Chapter 31: The Simple and Honest Village of Ta

"Move!" Wang Dalong waved his hand dismissively. "Forget about the walls or whatever; let's get inside and handle our business."

More than a hundred men marched in a grand procession toward the entrance of Tazhai Village. Once they stepped inside, however, everyone froze in their tracks.

Before them lay wide, smooth concrete roads stretching in every direction throughout the village. But what truly stunned them was the environment.

It was incredibly, inexplicably beautiful. Trees of unknown species were neatly lined along the concrete paths, and the spaces between them were filled with colorful flowers and lush greenery. High above, birds circled, lured by the fragrant blossoms.

Manager Wang: "…?"
Wang Dalong: "…?"
The others: "…?"

For a moment, they felt a sense of vertigo. Had they come to the wrong place? This environment was… absurdly nice!

"These… these… this is all our money!" Manager Wang’s body trembled as the realization hit him.

The money they had lent to this village—had it all been spent on paving roads and building walls? And these projects weren't things that could be finished overnight; they must have started construction over a month ago.

The entire village of Tazhai… never intended to pay them back from the very beginning!

"Good! Very good!" Manager Wang gritted his teeth, the veins on his forehead bulging. He felt a burning urge to find a villager and beat him to a pulp just to vent his rage.

***

Just inside the entrance of Tazhai, a newly built park sat on the left. Several elderly men were lounging there, chatting and playing chess to pass the time.

"Old man, look at that crowd entering our village. What are they here for?" An elderly woman noticed Wang Dalong’s group and tugged on the sleeve of the man playing chess beside her.

The old man barely looked up, his tone dismissive. "A bunch of street punks. Back in my day, I could’ve taken on ten of them at once."

"How are we supposed to find our targets?" Wang Dalong asked.

Manager Wang replied, "Everyone in this village between eighteen and fifty is our target."

Wang Dalong and his lackeys: "…?"

Manager Wang looked toward the nearby park, walked over, and approached an old man. "Hey old man, where is your village committee office?"

The man he addressed didn't even lift his eyelids, acting as if he hadn't heard a word.

"Oh?" Wang Dalong let out a sharp sound and shot a look at one of his lackeys. The subordinate understood immediately and stepped forward, exposing the "Dragon Crossing the River" tattoo on his left shoulder, hoping to intimidate the man.

The old man at Tazhai finally lifted his eyelids. He took one look at the tattoo, his pupils constricted, and the entire aura of his person shifted. He tossed his book aside, grabbed his own collar, and ripped his short-sleeved shirt open. Revealed on his chest was a "Guan Yu with Open Eyes," a "Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin" on his right, and a "Hundred Ghosts Night Parade" across his back.

"What the hell?!"

In an instant, Wang Dalong and his men, who had been so arrogant just a moment ago, were struck dumb with shock.

"The gangsters are here to collect debts. Call everyone; let's go meet them!"

In the monitoring room of the Tazhai Village Committee, Lin Wendong watched the group via the village entrance cameras and immediately deduced who they were.

***

"Old man, let it go, let it go~" At the park entrance, the elderly man’s wife called out to him.

"Gangsters? I don’t know how many of their kind I beat up back in the day," the old man scoffed, his expression one of pure disdain.

Wang Dalong and his lackeys didn't dare say a word. From the tattoos on the old man’s body, they realized one thing: this guy was definitely no simple figure in his youth.

In Dongshan, there used to be strict rules. You couldn't just get any tattoo you wanted; you had to have the status to match it. If a low-level thug had dared to wear a "Guan Yu with Open Eyes" or a "Hundred Ghosts Night Parade" back then, he would have been beaten to a pulp by the next morning.

"This… this old man, was he a gangster in his youth too?!" Wang Dalong’s men exchanged glances, swallowing hard.

The underworld back then was the *real* underworld. Compared to them, these guys were just a bunch of social drifters.

"When Brother Dong and I were running the underworld in Dongshan, your fathers were still nursing!" The old man let out a cold snort and walked away without looking back.

"This…" Manager Wang felt a creeping sense of unease. *Why does this village feel so different from the rural places I’ve known?*

What was his impression of a village? Simple, kind, honest… But just by stepping into Tazhai, Manager Wang realized this place might be a little different from the rest.

"No!" He shook his head, forcing himself to refocus. *What does one old man with one foot in the grave prove? Does the whole village have to be like him?!*

He hadn't forgotten why he brought his men here: he had to make the villagers who owed them money understand the meaning of fear.

"Boss, there’s a map of the village here." One of Wang Dalong’s men pointed to a display at the entrance. Manager Wang walked over, his eyes lighting up when he spotted the location of the village committee office.

"Let’s go! To the committee office!"

He waved his hand, and the hundred-plus men marched toward the center of the village. Not long after they left the entrance, a few young men from Tazhai—Lin Wenwu, Lin Tianhao, and others—came over and shut the newly built village gate.

Afterward, Lin Wenwu returned to the park and found the old man. "Uncle Hai, did those hundred people intimidate you earlier?"

The old man called Uncle Hai blinked. "Intimidate me? Them? Those little shrimps? If I were twenty years younger, they wouldn't have even made it past our gates!"

Lin Wenwu chuckled, leaned into his ear, and whispered something. The old man’s face turned one of pure shock. "This… this… who came up with such… such a 'sly' plan?" He struggled for a long time before settling on the word 'sly'.

"It was the head of the Third House, Lin Wendong—Brother Dong! Uncle Hai, just say it like that when the time comes."

Lin Wenwu shook his head, unable to help but admire his Brother Dong. Logically, they should have been hiding from debt collectors. But instead, Brother Dong wanted to pluck every feather from their wings—no, he wasn't just plucking feathers, he was going to skin them alive!

"Even if it feels a bit like something a villain would do… just thinking about it feels so satisfying!" Lin Wenwu thought to himself.