Chapter 88: Nobody Gets to Bully Anybody
“There’s no such thing as bullying people this badly!”
Zhang Wei had just accompanied Zhang Feili out of the cultural center building and to the entrance of the police station when Zhang Qiang came over from the direction of the town government compound. His face was livid, and his voice trembled with rage as he spoke. Ignoring his wife’s attempts to stop him, he stepped forward, seized Zhang Feili by the arm, and said fiercely,
“We’re going home. Yunshe isn’t Zhou territory. If the Zhou family is so capable, they can get Zhou Bin out of the station themselves—but we’re not signing any letter of forgiveness!”
Zhang Qiang had lost a son in his early years. He and his wife had Zhang Feili only when he was well into his thirties. He might not have spoiled her outrageously, but how could he swallow watching his daughter be humiliated like this?
Zhou Jianqi had called the couple into his office earlier, yet not once had he tried to smooth things over or apologize for his son. Between the lines, he kept implying that Zhang Feili had another man outside, and that was why Zhou Bin had lost control.
Zhang Qiang had spent his entire life teaching. He was scholarly to the bone. How could he tolerate that?
He glanced at his nephew Zhang Wei. Still furious, his tone came out stiff and hard. “Zhang Wei, stay out of this. Go back. What happened today has nothing to do with you.”
“Uncle, don’t say that,” Zhang Wei said with a bitter smile. “If Feili and Zhou Bin were divorcing peacefully, I could pretend not to know. But that bastard has gone this far. How can I still stand on their side? I came out of the cultural center a little late today and didn’t slap that dog myself, but I’m not afraid of trouble. Uncle, don’t say things like that and slap me in the face. At worst, I’ll shut down the arcade. It’s not like I have to scrape a living out of this little backwater town.”
“Leaving would be good,” Zhang Qiang said. “Feili, resign from the factory tomorrow too. Don’t stay in Yunshe. Just leave.”
At that moment, all Zhang Qiang could think of was getting his daughter away from Yunshe. Whether the divorce could go through or not no longer mattered. He was afraid that if Zhou Bin lost his mind again, he would hurt her further.
“It seems the juice factory won’t accept Feili’s resignation…” Zhang Wei still had no idea what was going on. Seeing Zhang Feili remain silent, he spoke for her.
“They won’t accept her resignation?” Zhang Qiang frowned in confusion.
Although Gu Peijun had once been his student, Zhang Qiang had taught too many students in his life. Even though Gu Peijun was also from Nanting Village, they were not especially close.
But he did know that Gu Peijun’s father, Gu Xiong, was a slippery old fox. He would never let his son fall easily into something that might provoke Zhou Jianqi—or even turn him into a sworn enemy.
Before Zhang Qiang could ask what was going on, Gu Peijun came hurrying out of the cultural center building and strode over to Zhang Feili.
“Chief Yuan just called Xiao Liang. He said He Hong’s injury report came back fine. It’s only a minor injury. The station has decided to apply for administrative detention for Zhou Bin and the others. You can go home and rest tonight without worrying. Nothing will happen. Everyone in the company is behind you. I’ve already called Director Wu. We’ll discuss everything tomorrow.”
Then Gu Peijun clasped Zhang Qiang’s thin hand.
“Principal Zhang, don’t worry. Zhang Feili is one of us at the juice factory. We will never sit by and watch her be bullied. I, my sister, Xu Lihuan, Wu Qiyan, Fei Wenwei, and so many workers at the factory—we were all your students. We’ve always treated Zhang Feili like our junior schoolmate. Refusing to accept her resignation was our collective decision.”
Zhang Wei thought, Wasn’t it clearly Xiao Liang who made that call on his own just now? How did it become Gu Peijun, Xu Lihuan, Wu Qiyan, Fei Wenwei, and everyone else’s collective decision in the blink of an eye?
Still, he knew that Gu Peijun standing up in public and saying this in front of all the onlookers would definitely help Feili’s situation.
