Under the shade of the tree at the Du family's house, Wang Peng carried a pot of freshly brewed Tieguanyin tea, slowly poured a cup for Du Dandan, and then refilled his own cup.
"Have some tea." His voice was soft, like the gentle tone of a neighbor's older brother.
Du Dandan didn't take the teacup or look at Wang Peng. She held Hu Mingyue's hand tightly, as if she hadn't heard him speak.
Wang Peng winked at Hu Mingyue, who smiled and said, "Dandan, your older brother sent us to pick you up."
Du Dandan's expression changed, she shook her head violently, and grabbed Hu Mingyue's hand tightly.
"Mr. Wang, let's not bring this up," Du Dayang said urgently. "That's something that hurts her."
"Okay, I'm sorry." Wang Peng apologized to Du Dandan and said, "I'll call your older brother, can you talk to him for a bit?"
"No need," Du Dayang said. "I just took her to town to make a call at a public phone."
Wang Peng smiled, took out his phone, and dialed Du Lisan's number: "Brother Du, this is Wang Peng."
Du Lisan said, "Brother Wang, I heard you went to Lang County?"
“Yes, I saw the letter you left for Uncle Dayang,” Wang Peng said. “Brother Du, how did you know I was in Lang County?”
“Zhang Tieying’s son works in my shop. He’s begging you to put in a good word for him,” Du Lisan said.
Wang Peng was taken aback, thinking to himself, what a coincidence, that they were connected by something that seemed completely unrelated.
“Brother Du, let’s talk about Zhang Tieying later. Our sister wants to talk to you.” Wang Peng handed the phone to Du Dandan.
Du Dandan immediately took the phone and managed to utter, "Big Brother."
Then she stopped talking, but kept the phone to her ear.
Wang Peng heard voices coming from the phone; although the voices were soft, they kept talking.
He understood that the brothers' phone call routine involved the older brother speaking and the younger sister listening.
The courtyard was quiet; no one spoke except for Du Lisan on the phone.
Ten minutes later, Wang Peng checked his watch and was certain that the siblings had a really good relationship.
While her brother talked on the phone for over ten minutes, like a madman, his sister, who suffers from mild depression, listened silently to him.
He envied this sibling relationship and couldn't help but think of his own two younger sisters.
Wang Zhen has disappeared without a trace, and there has been no news of him for over a year.
The third sister, Wang Xia, is attending university while working at James Bond, and has not been in contact with her eldest brother for a long time.
His relationship with his siblings was like that of strangers.
At this moment, he was 100% certain that Du Lisan would not deliberately hire Wang Cheng to harm his sister by robbing her of her property.
The reason Wang Cheng has survived to this day is not because Du Lisan is kind-hearted, but because he wanted to leave something for his sister to remember him by.
He worried that his sister wouldn't be able to handle it if Wang Cheng died or went missing.
Wang Peng thought it was a bit far-fetched, but that was the truth: Du Dandan loved Wang Cheng to death.
Ten minutes later, the person on the phone suddenly said, "Sister, Wang Cheng is still the president of Huihuang Supermarket, you don't need to worry about him."
Du Dandan tensed up, gripped her phone tightly with her right hand, and began to breathe rapidly.
"Little sister, be careful. Big brother won't punish him. He's doing just fine now."
"Give your phone to Wang Peng. Now that there's signal in the village, I'll send someone to deliver your phone tomorrow."
Du Dandan remained silent for half a minute before handing her phone to Wang Peng.
Wang Peng took the phone: "Brother Du, go ahead and say it."
Du Lisan chuckled lightly: "Give me some face and spare Zhang Tieying. His son has worked for me for ten years, I have to help him out."
Wang Peng nodded: "No problem, I'll go to the police station for mediation later."
"No need, wait at my uncle's house. I'll have Zhang Tieying go over and apologize to you."
At this point, Du Lisan added, "Brother Peng, give my phone to my second uncle. I want to say a few words to you."
"Okay." Wang Peng nodded and handed the phone to Du Dayang.
Du Dayang glanced at Wang Peng, then took his phone and went inside.
"Brother, I'll take Dandan inside." Seeing that Du Dandan was emotionally unstable, Hu Mingyue hurriedly pulled Du Dandan's hand and led her back into the house.
Wang Peng was the only one left in the courtyard. He drank two cups of tea and went outside for some fresh air.
Hu Qing opened the car door and waved to Wang Peng: "Peng, come and rest in the car."
Wang Peng walked over and found no one in the car, so he bent down and climbed inside.
Hu Qing immediately hugged him and asked softly, "How did it go? Did things go smoothly?"
"It went quite smoothly. Du Lei and I both guessed wrong." Wang Peng smiled slightly and sighed softly.
"It's all Du Lei's fault for misleading you. He had no idea how good the relationship between the Du siblings was," Hu Qing sneered.
"You can't blame him." Wang Peng smiled slightly and gently touched her hair.
"Brother, let's stay one more night and go back tomorrow." Hu Qing said emotionally, resting her head against his chest.
At that moment, a police car stopped, the door opened, and four people got out.
Wang Peng saw Li Wen, Zhang Tieying, and Zhang Lianshun, the Party Secretary of Zhang Village. There was also a middle-aged man who, judging by his demeanor, was probably the Party Secretary of Du Village.
"You're here so fast!" Wang Peng opened the car door, got out, and greeted Li Wen with a smile.
Zhang Tieying's face was ashen, and her eyes were dark-rimmed, as if she had been crying all day yesterday.
"Comrade Wang Peng," Li Wen straightened up, a slightly softened smile on his face. "We brought Comrade Zhang Tieying here to deal with the civil dispute from the past two days."
Wang Peng remained calm and said with a smile, "This isn't the place to talk. Shall we find a teahouse?"
"No need, I'll just say a few words here." Li Wen waved his hand and looked at Zhang Tieying.
Zhang Tieying clutched the hem of her clothes tightly with both hands as she walked up to Wang Peng: "Comrade Wang Peng... I was wrong that day. The dog wasn't leashed and was on the road again; I didn't discipline it properly. I shouldn't have taken your two thousand yuan. Today... I'm returning it to you."
After she finished speaking, she took out a neatly folded wallet from her pocket, her hand trembling slightly, and handed it over.
Wang Peng didn't rush to accept it, but instead glanced at her and asked, "Did you do this voluntarily?"
“It was voluntary.” Zhang Tieying nodded, her eyes reddening. “The police officer was right. What I did… was extortion. I admit it.”
Li Wenqing cleared his throat: "We've handled it here. Considering her remorseful attitude and the minor nature of the offense, we will not pursue criminal charges for the time being. If similar behavior occurs again in the future, the public security authorities will handle it according to law."
Wang Peng nodded without saying anything more, took the thick 2,000 yuan, counted it one by one, stuffed it into the inner pocket of his money bag, and folded it neatly.
Du Lisan called to plead for leniency, and this courtesy had to be granted.
Zhang Tieying kept her head down and didn't speak, not daring to look Wang Peng in the eye.
Li Wen nodded, secretly thinking: This Wang Peng, though seemingly quiet, is actually quite shrewd. To turn a dispute from a two-thousand-yuan extortion attempt into a decisive victory is no small feat.
He smiled and said, "Mr. Wang, if you're interested later, I'll take you around the county. Langxian welcomes your supermarket to set up shop here."
Wang Peng smiled and agreed, "I definitely will if I have the chance."
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