Chapter 177: A private talk
Everyone in Huangcheng knew that Xu Changcheng of the Xu family, long a powerful presence in the city, had fallen. Those familiar with how the incident unfolded had initially thought it was merely a conflict between the two sides sparked by Xu Dong crashing into the newly arrived Su Licheng's convoy.
Many people knew someone in Xu Dong's convoy had been made a scapegoat. Xu Dong and his companions had returned to Huangcheng with nothing more than the so-called "traffic violation penalties" of points on their licenses and fines of two or three hundred yuan. Their licenses had not even been revoked; there had been no substantive punishment. But to everyone watching, this outcome was only natural.
After all, who was Xu Changcheng in Huangcheng? For over a decade, the Xu family had reigned supreme, opening hotels, contracting construction projects, and venturing into property, coal mining, and energy. They had even made a name for themselves by completing Huangcheng's new pedestrian shopping street. For years, although the city's residents had found this capital backed by power a bitter pill to swallow, they also understood that it was a reality almost impossible to change. No matter how much people had talked about the Xu family over the past decade or more, they had remained rock-solid in Huangcheng. Who could shake their foundations in the slightest?
So when Xu Changcheng fell this time, the people of Huangcheng were as energized as if they had drunk Red Bull. They had lived through many major events, such as Beijing winning its Olympic bid and China joining the WTO... but those were distant, after all. Only the downfall of Xu Changcheng and the Xu family's power, the collapse of that towering mountain, was a major event right on their doorstep,