Zhang Qiang was so moved that he gripped Gu Peijun’s hand and didn’t know what to say.
“Zhang Wei, we’re heading into the city soon. Come with us,” Gu Peijun said.
“Me?” Zhang Wei pointed at his own nose in surprise, almost wondering if he had misheard.
“When Xiao Liang first moved into the cultural center for work, he didn’t know you were Zhang Feili’s cousin. He was a little rude to you, and he feels bad about it,” Gu Peijun said.
Watching Zhang Qiang, his wife, and Zhang Feili push their bicycles toward the school, Zhang Wei followed Gu Peijun up to the fourth floor of Suyun Biotechnology, still completely bewildered.
Xu Lihuan and He Xueqing were showing Xu Jianqiang around the company. When Gu Peijun and Zhang Wei went upstairs, they saw Xiao Liang in his office, packing things while speaking to Yuan Wenhai on speakerphone.
“You really won’t come drink with us? President Xu is hosting tonight, so the liquor will definitely be top shelf. I’m not easy to invite, you know. If the liquor is bad, I don’t drink.”
“If I go drinking too, who’s going to clean up this mess? Do you think sending that little bastard Zhou Bin to detention for half a month is easy? Zhao Zhishan just called me. I’m not under light pressure holding him off. He’s the deputy bureau chief, and he did help promote me once. I can’t just clash with him head-on. I had to lay out the facts and reason with him. My mouth is exhausted. And don’t think blocking Zhao Zhishan means this is over. If the Zhou family’s tigress really storms into the county bureau, I’ll have to go there myself and make a scene, or the detention order probably won’t be approved.”
“Fine, I get it. I’ll definitely steal some liquor from President Xu tonight and save it for you.”
Listening to Xiao Liang’s call with Yuan Wenhai, chills ran down Zhang Wei’s spine.
First, he had not expected Xiao Liang and Yuan Wenhai’s relationship to be this solid. Second, he hadn’t realized that detaining Zhou Bin would involve such resistance and pressure. It wasn’t as simple as withstanding Zhou Jianqi’s pressure in Yunshe.
Once Xiao Xiao arrived from the juice factory, Xiao Liang hung up the phone and brought Gu Peijun and Zhang Wei to the meeting room, where Xu Jianqiang was still touring the company. They split into two cars and headed into the city.
On the way back, Xiao Liang rode in Xu Jianqiang’s car. During the drive, Xu Jianqiang gave him a detailed introduction to the development and construction of the building, as well as its later tenant recruitment and property sales.
It was only four o’clock when they reached the city. They first stood by the road south of the building so they could take in the full view.
In 1994, when the entire Dongzhou urban area had only three or five buildings over fifty meters tall, Xinhuatong Tower—with its twin-tower structure and eighteen floors at its highest point—was truly magnificent.
To be fair, Xu Jianqiang was highly capable. He had also brought several quasi-professional managers of decent caliber from the provincial capital to Dongzhou to help him build his team.
With the Le family’s local connections in Dongzhou, Xinhuatong Tower’s development, construction, and tenant recruitment had all gone quite smoothly. The only issue was that in the 1990s, selling off commercial building units required a long digestion period.
This sort of commercial building—with a podium devoted mainly to retail and towers used for offices and hotel rooms—had already accumulated more than ten years of experience in China’s first- and second-tier cities. There wasn’t much Xiao Liang needed to comment on.
Of course, Xiao Liang could also see that what worried Xu Jianqiang now was not the building’s sales or funding pressure.
What troubled him was Fanhua Construction’s future direction.
If financial institutions had not tightened credit to the real estate sector, then with Xu Jianqiang’s background, he could have greatly expanded his borrowing scale and replicated multiple commercial building projects in core districts across various cities and counties. That would have been a viable model for rapidly expanding Fanhua Construction.
But now, financial institutions had comprehensively tightened real estate lending. Off-plan property sales—so-called “floor futures”—had also been halted in many places.
The country had only just begun pilot programs for individual housing credit loans, and there was not yet any scale worth celebrating.
