Chapter 102: An Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth
Shi Xiaoai made an anonymous report to the police station.
She reported on the phone that someone was operating an unlicensed snack bar in front of the hospital. Not only did they lack a business license, but they were also illegally hiring nearly ten workers.
Not only that, they also engaged in malicious competition with the collective enterprise tea stall across the street, using price cuts to grab customers, causing great losses to the collective's interests.
Their actions are disrupting the planned economy by offering ultra-low prices.
The call wasn't long, with only a few words exchanged. But these words made the recorder on the other end of the line clench his pen tightly.
The recorder was clearly aware that if this report was true, it would be the first and largest case of vicious competition in their jurisdiction!
It even involves the now extremely sensitive act of "disrupting the planned economy."
Nowadays, there are more and more private small businesses in society. There are not many policies from above, and the forms are unclear. People basically turn a blind eye. As long as it is not excessive, no one will deliberately investigate.
But everything has a limit.
If you make a few pancakes at home and make a little money, no one will care. But if you hire workers, compete maliciously with collective units, and try to undermine national policies, that is definitely not acceptable.
That would have such a bad impact!
The young policeman who was on duty to take phone records today hung up the phone and quickly ran to find his leader, who frowned instantly after looking at the records.
He immediately gathered all the police officers at home, issued a task on the spot, and asked everyone to set out immediately to thoroughly investigate the matter.
There is only one requirement put forward, which is to thoroughly investigate the whole matter and find out the truth as quickly as possible. If the report is true, severe punishment will be imposed!
After Shi Xiaoai hung up the phone, she returned to the tea stall. Seeing her come back, Cheng Lin grabbed the basket of stone buns and ran to the middle school.
Shi Xiaoai grabbed him and said with a smile: "Come back quickly after you finish selling. I have something good to tell you."
Xiao Ai was so happy when she saw Cheng Lin after not seeing him for a long time, and she immediately became curious.
He stopped and leaned forward to ask, "Sister-in-law, what's the good news? Tell me now, or I'll be worried sick all the way here."
Shi Xiaoai knocked the head that came closer and scolded him with a smile: "Look at your lack of ability. I didn't tell you now to make you lose your patience. Let's go, let's go, go quickly, and come back quickly."
As he spoke, he waved towards the door.
Cheng Lin realized he couldn't get any more information out of her, so he muttered something and ran off. Even after he ran quite a distance, he still kept yelling, "Sister-in-law, wait for me. We'll talk when I get back!"
Hearing his shout, Wang Xiaofeng, who was baking stone buns, sneered and cursed, "This kid is getting worse and worse. He's afraid that you will tell me in advance so that he can give you a shot in the arm!"
Shi Xiaoai also laughed.
Wang Xiaofeng couldn't help but be curious and asked, "Sister, what makes you so happy?"
Shi Xiaoai smiled mysteriously: "Let's talk about it when Cheng Lin comes back."
Wang Xiaofeng snorted and didn't ask any more questions, but the corners of her lips couldn't help but curl up.
She herself couldn't explain why, maybe Xiao Ai's smile was more contagious.
Seeing her smile always makes people want to smile too, and always feel that good things are going to happen.
Maybe because of the good things happening here, Cheng Lin was very efficient today. He sold a whole basket of stone buns and came back more than ten minutes earlier than usual.
Seeing him running towards them from afar, Wang Xiaofeng couldn't help laughing.
She smiled and said to Shi Xiaoai, "Look, the person who lost his temper is back."
Cheng Lin ran back quickly.
But after he came back, he was not as excited as the two of them thought. Instead, the expression on his face seemed very solemn.
"What's wrong?" Shi Xiaoai asked.
Cheng Lin did not answer immediately.
He put the empty basket on the table, squeezed behind the table, pulled a small stool and sat in the empty space between Shi Xiaoai and Wang Xiaofeng.
Then he said, "When I came back just now, I passed by the local police station and saw a lot of police officers gathering inside, as if they were about to go on a mission. I wonder if there's a big case going on."
He glanced across the street with a worried look on his face as he spoke, "Could something have happened at the hospital? In our jurisdiction, the only place that could make the police station make such a big fuss is the hospital, right? There aren't many other large organizations."
If something really happened at the hospital, would it affect our business?"
Wang Xiaofeng also became nervous when he said that. She lowered her voice and asked, "That shouldn't be the case, right? I didn't hear anything happened at the hospital?"
While the two were whispering, the customers who were eating suddenly became agitated, and some even stood up from their seats and looked into the distance.
The three people also looked in the direction the guests were looking, and then saw two three-wheeled motorcycles coming from the direction of the middle school.
The motorcycle stopped in front of Lao Shi's snack shop, and six uniformed public security officers jumped off the motorcycle and walked towards the tent.
"Hey, is there anyone committing a crime over there?"
