Chapter 72: Winner Takes All, Loser Pays Up—bring Whatever You’ve Got
Street.
Ever since the Hundred Day Operation began.
Many common people have been like they were injected with chicken blood, their enthusiasm unprecedentedly high; wherever the constables go, they follow.
Therefore, the street outside Loyalty Hall Main Hall was packed with onlookers among the common people. Seeing so many constables taking action, they knew something big was about to happen.
Sure enough, the constables had a clear target and headed straight for Loyalty Hall’s lair.
For ordinary common people, Loyalty Hall was something you absolutely couldn’t afford to offend, or you might very well end up disappeared.
It was an existence that everyone feared.
“They’re coming out, they’re coming out.” The common people up front exclaimed in surprise.
All eyes turned sharply to the doorway.
Lin Fan, dressed in a dark sea-patterned constable uniform, had one hand on the saber hilt at his waist. He strode out tall and straight, majestic and extraordinary. When he reached the doorway, he stood to the side and looked at the crowd of common people surging before him.
“Fellow villagers, Loyalty Hall Gang Leader Chen Mou, Hall Master Ma Jiang and Yanzhao Han, have all been arrested. After the interrogation is over in a few days, a notice will be posted publicizing all their crimes one by one.”
“The Hundred Day Operation benefits the common people, clears away Yong’an’s tumors, and returns Yong’an to a clear and bright world.”
Lin Fan shouted at the top of his voice.
“Good, Master Lin said it well.”
“We common people support Master Lin’s Hundred Day Operation.”
The common people erupted in thunderous cheers and applause.
Among the onlookers were many out-of-town traveling merchants or passersby, who watched dumbfounded.
“Your Yong’an Public Security Bureau really gets things done. We’re so envious.”
“Hey, in the past there wasn’t much to envy, but now it’s different. See that exceptionally handsome and righteous man? He’s our Public Security Bureau’s Deputy Squad Leader. Ever since he took office, he’s stood on the side of us common people, seeking justice for the people.”
“Impressive.”
“Nonsense, of course he’s impressive.”
Although Lin Fan hadn’t been in the Public Security Bureau long, the things he’d done recently had won great popular support, and his prestige in Yong’an was extremely high.
Soon, the constables escorted out Loyalty Hall’s higher-ups.
The first was naturally Gang Leader Chen Qingshan.
At this moment, Chen Qingshan’s face was unspeakably grim. He didn’t shout and yell like he had in the hall, but clenched his fists, held his head high, chest out, eyes forward, like a warrior about to heroically go to his death.
When you’re out in the world, face is something you give yourself.
Next came Ma Jiang and Yanzhao Han, both hanging their heads, feeling utterly humiliated.
As hall masters, to be arrested by the Public Security Bureau.
From now on, wouldn’t they become a joke?
When the main group returned to the Public Security Bureau.
Just as they were about to step through the gate, Chen Qingshan stopped, turned around, raised his hands high, and roared: “I’m innocent, I Chen Qingshan was framed by that Lin fellow.”
Ma Jiang and Yanzhao Han snapped back to their senses and shouted the same.
“Right, I’m innocent.”
“Me too.”
They didn’t care how the common people looked at them; anyway, what needed to be said still had to be said.
Seeing this situation, Lin Fan was amused.
Too lazy to do anything.
“Take them in.”
After entering the Public Security Bureau, Lin Fan had Chen Qingshan and the other two taken to the interrogation room, not sent to prison.
Chen Qingshan and the others were calm and composed, especially Chen Qingshan who was particularly steady. He didn’t believe that Lin fellow had evidence on him. The situation outside was nothing more than getting the common people to expose and report.
But as gang leader, he never had to handle things personally.
Ma Jiang and Yanzhao Han, though, he couldn’t guarantee anything.
In the interrogation room.
Yang Ming and Xu Ming stood like door gods at the doorway, unmoving, while Chen Qingshan and the others were secured in the interrogation chairs, without struggling or roaring.
Creak.
The interrogation room door was pushed open.
The noise drew their attention. When Lin Fan walked in, fury burned uncontrollably in the three men’s eyes, and when Chen Xingzhi appeared dragging his weary body.
Chen Qingshan’s eyelids twitched slightly.
Suddenly, he had a bad feeling.
But it probably wouldn’t be, right?
Lin Fan walked to the interrogation table, sat down leisurely, and Xu Ming immediately brewed tea, then respectfully placed it before Lin Fan.
“Mm.”