At present, most of Fanhua Construction’s assets were piled into Xinhuatong Tower, and much of that represented debt owed to banks and other financial institutions. If credit remained tight, they would have to repay large amounts of principal within the next year or two. No matter how powerful his backing was, the pressure would not be small.
After the collapse of Hainan’s property bubble, wreckage lay everywhere. Many people had lost everything, down to their underwear. Some had backgrounds even stronger than Xu Jianqiang’s, yet in the face of that tide, they were still powerless.
Xu Jianqiang probably only had three to five million yuan in liquid capital available. For Fanhua Construction to resolve the pressure it might soon face while also determining its future direction in the real estate industry was far from easy.
Still, Xiao Liang did not rush to discuss that issue. Instead, under Xu Jianqiang’s guidance, he brought Gu Peijun, Zhang Wei, and his older brother Xiao Xiao to tour Xu Jianqiang’s exclusive space on the top floor.
The west end of Xinhuatong’s top floor included not only Xu Jianqiang’s president’s office and private conference room, but also a reception area for hosting private banquets for important guests.
The reception area came with a luxurious dining room, kitchen, and karaoke room.
It was basically a small private club.
When Xu Jianqiang hosted especially important guests on Xinhuatong’s top floor, he could invite chefs from partner hotels to cook on-site with fresh ingredients. This ensured privacy while also preserving the taste and quality of the dishes.
Although many state-owned enterprise canteens now had private rooms for leaders, their style could not compare to this place.
Gu Peijun, Zhang Wei, and Xiao Xiao were genuinely awed by Xu Jianqiang’s understated extravagance.
Aside from his older brother Xiao Xiao, among the handful of people Xiao Liang truly wanted to cultivate after returning to 1994, Gu Peijun was definitely one of them.
That was true even though Gu Peijun’s current ability and experience were not as strong as Xu Lihuan’s or He Xueqing’s, nor as strong as newly recruited people such as Ji Hongqun, Shen Zheng, and Tan Xing.
Since Xiao Liang had decided to build a relationship with Xu Jianqiang, he naturally wanted to bring Gu Peijun into the core circle at the first opportunity. Yuan Wenhai simply could not get away today, and in any case, Yuan had already met Xu Jianqiang and had tea with him before.
As for deliberately bringing Zhang Wei along, that was not only because of their connection in Xiao Liang’s previous life. Xiao Liang had other intentions as well.
Leaving aside Zhang Feili’s simple, kind nature and the fact that she had dared defend him in front of Xiao Yujun, just thinking of her tragic end in his previous life made it impossible for Xiao Liang to stand by.
After everything that had happened in the previous life, Zhou Bin had still groveled under Xiao Yujun. At his core, he was someone who bullied the weak and feared the strong.
Xiao Liang knew that if he stayed out of this today, nothing would happen to him. But it would only provoke Zhou Bin into becoming even more vicious toward the unprotected Zhang Feili. Her life might still be completely ruined by him.
Now that Xiao Liang had intervened, and had discussed with Yuan Wenhai how to grit their teeth and keep Zhou Bin from escaping the punishment he deserved, the goal was to make Zhou Bin understand that his parents’ influence and connections in Shishan were far from enough to let him cover the sky with one hand. Only then would some of that arrogant brutality drain from him.
Of course, Zhou Bin might still try something in the shadows. Xiao Liang didn’t have the time or energy to keep a dedicated eye on the bastard. Zhang Wei, who had made his choice today, could play that role well.
By bringing Zhang Wei here, Xiao Liang wanted him to understand that there was no need to fear someone like Zhou Bin.
If it came to power and influence, a single little finger from Xu Jianqiang would be enough to make people like Zhou Jianqi and Liang Aizhen bow their heads.
Of course, if Xiao Liang wanted Xu Jianqiang’s help when necessary—and wanted Xu Jianqiang not to mind his family’s somewhat complicated past—then he first had to return value for value and show what he was worth.
