In this weird little town, after getting rid of surveillance, he suddenly bumped into someone who seemed to possess magic powers. Li Changan had to have doubts.
Where can such a coincidence happen?
But things in this world are just like coincidences.
"Don't tell me that your house also lives here?"
When the Taoist priest sent Liu Weidong, the middle-aged man he had rescued earlier, to the downstairs of his house, he couldn't help but smile.
Unexpectedly, after going around in circles, they returned to the starting point. The two of them were at the barbecue stall where the orange cat descended from the sky.
At present, the diners in the barbecue stall have changed several times, but the quarrel upstairs has no intention of calming down. On the contrary, it is getting more and more intense. Listening to the murmurs and yelling, it seems that more people are participating in this scolding war.
There were several people, but no matter what, none of them together could be a match for Zou Pingpai with his open mouth.
No, an old man was furious.
The Taoist priest downstairs could hear the sound of breathing in his chest like a broken bellows, and the old man's voice was trembling.
"Huh-huh! You shrew! I can't tell you what's wrong with you. Who is Liu Weidong in your house? Call him out and I'll tell him."
The woman laughed, her laughter shrill and filled with pride.
"I know, he might die outside. What do you want him to do? Are you going to accompany him?"
"You! Why are you such a vicious mother-in-law?"
"Am I vicious? That's why you call me vicious when so many of you bully me!"
Then, there was a ping-pong-pong sound, Yuan Xiaochuan's energetic scolding, and a series of ear-splitting dog barks.
"oops."
Liu Weidong slapped his thigh, and without caring about Li Changan, he quickly thanked him, held on to the railing of the stairs, and limped upstairs.
As for Li Changan, he thought to himself: He's already here. So, he folded his hands and followed slowly.
And it was at this moment, when both of them stepped onto the corridor.
Among the people coming and going on the street behind them, the owner of the barbecue stall, the diners in the rice noodle shop, the lady walking her dog on the opposite street... all kinds of people took out their mobile phones in unison and silently pointed at the backs of the two of them.
.
…………
Liu Weidong's home is on the fifth floor.
His legs and feet were not conducive, so he hurriedly took the first step, but was dragged behind; Li Changan took his time and got up the stairs first.
When he arrived at the place, the first thing he saw was a security door wide open. A group of men, women, old and young were blocking the door, but they didn't dare to take a step beyond the boundaries. They only pointed fingers and made endless noises from a distance of three or four steps.
The Taoist priest came closer and saw a woman lying in a wheelchair covered with a sheet inside the door. She looked pale and thin, but her mouth and expression were very excited.
Speaking of excitement, he even waved his hands, used them as gun barrels, made knife edges, poked and dotted them, and sprayed out filthy words one by one like a machine gun, "beating" his opponents to the point of thickening their necks.
Red eyes.
Just listening to the excitement, Li Changan felt his scalp numb and his forehead sweating.
But her opponents were very "civilized". Although they were so angry that one Buddha ascended to heaven and two Buddhas were born, none of them broke into the door and used their fists to reason. The reason was probably that they couldn't see anything.
Category, but the size of a grown man is a yellow dog, squatting on the threshold and standing guard.
With such a "door god" around, this explosive scene had a somewhat modest and gentlemanly air of "talking but not using hands".
As for Captain Yuan, he was still there. He was just sitting on the stairs above, smoking a cigarette and sneering at the bottom. When he saw Li Changan coming, he only motioned for him to go up and watch the show with him.
"Didn't you leave?"
Li Changan told the truth about his encounter with Liu Weidong.
By this time, Liu Weidong was belatedly arriving.
As soon as he came up, he planned to complete Yuan Xiaochuan's unfinished business - to break up the fight. However, one side hated the house and the other side thought that his arm was crooked. A big man nodded and bowed, dragging his lame leg like a ball.
He walked back and forth with saliva flying from both sides. But no one, whether it was the indignant neighbor or his sharp-tongued wife, stopped to ask where the injury on his face came from.
Only the big yellow dog would wag its tail and lovingly remove the bruises on his face.
All in all, Liu Weidong's efforts were in vain and he became a doormat.
A man with glasses pointed at his nose and cursed: "Does the Liu family in your house have a tutor? They have no sense of public morality at all!"
"No, no, my mother-in-law has been in a bad mood recently..."
Liu Weidong just explained in a low voice, but Zou Pengpeng behind him immediately responded with a sneer.
