Chapter 78: Evil Doesn’t Always Get Its Due
With no other plans at noon, Wang Xingmin was free, so Xiao Liang returned to Liang Chaobin’s office first. From there, he called Gu Peijun and Yuan Wenhai to set up a lunch gathering. He even asked Gu Peijun to bring along his father, Gu Xiong, and stopped by the Civil Affairs Office to invite Gu Peijun’s sister, Gu Ling.
When it came to business or technical discussions, Xiao Liang could talk endlessly without feeling the slightest fatigue. Even social banquets, he could handle with ease—but deep down, he found them somewhat draining.
He wasn’t opposed to drinking, but decades of discipline had ingrained in him a firm limit when it came to alcohol.
At the grassroots level, though, banquets were a different story—drinking heavily was practically the rule.
Today, he needed to show Wang Xingmin proper respect, which meant letting Wang set the pace for how much was drunk. Bringing someone like Gu Xiong into the mix would make things flow far more smoothly than if it were just him and Gu Peijun.
Some things simply couldn’t be compensated for, no matter how much experience he carried over from another life.
The best dining spot in town was the township guesthouse in the Cultural Center building—but everyone knew its manager, Zhou Lin, had an affair with Fan Chunjiang.
Leaving aside his irreconcilable conflict with Fan Chunjiang, even for Wang Xingmin’s sake, Xiao Liang couldn’t hold the lunch there.
He had heard from Gu Peijun that ever since the Xiao Yujun case broke, Fan Chunjiang had been keeping his head down in the township government, while others had begun aligning themselves with Wang Xingmin. Business at the guesthouse had plummeted.
Since Xiao Liang still needed to keep a low profile, he couldn’t order Gu Peijun around in front of Wang Xingmin and Liang Chaobin. Seeing that there was still time before noon, he went himself to the north end of Meiwou Old Street and reserved a table at Wenhua Home-Style Restaurant by the Yanxi River.
The restaurant’s owner, Lin Wenhua, was Lin Xuetong’s cousin and He Hong’s distant relative by marriage—also from Nanting Village. In fact, it was He Hong’s aunt, married to Lin Wenhua, who had introduced her into the village.
But aside from the guesthouse, Wenhua’s place was the only restaurant in town that was halfway decent. Xiao Liang had no choice but to pretend he didn’t know about Lin Wenhua’s connection to He Hong. With a population of forty to fifty thousand, and having only worked in Yunshe for two years, it would have been perfectly normal for him not to know—unless someone had specifically told him.
The town’s overall spending power was low, so the restaurant didn’t usually stock high-end ingredients. But today, luck was on their side—Lin Wenhua had just acquired a wild softshell turtle weighing nearly three jin.
Worried it might be ruined, Xiao Liang gave detailed instructions: rinse it with warm water, carefully peel off the foul-smelling membrane, clean away all the fishy oil, and cook it with plenty of seasoning, deglazing with liquor to remove the odor and reducing the sauce to a rich, thick consistency.
That dish would be the centerpiece of the meal—there was no room for mistakes.
The restaurant didn’t carry good liquor, so Xiao Liang went to the supply and marketing cooperative and brought back a case of Luzhou Laojiao.
Gu Peijun and his father arrived early. Yuan Wenhai strolled in shortly after. Then Xiao Liang and Gu Peijun went to the township compound to personally invite Wang Xingmin and Liang Chaobin, bringing Gu Ling along as well.
The restaurant itself was a modest private residence—a newly built three-story house with simple decor: dark red floor tiles, whitewashed walls, nothing luxurious. The staircase was narrow and steep, but the place was clean. Situated along the old street and backed by a bend in the Yanxi River, it offered a surprisingly pleasant view from the windows.
The other dishes were simple home-style fare, but the softshell turtle—thanks to Xiao Liang’s meticulous instructions—earned unanimous praise. Two bottles of Luzhou Laojiao were drained, and the thick sauce was even used to mix with rice. Everyone ate heartily.
…
…
Wang Xingmin still had a meeting to attend at the county office that afternoon, so he kept his drinking in check. By one o’clock, after finishing two bottles, and seeing his driver waiting outside, he took his leave.
Once Wang Xingmin and Liang Chaobin were gone, the group returned to their private room, switched to beer, and continued.
Yuan Wenhai suddenly remembered something and turned to Xiao Liang.
“Before lunch, I called the Criminal Investigation Team. He Hong’s mother went to the county bureau this morning and returned the thirty thousand yuan she had embezzled. Her case isn’t complicated—now that the money’s been returned, the bureau will probably grant her bail pending trial.”
Yuan Wenhai knew the Xiao Yujun case better than anyone, and from last night’s conversation, he had learned about Xiao Liang and Gu Peijun’s plans.
Now that only Gu Xiong and Gu Ling remained at the table—both family—he spoke more freely.
“Where did her family even get that kind of money?” Gu Ling asked, puzzled.
Thirty thousand yuan was no small sum in those days. If it had been easy to come by, He Hong wouldn’t have had to embezzle funds and fall under Xiao Yujun’s control in the first place.
Yuan Wenhai shrugged. Unless someone filed a report questioning the source of the money, it wasn’t their concern.
He brought it up partly because the juice factory could recover the funds to support production—and partly because He Hong’s household registration had already been moved to Nanting Village after her marriage. Under bail conditions, she wouldn’t be allowed to leave Yunshe, and the township police station would be responsible for supervising her.
Xiao Liang, however, froze for a moment.
He suddenly recalled seeing Zhang Feili and Lin Xi boarding the bus together that morning in Sucheng.
Just days ago, he had joked with Zhang Feili about investing her sales bonus into his new company to avoid income tax. She had refused without hesitation—no excuses, no hesitation.
At the time, he had assumed she was simply being cautious with such a large sum of money.
Now he realized she had already decided how to use it.
“What are you thinking about?” Yuan Wenhai noticed his distraction.
“I was thinking about how much Xiao Yujun will actually cough up,” Xiao Liang replied.
“You’re not concerned about how many years he’ll get?” Yuan Wenhai asked.
“How many years can he get?” Xiao Liang gave a faint, wry smile.
“With the case being blocked from going deeper, the most serious charge they can pin on him now will likely be embezzlement. Even if the amount is large, I’d guess five or six years at most. And with sentence reductions and medical parole, he might only serve two or three years behind bars.”
“For stealing that much from the village, just two or three years?” Gu Ling said in disbelief.
She had always thought such crimes would warrant at least fifteen or sixteen years—if not life imprisonment.
Xiao Liang merely sighed.
“Instead of worrying about how long he’ll serve, it’s better to focus on how much of the stolen assets can be recovered.”
“Right now, asset recovery is being handled entirely by the Economic Investigation Unit and the Township Enterprise Bureau,” Gu Peijun said with a frown. “I’m not optimistic.”
Though village-run enterprises were nominally under the village committees, both the county’s Township Enterprise Bureau and the township government had oversight and auditing authority.
Now that the bureau was coordinating directly with the investigators, even Yunshe Township had little say—let alone Nanting Village.
“We’ll take back whatever we can,” Xiao Liang said quietly, gazing out at the shimmering river beyond the window.
“Things rarely turn out exactly the way we want.”
