordered what she wanted to eat, glanced up at the extremely awkward Ling Xingzhi, and placed the pen and paper in front of him, "It's your turn to order."
Ling Xingzhi turned to look at Zhou Xiye, then at the paper and pen on the small dining table. He had assumed that Zhou Xiye meant eating barbecue at a high-end hotel, but Ling Xingzhi hadn't expected her to actually bring him to a roadside stall.
When Zhou Xiye sat down, Ling Xingzhi frowned, and the corners of his mouth turned down in an unusual way. Zhou Xiye had no choice but to raise his hand and beckon a waiter, "Bring some newspapers, your chairs aren't clean."
Just as the waiter was about to argue, he saw a handsome man standing there pretentiously, refusing to sit down, so he could only smile and say, "Okay, please wait a moment."
He would only sit down after the newspaper was laid on the plastic stool, but he would never put his hands on the table, for fear of touching something dirty.
"I'm fine with anything, except for offal, I'll eat anything."
Zhou Xiye sighed, picked up a pen and paper, and said, "Whatever I eat, you eat."
Ling Xingzhi opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything, so he just nodded. The waiter took away the menu and put down two large glasses of draft beer. Ling Xingzhi looked left and right, "The fact that so many people come to the barbecue restaurant is all thanks to the police officers you arranged to be on duty."
Zhou Xiye picked up a beer and took a big gulp. The slightly bitter taste flowed down her tongue and into her stomach. The coolness made her feel very refreshed. "Summer is the perfect time to go out and enjoy barbecue. We can't let individual cases affect people's lives."
Ling Xingzhi nodded, watching Zhou Xiye drink almost a third of his beer in one gulp after another. Neither of them had eaten much, and drinking like this would hurt their stomachs and make them get drunk easily. So he reached out and snatched Zhou Xiye's beer away, saying, "We'll drink it after we get some skewers," and then poured two cups of hot tea, the cheapest kind.
Zhou Xiye smiled and said, "Okay." She took off her suit jacket, unbuttoned her shirt, rolled up her sleeves, and relaxed completely.
Seeing Zhou Xiye so relaxed, Ling Xingzhi's mood improved somewhat; the two rarely had such close moments. "What do you want to talk about?"
Zhou Xiye rested her chin on her hand and turned to look at the barbecue area next to her. For some reason, she suddenly said, "A friend of mine called me a long time ago for some reason and said he wanted to eat at a street food stall." Zhou Xiye turned to look at Ling Xingzhi, "He, like you, has never eaten at a roadside stall before."
“I had to go on a business trip at the time, and he flew all the way to see me just for this one street food stall meal. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go with him. He went to eat at the street food stall by himself, got food poisoning, and stayed at my house for a few days… When I got back, he was gone. Later, I asked him why he didn’t wait for me, and he said indifferently, ‘I have important things to do.’”
Ling Xingzhi felt that Zhou Xiye was talking about her innermost thoughts, and asked softly, "And then?"
Zhou Xiye smiled and looked up at the beer without looking down, allowing Ling Xingzhi to see her emotions clearly.
The lights were dim, half night, half fireworks. Suddenly, her eyes welled up with tears, but they didn't spill. She looked up at Ling Xingzhi, "Then I thought, we're such good friends, we'll definitely have a chance to eat barbecue together again, eat at roadside stalls. While we're eating at roadside stalls, I can listen to him talk about graduation, listen to him gossip about high society..."
Zhou Xiye let out a long sigh, tears still welling up in her eyes but not falling. "In the end, I still lost this friend, and I will never have the chance to eat at a street food stall with him again."
Ling Xingzhi guessed who the friend she was talking about was, and smiled reassuringly, "The food stalls in Shenyang must be delicious, I haven't tried them yet."
Zhou Xiye nodded. At that moment, the waiter brought over the skewers. In just a short while, the sadness in Zhou Xiye's eyes disappeared. "The ones from Dalian are also good. I love mantis shrimp the most."
After saying that, she picked up a skewer of grilled meat. "So, what I couldn't do with my best friend, you did with me. It's your honor."
Ling Xingzhi was taken aback. Zhou Xiye took advantage of his momentary lapse in attention and stuffed the skewers into Ling Xingzhi's hand. "Try it, it's delicious."
Under Zhou Xiye's expectant gaze, Ling Xingzhi took a bite of the skewer. The taste was unexpectedly delicious, and he smiled and nodded in response to Zhou Xiye. The two ate their barbecue in silence for a long time, each with their own hidden agendas.
Zhou Xiye was considering how to maximize his use of Ling Xingzhi to counterbalance those in the provincial party committee. His intuition told him that this small-scale gangland incident was just a warning; more obstacles were bound to follow. Meanwhile, Ling Xingzhi was wondering whether he should mention Ye Rouxin, given how emotionally Zhou Xiye had brought her up, suggesting a close relationship. Should he tell her that Ye Rouxin had threatened him?
Or did Ye Rouxin already tell her, which is why Zhou Xiye brought up Ye Rouxin on his own initiative? Was she using her beauty to try and find out something from him?
Or perhaps Zhou Xiye knew nothing at all and simply thought eating barbecue was a wonderful thing. Looking at Zhou Xiye's face, Ling Xingzhi suddenly felt terrified; he could no longer discern Zhou Xiye's true thoughts.