Lin Fan gestured for Xu Ming and Yang Ming to come sit down, then said: “Chen Qingshan, since you’ve been brought to the Public Security Bureau by me, that means I already control the evidence. Now I’m giving you a chance: confess your crimes truthfully, and perhaps you can live a bit more comfortably in your limited time.”
Chen Qingshan forcibly suppressed the panic in his heart and snorted coldly.
“Crimes? What crimes could we have? Loyalty Hall has been rooted in Yong’an for many years and has always provided help for Yong’an’s stability. Countless common people rely on us for their meals. Arresting us—you really aren’t afraid the common people will go hungry and tear down your Public Security Bureau?”
Lin Fan picked up the teacup, blew on the steam, and moistened his throat.
“Alright then, since you gentlemen don’t want to talk, I won’t force you.”
Then.
His gaze turned to Chen Xingzhi, who sat like a wooden statue to the side.
“Chen Ban Tou, your turn.”
Chen Xingzhi’s body trembled slightly. He arduously lifted his head, glanced at Chen Qingshan, and let out a heavy sigh.
Chen Qingshan felt a bit panicked inside. “Chen Ban Tou, what are you trying to do?”
Chen Xingzhi ignored them and began recounting the things he had once done for Chen Qingshan and the others.
“Three years ago, the arson at Li’s Cloth Shop in East City, burning four people to death…”
“Last year at the gambling house, gambler Wang Si owed money, so Ma Jiang and others abducted Wang Si’s wife and daughter…”
One case after another came out of Chen Xingzhi’s mouth like cold stories. Lin Fan’s eyelids twitched fiercely with each one he heard.
Yang Ming and Xu Ming rapidly took notes.
“Chen Xingzhi, have you fucking lost your mind?”
“Shut up, shut your fucking mouth.”
“Fuck.”
“Slander, this is all slander.”
Chen Qingshan and the others roared madly, struggling, shaking the interrogation chairs with creaking sounds.
They hadn’t expected Chen Xingzhi to actually reveal everything they’d done one by one. If this wasn’t madness, what was?
……
Prefectural Office.
Li Dian Shi was drinking tea and resting in the courtyard, with the butler standing respectfully before him, softly reporting everything that had just happened at the Public Security Bureau.
He knew Lin Fan was definitely going to arrest Loyalty Hall’s higher-ups.
But he hadn’t expected it to be so fast.
He even knew that Chen Xingzhi, to protect his confidant, had confessed everything about him and Loyalty Hall.
“So foolish…”
Li Dian Shi set down his teacup, shaking his head with a sigh, his face full of regret and bewilderment.
“Master, Chen Xingzhi has truly wasted all your painstaking efforts.” The butler said regretfully.
Li Dian Shi said: “More than wasted—he’s dragging himself down with it. The things he did for Loyalty Hall add up to more than enough for execution. Does he really think Lin Fan is the merciful type?”
“In officialdom, the greatest taboo is getting real emotions involved and showing true loyalty.”
“Chen Xingzhi’s been at it for half his life, and he still hasn’t grasped this simplest principle…?”
Li Dian Shi shook his head. At this point, it wasn’t something he could control even if he wanted to.
The butler said: “Master, didn’t you also get emotional? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have left Chen Xingzhi a way out unscathed.”
Li Dian Shi said nothing.
For an ordinary person, they absolutely wouldn’t dare make things so absolute, but the one stirring things up was Lin Fan, with inhuman strength—simply not human.
Things he could pull off, others couldn’t.
Otherwise, you’d die without knowing how.
Chen Qingshan and the others’ thinking was still stuck on dealing with ordinary people.
But was Lin Fan ordinary?
This was a lawless guy.
As a commoner constable, he dared beat a squad leader; as an official constable, he dared threaten a prefect like him. Once he became prefect, he couldn’t even imagine who he wouldn’t dare provoke.
A document sent from above was placed before him.
Prefect was out of the question now.
They’d sent a parachutist.
Very young, and a woman. Her background must be extraordinary—probably here to gild her resume at the grassroots.
In the interrogation room.
Lin Fan looked at Chen Xingzhi with quite complex eyes.
“Have you confessed everything that should be confessed?”
“Everything.” Chen Xingzhi was utterly drained, his head nearly drooping to his chest. “Lin Ban Tou, I know my crimes are too numerous to record, deserving of a thousand cuts. But since I’ve chosen to speak, I’m prepared to face punishment.”
Lin Fan looked at Xu Ming and the others. “Get their fingerprints on it.”
“Yes.”
Xu Ming and Yang Ming took the three confessions, went to Chen Qingshan and the others, grabbed their hands, and harshly pressed their thumbs into the red ink, then firmly stamped them at the end of the confessions.
