"By the way, Li Bing, does their shop really sell Golden Dragon Fish?"
After listening to Li Bing's words, Zhuang Rui asked a question.
"Nonsense about gold and silver dragons. They're not purebred. That shop used to sell pet cats and dogs, but customers on this street all recognize Brother Da Chuan, so that's why he switched to selling goldfish. Brother Zhuang... it's most likely that he's the one causing trouble."
Li Bing replied indignantly.
"Alright, Li Bing, you and I are going to the police station to ask. Da Xiong is minding the shop here. Call Da Chuan on his cell phone; it should be around noon by now, he should be here too. Don't worry about the monkey. A fully grown golden dragon worth tens of thousands of yuan is over a meter long. Even if the monkey stole it, there's nowhere to put it. It'll be easy to clear things up."
Zhuang Rui thought for a moment and decided to go to the police station first. If that didn't work, he could call Uncle Liu and ask him to release the person. Even if what Li Bing said was true, Zhuang Rui didn't take it to heart. With Liu Chuan's abilities, it would be too easy for him to squeeze a few people out of the market. It wasn't his place to cause trouble for that person.
Because the antique market was not very safe when it was first established, a police station was set up next to it. Over the years, the area under its jurisdiction has expanded from the antique and flower market to the surrounding areas. There are about 25 or 26 community security patrol members, but not many regular police officers, only 10. Coincidentally, the station chief and deputy chief are both at the bureau meeting today, and a few people are out on field duty. Apart from the household registration police who are not in charge, it is basically a group of community security patrol members staying at the station.
"Brother Zhuang, that's how they are. I guess the boss isn't here, and a bunch of them are hiding somewhere slacking off."
As Zhuang Rui entered the police station, he couldn't help but feel puzzled. "There's no one guarding the gate. If two thugs came in and tried to steal my gun, they'd be able to grab it in one go!" Xiao Li, who was beside him, seemed to understand and explained to Zhuang Rui.
"Stop! Hey...hey, I'm talking to you. Can't you understand human language? Why are you still going in?"
Just as Zhuang Rui was about to enter the police station, someone called out to him. Zhuang Rui frowned slightly and turned around.
"Oh, it's Xiao Li! You guys usually only come here when you need something, what brings you here today?"
When the man saw Li Bing, he smiled, but his words were sarcastic and full of sarcasm.
"Um?"
Zhuang Rui looked at Li Bing. Since they knew each other, why was he speaking like that?
“Brother Zhuang, Brother Da Chuan has strong connections and usually ignores these people. They don’t even give them any special treatment during holidays. So they don’t respect us much. But if Brother Da Chuan comes, they won’t dare to act like this.”
Li Bing whispered to Zhuang Rui that he was only familiar with these people and had never really interacted with them.
"Who are you? Are you in charge of this police station?"
Zhuang Rui was annoyed by the man in front of him. The man was quite tall, easily 1.8 meters, with a wide-brimmed hat askew on his head, wearing a police auxiliary uniform, and a belt loosely hanging around his waist. There was a rubber baton behind him, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and a pair of triangular eyes that always looked at people sideways when he spoke. Zhuang Rui naturally wasn't going to be polite to him.
"Who are you? What right do you have to ask me? Do you think you can just barge into a police station? Believe me or not, I'll arrest you all. Damn, you even dare to keep dogs. Brothers, come out and beat the dogs."
Zhuang Rui laughed at the triangular-eyed man's words. How novel! If the police station won't let people in, who can the person who filed the report go to?
At the man's shout, five or six people rushed out of a nearby room. Two of them had notes stuck to their faces, presumably because they had lost at cards.
"Beating a dog? You can't even afford to pay for a single hair on my dog. Stop talking nonsense. The one you brought this morning, oh right, Li Bing, what's Monkey's real name?"
Zhuang Rui was too lazy to waste words with such a person, but he really didn't know the monkey's name, so he turned to Li Bing and asked.
"His name is Hou Yong, Brother Zhuang, be careful..."
Li Bing was speaking when he suddenly saw the man from before, who, taking advantage of Zhuang Rui turning his head, punched Zhuang Rui in the head.
"Ouch, damn it, beat this dog to death."
Before the man's fist could even reach Zhuang Rui, he suddenly felt a piercing pain in his calf. Looking down, he saw that the little guy he had initially thought was his pet dog was biting him hard.
"White Lion, come back..."
Seeing four or five people with electric batons surrounding the little white lion, Zhuang Rui quickly shouted. The little guy was also very clever; it twisted its head and didn't let go, tearing a piece of flesh from one of the men's calves. It ran back to Zhuang Rui's side, its snow-white fur now stained red with blood.
