Chapter 29

The Zhang Family had no idea about Zhang Xianyang's unease. Everyone's energy was focused on building the secret base, so they naturally overlooked other matters to some extent. With no solid clues, Zhang Xianyang could not voice his worries either. All he could do was help the Zhang Family improve everything in the Old District as much as possible, hoping to forge an impregnable rear base.

During this time, Zhang Linmo casually suggested holding tenders and auctions for outside construction crews, apart from those controlled by local Old District gangs. Zhang Tumo frowned, disagreeing with Zhang Linmo's proposal. "We don't know these outside crews. What if some of them have ulterior motives and want to pry into Old District intelligence? We can't guard against everything."

Zhang Linmo sneered. "That's exactly why we should give them the chance. Rather than sealing off every side so tightly that people have to go through all sorts of trouble to climb over the walls, we might as well leave an opening. It'll be convenient for everyone."

Zhang Tumo immediately understood.

Zhang Linmo said viciously, "Leave this to Mu Yang as well. Whether it's a tender or an auction, squeeze them hard. Don't let them think this opportunity came too easily."

Zhang Muyang immediately nodded and accepted the task.

Zhang Qingyang smiled from the side and reminded him, "The month's already half over. Mu Yang needs to hurry. Especially over in Yanjing—we need to find a way to notify everyone there."

That made Zhang Linmo's heart stir, and he immediately called Gu Zhaohuan.

Gu Zhaohuan not only did not mind Zhang Linmo's habit of using people to the fullest, but eagerly agreed. The Li father and son had just left his office, and they had discussed how to place people in the Old District as well. Gu Zhaohuan had originally been scratching his head over it, but after hearing Zhang Linmo's call, everything suddenly became clear. This ally was truly well chosen—more timely than Song Jiang himself. Just when he was sleepy, someone handed him a pillow!

After exchanging a few words, the two old foxes settled on a detailed plan to fleece Kyoto's suckers. Gu Zhaohuan did not care how much money they could make. What he cared about was how much benefit he could secure for the Gu Family in Kyoto through this move. The Old District was simply too large a piece of fat meat. Since the Gu Family could not swallow it alone, they might as well act generously. As for whether the other great families had the ability to get that meat into their mouths, that was not something Gu Zhaohuan needed to consider.

Zhang Linmo, who barely knew any of Kyoto's great families, did not particularly care who came to stir things up in the Old District. He only asked that Gu Zhaohuan hand all the major families' information to Zhang Muyang after the bidding conference. This was not an excessive request. Without the Gu Family, the Old Zhang Family could still send others to investigate; it would merely take more time. Understanding the hidden angle, Gu Zhaohuan was happy to do this favor and immediately patted his chest in agreement.

With everything laid out, Gu Zhaohuan vaguely tested the waters over the phone, asking if he could have a meal at the Zhang Family Villa. Zhang Linmo immediately declined, using the excuse that the family would be busy that evening. As he hung up, he heard a long sigh from Gu Zhaohuan's end—resentful, plaintive, and lingering. It sounded like a female ghost crying out, startling Zhang Linmo so badly that he nearly threw the phone away.

No sooner had Zhang Linmo finished his call than another came in from Wang Zhaoyi. It was also about the Li father and son going into the city to see Gu Zhaohuan. Comparing the two accounts, the Zhang Family finally understood why Gu Zhaohuan had agreed so readily. The Li father and son were jumping around far too happily, but grasshoppers jumping on the Old Zhang Family's pot lid could never escape the pot. Zhang Muyang sneered twice and merely instructed Wang Zhaoyi to continue monitoring them according to plan.

In the blink of an eye, the next month arrived, and the Old District renovation plan officially began. Construction crews repairing houses and renovating electrical lines, water pipes, and sewers could be seen throughout the streets and alleys. Quite a few of them were burly men with Beijing accents and an unmistakably military air about them. As a result, the Zhang Family Gang's books gained more than ten million in liquid cash. Even after sharing some of the profits with the other Old District gangs according to the rules, what remained was about equal to a small company's monthly revenue. And this was merely the so-called goodwill fee, a thank-you gift for winning the bid, not even counted as part of the construction budget. It was clear that some people had truly bled heavily.