This thought made him very uncomfortable, and his mood, which had been improving, worsened.
"That day you asked me what I thought about Kunming. So what are your thoughts on Kunming's development?" Zhou Xiye broke the silence.
Ling Xingzhi threw aside the signature in his hand, took out a tissue from his clothes to wipe it, and said as he wiped, "No matter what the outside world thinks, I am definitely not here for a one-off visit. I also want the people to live and work in peace and contentment."
"I know, so what are your thoughts? For example, developing some pillar industries, cracking down on drugs, and eliminating organized crime?"
Ling Xingzhi threw down the paper in his hand, pursed his lips, looked at Zhou Xiye, and after a few seconds, he said, "It's difficult."
Zhou Xiye nodded. Some geographical locations are simply blessed with unique advantages, abundant resources, or historical reasons—for example, the steel and military industries in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, support the entire city's population. But even more eye-catching are the resources of Ordos, which, like the coal resources of Shanxi, bring enormous economic benefits.
The old industrial areas in Northeast China can be revitalized if the government wants to. In short, it will be very difficult to establish a distinctive pillar industry in Kunming.
After the pandemic, most people realize that the tourism industry is truly vulnerable.
"Real estate," Zhou Xiye simply said.
Ling Xingzhi smiled and said, "Real estate is the cornerstone of China's economy; it's a pillar industry no matter where you look. But how can ordinary people buy houses if they don't have the money?"
Then, Zhou Xiye said the words that shocked Ling Xingzhi the most that night: "Drugs."
After a long while, Ling Xingzhi finally said, "Are you crazy? If it's discovered that a municipal party secretary is colluding with a drug lord, not only will you be stripped of your political rights for life, but you'll also lose your life. If you want to go far, you can't have any stain on your record."
Zhou Xiye nodded. "I know, and I'm not the kind of person who would sacrifice power for money. But I just want to say that if I've thought of this, then others will too."
Ling Xingzhi didn't understand Zhou Xiye's meaning, so he looked at her.
“Before I took office, I not only went to Kunming for research, but also to many remote places. One of them was a village that specialized in drug production, but none of the villagers used drugs. You know that the use of hydrochloric acid in Yunnan is strictly restricted because it is an essential product in the drug production process, but the people in that village bought the raw materials and made their own artificially synthesized drugs, which sold quite well.”
"The people in that village don't have any real jobs, but it is indeed the village with the most reasonable population structure. The number of children, adults, and the elderly is just right. No one has left the village, and there are no left-behind children. The local government turns a blind eye to this village, and even the anti-drug police sometimes bypass them to conduct investigations."
"Because they know what poverty feels like, and they know they can't survive if they don't do this."
Hearing Zhou Xiye's words, Ling Xingzhi's face darkened inch by inch. "Zhou Xiye, what exactly do you want to do?"
More and more people gathered around the barbecue stalls, filling the night with the aroma of smoke and laughter, while the dogs lying next to the diners whimpered boredly.
Zhou Xiye shook her head. "I don't want to do anything, and I don't dare to do anything. Justice and survival might not be a difficult choice for you and me..." Her voice grew softer as she spoke. Perhaps it was the beer that made her drunk, but Zhou Xiye felt that her words made no sense. She also felt that she was going crazy. "Ordos and Shanxi have coal mines, Dalian has seafood... Yunnan's advantage is that it is close to the Golden Triangle... I don't want to waste this resource."
Ling Xingzhi couldn't hold back and picked up the long-cold tea, splashing it on Zhou Xiye's face. Zhou Xiye saw Ling Xingzhi's action, but she didn't stop him. As the tea splashed onto her face, she closed her eyes, then slowly opened them, looking at Ling Xingzhi's gloomy face.
"Zhou Xiye, do you want to die in Kunming?"
Not making mistakes is the greatest achievement.
People nearby kept glancing over, wondering if the couple had argued, and why the man was being so unreasonable. The police also noticed, becoming somewhat tense, fearing that the gangster incident might resurface.
Zhou Xiye suddenly laughed, took a tissue from the small dining table and wiped his face, "I was just thinking, don't be angry."
Ling Xingzhi also realized he had lost his composure. He put down his teacup and softened his tone, "It's not worth it. You've sacrificed so much, gone to the battlefield, helped Ye Lifeng, and schemed your way to this position. For the sake of Kunming's economic development, you have to make such a huge sacrifice. One wrong step leads to another. Is it worth it?"
"If gaining power and manipulating others is my nature to climb the social ladder, then doing some practical things for the people is the only good thing I can do."
"Zhou Xiye!" Ling Xingzhi was furious, his voice low and roaring, "If you did that kind of thing, I definitely wouldn't stand idly by..."
"...I don't want to be your enemy anymore..."
Hearing Ling Xingzhi's words, Zhou Xiye looked at him through the smoke and fire, as if trying to see right through him. Ling Xingzhi let her look at him, his gaze firm and unapproachable.
"Ling Xingzhi, have you fallen in love with me?" Zhou Xiye asked softly, his voice more ethereal than smoke. "You don't even understand me, what do you love about me?"
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