"Public morality? Some people have the nerve to talk about public morality?"
"Which one do you mean?"
"I say you."
"What did you say about me?"
"I said you secretly threw cigarette butts on my balcony a few days ago."
"You fart."
Probably feeling that he had finally caught the opponent's flaw, the man with glasses took a proud sip.
"I don't smoke, and I was on a business trip last week. I just came back today. How could I throw cigarette butts on your balcony a few days ago?"
As soon as these words came out, the noise in the venue suddenly stopped.
"High paraplegia?"
On the stairs, Li Changan, who had watched the show for a long time, asked Yuan Xiaochuan in a low voice. He found that Zou Pengpan had only one head and two arms moving from beginning to end.
Yuan Xiaochuan nodded.
"Below the chest."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zou Pengpeng suddenly patted his wheelchair and laughed wildly.
The man with the eyes feels bad.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Why am I laughing?"
She wiped away her tears Hanako.
"Then you have to ask your wife."
The man with glasses cannot get back on his feet.
An aunt next to her quickly took over the fight, but changed her strategy and attacked in a roundabout way to present the facts and reason.
She caught Liu Weidong.
"Xiao Liu, we need to be reasonable about this matter. Zou Ping in your house threw the cat downstairs. We tried to persuade her, but she still scolded us for no reason. Hey, if you don't say anything, even if we neighbors look up and don't see it, we can't look down.
It caught your eye, but other people passing by didn’t provoke you, so why should you throw the cat down and hit someone else?”
Liu Weidong was so anxious that he was sweating all over. Before he could say anything, his wife behind him screamed again.
"So what if it hits me?"
She seemed a little hysterical.
"They are all accomplices! Lackeys! Accomplices! If you smash them to death, you will count them all. At worst, I will be paralyzed and pay for your life. I will make a profit!"
…………
This scolding war is finally over.
It's not that Liu Weidong's peace talks have achieved results, it's just that both sides are tired of scolding and have stopped fighting again.
The two parties went home respectively, but Yuan Xiaochuan greeted the Taoist priest and entered Liu Weidong's house.
The layout of his home is quite old-fashioned, a little crowded and small, but full of the flavor of life. It is ordinary. The only unique feature is probably that there are many pet cages in the living room. As soon as a few people enter the door, a group of cats and dogs gather around it.
Liu Weidong himself was like a spinning top that never stopped. Here he greeted the guests to sit down, and there he pushed Zou Ping into the bedroom, and in the blink of an eye he was busy in the kitchen again.
But just put on an apron.
Zou Ping said:
"What are you going to do?"
"I'll give you a bowl of noodles."
"I'm not hungry. Come here first."
He lowered his eyebrows in response and trotted to the bedroom door.
"Are you stupid?"
Zou Ping spoke again.
"Bring the medicinal wine."
"Why!"
He shouted back with joy, "Huang'er, medicinal wine."
"Woof."
The big yellow dog barked, turned around and came to the owner with a bottle of medicinal wine, and then...
"Lang Kai is old again. Didn't I tell you to be careful?"
"Pay attention next time, pay attention next time."
"hiss."
"Don't move."
…………
This side of the living room.
Yuan Xiaochuan dug out tea leaves, teacups, melon seeds and peanuts, then brought a hot water kettle from the kitchen and brewed two cups of hot tea.
"You're welcome."
"Are you being polite? In the four or five months I have been in Qishui, the places where I have spent the longest time are, first, the rented house, second, the traffic police brigade, and third, this house."
Li Changan took the tea cup. The tea was fragrant but a bit hot to the mouth.
"Say it."
He put down the tea cup.
"Does the reason you called me to help have anything to do with this family?"
"It's related, but not entirely."
Yuan Xiaochuan, a heavy smoker, lit up his cigarette again and sipped hot tea while smoking.
"It was more than four months ago. On the night of my first day working in Qishui, I rode a bicycle to the surrounding area to familiarize myself with the road conditions. Unexpectedly, I bumped into my first case on the spot. A Lamborghini was hit by a drunk driver.
A family of three walking on the roadside."
"a family of three?"
"A couple and a five-month-old fetus in the woman's belly." Yuan Xiaochuan continued, "I was the first to arrive and called an ambulance at that time. After rescue, the man was better and one leg was lame.
He woke up the next day; the woman’s condition was much more serious. Although she was out of danger, her baby was not in danger. She was paraplegic at a high position and has been in a coma.”