Worth mentioning was that with the Yanjing construction crews moving in, Li Jiangnan, who had stormed back to Yanjing in anger last time, also returned. He brought a construction crew jointly funded by the Li Family and the Kyoto Zhang Family. Looking at batches of so-called workers who, no matter how hard they tried to hide it, still appeared sharp and agile enough for anyone perceptive to spot something off, Wang Zhaoyi curled his lip disdainfully. Herding one sheep was the same as herding two, so he agreed to the Li Family's request to provide cover for them.

That was right. This guy still retained his rather unglamorous identity as an undercover agent. For the Li Family, which had no real foundation in the Old District, Wang Zhaoyi might have ulterior motives and be unreliable, but Gu Zhaohuan was not necessarily trustworthy either. Left with no other choice, the Li Family could only hold their noses and keep a foot in both camps, hoping to be safer that way.

What they did not know was that people who kept a foot in two boats were often the first to capsize.

Author's Note:

(:3"∠)

Waaah, I'm exhausted to death.

Come pet me already ╭(╯3╰)╮

Chapter 31

When traveling somewhere unfamiliar, what people feared most was asking for directions only to run into some quietly malicious passerby. You were clearly supposed to head east, but he pointed you west. You were clearly supposed to go south, but he insisted your destination was in the north. Then you trudged along until dark without finding the place you were looking for, only to ask again and discover that you had been played.

At a time like that, the protagonist, wanting to cry but having no tears, could still curse furiously in his heart, wishing that the person who gave directions would only get seasoning packets with his instant noodles, that every girlfriend or boyfriend he dated would always be a virgin, that he would choke to death while eating, fall to death while walking, choke to death while drinking water, and so on...

In the above scenario, you still had an outlet for venting your miserable experience, so it was not the most painful situation. But if you asked for directions somewhere unfamiliar, only for all the locals to unanimously point you toward the wrong place—and that wrong destination was one of the Old Zhang Family's fake secret passages, deceptive on the surface and dangerous underneath... then the people who had been fooled from beginning to end without even realizing it were the truly tragic ones. That was what they called not even knowing how to cry properly.

The Li father and son were in exactly that situation.

The matter had to be explained from the beginning.

It had been mentioned before that the Old Zhang Family had dominated the Old District for years because of the Zhang Family Secret Passage passed down by their ancestors. What had not been mentioned was that, when the Zhang ancestors built the secret passage, they had considered its integrity and secrecy... so they had not dug just one passage at all.

With the Old District Zhang Family Compound as the center, extending outward for ten kilometers in all four directions, the Zhang ancestors not only built the real Zhang Family Secret Passage but also dug four fake passages specifically to confuse outsiders. Although these passages did not lead to the Zhang Family Ancestral Residence, the mechanisms, traps, poisonous insects, and toxic smoke inside were all real. Back then, they had trapped quite a few idiots who wanted to find the secret passage and wipe out the Zhang Family in one stroke. Later, the other Old District families learned thoroughly from their predecessors' lessons and stopped stirring things up. Only then did these four fake passages gradually fall idle.

The passages might have fallen idle, but according to the Zhang Family Rules, the family still had to spend a huge sum every year maintaining their integrity and toxicity. Therefore, by Zhang Linmo's grandfather's generation, many voices within the clan had called for abandoning all four fake passages. But none of those people were family heads, so no one cared what they said. The rule of spending huge sums every year to maintain worthless junk continued to be passed down. By Zhang Muyang's generation, it finally found a use—

For scamming people.

And it was for scamming outsiders. For example—the unlucky Li Family.

For the other Old District families, who had all been more or less tricked by the fake passages produced by the Zhang Family, having the good fortune to watch outside idiots get deceived by them and charge foolishly toward a dead end was an indescribable joy. That strangely gratifying and fulfilling sense of satisfaction could not be put into words. It was like the climax during sex, the floating ecstasy of smoking marijuana, the pride and delight of slaughtering an enemy's entire family—though that last comparison was too bloody and brutal, so it could be ignored.