"What is this for? Catching a fugitive?"
"Hey, the police are talking to their little boss!"
"No, did he do something wrong? Look, he's so scared that he can't even stand!"
"They're setting up a cordon!"
"Oh my god, the police are coming this way!"
As everyone was talking, a policeman holding a briefcase crossed the road and walked towards the tea stall.
Cheng Lin grabbed Shi Xiaoai's hand.
Shi Xiaoai held him back in a comforting manner and said, "Don't be afraid, Cheng Lin, it's okay."
"I'm not afraid, sister-in-law. We haven't done anything bad, so we're not afraid!" Cheng Lin answered stubbornly.
If it weren't for the tension in his voice that betrayed him, you wouldn't be able to tell from his appearance that the child was nervous.
Seeing his and Wang Xiaofeng's frightened faces, Shi Xiaoai didn't want to scare them too much, so she said as quickly as possible: "The good news I wanted to tell you before is that our tea stall has now been officially recognized by the district.
We are now part of a subordinate unit of the office. The three of us are all employees of the office, with a regular position. So don't be afraid, we have someone to support us."
She spoke very quickly and in a low voice. Both of them heard it, but neither of them reacted for a moment.
Shi Xiaoai ignored the two confused people, stood up from behind the table and walked towards the police.
The policeman was about twenty-five or twenty-six years old and looked very young.
He first showed his ID to Shi Xiaoai, and then asked about the business of the tea stall.
After these two sentences, Shi Xiaoai knew that the phone call she made was taken seriously by the police station.
She truthfully told the public security officer the ownership of her tea stall, and offered to take him to the office to verify it.
The other party obviously knew about their situation before coming. After listening to Shi Xiaoai's suggestion, he waved his hand and said, "No need. One of our colleagues has already gone to the office to conduct an investigation."
Because it is certain that the tea stall belongs to a public unit, and we also know that they are the collective enterprise that the whistleblower mentioned in the phone call that was "victimized by malicious competition."
The attitude of the public security comrades was obviously much better than that of the Shi family shop.
He went into the tent and found that there was no electricity, so he asked about the situation.
Shi Xiaoai told him about the dispute with Courtyard No. 1, and mentioned the incident that Yang Daming had mentioned, where Shi Daxi gave them money to cut the wires in the tea stall.
The police immediately realized that this was a serious incident and their expressions became serious.
He took notes on the spot, asked in detail who were present when the incident happened, and asked Shi Xiaoai to elaborate on what Yang Daming had said.
Shi Xiaoai naturally responded to all these requests, answering every question and being very cooperative.
While they were talking, a commotion broke out across the street.
Shi Daxi was handcuffed by the police and put on a three-wheeled vehicle.
He must have been extremely scared, struggling and crying all the way.
He kept shouting, "It's none of my business! I'm just helping people! I'm not engaging in profiteering, don't arrest me, don't arrest me!"
Perhaps he resisted too violently, and the noise he made caused a commotion among the surrounding crowd, and the public security comrades' expressions clearly showed disgust.
He scolded him repeatedly, and his hands became more powerful.
I couldn't hear clearly what they said from the distance, but from the frequency of Shi Daxi's screams, I could tell that he was really scared.
The three women that the Shi family invited to help were also very scared at this moment.
Especially Shi Daxi's aunt.
She had gone to the police station with her husband to pick up her mother-in-law before, and she was deeply afraid of the police.
She never expected to encounter such a scene on her first day in the city. Her legs went weak and she collapsed to the ground.
This immediately caused the other two people to scream.
The situation on the other side was a complete mess.
Public security personnel sealed off the Shi family’s stall, and everything at the scene was cordoned off.
Shi Daxi and the three women were taken away, and staff from the office of the hospital opposite also rushed over.
We started to connect with the public security personnel who stayed behind...
Shi Xiaoai was fine after answering the questions raised by the police.
Of course, the public security comrade specifically told her before leaving that she should not go out for the next two days and to be ready to be called at any time.
It is possible that she will be asked to go to the police station as a witness to cooperate with the work.
Shi Xiaoai of course agreed.
This arrest operation came and went quickly. In just over half an hour, Shi Daxi and his employees were all taken away.
The snack bar was also closed.
Most of the public security comrades have evacuated, leaving only one person to handle the handover work with the street office to which the hospital belongs.
The crowd of onlookers also dispersed.
Cheng Lin and Wang Xiaofeng looked at the scene in shock. Even until the opposite side returned to silence, the two of them were unable to extricate themselves from that dazed state for a long time.
They stared at each other like fools, with dull eyes, like puppets.
Shi Xiaoai walked over and pushed Cheng Lin on the shoulder, saying, "Okay, wake up."
Cheng Lin's legs went limp, and he plopped back down on the small stool. It took him a long time to utter, "I was so scared!"
Wang Xiaofeng on the side also reacted at this time.
