You Hit My Mother-in-Law and Still Want to Live in a Subsidized Apartment?

Lu Yuan glanced inside the old woman's home. A large basin of abalone sat on the coffee table, and some of the furnishings in the apartment were expensive as well.

As if remembering something, Lu Yuan couldn't help asking the people present, "This is a subsidized apartment building, right?"

"That's right. Only poor households who aren't well-off and have very difficult living conditions can receive government subsidies and live in this building," one of the residents explained to Lu Yuan.

Hearing this, Lu Yuan looked again at the living conditions in the old woman's home and flew into a rage. "Heh, her family eats abalone by the basinful, and the furniture in there must have cost hundreds of thousands of yuan. With material conditions like these, how could she possibly qualify as a poor household?"

The residents gathered there were indignant too. They told Lu Yuan, "Of course she doesn't qualify. She's very well-off. Her family eats delicacies from the mountains and seas every day, and her children pick her up and drop her off in luxury cars. I've seen it several times myself."

"My second uncle can barely put food in the pot. His legs are disabled, and he has a wife with epilepsy to look after. The house he lives in now will collapse after a few more rainstorms. Even though he's that poor, he wasn't selected as a poor household. This old woman lives much better than he does, but she was selected and even gets poverty relief money every year. Whenever I think about it, I can't help feeling it's unfair."

Hearing this, Lu Yuan felt even more upset. "Didn't any of you think of reporting her?"

"Ah, we reported her long ago, but nobody higher up did anything. I heard she gave gifts to the community staff at the time and even treated the general manager of City Home Real Estate to dinner. Her family has powerful connections higher up. How could ordinary people like us stand up to them?"

City Home Real Estate? Lu Yuan searched his memory. The real estate company was a subsidiary under his family's Tomson Riviera Real Estate Company.

Since City Home was his family's company, that made things easy.

Lu Yuan immediately called Tomson's general manager, who asked, "What is it, Chairman?"

Lu Yuan flew into a fury. "You have twenty minutes to get City Home Real Estate to put its house in order. Can just anyone live in a subsidized apartment building? Apartment 103, unit two, building three of the suburban subsidized housing complex—the people there live in luxury, eating abalone and lobster at every meal, with furniture worth hundreds of thousands. What gives people like that the right to live in housing allocated by the state?"

"How many poor people in this society are still struggling in deep waters and scorching heat? They should have been receiving government allowances, and those poverty relief policies should have been theirs, yet these wealthy people have been lining their pockets instead. If this isn't handled properly, everyone at City Home can forget about keeping their jobs. They can all get the hell home!"

"And another thing! I don't care which Magic City community office is responsible for which residential complex. Make time to visit them and warn them on my behalf to immediately revoke the subsidies of households that don't qualify as poor. Otherwise, I'll personally come knocking to investigate, expose them to the whole country, and see every last one of them sent to jail. If they don't take it seriously, have them search for Lu Yuan on Baidu," Lu Yuan said, furious.

If Lu Yuan hadn't known about it, he wouldn't have gotten involved. But now that he had come across it, he wouldn't stand by with folded arms. He wanted to use his own strength to make sure that people who truly lived in poverty all had a home.

The people in the apartment building couldn't contain their curiosity either and took out their phones to search for Lu Yuan.

After that search, however, everyone's expression changed.

Baidu Baike:

Lu Yuan, age: 24. Owned 500 homes in school districts across the country; legal chairman of 100 real estate companies nationwide; chairman of the Chinese and Western Medicine Association; chairman of Yida Shopping Mall...

Major deeds:

Developed and produced patented scientific research; spent 1.83 million yuan on a meal at the Shangri-La Hotel; made a romantic confession to his girlfriend at a car dealership; transferred 52.1 billion and 131.4 billion yuan; had 500 Bugatti Veyrons in his engagement car procession...

All 500 young heirs of Magic City's wealthy families were his friends. He had ended the careers of two major internet celebrities, Wang Yan Talks Cars and Brother Xiaofeng, and had even bankrupted the Gu Family and the Xu Family with a single sentence...

Every account set their blood boiling. The people in the complex exclaimed, "So Chairman Lu has such a legendary past! No wonder he didn't have the slightest misgiving about hitting that old woman."

"If I had half of Chairman Lu's ability, I wouldn't hesitate for a second either."

"Chairman Lu was quite right about what he said earlier. The reason we're afraid is that our social backgrounds aren't powerful enough. It all comes down to our own lack of strength."

"That old woman has kicked an iron plate this time. Of all the people she could have offended, she had to offend a great Buddha like Chairman Lu. Her good days are finally coming to an end."

Every pair of burning eyes was filled with admiration and awe for Lu Yuan. Who wouldn't long to be a young man who was rich, dared to act, and didn't have to consider any consequences?

After Lu Yuan made his arrangements, Tomson Riviera's general manager immediately set to work, nearly blowing up the phones at the various real estate companies.

Before long, the major real estate companies had to contact the community offices responsible for their respective residential complexes and pass the message down through every level.

At first, some community staff still hoped to slip through by luck, but after searching for Lu Yuan on Baidu, they were scared witless by his résumé. Was this someone they could fucking afford to offend?

If a man worth a hundred trillion yuan wanted to finish them off, wouldn't it be easy? Besides, they weren't exactly clean themselves.

Overnight, the major community offices worked without stopping, revoking the subsidies of one unqualified household after another and registering the poor who were truly living in deep waters and scorching heat.

That night, the poor people struggling in deep waters and scorching heat in Magic City all came to regard Lu Yuan as their lifelong benefactor. If he hadn't chosen to deal with this matter, they would still have been living in misery.

The old woman's children were dumbfounded too. They murmured, "Mom, I... we seem to have offended a big shot we can't afford to cross... Our family might lose the subsidized apartment, and there's even a risk of going to jail..."

The old woman's face instantly turned deathly pale. In a split second, she crumbled like a beaten dog. She crawled in front of Lu Yuan, grabbed his pant leg, and pleaded through tears, "Chairman Lu! I'm an old woman who failed to act her age. My hand shouldn't have gotten itchy and hit your mother-in-law. Please let me off! I'm just an old bag of bones. I don't want to go to jail! Please, let me off and take your mother-in-law to the hospital for a checkup. I'll cover all the medical expenses."

Tears and snot streamed down the old woman's face as she cried.

Lu Yuan snorted coldly. "Heh! Not so tough with me now, are you? But it's no use. Since I'm stepping in to deal with people defrauding the state of subsidies, I need someone to kill the chicken and warn the monkeys. Even if you kowtow to me today, you're still going to jail."

Lu Yuan called the police directly and told them about the old woman's subsidy fraud.

Before long, police sirens blared outside the complex. A carload of officers entered the building and handcuffed the old woman. An officer declared coldly, "You're implicated in subsidy fraud. Come back to the station with us!"

As the old woman was led away, she looked back at her apartment with reluctance, weeping as though her heart were breaking. "Son, I regret it so much! If I hadn't hit that cleaner, maybe none of this would have happened to me..."

"Mom! It's too late for regrets now. No matter how many years you're sentenced to, I'll come visit you in prison often..." The bearded man and the middle-aged woman both had tears streaming down their faces.