Chapter Seventy-Eight: Courage Born of Malice

Li Mu bought a platform ticket and accompanied Chen Wan to the station. As they waited for the train to arrive, Chen Wan felt a sense of melancholy. She thought to herself that after this parting, she had no idea when she would see Li Mu again. Li Mu felt the same deep reluctance to part.

He didn't have many friends at the moment. Although he hadn't known Chen Wan for long, his feelings for her were as warm as those for an old friend. Moreover, since she had once helped him, his affection for her was even deeper than mere friendship.

At that moment, the DF4D locomotive, nicknamed "The Flower Tiger," pulled a train of red carriages into the station. Chen Wan glanced at the approaching train, eyes red, and said to Li Mu, "Troublemaker, if you have time, come visit me in Shanghai."

Li Mu nodded with a slight smile. "Once I get to Yanjing, you're always welcome to visit."

"I'll come during the National Day holiday, then!"

Li Mu scratched his head. "I might go back to Haizhou for the holiday."

Chen Wan replied without hesitation, "Wherever you are, that’s where I’ll go."

Li Mu laughed out loud. "Alright, it’s settled then."

By now, the train was slowing down and gradually coming to a stop. Li Mu accompanied Chen Wan to the door of her sleeper car. Before boarding, she turned to face him, her eyes rimmed with tears, but she said nothing.

Li Mu spoke first. "Send me a message when you arrive."

"You, too—text me when you get back to Haizhou."

"Get some rest once you're on the train. We'll talk tomorrow."

"I can never sleep on trains."

"Well, alright," Li Mu nodded, suddenly at a loss for words. Most of the passengers in her car had already boarded, and the train attendant was preparing to collect the carriage number plate from outside the door. Li Mu glanced at the attendant, thinking the train was about to leave, but the attendant raised an eyebrow at him and said, "No hurry, this is a slow train. It stops for twenty minutes."

"Thank you," Li Mu replied, then joked with Chen Wan, "People probably think we're a young couple about to part ways."

For once, Chen Wan neither blushed nor became shy. She asked in return, "Do we look like it?"

Li Mu squinted at her, nodded, and smiled. "We do a bit. Mainly because I look older than my age."

"Just a bit too pale," Chen Wan said, happy inside but feigning indifference. "You should get some sun this summer, maybe get a tan, build some muscle—but not too much."

"I'm lazy. I just like staying in the air-conditioned room playing on the computer in summer."

"You'll get a belly like that. Careful you don't get fat too soon."

"Oh..." Li Mu scratched his head. In his previous life, it seemed that once he went to university, he started gaining weight and never looked back. By middle age, though not an overweight uncle, his waist and belly had accumulated plenty of fat.

Thinking of this, he realized he should start exercising more...

Chen Wan tilted her head to look at Li Mu, her heart filled with the tender, shy feelings of a young girl. She had told herself many times that she liked Li Mu. Yet, she sensed that they might not be so well-matched—after all, he was three years younger, and there was a whole world out there he hadn't yet seen.

Though she lacked much experience in love, Chen Wan understood that young men's feelings were like sifting sand. The girls who dated them at this stage often became mere fleeting scenery on their path to adulthood. Chen Wan did not want to be just a passing scene in Li Mu's life. Reason told her to manage her feelings well, and if she wasn't sure, never take that step into romance.

That way, if there truly was no chance, she could always remain his elder sister. Love might be sweet but rarely lasts; family affection, if cherished, could endure a lifetime.

"Brat," Chen Wan said, embracing Li Mu around the waist like a big sister, her tone affectionate but not flirtatious. "Take care of yourself. If you run into trouble, call your big sister."

Li Mu nodded, looking at her with a gentle smile. "You too."

"Off you go!"

With a graceful push, Chen Wan let go and climbed the high steps into the carriage. Before she entered the sleeper corridor, she waved to Li Mu. "Go check if your driver is here and head back soon."

"Alright."

Li Mu agreed but didn't move, watching Chen Wan as she entered, watched her walk down the corridor. Chen Wan saw that Li Mu was still standing outside, so she waved while searching for her berth. Before entering her compartment, she pointed to the door and waved again, signaling him to leave.

Li Mu nodded and waved back, then finally turned to cross the underground passage and leave the station.

The Haizhou taxi driver was already waiting out front. Li Mu got in and received a message from Chen Wan: "The train has left. Let me know when you get home."

"Will do."

...

That night, Guo Yuhang, who had been unconscious for over thirty hours, finally woke up.

Compared to his peers, his body was indeed much weaker, so he woke up more than ten hours later than the doctors had estimated.

Before he woke, Guo Lin had only a rough idea of what had happened. In Zou Hua’s statement, he didn’t dare mention Song Liang, Zhang Wanjun, or Li Mu by name, fearing retaliation. He only said he had run errands for Guo Yuhang, but that Guo Yuhang had offended someone more powerful, which led to his car being smashed; angry, he had beaten Guo Yuhang.