"Kill it! Kill that mad dog! Damn it, it hurts like hell! You idiots, attack!"
The man was jumping up and down and shouting, but he himself didn't dare to go forward.
Seeing the group of people surrounding him, Zhuang Rui felt a surge of anger. However, if he didn't fight back, he would definitely suffer a loss. With that thought, Zhuang Rui rushed in front of the man, snatched the man's electric baton, and without pausing, raised the rubber baton high and smashed it hard against the man's forehead.
"Bang……"
With a muffled thud, the man fell to the ground, and the world became quiet again. The other members of the joint defense team were stunned when they found that Zhuang Rui dared to make a move in the police station. They stared blankly at their colleague whose calf was still bleeding.
"Anyone who dares to come up here, damn it, believe me or not, I can rip your skin off right now."
Zhuang Rui pointed a rubber baton at the crowd with one hand and took out his phone with the other, making a call. Zhuang Rui was very careful with his strength. Although the blow just now looked fierce, it was actually just a hit to the forehead and would not cause any serious harm. At most, it would cause a mild concussion. He had fought with Liu Chuan many times since he was a child, so he knew what he was doing.
When Zhuang Rui got angry, his originally ordinary face became somewhat ferocious. In addition, he had recently killed wolves on the grassland, so he naturally carried an invisible fierce aura, which made the group of people who were originally eager to attack stop in their tracks and become somewhat at a loss.
Seeing that things were about to escalate, some of the members of the joint defense team quickly ran into the police duty room on the second floor of the police station. The others surrounded Zhuang Rui and Li Bing, but dared not make any more moves.
"Damn, they always mess things up when it matters most. These two are just the same..."
Zhuang Rui was surprised to find that no one answered the phone when he called Liu Chuan's father. Helpless, he could only call Song Jun and tell him about it. Song Jun actually laughed on the other end of the phone.
"Zhuang Rui, when did you become like Liu Chuan, resorting to violence at the drop of a hat? Killing wolves on the grasslands is one thing, but now you're even fighting with people. Fine, just stick to your guns and say that the other person started it. Just wait there, I'll handle it."
After teasing Zhuang Rui a few times, Song Jun hung up the phone. He didn't even consider that if Zhuang Rui didn't have that wild streak, would he be able to associate with someone like Liu Chuan?
"Officer Wu Ming, it was that person, the one with the dog, who assaulted the police."
"What are you doing? Don't you know where this is? Help him up. You, and you, come in with me."
Just as Zhuang Rui hung up the phone, a man in a police uniform came out of the building, followed by the auxiliary police officer who had just run into the building. The policeman, who looked to be in his thirties, shouted from a distance.
Upon hearing this, the people surrounding Zhuang Rui dispersed and helped the man who had been knocked to the ground to a chair. These people were also prone to getting into fights every few days, and they knew that he had only fainted temporarily and would be fine once he caught his breath, so no one called 120.
"Let's settle things right here. I'm not a criminal, and you have no right to interrogate me."
Zhuang Rui frowned when he saw the sign for an interrogation room hanging on the door the man was pointing to, and said unhappily.
Chapter 109 Harming Others Without Benefiting Oneself
The policeman was stunned when he heard Zhuang Rui's words. Ordinary people are usually intimidated when they see the police, but this man had assaulted someone in the police station and was acting all high and mighty as if nothing had happened. He didn't seem like an ordinary person.
"I'm not here to interrogate you. You just assaulted a police officer, and I need to take your statement now."
Since he couldn't figure out the situation, Officer Wu softened his tone a bit. Most importantly, he glanced at the dog lying at Zhuang Rui's feet. Although he didn't recognize it as a Tibetan Mastiff, the noble air about the white lion made Officer Wu realize that this dog was not something an ordinary person could afford to handle.
"Assaulting a police officer? Who's the police officer? Which eye of yours saw me hit a police officer? Is he the one? Show me his police ID. Wait, I need to take this call..."
Seeing that the policeman was biased, Zhuang Rui became more impolite in his speech, which angered Officer Wu so much that he was about to have Zhuang Rui arrested when Zhuang Rui's phone rang.
"Hey, Uncle Liu. Why are you calling? Da Chuan told you. Oh, that kid's showing up again. I'm at the market police station. A few of the joint defense team members were about to beat me up, and now an officer has come out to interrogate me. Uncle Liu, you police are really something else."
Zhuang Rui initially thought it was Song Jun calling, but when he answered, it turned out to be Liu Chuan's father calling. He couldn't help but complain a few times. Actually, it wasn't entirely the officer's fault. Any policeman would have been rude to Zhuang Rui if he saw his man being beaten to the ground.
