Chapter 31 Are You Trying to Scam Me?

"Rice Fragrance Distillery? The director is Zhang Aiming?" Feng Haodong asked in the room of the Weiya Grand Hotel in the county seat, his tone tinged with surprise.

"Yes, the director is Zhang Aiming. They took advantage of the wave of enterprise restructuring to swallow up the county distillery."

"They even acquired the county distillery?" Feng Haodong was even more perplexed, muttering, "Old Zhang, that guy—I drank with him back in the day. He makes a good brew, but he's never struck me as someone with that kind of acumen."

"Didn't folks from the village say the distillery was losing money year after year? How did it suddenly turn around?" Feng Haodong could not fathom it.

In truth, his return was not only for the thirtieth anniversary of his father's passing, but also out of longing for the fine liquor from the Rice Fragrance Distillery back home.

He wasn't here just to drink; he wanted to bring that exquisite liquor out into the world.

Earlier this year, he’d met a fellow from Yuanli County and inquired about the distillery.

The man before him gave a wry smile. "The promotional copy for Little Li Bai Liquor—obviously, that's not something a nearly sixty-year-old could have come up with."

Feng Haodong picked up a bottle of Little Li Bai Liquor from the table, gazed at the tipsy, endearing image of a drunken Li Bai on the label, and read the words beneath:

Went to the hospital for a check-up, and the doctor asked him gravely, "Do you drink?"
He cautiously replied, "Tonight?"

Such snippets and anecdotes—he’d seen countless of them on bottles lately.

Having spent years navigating the world in the south, he instinctively sensed there was a master behind all this.

A bottle of liquor costing only a few yuan, yet through taste and words, it conveyed all the hues of life.

Those words undeniably enhanced the drinking experience.

Isn’t drinking ultimately about the mood?

No wonder, in Yuanli County, everyone—rich or poor—drinks Little Li Bai.

He found it difficult to stay in the county seat any longer.

He grabbed his jacket and said to the man, "Ruilong, arrange a car for me. I want to return to Rice Flower Village now."

"No problem."

The two hurriedly left the county seat.

Meanwhile, Chai Jin, since completing the leasing of the county distillery, had seen the distillery's reputation explode throughout the city.

Chai Jin rarely went to the distillery anymore.

He had two reasons.

First, he wanted the distillery staff to get used to his absence. After all, come the New Year, he would leave Yuanli County to venture on his own, and ultimately, they’d have to rely on themselves.

Second, he’d begun to collect identity cards frantically. So far, he’d gathered at least thirty thousand ID cards.

But they had to stop now.

Yuanli County’s total population was only a little over two hundred thousand, and he held more than thirty thousand ID cards.

If they kept collecting, the authorities would surely notice.

After halting the collection, Chai Jin took a day off.

The next day, he entered a pawnshop in the county seat called Passion Pawn.

He was received by Chen Tianyi.

Yes, the very man who, in a past life, drove his father to suicide, bought his sister and younger sibling, and destroyed his family.

Strangely, Chen Tianyi had known for months that the Chai family had money, but he’d kept silent, never approached them. What he was up to remained a mystery.

Chai Jin hadn't sought him out either, for a simple reason.

Would I let the person who brought such tragic ruin to my family off so easily?

Today, he’d come to settle the debt, and to begin the reckoning that would follow.

Yet, Chen Tianyi’s attitude hadn’t changed just because Chai Jin now had money.

Sitting on the pawnshop’s sofa, his chin raised high, he cast a disdainful glance at him from under half-lifted eyelids.

“We run a pawnshop. If everyone were like you—borrowed money and never paid a cent of interest—what would we live on?”

Chai Jin remained impassive. “Tell me, how do you propose to settle this debt?”

Chen Tianyi thought for a moment, raised a finger.

“One hundred?”

Chen Tianyi shook his head.

“One thousand?”

Still, Chen Tianyi shook his head.

Chai Jin smiled, picked up the fifty yuan note lying on the table.

“So, you mean ten thousand?”

Chen Tianyi burst out laughing. “One hundred thousand!”

“Ten thousand? You knocked out several of my teeth and think that’s enough to settle things?”

“Isn’t everyone saying your family has become the richest in Rice Fragrance Village, and you’ve leased the county distillery? Surely you don’t lack the money?”

“Chai Jin—”

“Chen Tianyi, you’re from our village too. How come I never realized before how shameless you are?”

Liu Qingwen, sitting beside Chai Jin, couldn’t help but chime in.

Chen Tianyi was furious. “What business is it of yours? The door’s over there. Get lost.”

“And let me make this clear: without one hundred thousand, it doesn’t matter if you’re tight with the county magistrate. Don’t think rubbing shoulders with big shots makes you someone. I know exactly what kind of trash your family is—”

“Smack!”

Before Chen Tianyi could finish, Liu Qingwen sprang up and slapped him hard across the face.

The blow sent Chen Tianyi sprawling to the floor.

Chen Tianyi scrambled up, ready to fight, but Liu Qingwen kicked him hard.

His fists rained down, tearing at the bell-bottoms Chen Tianyi wore, cursing as he went.

“Wearing frog-eyed sunglasses, acting tough, huh? Smack!”

“Bell-bottoms, trying to show off, huh? Smack!”

“When we were kids, you pissed on my head, huh? Smack!”

“I’m gonna beat you to death, you dog!”

Chen Tianyi was pummeled, rolling across the floor, unable to fight back.

He screamed for help, but the pawnshop was empty save for himself; he could only take the beating.

It turned out Chen Tianyi was also from Rice Flower Village, but he’d fallen in with the wrong crowd in the county since his teens.

Every time he returned to the village, he bullied people.

For example, when Liu Qingwen was ten, he was setting traps in the fields, only to be dragged to the roadside and pissed on by Chen Tianyi—for no other reason than Liu Qingwen’s mother had scolded him.

Liu Qingwen had never forgotten it; seeing this guy act so arrogant in front of Jin, he couldn’t hold back.

Chai Jin watched coldly, and when Liu Qingwen finally stopped, he glanced at him indifferently. “Don’t mistake kindness for weakness.”

“And don’t think things between us are settled.”

He patted Liu Qingwen’s shoulder and walked out.

Unable to control himself, Liu Qingwen spat on the floor beside Chen Tianyi—some vintage phlegm from 1982—then left, cursing.

After the two had gone, it was a long while before Chen Tianyi, his bell-bottoms reduced to tatters, managed to sit up.

“Little bastards, I’ll see you dead yet!”

“Don’t think I’ve spent years in the county for nothing!”

“You wanna play dirty? I’ll ruin you!”

He walked over to the phone, picked it up, and made a call.

“Brother Ruilong, my shop was trashed by two punks.”

...

On the county road from Rice Fragrance Village back to the county seat, an old Mercedes was speeding along.

Inside, a man held a brick-sized mobile phone, its antenna poking out the car window for better signal.

Beside him sat Feng Haodong.

His expression was grim. After hanging up, he spoke, “What happened?”