Chapter Seventy-Three: The Opportunity for Counterattack [Part Two]

"It's nothing, let's go back," Zhang Ye said without elaborating, and returned directly to the shop. Of course, his heart was not so magnanimous; being targeted again and again—did they really think he was afraid? Since they were playing dirty, he wouldn’t show them any courtesy either.

“Tao, how much do you know about Li Yulong?” The last time they met, Zhang Ye had seen that Li Yulong was a slippery and ruthless man—the type most dangerous, who only made his move at the most critical moment for a fatal blow.

Now that they had thoroughly offended the other side, it was only prudent to take precautions.

“Li Yulong? I heard he does business in the building materials market. I don’t know the specifics,” Liu Wentao replied, scratching his head.

With the authorities watching them, opening up in the short term seemed unlikely. He knew the top priority was to resolve these issues.

In fact, if Zhang Ye had gone to Yuan Yuqing or Guo Xiangqing for help, these troubles could probably be settled quickly. But Zhang Ye was unwilling to do that. Some things—a favor once is friendship, twice is goodwill, but too many times and it feels like exploitation. He didn’t want to spoil those relationships because of this.

So, he decided to handle the matter himself.

“Li Yulong? I know him. He mainly deals in timber at the building materials market and owns his own forest farm in Chenjiaying. His business is huge,” said Wu Dongjun, whose face was still bruised. He hadn’t gone out earlier, but now that Zhang Ye was asking, he chimed in quickly.

He was keen on business and well-acquainted with all the trades in Lihua County.

“The forest farm in Chenjiaying? Is it the Yulong Forest where all those pine trees are planted?” A flash of insight lit up Zhang Ye’s mind, and he felt an urge to laugh aloud.

In his view, a second-generation official like Li Yulong was unlikely to have clean hands in business. But he hadn’t expected that the notorious tree theft case which had once rocked all of Lihua County and even the surrounding areas of Guangyang City was actually connected to Li Yulong.

In his previous life, there had always been rumors about the Yulong Forest’s illegal logging of protected trees, and the stack of anonymous reports was high. Yet, because the owner of Yulong Forest had powerful connections in Lihua County, nothing ever happened—while the whistleblower, once discovered, ended up miserable, having a leg broken by thugs.

Eventually, after a dispute, the patron protecting the Yulong Forest owner fell from power. When a high-ranking official came to inspect Lihua County, the whistleblower, dragging his crippled leg, knelt before him.

After that, things became straightforward and ruthless. The Forestry Bureau had long been documenting the crimes of the forest owner, and when the order was given, even the craftiest fox couldn’t escape the hunter. The tree theft scandal that shook Lihua County was finally exposed.

Looking back now, it was clear that the main culprit in that incident was none other than Li Yifan’s brother, Li Yulong.

And since their father was the executive deputy county head, everything made sense. An indistinct thread unraveled before Zhang Ye’s eyes.

Li Yulong’s father’s downfall was surely connected to what Li Yifan had done at school. Because of Li Gengsheng’s fall, Li Yulong couldn’t dodge the investigation. Otherwise, with the power of an executive deputy county head, he could have suppressed the whole affair.

“In that case, they can’t blame me,” a sharp glint flashed in Zhang Ye’s eyes.

The story had made the television news in his previous life, and Zhang Ye had caught the general outline from his parents’ and neighbors’ gossip. Now, the possibilities seemed endless.

They could play tricks on him over and over, so why shouldn’t he strike back just as fiercely? Normally, he would only sigh over such matters, not give them much thought. After all, there were too many injustices in the world for him to right them all, and as an ordinary citizen, his words carried little weight.

But this time, he wanted his voice to be heard.

“Tao, are you free tomorrow? Come with me to Chenjiaying—I want to visit someone,” Zhang Ye was always a man of action. Having made up his mind, he wanted to move quickly.

Time was just as crucial for them. Li Yifan and his crowd weren’t joking around. He didn’t believe that his warning would have much effect; if anything, a moment’s victory would only infuriate them further, inviting even more violent retaliation.

So, he had little time to prepare.

He didn’t expect to bring them down in one blow this time; it would be enough to throw them into chaos, leaving them too busy to bother with him.

“Visit someone? Who?” Liu Wentao asked.

“Old Man Chen.”

…

Old Man Chen was a bachelor. He had never married, had no children, and lived alone all his life.

In Chenjiaying, he was an oddity, seldom interacting with others. In his youth, he had been a hunter, but after the government began protecting many animal species, he switched to guarding the forest.

A decade in forestry had given this somewhat eccentric old man a deeper affection for trees than for people. He was so stubborn that he detested logging, and even when ordinary trees were felled, he felt as though his own flesh had been cut.

By chance, he discovered that people from Yulong Forest often entered the deep mountains to fell mature trees, including rare, protected species that were explicitly prohibited from logging.

Immediately, he had an idea. He had always disapproved of Yulong Forest’s logging, but since their business was technically legal, he couldn’t stop them. Now, having found evidence of their crimes, he didn’t hesitate—reporting them that very night.

But after waiting two or three days with no response, he thought the authorities might have missed his report and sent another, this time with his real name and a detailed account of the facts to draw attention.

This time, things moved much faster. By midday, Forestry Bureau officials arrived, but after being wined and dined, nothing happened to Yulong Forest. Meanwhile, Old Man Chen, who waited anxiously for news, was beaten up.

He was stubborn, not stupid. Realizing there was corruption, he became more cautious, stopped acting rashly, and began to collect evidence in secret.

However, he had already attracted attention. Once he caught wind that someone was after him, he hid deep in the mountains.

So, when Zhang Ye and Liu Wentao arrived early the next morning in Chenjiaying, they found nothing but an empty house.