Moved One Second, Fighting the Next
Peach Mountain Town, Foot Bath City.
Inside the private room, Sing Sing slumped in a massage chair as the masseuse lifted his right foot and pressed his thumb against the Yongquan acupoint.
"Oh my god!" Sing Sing jerked his legs back and straightened his back, almost jumping up from the massage chair.
"Gently! Gently!"
The technician didn't even look up, continuing what she was doing. "Don't move around, kid, are you suffering from kidney deficiency?"
Sing Sing's expression changed.
"You can call me poor, but you can't insult my dignity as a man!"
Zhao Dezhu nearby, chuckled, wearing baggy shorts. "Little Zhou, you just don't understand."
Zhao Dezhu exhaled a puff of smoke.
"Our foot massage is all about applying pressure deep into the soles of your feet. If you don't activate the acupoints, wouldn't you have wasted your 38.8 yuan package?"
Upon hearing the word "money," Sing Sing shut his mouth tightly.
Thirty-eight yuan and eighty cents, so for two people it's seventy-seven yuan and sixty cents. Adding the two bottles of chilled Da Yao liquor we just drank, the total is eighty-three yuan.
Director Wang, that stingy old man, definitely won't reimburse this huge sum for special medical expenses.
Just as Sing Sing was figuring out how to squeeze the money out of the bureau's accounts, Zhao Dezhu stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.
"Seriously, what's that foreigner's background?"
Zhao Dezhu lowered his voice. "Tell me something, aren't you afraid your superiors will cause trouble by leaving such dangerous people in these remote mountains?"
Sing Sing stopped smiling, waved for the technician to leave, and closed the door behind her.
The older woman glanced at him. "Are you still going to get a massage or not?"
"Hold on for now," Sing Sing said seriously. "It's a state secret. We'll deal with the foot injury later."
"She's crazy, talking nonsense." The older sister carried the basin of water out the door.
Zhao Dezhu fell silent, his gaze fixed on Sing Sing's face.
Sing Sing sat up straight and rubbed his reddened soles. "You've seen Blackheart contractors before, haven't you?"
Zhao Dezhu stopped what he was doing. "I've seen it before, the kind where they owe migrant workers their wages."
"What he encountered was a thousand times worse than that," Sing Sing said in a low voice. "Old Jin was originally an honest lumberjack."
"Strong and hardworking, he's a prime example of advanced productivity here. He'd be suitable to be a forest ranger too."
Zhao Dezhu nodded. "Those arms look like they're good for work, and then what?"
Sing Sing snorted, "Then they got their eyes on him from those United States."
"They tied him up in the lab and injected super alloy into every bone in his body. From his skull to his spine, from his ribs to his fingers, they didn't spare a single bone. Even the bone claws he originally had were coated with alloy."
Zhao Dezhu inhaled sharply and his eyes widened.
"Wow, it really has claws? And it even has iron in its bones?"
"It's not ordinary iron." Sing Sing Chow waved his hands repeatedly, "It's much more expensive than iron. If you dragged him to a scrap yard and sold him by weight, the scrap yard owner would have to call the bank for a loan first."
Zhao Dezhu stared, mouth agape, before finally managing to utter, "Is this something a human being would do?"
"They turned living, breathing people into weapons, without providing them with Five Insurances and One Housing Fund, or overtime pay. They treated them like royalty, carrying a lifetime of debts they could never repay."
Sing Sing raised his voice and slapped the armrest of the massage chair.
"What's the most despicable thing? They not only altered his body, but also tormented his mind. Electric shocks, brainwashing, memory erasure!"
"Today you remind him he's a human being, tomorrow you take him out like a dog. How can someone sleep soundly if he can't even remember who he is?"
Zhao Dezhu shut his mouth, and white steam rose from the hot water in the wooden tub.
A voice came from outside the private room. "Room number two, extended time."
Zhao Dezhu has spent half his life working in the forest farm. He has seen old workers who broke their legs due to work injuries and couldn't get compensation, as well as people who crawled out of the mines half-dead.
But he had never seen anything that altered a person's bones.
Images flashed before Zhao Dezhu's eyes.
A man covered in blood was pinned down on an iron bed, while people in white coats circled around him.
The electric drill roared, molten steel poured in, and the boss next to him smoked a cigar while calculating costs.
"Damn it!" Zhao Dezhu slammed his hand on the coffee table.
"Those bastards! They're inhuman! They've ruined a perfectly normal person, turning him into this grotesque, inhuman creature! No wonder he looks at people like he's about to bite them to death!"
Zhao Dezhu's chest heaved as he gasped for breath.
"If it were me, I'd go crazy too!"
[Shock level +80!]
[Shock level +120!]
[Current total value: 1234!]
Okay, he didn't shock the system.
He only had a sincere heart to save money for the organization. Sing Sing cleared his throat and steered the conversation back on track.
"So, buddy, he's reacting to uniforms, orders, metal beds, and needles now. If you schedule him to clock in at eight every morning, patrol the mountain at nine, and write reflections in the afternoon, he'll smash the table to pieces on the spot."
"Forget about writing reflections; we don't even like it ourselves."
"That's right! Don't do anything fancy, and don't set any patrol KPIs."
"Let him stay in the forest. Watch the pine trees and listen to the birds sing. Chop wood if he wants, soak in the hot springs if he wants. Hunting is fine too, but only if he follows the rules. Wild boar goes in the pot, but Northeast China tigers are out of the question."
Hearing this, Zhao Dezhu grinned and said, "Why do you talk like an official one minute and a butcher the next?"
Sing Sing spread his hands, "I originally started out selling pork."
"Understood." Zhao Dezhu patted his chest. "Xiao Zhou, don't worry. As long as he's in Linshengtun, Old Jin is a legitimate fellow villager here! If anyone tries to cause him trouble, I'll call the police station first!"
Sing Sing relaxed his tense shoulders.
That's perfect! Now that's what you call a solid grassroots foundation!
Now that's what you call truly landing! This lone wolf from North America finally has a den!
Sing Sing gave a thumbs up. "Brother Zhao is a true friend! With your level of awareness, you could easily be a key unofficial political worker in our bureau."
Zhao Dezhu waved his hands. "Don't flatter me. I just can't stand seeing good people being treated badly."
Sing Sing rolled his eyes.
The atmosphere was right. The emotions were right.
If not now, when?
He took a receipt out of the inside pocket of his white suit and handed it over.
"Um... now that we're familiar with each other, could you get the receptionist to stamp the money for the foot massage?"
Zhao Dezhu frozen in place.
"What?"
Sing Sing tilted his head back.
"The heading should be 'Purchase and maintenance costs of cold-weather protection equipment for wild animals in Northeast China,' and I'll get it reimbursed when I get back."
What the hell did you say?
"Cold-weather protection equipment."
Sing Sing explained, "Think about it, aren't the soles of your feet an important heat dissipation point for the human body? Doesn't massage promote blood circulation? Doesn't promoting blood circulation help keep you warm? And isn't keeping warm a necessity for working in forest areas?"
"Whose winter clothing is designed to fit the soles of their feet?!"
"Isn't that a narrow perspective? Modern financial management emphasizes flexible categorization."
Zhao Dezhu didn't want to talk and stood up to leave.
"Hey! Let's talk this out! Don't get agitated!"
"This is a reasonable cross-departmental hospitality held to foster closer relations between officials and the public!"
"Screw you! You're a top-tier agent, offering to give me a foot massage, and you expect me to issue you a receipt? Get lost!"
At that moment, the door to the private room was pushed open, and the technician stood in the doorway, watching the two people arguing silently for a few seconds.
"Want to extend the time?"