Restarting life by going to the countryside to support medical work

Chapter 272 Interlude

"During the two years that Liang Jinhua disappeared, she was most likely participating in training. As for how she got in touch with that place, she has to explain it herself."

As soon as Lao Xu finished speaking, Tian Linjun continued.

During those two years, they probably knew that they were no longer capable, so they trained a lot of lurkers crazily.

This type of training includes long courses, which usually last two years, and short courses, which last from three months to half a year.

A large portion of these people eventually lost touch.

But there are also some people who have been controlled over there due to various reasons.

Although some people lose contact at first, they will reconnect for some reason later, like Song Yongan before.

He was originally hiding in Liaodong, but he took the initiative to run to Beijing and lost contact with the people behind him.

But I accidentally met someone I had trained with in Beijing, and we got in touch again and continued to work for them.

There are actually many people like this. They apparently lost contact, but were later found by the special envoys from the other side. After being threatened by both soft and hard tactics, they started serving there again.

Over the years, Tian Linjun and his colleagues have handled countless cases and captured countless criminals. When asked why they still want to serve over there after so many years of liberation, they have heard all kinds of bizarre reasons.

Some people even said that he helped that side because he had smoked that kind of cigarette before liberation and was afraid of being purged.

Tian Linjun almost fell to the ground at that time.

It has been more than ten years since the liberation, and you don't smoke anymore. Even if the police know that you used to smoke, they can't settle the old accounts from more than ten years ago.

Of the six people present, except for Li Yancheng who just switched to work in the Social Affairs Bureau last year, they didn't know much about the past and formation of those lurkers.

The other five people, including Lao Xu, who has worked in the Social Affairs Bureau for three years, are very familiar with those people.

So when I heard Tian Linjun say this, I didn't react too much.

Li Yancheng asked curiously, "Director, you just said there is more than one piece of good news. Finding the suspicious points about Liang Jinhua is one of them. What are the other good news?"

He was not at all interested in how these lurkers were formed. Let them be whatever they wanted. Anyway, he would just catch them as soon as they showed up. He had no plans to do any research.

It has been just these few years. In a few more years, most of the things left over from before liberation will be gone.

"Oh, the good news is that we don't have to worry about how to catch Xue Bao anymore."

Swish!
As he spoke, the eyes of the other five people, including Li Yancheng, lit up.

"What do you mean, Director? Could it be that Director Su and his men have already found evidence of Xue Baolai's crimes at home? Can we arrest him openly?"

"That's not the case." Old Xu smiled and shook his head. "It was Xue Baolai's teacher, Professor Zhang Zongyou, who became suspicious of his student and even disclosed it to the person from the Jiangsu Provincial Bureau who came to talk to Xue Baolai the day before yesterday."

???

The other five people were completely confused by the incoherent words.

Why did Professor Zhang become suspicious?
Also, what did the Su Provincial Bureau want to discuss with Xue Bao?

Even if we need to talk about it, shouldn't it be the security department of the army?
"Director, could you explain yourself clearly? I'm a little confused. Why is the Su Provincial Bureau interfering in our case?" Zeng Honglin raised his hand and scratched his head.

"No, no, no, it was commissioned by Director Zhong." Old Xu waved his hand and began to talk about the story since they left Beijing at noon the day before yesterday.

Nowadays, due to the backwardness of communication means, if you want to contact relatives and friends far away, or if most units have business needs to make domestic long-distance calls, you must go to the post office.

Whether you want to send a letter, send a telegram or make a phone call, this is the only place you can do it.

This also created an unprecedented prosperous scene in front of the post office, with all kinds of people coming and going here.

For example, six people like Li Yancheng gathered together to talk. If they were in other places, it might arouse other people's curiosity, but here it is commonplace.

The only difference is that they were talking about business. Those who gathered in groups or seemed to be running around stealthily were all doing business that was not worthy of being discussed in public.

Sitting in front of the general store next to the post office was a middle-aged man in his forties, known as Brother Dao on the street.

Originally, everyone called him Scar Brother because he had a scar on his face from a knife cut during a fight in his early years.

But Scar Brother Scar Brother sounded like a bird, so he changed his name to Dao Ge. Well, it sounds much better now.

After so many years of calling him, many people no longer know his name.

He is in charge of the area near the post office, and all the shady businesses here are under his control.

In fact, it is just like the ghost market in Beijing. Each ghost market radiates to a large area around it. People from other places want to come here to do business, such as buying and selling various special tickets. They need to pay a visit first and pay some tribute, otherwise you can forget about staying here.

This is the case with Li Yancheng's old classmate Zhu Yongyang. He now controls a large area of ​​ghost markets at the junction of Chengdong, Yangchao and Wenchong districts.