"As for the driver who caused the accident, he didn't do anything wrong. He just fell asleep on the airbag and put it back that night. The next day, someone went to the man to have sex with him."
"Can this situation be kept private?"
Yuan Xiaochuan sneered and continued:
"First of all, the party that caused the accident gave him a lot of money; secondly, the man had a soft character, and his relatives and friends were trying to persuade him, so he agreed to have an affair. But at this time, the woman woke up."
"My baby had a miscarriage and I am a paraplegic. She has a fierce personality. Even if she doesn't ask for money, she is determined to make the perpetrator go to jail."
"It should."
"But when I was preparing to prosecute, I discovered that the perpetrator was a different person, the records in the file had also changed, and all the key evidence, including surveillance video, was gone."
Yuan Xiaochuan took a deep breath, pressed the cigarette butt firmly into the ashtray, and spoke word by word.
"There is nothing under my nose."
"When I go to the people below, they won't admit it; when I go to the people above, they won't interfere, and they even try to persuade me not to meddle in other people's business."
"This guy sounds like he's full of energy."
"Of course there is energy. This person's name is Hong Daihai, chairman of Hongmao Group."
"The chairman is still drunk and driving a car?"
"Can't the chairman drive a car? Ma Xiaoyun still makes movies, and Li Zongrui still has sex with women. If he has money, he is not a scumbag?"
"You know my temper. I don't like this kind of thing, so I will try my best to find out the details of this person."
"How about it?"
"This Hong Daihai is a native of Qishui. He has been regarded as the book of the village, has been a people's representative, and has been elected as an outstanding entrepreneur. Judging from the archives, he is a typical businessman who started from scratch. In the early days, he relied on collecting river sand and stone materials.
, contracted the land, obtained the start-up capital, and later followed the trend of the boom in the health care product market and started the red grass medicated wine. From then on, he became rich and became the richest man in the province. Don’t look outside, this Hong Daihai just buys wine.
Yes, but in Qishui, the companies under his name are involved in real estate, education, transportation, security, and even food, vegetables, takeaways, Internet cafes, and all walks of life."
"Sounds like a local coward."
"Yes. But the strange thing is that this local snake has never bitten anyone in the file. All the businesses under his name, including those that made him rich in the early days, there is no bad information."
At this point, he changed the subject.
"You and I both grew up in the countryside. We know very well what the situation is like in the countryside. It can be said that 'little demons in temples are strong, and there are many bastards in shallow ponds'. In the countryside, especially more than ten years ago, which
People who make their fortune from the bottom don’t have a little bit of shit on their butts.”
"This Hong Daihai is too clean."
He lit another cigarette.
"I don't believe in this evil. If I can't find it out in the open, I'll check it out secretly. But I'm not familiar with the place, so I have to find local people who are willing to help me..."
Li Changan pointed to the bedroom.
"A couple of them?"
"right."
"Liu Weidong and Zou Ping are both locals. Through them, I learned about some of the 'glorious deeds' of Hong Daihai and his gang. It was outrageous, including gatherings to fight, extortion, bullying, and election manipulation... both should and should not be done.
Some of them are still alive, they are just a bunch of bandits and bullies!"
"He, the chairman of a group and the richest man in the province, also makes such a frivolous amount of money?"
"Who knows about him? Maybe it's because he couldn't wipe the shit off his butt when he got rich in the early years. It's more likely that he has a traitorous nature that is hard to change."
Li Changan was still a little confused.
"That's not right. Logically speaking, for such an arrogant person, even if he is an official and no one cares about him, (how come) there is no news about Lang Kai among the people?"
Li Changan's hometown is not far from Qishui, but there are not many negative rumors about this red grass group except for the medicinal wine itself.
In this regard, Yuan Xiaochuan did not answer directly, but just said something seemingly irrelevant.
"When you take the bus to the station, you have to cross a bridge called Hongmao Bridge; when you get off the bus, the square next to the station is called Hongmao Square; when you look up anywhere in the city, the tallest building you see is called
Hongmao Building; Including everyone you meet on the street, nine out of ten have relatives who are employees of Hongmao Group; even if you go out of the city, most of the surrounding fields are planted by Redmao medicinal planters.
.”
Yuan Xiaochuan pointed at his feet.
"This place is called 'Hongmao'."