No matter how the three resisted, it was useless.
“Chen Xingzhi, fuck your eight generations of ancestors! You’re fucking nothing but a beast.”
Chen Qingshan roared like a madman; his earlier composure was long gone. He truly hadn’t expected Chen Xingzhi to turn on them.
“Are you fucking insane?”
“Did that Lin fellow hold a knife to your neck, or did he want to fuck your wife, forcing you to confess?”
“You took the silver, so why still screw us over?”
“Ah…”
Lin Fan waved his hand. “Take them to prison.”
“Yes.”
Moments later, only Lin Fan and Chen Xingzhi remained in the interrogation room.
Lin Fan stood up, walked behind Chen Xingzhi, and heavily placed his palm on the other’s slightly trembling shoulder, squeezing hard.
“Chen Ban Tou, who are you doing all this for? Is silver really that important?”
“If you wanted silver, you couldn’t do these things. Loyalty Hall, Fierce Tiger Gang, Hu Family, etc.—which of them isn’t loaded? If you’d put your efforts into going after them, the common people would still speak well of you. But you turned your methods on the common people—what am I supposed to do with you?”
Chen Xingzhi lifted his head and smiled bitterly: “Lin Ban Tou, not everyone is like you. You don’t fear them, but I have people below me who do. You’re young, you have strength, you’re rampaging through Yong’an.”
His voice was filled with exhaustion and sorrow.
“But out there? It’s a hundred, a thousand times darker than Yong’an. If you don’t go with the flow, you’ll never stand steady.”
“When I was young and first joined the Public Security Bureau, I was full of zeal too. But when you see your squad leader, for his uprightness, get hacked to death at home, his wife and daughter raped, even his months-old child not spared—you realize some things aren’t yours to choose.”
Fear is human nature.
But those who conquer fear are great.
“When the world has the Way, die for the Way; when the world has no Way, die for the body.”
He spoke slowly.
“Chen Ban Tou, I understand your fear, but you can’t put the consequences of that fear on the common people.”
Chen Ban Tou smiled self-mockingly. “You’re right… maybe I, Chen Xingzhi… have been a coward from start to finish.”
……
Prison.
Wang Hai was locked in a cell, hands and feet chained with iron chains. He sat on a pile of straw, head down, silent.
Suddenly, staggered footsteps and hysterical cursing came.
Getting closer.
“Chen Xingzhi, fuck your mother!!”
“Chen Xingzhi, you coward! Spineless!!”
“Fuck your whole family for eighteen generations!! May you die a horrible death!”
Hearing the cursing, Wang Hai jerked his head up like a enraged beast, lunged to the cell door, and roared:
“Who the fuck are you talking about? Who are you calling a coward? Say it again, try me.”
Chen Qingshan, being shoved along by Xu Ming, stopped, eyes bloodshot, glaring at Wang Hai like a mad dog.
“I’m talking about Chen Xingzhi, that fucker groveled before that Lin bastard like a fawning old dog, confessing everything—what else but a coward?”
“Bullshit, our Ban Tou isn’t a coward.” Veins bulged on Wang Hai’s forehead as he frantically shook the cell door, chains clanking, voice hoarse and cracking. “Say it again and I’ll kill you.”
“He is a coward, a thing worse than pigs and dogs, fuck him.”
The voices faded.
Wang Hai gripped the cell door tightly, fingers white from the force, face full of unwillingness. As if thinking of something, he staggered back several steps and heavily slumped onto the straw pile.
He understood.
The Ban Tou did this to save him.
It must be.
Otherwise, with the Ban Tou’s pride, even if he couldn’t beat that Lin fellow, he wouldn’t act like this.
At this time, after locking up Chen Qingshan and the others, Yang Ming and Xu Ming passed by Wang Hai’s cell.
“Xu Ming.”
Xu Ming stopped and looked at Wang Hai.
Wang Hai cried out in anguish: “Tell Ban Tou, I’m not afraid of that Lin fellow. Killing him is killing him—I don’t regret it. I know what I did, I’m not afraid, not afraid of him. Bring whatever you’ve got— if Wang Hai flinches, he ain’t a man.”
“But Ban Tou… he’s forever the toughest, best Ban Tou in my Wang Hai’s heart.”
“Tell Ban Tou, tell him, I’m not afraid. Next life, I’ll still follow him.”
From deep in the prison came He Sen’s voice: “Well said. Why fear that Lin fellow? Old man He Sen ain’t afraid—fuck his mother.”
Xu Ming angrily rebuked: “All of you shut up.”