Once Guo Yuhang awoke and recounted the story himself, the couple finally understood the whole situation.

What surprised them both was that the root of this incident traced back to when Li Mu’s parents had been forced out of their jobs.

As soon as Xue Guilan heard Li Mu’s name, she exploded, "Damn it, when did the children of Xiling Coal Mine workers dare to walk all over our family! Yuhang, don’t worry. I’ll make sure that Li family pays tenfold, a hundredfold!"

Xue Guilan had always felt a great sense of superiority at Xiling Coal Mine, regarding her husband as the emperor of that closed-off little world, and herself as its empress.

She never imagined that an ordinary worker’s son could beat up the crown prince, causing such a stir. It was utterly unforgivable!

Guo Lin, more rational than his wife, said with a dark expression, "Are you deaf or what? Didn’t you hear our son mention those two people? Li Mu called in Song Liang and Zhang Wanjun for support. Haven’t you heard of them?"

Xue Guilan’s face turned pale.

Having played queen in her little domain for so long, she was out of touch with the world outside. Only now did she realize who those two men were.

One was a real estate tycoon in Haizhou; the other, a kingpin of the underworld. Either one was more than Guo Lin could ever afford to offend.

Guo Lin was a state-owned enterprise leader in the relatively insular coal industry. His wealth came from corruption, and his connections were within the upper echelons of the mining group—whose headquarters weren’t even in Haizhou, but in Pengcheng. How could he compete with two local magnates?

"So what now?" Xue Guilan panicked. "This whole mess is Li Mu’s doing! If we can’t touch him, how am I supposed to get justice for our son?"

"Do you know what kind of man Zhang Wanjun is?" Guo Lin said, his face dark. "He runs nightclubs, illegal casinos, loan sharking, and construction crews. Hundreds of thugs make a living under him. If you cross him, none of us will have a good life!"

"And do you know who Song Liang is? He could toss a bit of slop from his real estate empire, and Zhang Wanjun would circle him like a dog. Which of those two can you afford to provoke?"

Xue Guilan felt as if she had been thrown out of her well into a world full of much bigger frogs—and even more dangerous beasts. All her former sense of superiority vanished, leaving her with a painful sense of helplessness.

"Is there really no way to deal with him?" she sobbed, all her former confidence and arrogance gone.

Guo Lin let out a long sigh. He felt miserable, too. He wanted to get justice for his son, but how? Li Mu had powerful backers; to send someone to beat him up would doom their whole family. And with both his parents laid off, they were no longer his responsibility—what could he do to them? At best, dock their monthly severance wage of a few hundred yuan?

What good would that do?

Guo Lin sat dejectedly by the hospital bed, his wife crying beside him, his son wailing on the bed. In the end, mother and son clung to each other, and Guo Lin's eyes reddened too. He felt less and less like a man—his wife and son had suffered so much, and he couldn’t help them.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. As his resentment reached its peak, a wicked idea took root. He slapped his thigh, "I've got it!"

His wife and son looked at him in hope. "You have a plan?"

"I do!" Guo Lin said coldly. "Li Mu has backers, so let the debt fall on his father. I’ll find a way to get Li Daoping sent to prison!"

By "sent in," he meant prison—there was no other place.

"How?" Xue Guilan’s eyes brightened, though she was still a little lost.

Guo Lin thought for a moment, then blurted out, "Theft! Earlier this year, I bought a batch of imported surveying equipment from a company in Jinling—two Japanese Pentax total stations, each costing over ninety thousand. We’ll make one disappear and pin it on Li Daoping."

Xue Guilan remembered Guo Lin’s kickback deals best—she was born sensitive to money. "Was that the purchase order for over half a million?"

Guo Lin nodded; he remembered that deal clearly. They got a kickback of 150,000—not much, but Xiling Coal Mine was going bankrupt, and he was eager to grab whatever he could, so he got greedy.

Such high-end equipment was unheard of in a failing mine like Xiling—perhaps not even in a mine producing millions of tons a year. But Guo Lin didn’t care; as long as he could sign the order and get his kickback, the equipment’s usefulness wasn’t his concern.

He remembered the imported total stations vividly—just one small case for such a sky-high price. At the time, he had thought that one of them cost as much as half a car. The Japanese sure knew how to make money.

"Is it easy to pull off?" Xue Guilan asked anxiously.

Guo Lin considered. "I can’t do it alone. We’ll need Chen Hailong, the chief surveyor, to go along with it. If he cooperates, it’ll work."

"If it works, how many years would he get?"

"I’m not sure... Each one is worth over ninety thousand, so maybe three to ten years?"

——

Here’s the second update. Wishing everyone a happy Lantern Festival. Now that this chapter is done, I can finally go boil some sweet dumplings.