"You little brat, are you asking for trouble? Daring to talk bad about the police. You wait, I just finished a meeting, I'm not far from you, I'll be there soon."
Liu's father's voice was loud enough that even Officer Wu, who was standing nearby, heard it. His expression changed, and he pulled over one of the joint defense team members to ask him the reason.
Zhuang Rui and Liu Chuan had been in many fights since they were young, and Liu's father always stood up for them. So even though the fight happened at the police station this time, Zhuang Rui wasn't too worried. He just regretted not calling Song Jun, thinking he would owe him a favor for nothing. Just as he was thinking about whether to call Song Jun again, he saw a police car rushing in through the gate.
Three men got out of the Mitsubishi police car; the one in the lead was Liu Chuan's father.
Liu Chuan's father was very tall, and his police uniform fit him tightly. Although he was almost sixty years old, he walked with a powerful stride. In the police system, he had a nickname: "Liu the Cannon." "You little brat, you've grown some guts, haven't you? You came to the police station after a fight. Tell me what happened in front of these two."
Liu Dapao strode over, slapped Zhuang Rui on the back of the head, and then asked what had happened. As soon as the two policemen behind him approached, several people nearby immediately called out to Chief Wang. Zhuang Rui then realized that Liu's father had come with the police station.
Zhuang Rui was in the right today, so he wasn't afraid. He immediately recounted how the monkey had been taken away by the police station, how he had come to inquire about the case, and how he had been verbally abused and beaten by that unscrupulous auxiliary police officer, leaving him no choice but to fight back. The people next to him wanted to interject and refute him, but they couldn't find the words to say, as the facts were indeed true.
"Damn it, you're dressed like this so you can bully ordinary people? Good for you."
Upon hearing what had happened, Liu's father was furious. Seeing that the man who was half-lying on the chair had woken up and was calmly drinking water, he went up and kicked him, hitting the man's calf where he had been bitten. The man's eyes rolled back in pain, and he fainted again.
Zhuang Rui found Liu's father's actions very satisfying, but the station chief next to him couldn't stand it. They were all in the same system. Although he was the bureau chief, he wasn't in charge of this branch of the police station. Beating someone in his station was going too far. He had also heard what had happened and realized that his people were in the wrong. But doing it in front of so many people made him look bad.
"Director Liu, let's find out the truth before we speak. If our people are in the wrong, we will deal with it seriously. But it's inappropriate for you to hit someone..."
Director Wang has some sense of responsibility, but this is partly due to the fact that Liu's father can't control him. In addition, he has some connections in the bureau and doesn't really respect Liu's father, who is about to retire.
"It's not suitable. What do you mean by suitable? The auxiliary defense team you recruited is of this quality. It's a disgrace to our police system. I also think your work is problematic."
Mr. Liu didn't like hearing this, so he immediately glared at the director and lectured him as well.
"Director Liu, this is not your branch office. I need to interrogate this suspect now. Would you like to come in and have some tea first?"
Director Wang's words were clearly meant to disrespect Mr. Liu, which angered Mr. Liu so much that he was about to speak when Director Wang's cell phone rang.
"Hello, it's me. Yes, yes! Yes! I will definitely handle this seriously. Please rest assured, leader."
Zhuang Rui noticed that before they had even exchanged a few words on the phone, Director Wang's expression turned grim, and despite the chilly March weather, sweat was already beading on his forehead.
"Director Liu, you see, I'm just trying to save face for my subordinates. Please forgive my rudeness and come in with this gentleman for a cup of tea. Once I understand the situation, I will definitely give him a satisfactory answer. What do you think?"
After hanging up the phone, the station chief's attitude immediately softened. He pleaded with Liu's father, saying that Liu Chuan and his father were of the same nature—they responded better to gentle persuasion than force. Besides, they were from the same system, and he didn't want to embarrass the other party too much. Liu's father called out to Zhuang Rui, and the group went into the police station's meeting room.
Less than 20 minutes later, Director Wang came in. The matter had been investigated and clarified. In fact, it was quite simple, and Li Bing had indeed guessed correctly.
Liu Chuan's reputation in the Pengcheng Antique and Flower Market was well-deserved. He once chased Da Xiong and Monkey down the street with a wrench, which allowed this young man in his early twenties to gain a foothold in the market. Although the people in the market had complicated backgrounds and were older than Liu Chuan, no one dared to mess with this hothead.
However, Liu Chuan always believed in making money through harmony. The storefront he bought wasn't very good; it was located at the back, so there wasn't much foot traffic when he first opened. But Liu Chuan was generous, and he would often give away a lot of pet food when customers bought a pet. These foods would normally cost money, and over time, word of mouth spread, and his business gradually improved.