He said no more, just gave Wang Hai a complex look, then hurried away with Yang Ming.
……
Interrogation room.
“Chen Ban Tou, let me ask you something: back then, when Song Ban Tou and Yang Ming went to arrest the thief and were surrounded and killed by eight swordsmen—were those men arranged by you?” Lin Fan asked.
“No, if they were, I’d own up.” Chen Xingzhi said.
Not…
Lin Fan frowned slightly. Now that everything that should be interrogated was done—could it have been the Fierce Tiger Gang?
At this moment, Yang Ming and Xu Ming returned.
They didn’t enter, just stood at the door.
“Chen Ban Tou, you know quite a bit about those Fierce Tiger Gang guys, right?” Lin Fan planned to strike while the iron was hot and take down that Fierce Tiger Gang bunch directly.
When doing things, speed is key.
Take down two gangs in one day.
Who else could?
Chen Xingzhi said: “I know some. Handled some matters for them, but not many. As for Sun Xiao, not a single thing—he’s watertight, leaves no clues, just sends silver, no strings attached.”
“But it’s enough to take down those hall masters.”
“Just, I still say the same: whatever happens to Wang Hai, I just want him alive. I never let him touch the dirty business—all that was handled by Zhao Fu.”
Chen Xingzhi knew he couldn’t escape, but his one request now was for Wang Hai to live.
At that moment.
A constable came running in panic.
“B-Ban Tou.”
“What is it?” Lin Fan’s brows furrowed.
“W-Wang… Wang Hai, h-he… he committed suicide in p-prison.”
At these words.
Chen Xingzhi felt like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, as if the world had collapsed.
Prison, cell entrance.
Xu Ming opened the cell door.
Chen Xingzhi staggered into the cell. Looking at Wang Hai lying on the ground without breath, he felt his mind explode—why would this happen? It shouldn’t be like this.
Lin Fan’s face was grim as he looked at Wang Hai, who had wrapped the iron chain around his neck—he had strangled himself alive with the iron chain.
The scene before him unconsciously tightened Lin Fan’s grip.
Fuck!
Tough!
Fucking really tough!
Bloody words remained on the cell wall.
‘Lin fellow, old man ain’t afraid of you.’
‘Ban Tou, don’t fear him.’
Chen Xingzhi looked at the two bloody lines, his heart shattering like struck by a heavy hammer—agony.
In the cell, Chen Qingshan laughed loudly: “Chen Xingzhi you coward, you’re not even as good as your subordinate! I saw with my own eyes how he strangled himself. He didn’t want you seen as a coward, said you’re tough—but tough my ass.”
Lin Fan glanced at Xu Ming and Yang Ming.
The two instantly understood, grabbed the short sticks on hand, entered Chen Qingshan and the others’ cells, and soon wails and screams echoed.
In the prison, hearing the commotion, He Sen still cursed: “Lin Fan, fuck your mother.”
At this time, Chen Xingzhi extended his trembling hand, closed Wang Hai’s eyelids, slowly stood, and walked to Lin Fan.
“Lin Ban Tou, can you send his body home for his family to bury properly?”
“Yes.”
“He followed the wrong person, really followed the wrong one.”
“You traded your way out for his life; he traded his life for your name. Your loyalty to him, his to you—worthy of respect. But when people do wrong, they must own up and accept it.”
Lin Fan knew that now, getting Chen Xingzhi to spill on Fierce Tiger Gang was impossible.
What a pity.
This Wang Hai didn’t bash his head against the wall—probably afraid of the noise—and strangled himself with the chain, silent, but not something ordinary people could do.
Human survival instinct is strong.
This was a ruthless man.
A ruthlessly loyal one.
Chen Xingzhi said: “Winners take all, losers pay up—officialdom’s struggles are always like that: your death or mine. Lin Ban Tou, if you’d lost, I wouldn’t have let you off easy either.”
“I won’t talk about Fierce Tiger Gang. A man can lose, but not his backbone.”
“Torture, threats, bribes—whatever.”
“Lin fellow, bring whatever you’ve got.”
With that.
Chen Xingzhi turned, walked to the cell corner, sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and waited.
Lin Fan waved his hand.
The constables carried Wang Hai’s body out.
Lin Fan stood outside the cell, looking at Chen Xingzhi.
No one could stop his progress.
Fierce Tiger Gang—he had them in the bag.
But…
At that moment, a constable came to report that Wang Changhai wanted to see him.
“Bring him in.”
Going on shelves tomorrow noon. This book’s been fun to write, but gotta keep the pace steady—don’t get too hyped and crash it. That’s what I fear most.