She looked at Shi Xiaoai with a pale face, and belatedly asked, "Sister, what did you just say? Are we also employees of the office now? Do we have a regular position?"
It was impossible for Wang Xiaofeng not to be afraid.
She could express in front of her parents that she was determined to follow Shi Xiaoai, not caring about the recruitment indicators or what others thought.
But she is a girl after all.
When she saw Shi Daxi, who was so arrogant just now, being taken away by the police in such a miserable state, it was impossible for her not to feel a little bit of empathy, and it was even more impossible for her not to be afraid.
So is Cheng Lin.
He was quite puzzled when he saw Aunt Liu showing that she didn't want Wang Xiaofeng to follow her family in doing business. He didn't understand what these people were thinking.
There is money to be made, and the sister-in-law is so nice to them, so why are they unwilling to do it?
Cheng Lin remembers that he initially asked his sister-in-law why because he didn't understand. But she just sighed and said in a profound tone, "You don't understand."
Cheng Lin didn't understand at that time, but now, he felt that he seemed to understand a little.
Seeing that both of them looked pale and frightened, Shi Xiaoai knew that she had to say something. She couldn't scare the two most important and capable men under her command.
If these two people back out at the same time, she will have no place to cry!
There were no more people at the stall at this moment, so Shi Xiaoai simply pulled both of them out from behind the table.
She moved three small stools outside the tent, sat on one herself, and then motioned for the two of them to sit down as well.
Shi Xiaoai did not mention what had just happened on the opposite side, but told the two nervous people what Director Yu had just said to her.
They emphasized that their tea stalls were different from private businesses and were a government-affiliated unit established specifically to provide employment for educated youth and unemployed young people.
At the same time, she also talked about the district's praise for their work, as well as the preferential policy that allowed them to recruit workers independently and did not limit the number of temporary workers.
Shi Xiaoai's words were like a reassurance, finally settling the pounding hearts of the two people opposite.
After introducing the situation, Shi Xiaoai pointed in the direction of the office and said with a smile, "I wrote that notice. Aunt Liang got a big red paper and insisted that I write on it, making it look like a happy announcement.
You weren't here just now, so you didn't know that even though our tea stall may look insignificant, it's now the envy of everyone on the street. Especially you two, you suddenly have such a serious job, I don't know how many people envy you!
Just now, I was surrounded by neighbors in the alley, all asking if we were still hiring. I told them that we would hire in the future and would notify them in advance.
But I saw that they didn't quite believe it, probably thinking I was just trying to fool them.
Be careful when you go back later. If you get surrounded, figure out how to handle it yourself. Don't let people push you around and end up knocking over your bowl."
She spoke excitedly, gesturing as she went along.
The two people who had just been like wilted cabbages slowly stood up again.
Especially when they heard Xiao Ai say that they had become the object of others' envy, although the two of them tried hard not to make their expressions of joy too obvious, they still couldn't close their grinning mouths.
Cheng Lin suddenly stood up, ran to the table, grabbed an empty basket and started putting stone buns into it.
As he played it, he said loudly, "It's getting late. I have to go to the school gate quickly."
After finishing the installation, run outside.
Wang Xiaofeng looked at his back and scolded him with a smile: "Sister, look at how anxious he is! He even went to the school gate first. Who is he trying to fool? He must have gone to read the notice you wrote!"
Shi Xiaoai looked at Cheng Lin's back and couldn't help but smile.
She turned to look at Wang Xiaofeng and said, "It's still early, go and have a look if you want."
Wang Xiaofeng immediately raised her head.
After confirming that Xiao Ai was serious, a huge smile suddenly broke out on her face.
She agreed and ran out without even taking off her apron.
Shi Xiaoai was left alone at the tea stall.
His brows slowly furrowed as he fell into deep thought.
Everything went very smoothly today, so smoothly that she could hardly believe it.
When Shi Xiaoai made that call, she actually didn't expect the effect to be so good. She originally wanted to retaliate and cause some trouble for the other party.
She felt that since Shi Xiaomei dared to open this snack bar, there must be a trick up her sleeve.
There was no way a phone call could have brought her down.
Shi Xiaoai was even prepared to counter the opponent's moves.
But - seeing Shi Daxi being taken away like that, seeing him shouting loudly that he was just an employee and was not the mastermind.
He was only one sentence away from giving away his sister's identity.
At that moment, Shi Xiaoai was very surprised.
She had already confirmed that Shi Xiaomei was reborn.
But could it be that the person who was reborn understands the current social situation less than her who traveled through the book?
How dare she be so careless and start her business without any precautions?
Or maybe she has some hidden tricks she's not aware of...
All these thoughts made Shi Xiaoai's inner shock far exceed the joy brought to her by the successful counterattack.
She was puzzled and didn't know what went wrong with Shi Xiaomei.
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