Women with big mouths loved prying into and gossiping about all sorts of messy affairs. Wang Yan only needed to find two or three such people in each direction of the village—east, south, west, and north—and he could basically get a general grasp of what was going on there.
He chatted with the first woman for over two hours before finally leaving amid her reluctant farewell. She had noted down that Wang Yan went by "Little Wang," saved his number, and added him on WeChat, saying that if anything came up in the future, he had to help solve it.
To do community outreach, Wang Yan had specifically prepared, like Zhang Zhijie, two phones, two SIM cards, and two WeChat accounts. One was for work and his personal life, while the other was solely for keeping in touch with the public.
Wang Yan waved with a smile, said goodbye to the reluctant woman, and got back into the car with Zhao Jiwei. He started the engine and turned on the air conditioning, then took out the notebook Zhang Zhijie had given him. He signed his name on the title page before beginning to record what the woman had said.
"We spent over two hours at just one house. There are hundreds of households in this village—when are we ever going to finish visiting them all?"
"Didn't I tell you? If we can't finish, then we keep going. We visit whenever we have time. Besides, we won't talk to everyone for that long. For some people, ten minutes, eight minutes, even three or five minutes is enough." Without looking up, Wang Yan continued writing in the notebook. "What did you pick up from what Sister Zhai said just now?"
"The village chief was having an affair and embezzling money? Old Song's