Chapter 2526 - 2428: Protection Fee
Chapter 2526: Chapter 2428: Protection Fee
Wu Jun didn’t mind the matter of repaying the money, and he didn’t take that little episode earlier to heart.
Because he had long considered Wu Kai’s family as strangers, no kind of joke made by that family would upset him.
What he was most concerned about now was the issue of his parents’ remains.
When Lei De was clearing the mountain to develop it, he hired someone to deal with this matter, so surely someone would know where the remains dug out of the tea garden mountain were taken.
So now all Wu Jun could do was wait for Du Wenfeng to bring him news.
But in his heart, he had already prepared for the worst, knowing that this matter wasn’t going to be easy to investigate.
After all, it had been several years since the incident. Whether the remains were still there was a question, even if they were, the one who handled them must have mixed them all together without distinguishing which belonged to which family.
Wu Jun knew this clearly, so he had already decided that as long as he could find the remains, he wouldn’t worry about anything else.
If they were mixed, he would build a large tomb to bring all these spirits, whose graves were destroyed, together, so they could at least have a home and rest in peace underground.
Then he would find a reliable person in Xiakan Village to burn more incense and paper money at this large grave every year, so these people could have money to spend and wouldn’t become lonely wandering spirits in the afterlife.
Of course, since the matter wasn’t clear yet, Wu Jun only thought about it in his heart and didn’t express his thoughts.
After returning to the inn, it was already evening. Earlier, Huo Sining and the others had spent nearly three hours eating and drinking, then went back to Xiakan Village, so naturally, time passed quickly.
At this time, the group of special forces soldiers sleeping in the inn were still in a drunken state, seemingly having really been plied heavily by Huo Sining.
Because Boss De knew Huo Sining and the others were also staying at the inn, the owner of the restaurant where they had eaten at noon kindly sent food to Huo Sining and her group.
He had sold all his stock of over a dozen boxes of high-end liquor to them, earning tens of thousands from just one meal, so he generously provided them with a meal.
Huo Sining was a bit surprised, thinking, aren’t merchants supposed to be cunning, only caring about getting money into their pockets and never giving it away? How was this owner an exception? But when looking earlier in the day, he didn’t seem like someone who saw money as dirt.
She was still pondering curiously about what was going on when the owner finished delivering the food, but didn’t leave. Instead, he pulled up a chair and sat down, picking up a pair of chopsticks, ready to eat, while casting curious glances at Wu Jun, Huo Sining, and Wu Ya.
After looking for a good half-minute, the owner finally spoke, asking:
"You went to Xiakan Village this afternoon, right? Then do you know about the big event that happened in Xiakan Village this morning?"
Seeing the restaurant owner’s glowing eyes full of gossip, Huo Sining suddenly understood what was going on with this owner.
So it turns out that delivering food was just a means; his real purpose was to dig for information from them.
Huo Sining felt amused. No wonder this guy was so warm and attentive; he had ulterior motives.
But Huo Sining wasn’t surprised. In such a remote small town, the people coming and going are usually familiar faces, and it’s rare for outsiders to appear here.
Yet Huo Sining and the others came, along with Yu Fei and his group, clearly not locals at a glance. Considering how high-profile they were at lunch, eating a meal that cost sixty to seventy thousand yuan, it would be hard not to attract attention.
Plus, with what happened in Xiakan Village in the morning, it’s likely the news has already spread to this town. The owner just needed to cross-check the rumors with the details, and he could identify Huo Sining, Wu Jun, and the others.
That’s why the owner came to them, hoping to hear something useful from their mouths.
Huo Sining looked up at the owner and smiled:
"When normal people encounter something like this, don’t they stay far away? How come you’re doing the opposite, not avoiding it but instead getting closer? Aren’t you afraid that if we get angry, we’ll end up arresting you too?"
The owner originally had some doubts, but after hearing Huo Sining’s positive response, he finally confirmed that the masterminds behind the major event that shook all of Luohua County this morning were the three people in front of him.
Although he was mentally prepared, the owner couldn’t help but let out an "ah" and looked at Huo Sining and the others with eyes full of admiration and respect.
"Haha, I don’t have many hobbies, just like chatting with people, especially fond of gossip and rumors. But don’t get me wrong, young lady. I really don’t have any other intentions, just purely satisfying my curiosity."
"But what you did today was really a relief. You probably don’t know that when people heard that Boss De was arrested, many businesses in town set off firecrackers to celebrate this afternoon."
The owner gave Huo Sining a thumbs up: "You’ve really done a public service by eliminating a menace. Most businesses in our small town run on small capital, just trying to earn a little honest money."
"But Boss De was ruthless, greedy, and incorporated our area’s shops into his territory, using his connections in the county to forcefully impose a cleaning fee on us businesses."
"Every quarter, we had to pay over a thousand yuan for cleaning fees, supposedly for cleaning the streets outside our shops."
"But in reality, no one ever came to clean. Which time didn’t we clean ourselves? Those cleaning fees were just a facade, a way to collect protection money!"
Upon hearing this, Huo Sining’s expression became serious.
The small town near Xiakan Village isn’t big, with only people from four or five nearby villages doing business there. Yet in such a small town, each shop has to pay over a thousand yuan per quarter for service fees, amounting to four or five thousand a year. It’s more outrageous than robbery!
This is just one small town. Considering how many commercial streets there are throughout Luohua County, how many small markets and small towns? If you tally it up, the income Lei De makes just from collecting these cleaning fees each year is probably astronomical!