Call out the boss?

For someone like Miss Xia, arguing with a group of villagers would be beneath her dignity – even Ge Jian felt it was unworthy of her.

Luo Yaozong peeked out from within the crowd. When Ge Jian’s eyes swept over him, Luo Yaozong quickly pulled his head back, remembering Ge Jian’s methods.

These people were truly living in a fantasy.

Where they dumped their garbage had nothing to do with Qihang Real Estate. If Ganquan Village couldn’t find a place, they should report it to the Futian Street Office. There was no way they could pin this on Qihang Real Estate, who had legally purchased the land.

“Our boss isn’t here. You must be Village Chief Luo from Ganquan Village. The government approved this land for our company. If Village Chief Luo is dissatisfied, you’re welcome to report to the city government. If they agree, our company will return the land to you.”

This must be a joke – the city government would never agree!

A piece of land worth nearly 3 million yuan, just for Ganquan villagers to dump garbage?

Since when was garbage so valuable?

Ge Jian knew that Ganquan villagers had already sold all their residential plots and private lands. Ganquan Village wasn’t even scheduled for demolition yet. In two months, all villagers would be relocated elsewhere. A large patch of nearby land had been bought by foreign investor Harold Wilson. Once the village was completely moved, would they make a long detour just to dump garbage?

How to plan the new village settlement was a matter for the Futian Street Office and Shangbu District to consider. Coming to Ge Jian couldn’t solve anything – this was pure troublemaking!

For dealing with such unreasonable people, Xia Xiaolan had already given instructions: for those with official backing, invite the Futian Street Office to handle it.

For regular troublemakers, report them to the police station.

Just don’t beat people up at Jinsha Pool… though other places were fair game for some discrete physical persuasion.

Ge Jian’s hands were itching. Seeing him send someone to fetch people from the Futian Street Office, Luo Degui signaled the villagers to block him: “Let’s set aside the land issue for now – who knows what underhanded methods your company used to get it. You’re eating the meat, shouldn’t you at least leave some soup for the villagers? How about this – never mind about the garbage disposal, but you’ll need workers to build houses, right? Who hasn’t built a pigsty or laid some walls before? Our villagers all know how to do that kind of work, why not hire our people?”

Now Ge Jian’s hands were itching.

In this Village Chief Luo had such thick skin. Like father, like son – no wonder he raised such a cowardly son.

Wang Houlin limped in front of Ge Jian: “Fellow villager, our company has technical requirements for construction. Workers must be able to read blueprints. If anyone in your village can read construction blueprints, we’ll hire them. Otherwise, please leave!”

Reading construction blueprints? How could Ganquan villagers understand blueprints?

The village couldn’t even produce two high school graduates, let alone anyone who studied architecture.

Wang Houlin laughed coldly inside. Just because they could build a pigsty, they dared to ask for construction work. Guangdong Construction’s regular construction teams were all experienced builders. These troublemakers had no chance.

They might qualify for carrying bricks and sand, but even then, who would hire workers with such an aggressive attitude?

Ge Jian was even more confrontational:

“Village Chief Luo, we bought this land with our money. Whether we want to share any benefits depends on our boss’s mood. You think I’d be scared just because you brought villagers to make trouble? If you dare to cause trouble here today, you might try to block foreign investors tomorrow. The leaders above won’t tolerate such behavior!”

Luo Degui felt somewhat guilty – neither young Ge Jian nor the limping Wang Houlin were easy to deal with.

Why wasn’t this going according to the old man’s plan?

Luo Degui was starting to regret his actions when he saw Old Man Luo slowly approaching with his walking stick:

“Degui, you go back first. You’re a village official, it doesn’t look good.”

It was different for him – he had been a former village chief with influence, but now held no official position. The higher-ups couldn’t control him.

Wang Houlin felt like spitting blood. This was exactly what he’d feared – sickly elderly people were the hardest to deal with.

Luo Degui retreated backstage, replaced by Old Man Luo.

Mao Kangshan had grown impatient: “What do you want? You’re not younger than me, yet you have such thick skin!”

Old Man Luo’s cheeks trembled as he pointed his walking stick at Mao Kangshan: “You took away the Luo family’s feng shui treasure land, shouldn’t there be compensation?”

Mao Kangshan spat: “The government will arrange land acquisition compensation. Do you want double compensation? How dare you!”

When you’re old, your skin gets loose – what does face matter anymore as long as you can get real benefits? Old Man Luo searched the crowd with his cloudy eyes but didn’t see any striking beautiful young woman.

The boss’s surname was Xia – Luo Degui had already gathered this information.

The young woman who went to the Futian Street Office about buying the land was also called “Miss Xia” by others.

The old man was irritated that the key person wasn’t present.

Luo Yaozong timidly supported Old Man Luo, who suddenly rolled his eyes and collapsed to the ground.

Luo Yaozong shouted:

“You’ve angered my grandfather to death!”

“Old Village Chief!”

“Great-grandfather Luo, wake up…”

Old Man Luo lay on the ground, eyes tightly shut, legs twitching. Wang Houlin felt a headache coming on – it was exactly as he’d expected, such disgusting tactics.

Mao Kangshan had seen plenty of this before.

“Ge Jian, have everyone step back to let some air through. He’ll wake up soon enough. If he doesn’t wake up, we’ll send him to the hospital. With so many witnesses, we didn’t push him. If anyone could get away with such shameless behavior in front of me, I wouldn’t have lived to this age!”

While Luo Yaozong kept shouting about killing someone with anger, Ge Jian and the others remained unmoved.

After a half-hour standoff, people from the Futian Street Office got wind of the situation and rushed to handle it.

Seeing Old Man Luo lying motionless on the ground, the Street Office officials were about to lose their minds.

Shenzhen did have some village tyrants who could find ways to profit from construction sites, like transporting construction waste.

But no project would hand over construction to village tyrants. The tyrants and hooligans knew their limits and wouldn’t touch anything requiring technical expertise that could easily go wrong.

If something went wrong with the construction, no one would escape responsibility.

Ganquan Village clearly didn’t understand its limits. The Street Office cadre was furious: “Luo Yaozong, why haven’t you taken your grandfather to the hospital yet? Under such strong sun, aren’t you afraid your fake act might become real? If anything happens to the old man, you’re trying to pin it on others, right? And all you others joining in the commotion – you haven’t even received your land compensation yet, and you’re all causing trouble. Don’t you want the money anymore?”

These villagers had no grudge against Qihang Real Estate.

They were all stirred up by Luo Degui, hoping to get some benefits.

After all, whether it was feng shui treasure land or not, it didn’t originally belong to them – it was the village chief’s private land.

Old Man Luo pinched his grandson’s hand. Luo Yaozong shouted even louder:

“No! They made my grandfather sick, they must take responsibility!”

Old Man Luo pinched him harder. Fool, he couldn’t even extort properly – what use was it confronting these people who couldn’t make decisions? They needed to see that Xia woman!

Ge Jian squatted down and poked Old Man Luo with one finger. The old man’s snot and saliva flowed freely from the pain, and his eyes opened.

Ge Jian stood up, dusting off his hands:

“Looks like we don’t need the hospital. Old Man Luo just had heatstroke.”