Wang Yan was in no hurry. He was confident he could solve the problem, but plenty of others were anxious.
Compared with the workers, who were still uneasy about not getting their wages, the people along this chain were even more desperate.
Take Zhou Jincai, squatting at Balihe Police Station, and Chen Mingsheng, squatting at another station. Both had been hoping to pull some strings and get released with a single phone call. Although Chen Mingsheng had personally heard what Wang Yan said, he did not really believe it. A lowly one-bar-two officer ordering a two-bar-three station director around—if word got out, people would laugh their heads off.
Zhou Jincai looked down on Wang Yan even more. He simply did not believe that some minor police officer at a tiny station could get a handle on him. After all, if Wang Yan really had that kind of power, why would he still be working at a police station? Zhou only thought Wang Yan had no way to deal with him and was trying to scare him.
But after the two of them squatted there all night without a single development, they finally had no choice but to face reality: that little one-bar-two officer had not been lying.
If the people they had contacted could have gotten them out, there would not have been silence all night. They could have walked out last night, gone home happily, slept in, and enjoyed a peaceful life. Since they had spent the whole night squatting there, it was obvious—their connections were useless.
But that was not the outcome they wanted, because they had already contacted the most powerful people they knew who could get things done. Those were the top players in their respective circles, people they normally had to carefully maintain relationships with.