The future was unknowable, and there was nothing we could do about it. All we could do was wait and see.
This wasn't the first time I'd experienced something like this over the past year. I still felt awful, but I wouldn't let it get me down too much.
After hanging up, it took me a long time to fall asleep. When I finally woke at dawn, I was still exhausted, both mentally and physically.
I wasn't supposed to work on weekends, but the old leader called. I'd expected it.
Everyone in the Hu family had died for no apparent reason. That meant there was no longer a "plaintiff" or "defendant" in the legal sense, but the story had already reached the media. How could it possibly end there?
Everyone from the Demolition Office was called in for a meeting.
Director Ma was in a terrible mood.
The old leader waited until Director Ma had finished dressing us all down before he began laying out a response plan.
Legally and morally, we hadn't done anything wrong. But public opinion didn't care about law or morality. It cared about a good story. The Demolition Office bullying ordinary people was certainly a story that would attract plenty of attention. Still, the online climate had changed, and "I'm weak, so I must be in the right" no longer carried quite so much weight.
This meeting felt like an expanded version of the one about the Xu Gang and Xu Tie brothers. The entire Demolition Office was on edge.
Our group was supposed to visit Xu Bingjie at the detention center. We also needed to contact his mother and bring her along. As the only remaining heir to Xu Guangzong's property, they still had to discuss the demolition with his family.
Director Ma had