The Taoist priest nodded thoughtfully and signaled Yuan Xiaochuan to continue. He took over the last paragraph and said:
"I have also contacted some people through various means. Some of them are messing around because of conflicts of interest, and some are really victims. But every time I contact these people, they suddenly change their words within a few days. Some of them are more determined and even lose their temper.
I kept in touch for several days, but when he showed up again, he either moved or changed his mouth. Until a few days ago, I found a man named Bao Zhiyun, who also suddenly lost contact for a few days. Waiting for him to show up again..."
"Has he also changed his tune?"
"He didn't change his story, but he became mentally ill."
Yuan Xiaochuan finished smoking another cigarette and pressed the cigarette butt into the ashtray.
"I asked you to come over and help me this time. Firstly, I can't handle it alone. Secondly, I feel like I'm being watched!"
When Li Changan heard this, he smiled and shook his head.
"Then have you ever thought that from the day we meet today, I will also be monitored because of you?"
After hearing this, Yuan Xiaochuan was stunned for a long time, and his face became increasingly ugly.
"I'm afraid it's not that powerful."
Li Changan spread his hands.
"Then who knows?"
He scratched his head and said hesitantly:
"or……"
"You're just kidding, no matter what age you are, you are a gangster, not a spy. How can you be so powerful?!"
The Taoist priest grinned.
"I helped you with this!"
…………
The living room of Liu Weidong's home.
Li Changan looked at a shrine in the corner, which contained a statue of a god. It had a very strange appearance, resembling a human but not a human, a cat but not a cat, and a dog but not a dog. The color was old but the expression was vivid.
Just now, Yuan Xiaochuan left because of something urgent. Only Li Changan was left with some doubts and wanted to ask Liu Weidong. But he was enjoying himself in the bedroom. The Taoist priest was so bored that he had to look around. By chance, he found such a shrine in the corner of the living room. Unexpectedly
, one glance revealed something strange. This statue is not an ordinary clay sculpture. It seems...
"This is Grandma Wuwu."
I don't know when, Liu Weidong finally came out of the bedroom and introduced Li Changan to him.
"This is the ancestor we worship in this industry."
"Ancestor?"
Chinese folk gods are like the crucian carp crossing the river. Forgive Li Changan for his poor eyesight.
Liu Weidong smiled, put a stick of incense on the shrine, and then said:
"I am in the pet business, but I am different from most of my colleagues. This is a craft passed down from my ancestors. The cats and dogs I train are famous far and wide. They are much smarter than ordinary pets. This is all thanks to the blessing of my ancestors."
Perhaps it was because there were too many people questioning him on weekdays, but before Li Changan expressed his position, Liu Weidong rushed to say:
"You don't believe it."
"Huang'er."
He called out, and the big yellow dog ran forward wagging its tail.
"stand at attention."
The big yellow dog man stood up and put a front paw on his head.
"shake hands."
The big yellow dog "walked" over and handed Li Changan a paw. The Taoist smiled and shook its hand.
These are all ordinary actions, nothing to praise, but then, it becomes a bit interesting.
Liu Weidong lay down on the sofa.
"I'm a little bored and want to watch TV."
The big yellow dog actually dug out the remote control and turned on the TV.
"I'm a little thirsty."
The big yellow dog picked up the kettle again and poured a cup of hot water.
"My shoulders are a little sore."
The big yellow dog barked, jumped on the sofa, and beat Liu Weidong's shoulders with his front legs.
"How about it?"
Liu Weidong smiled triumphantly at Li Changan. This man who had been submissive all day now actually looked somewhat confident.
But there was something inexplicable in Li Changan's eyes. What kind of ancestral craftsmanship was this? When Liu Weidong and the big yellow dog interacted, Li Changan clearly heard it, and the smell of magic on Liu Weidong became more obvious.
But seeing Liu Weidong's calm demeanor, Li Changan's hesitation towards him was relieved a lot.
The Taoist priest wondered if this might be the case: in today's era of depleted spiritual energy, many magical powers are of little use. "Clairsight" means better eyes, "Shunfeng Ear" means better ears, and the magic that can control animals may only be
It can make pets behave better.
In this way, there must be people who possess magic and don't know it.
Li Changan echoed a few words casually, but he still wanted to ask more questions.
But suddenly, there was a "dong dong" sound upstairs.
Immediately afterwards.
"Is there someone dead in your house? There is a funeral in the middle of the night!"
Liu Weidong's confident smile suddenly turned back into a bitter look.
have to!
Li Changan stood up smoothly.
It's time to say goodbye and go back to clean your ears.