Yang's Father

Yang's father held on to his last breath, carried the sandbag to the designated stacking area, and carefully set it down.

These sandbags had coarse burlap outer layers and cotton cloth linings, preventing sand from leaking while also protecting them from tears caused by minor scrapes.

Even so, Yang's father remained exceedingly careful.

Once upon a time, he too had been a young man full of ambition.

He had grown up in the countryside and sworn to make his way out of it.

Decades later, he had indeed left the countryside, but reality gave him no chance to put down roots in the city.

Lower-Registry Commoners were not qualified to buy homes in the city.

To buy a home, they could only spend extra money to attach themselves to someone else's household registration.

Thus, the vast majority of Lower-Registry Commoners in the city lived in rented homes.

No one had ever shattered Yang's father's dreams as bluntly and directly as Li Yan had.

But when he interviewed for jobs, and the resumes he submitted were flagged as belonging to a Lower-Registry Commoner and immediately discarded.

When he told landlords his status, and they raised his rent by twenty percent.

When he painstakingly raised Yang Sheng, who was admitted to Martial Arts High School with outstanding grades, only to be assigned to an ordinary class while Upper Registry students with worse grades were assigned to advanced classes.

Somehow, Yang's father's youthful ambition had disappeared.

He began teaching Yang Sheng to make more friends among his Upper Registry classmates.

He began talking about whether they should give gifts and pull strings.

He became smooth and worldly.

Even when others humiliated him, he would still turn back with a beaming smile and say, "Boss, don't mind that I'm a little slow. Slow means I don't make mistakes. I can work. I've got a son going to Martial Arts University, and he needs a lot of money for cultivation. Please don't dock my pay."

He was a father who had compromised with reality.

Ambition could not fill their stomachs. Now, he needed to survive, to eat, and to give Yang Sheng every bit of help he could provide.

When they heard Yang's father say that his son wanted to enter Martial Arts University.

The three young men burst into laughter as if they had heard a joke.

"A Lower-Registry Commoner wants to get into Martial Arts University? Keep dreaming. You won't even get into a martial arts vocational college. Not in this lifetime."

The smile on Yang's father's face stiffened for a moment, then he forced out a laugh in agreement.

He continued carrying another sandbag.

But the instant he straightened up, his long-damaged lumbar spine erupted with piercing pain.

Unable to endure it, Yang's father let out a muffled groan and nearly fell.

A large hand caught the sandbag that was about to hit the ground.

Yang's father turned around. Just as he was about to thank the person, he saw Yang Sheng's face, calm as a still lake.

"Why are you here?"

Yang Sheng asked.

Yang's father looked somewhat awkward.

"Business hauling goods hasn't been great these past couple of days. There was no work at night, and I figured lying around at home was still just lying around, so I came out to find something to do."

The three young men saw Yang Sheng and teased, "Old man, is this your son?"

Yang's father nudged Yang Sheng. "Go home first. I'll talk to you after I'm done."

Then he turned to the three young men and said, "This is my son. He's pretty tall, isn't he?"

The three young men laughed even louder.

"What a big idiot. He can't even speak."

Yang Sheng ignored them and continued asking.

"How many sandbags are left?"

Yang's father looked up at the truck and said, "More than forty. I'll be done soon. It's so late already. Aren't you going to sleep? Do you still plan to get up early tomorrow? Hey, where are you going?"

Before he could finish speaking, Yang Sheng strode to the front of the truck and stomped his foot down. A powerful impact jolted the vehicle, making its body sway.

The three young men were sent flying.

They tumbled into the truck's cab in disarray, then turned back to look.

They saw Yang Sheng grab a sandbag in each hand and toss them onto his shoulders, supporting them with his broad shoulders and back.

After steadying himself, he grabbed two more sandbags.

He carried four sandbags at once by himself.

More than four hundred pounds weighed down on Yang Sheng.

Yet he leaped down from the truck as though walking on level ground and swiftly headed to the stacking area.

After dropping the sandbags, he returned to the truck and repeated the same motion.

After ten trips back and forth, Yang Sheng placed the final sandbag down and wiped away the fine sweat on his forehead.

The three young men climbed down from the truck.

The leader had a shaved head and wore a work uniform.

Yang Sheng noticed that the uniform bore the logo of Liu Property Management Company.

"Kid, you're pretty strong. You carried that many sandbags without even turning red or losing your breath."

The bald man sized Yang Sheng up and down.

"Want to consider doing manual labor under me? I'll give your dad eighty, and I'll give you ninety. How about it?"

The three of them burst into laughter again.

Yang Sheng remained unmoved.

He extended one hand. "The wages."

The bald man froze for a moment, then immediately struck out, intending to slap away Yang Sheng's outstretched hand.

When his palm swung over, however, he found that it was like hitting a steel plate.

The impact left his hand aching and numb.

"Fuck! That kick of yours nearly flipped the truck over. We're not even asking you to pay for the damage, and you still dare demand wages from me!"

Yang's father reached out and tugged at Yang Sheng.

"It's already so late. If it doesn't work out, I'll go to their company tomorrow and talk it through with them. Go home and get some sleep."

Yang Sheng did not insist. He turned and walked away.

Seeing this, the bald man became even more arrogant.

"Turns out he's even more spineless than his old man. Hahaha."

At that moment, Tianhai's owner came out and approached Yang Sheng.

"I've reached them."

As he spoke, he handed the communicator to Yang Sheng.

At that moment, the atmosphere in the senior conference room of Liu Property Management Company in Harbor City was oppressive.

Liu Jianming sat at the head of the conference table, holding the company's third senior management meeting of the year.

Liu Chang attended as a shareholder observer.

"The issue of layer-by-layer subcontracting has existed for a long time. It has now grown beyond control. If we continue to indulge it, ignore it, and refuse to deal with it, it will sooner or later drag down the entire property management company."

"I previously heard that the company took on a project worth one hundred thousand as the main contractor, subcontracted it to a regional company for fifty thousand, then the regional company hired a studio for twenty thousand. In the end, the studio hired an intern to do the project for two hundred a day."

"Later, that intern ran away halfway through the job without even taking the wages. Tell me, just how much damage does this kind of collapse in credibility do to us?"

Liu Chang, who had been listening intently to the meeting, suddenly felt the communicator in her arms vibrate.

She took it out and saw an unfamiliar number, but answered it anyway.

"Senior Sister Liu, this is Yang Sheng..."

Liu Chang listened as Yang Sheng explained, her brows tightly furrowed.

After ending the call, she hurried to Liu Jianming's side and whispered something in his ear.

Liu Jianming slammed his palm down on the table.

"Wang Zhuo! Are you responsible for the Martial Arts High School district?"

The company executive whose name had been called suddenly jolted.

He stood up trembling. "Yes, President Liu."

Liu Jianming said, "Go with Liu Chang. I'm holding a review meeting on the issue of layer-by-layer subcontracting, and your people are openly subcontracting work like this under your nose!"

"Old Huang, go with them too. At critical times like this, we need to make examples of a couple of people and show the company's determination to solve the problem."

As his words fell, the middle-aged man in martial attire who had stood unnoticed in the corner silently nodded.

All the senior executives present were shocked.

For Liu Jianming to directly deploy one of the Liu Family's trump-card experts, the matter truly seemed serious.