In short, it was a wonderful feeling.

As for those Old District bosses who had not participated in this round of scamming people, they only wanted to say regretfully—

Once, there was an opportunity to scam people right in front of me, but I did not cherish it. Only after losing it did I regret it beyond measure. There was no greater pain in this world. If Heaven gave me another chance, I would tell those idiots three words: jump in already. And if you had to ask how many times I wanted to scam them, my answer would be: ten thousand times.

Thus, with the many Old District families operating in a "better a dead friend than a dead me" spectator mode, while also playing the role of random passersby, the many spies from Yanjing finally met their miserable fate.

First, after making open and covert inquiries, Wang Zhaoyi sent someone to tell Li Cunzhou that the Zhang Family secret passage entrance was probably in a forest on the outskirts of the West District. During the war of invasion, the Old Zhang Family had been responsible for fighting the invaders in the West District. To make ambushes easier, they had dug many tunnels connecting one cave to another, allowing them to appear and disappear unpredictably as they crippled quite a few invaders. Even after the war ended, the Old Zhang Family still made a trip to the West District every year, acting secretively and no one knowing what they were doing. Therefore, Wang Zhaoyi had every reason to suspect that the Old Zhang Family's secret passage entrance was in the West District.

The moment he finished speaking, he immediately aroused the Li father and son's vigilance and suspicion. "Since Boss Wang had long guessed the location of the Zhang Family Secret Passage entrance, why haven't you acted? Haven't you always wanted to wipe out the Old Zhang Family to avenge old grievances?"

Wang Zhaoyi rolled his eyes and casually said, "Isn't that nonsense? If I could find the secret passage, I'd have wiped out the Old Zhang Family long ago. Would I need you to show off here?"

A flash of anger crossed Li Cunzhou's face. Li Mobei, standing a step behind him, lightly poked Li Cunzhou in the lower back. Li Jiangnan, beside Li Mobei, curled his lip in slight disdain and turned his face away.

Li Jiangnan's movement was too subtle, and since most of Li Cunzhou and Li Mobei's attention was focused on the secret passage, no one present besides Wang Zhaoyi noticed anything unusual about Li Jiangnan.

Wang Zhaoyi's gaze moved back and forth between the Li father and son. As if realizing something, he secretly laughed without saying a word.

They had barely begun screwing over others, and their own family was already close to turning on itself. What a delight!

Having no goodwill whatsoever toward outsiders, Wang Zhaoyi spared no effort in laying the trap. "Actually, forty years ago, my father-in-law sent people to search the West District for traces of the Zhang Family Secret Passage, and they really did find an entrance. But it was filled with mechanisms and traps. My father-in-law lost many men without managing to break through the passage. Instead, because of this matter, he lost nearly half his gang's strength and nearly provoked a frenzied retaliation from his enemies. In the end, the matter was dropped."

At first glance, this sounded quite reasonable, but upon closer examination, there were still some points that did not add up.

Li Cunzhou wanted to press further, but Wang Zhaoyi impatiently waved a hand. "I only found out about this from my father-in-law these past two days. Believe it or not, just stop pestering me."

The conversation had reached a dead end. The Li father and son feared that saying more would only anger Wang Zhaoyi. After all, such obvious distrust would make no one happy.

Seeing that they would not ask any more questions, Wang Zhaoyi stood and said, "I know officials like you are suspicious. Once you've harmed people too many times, you're always afraid others will harm you too. If you don't believe me about the secret passage, you can investigate it yourselves. Anyway, I've said what I needed to say and done what I promised. Now it's time to give me my payment, right?"

Li Cunzhou's face turned red from Wang Zhaoyi's words. He was not yet the mature politician of later years, deep-minded, thick-skinned, and black-hearted, so Wang Zhaoyi's mockery could not fail to leave a mark. In fact, Li Cunzhou, who had grown up being flattered, was furious. But one had to bow under another's roof. The Li Family had no power in the Old District and could only rely on Wang Zhaoyi for information, so they absolutely could not offend him now.