The market share is only so big. If your business is good, someone else's business will naturally suffer. However, Liu Chuan is a man of wide connections and has many friends. He also has a good relationship with the group of men in the antique market. Over the years, he has never fallen out with his peers. However, some petty people might make veiled attacks, but Liu Chuan has never stooped to their level.
The new pet shop owner that Li Bing mentioned, surnamed Hao, had just turned thirty this year. However, he had never had a proper job and just drifted around on the streets. His sister married a policeman and was transferred to the local police station in the antique market area as deputy director last year. Seeing that her brother-in-law was doing nothing all day, she helped him get a shop in the market so that he could do something worthwhile.
However, this Mr. Hao is really bad at business. He is too petty. Even when a customer asks for a bag of fish food, he will haggle with the customer for a long time. He has been open for half a year and has not only not made a penny, but has also lost seven or eight thousand yuan in rent.
When this potentially profitable business turned into a loss, Boss Hao started looking for the reasons. His service attitude was certainly not the problem. So where was the issue? After analyzing it, Boss Hao focused on Liu Chuan's shop. His reasoning was simple: if all the customers went to Liu Chuan's shop, how could his business be good?
So during the Chinese New Year, Boss Hao set up a few tables in front of his shop, saying it was for promotional purposes, which blocked the way for several shops behind him. However, he didn't expect Liu Chuan to be so fierce and overturn all the tables he had set up. He wanted to teach Liu Chuan a lesson, but when he looked at his own thin arms and legs and then at Liu Chuan's height of over 1.8 meters, he backed down.
However, Mr. Hao was a man with a narrow mind, and this matter had always been a worry for him. He didn't dare to tell his brother-in-law. Although Mr. Hao's business was not very successful, he was very good at eating, drinking and having fun. In the six months since he opened his shop, he had developed a good relationship with the security patrol team members of the local police station. A few days ago, when he mentioned this matter while drinking, someone gave him some advice.
These members of the community security patrol team are not regular police officers. They make a living by collecting security management fees. They are very obsequious to the deputy director's brother-in-law. However, they have been here for a long time and know Liu Chuan's background. No one dares to provoke him, but they are very good at coming up with bad ideas to annoy people.
The flower and bird market is only so big. Within two hours, everyone on the street knew that Monkey was working for Liu Chuan. Monkey was used to being a shill. In the morning, he went to the park and befriended a group of old men and women. When he passed by Boss Hao's shop, he naturally took away a few customers. This made Boss Hao furious, but at the same time, he found a way to annoy Liu Chuan.
Not long after the monkey left, Boss Hao called the police station to report it. The officer who answered the call was Officer Wu, whom Boss Hao knew. He didn't mention Liu Chuan's name at the time, but said that a petty thug in the market had stolen one of his fish, worth tens of thousands of yuan. Although Officer Wu didn't quite believe Boss Hao's claim of tens of thousands of yuan, he didn't take it seriously. Besides, he had to give the deputy director some face, so he immediately sent a few members of the joint defense team to bring the monkey back.
When Da Xiong went to the police station to inquire, he was also sent away by those few members of the joint defense team. Boss Hao deliberately made Liu Chuan go to the police station to bail him out, so that everyone in the flower and bird market would know that the people Liu Chuan used were dishonest. This is a typical case of harming others without benefiting oneself.
Chapter 110 Untitled
After Director Wang understood what had happened, he was filled with deep regret.
Originally, it was none of his business, but because he stood up for himself, he not only got a reprimand from his superior, but also offended Director Liu for no reason. You know, although Director Liu will be retiring in two years, he has many connections in the public security system. It is unlikely that he will be promoted, but he can easily ruin his chances of advancement by making some snide remarks.
Director Wang had been working at the station for several years. Although he and Liu Chuan didn't interact much, their relationship was still quite good. As a result, none of the security patrol team members in the station had ever bothered Liu Chuan. Little did they expect that this provocation would lead to such a huge problem.
The call Wang had just received was from the head of their district branch bureau, who reprimanded him without saying a word. After inviting Director Liu and Zhuang Rui into the room, Wang hurriedly called an acquaintance at the municipal bureau and heard some astonishing news: the municipal bureau chief had actually given instructions over the phone, and had instructed the branch bureau chief to severely punish those responsible.
This really shocked Wang. He knew that this couldn't have been done by Liu Chuan's father, because they had been together the whole time and he hadn't seen Liu Chuan make the call. So there was only one possibility: that ordinary-looking young man had found a connection. A connection that could get the head of the city bureau to speak up for him personally would probably be a piece of cake for him to lose his position as the director.