He doesn't care about ordinary people who go to the ghost market to buy and sell their own things. He wishes there were as many such people as possible.

The more ordinary people go there, the better the business will be, and they will be able to sell the things they get.

But if it is a trafficker who comes over without saying hello or offering any tribute, then I'm sorry. I may give him a chance once or twice to see if he has good eyesight. But if he dares to come again for the third time, he will definitely be beaten.

These days, there are generally few people who go beyond the line of profit because the risk is too great. Making money is important, but if you have the life to earn it, you also have to have the life to spend it.

If you really run into this kind of person, he's either a novice who has just started working in this field, or someone sent by someone else to scout out the situation. He's most likely planning to seize territory.

One difference between Jing City and Nan City is that Jing City is determined not to allow the existence of ghost markets during the day.

As for the ghost market in the middle of the night, everyone turned a blind eye. We have to give some people a chance to survive.

But if anyone dares to show his head during the day, there is only one word: catch.

Therefore, in Beijing, those who have some ability work as brokers during the day and do bulk business.

Not only individuals, but many units will look for such brokers to help them get some unplanned supplies, mainly to save trouble.

Zhu Yongyang has been doing business in the ghost market for more than ten years and has accumulated enough connections. He now also does broker business during the day.

The management of the ghost market in Nanshi is not as strict as in Beijing. A market that should only exist at night will appear in front of the post office during the day.

Of course, I definitely won’t hold the things I sell in my hands and let people look at them like I do at night.

They also carefully observe the people coming and going, and will only approach someone they think is suitable.

Those who can do this kind of business here are all under the control of Brother Dao. They are either his people or they pay tribute to him on time.

Brother Dao would come here every morning and sit in front of the general store next to the post office to see if there were many people here that day. He liked the feeling of making money.

Every day he sits here and watches people coming in and out of the post office hall, always with a smile on his face.

But today was different. He sat there with a serious expression on his face, and from time to time he would turn his head and glance at the west wall of the post office hall.

There were a few young men gathered together there, and no one knew what they were talking about.

As soon as he arrived, one of his subordinates came to report.

He made clear distinctions among his subordinates: those who did business were responsible for business, and those who looked after the territory were responsible for the territory.

It was normal to see a few young men chatting or doing something together at the entrance of the post office. With such a large flow of customers coming and going, there were all kinds of people.

The reason why he looked solemn today and often kept his eyes on the place where those people were was because he had just received news these days that a guy who was hanging out in other places had set his sights on his territory.

It had only been less than two days since he received the news, and several young men who looked very unfamiliar but all looked like martial artists appeared here. It would be strange if he was not solemn.

Although these people's attire did not look like those from gangs, this also made him confused.

After thinking for a long time, he threw away the cigarette butt in his hand and stood up.

He planned to go and meet these people in person to test their true strength. The people that Brother Dao was targeting were Li Yancheng and his group.

They had no choice but to discuss things standing at the door of the post office, mainly because they had nowhere else to go.

Go back to the guesthouse?

Don't be ridiculous. The letter of introduction they presented when registering for accommodation was from a factory on a business trip.

If you stay in the guesthouse all day long without going out, or go back to your room after a short while, the staff of the guesthouse will definitely report to the local police station, saying that there are suspicious outsiders here.

It's just past ten o'clock now, not yet time for dinner, and we can't go to the restaurant. There are many people coming and going here, and they are gathered here to discuss things, but they are not particularly conspicuous.

They only think they are inconspicuous, but in fact, in the eyes of those who are interested, they are still quite conspicuous.

Look, someone has come looking for me.

Not to mention Zeng Honglin and Zhang Quanzhou who were facing the direction where Brother Dao was walking towards, even the other four people who were facing sideways or with their backs to this side, turned their heads and looked over there vigilantly when Brother Dao was still five or six meters away from them.

Brother Dao, who was walking forward, paused for a moment. A smile that he thought was very kind immediately appeared on his originally serious face, and he took a few steps forward.

He stopped two meters away and asked with a smile: "Brothers..."

Jiangsu Province spans the Yangtze River and the Huai River, and is divided into three dialect areas, namely Jianghuai Mandarin, Wu and Central Plains Mandarin, which are very different from each other.

Dialects can be mutually intelligible across cities, but they are almost unintelligible across different dialects.

People within the province can't even communicate with each other, let alone Li Yancheng and the other six people who came from the north.

The Jianghuai Mandarin spoken by Brother Dao was like thunder to them.

Even though Tian Linjun had been on a business trip here for nearly two months, he still couldn't understand.

In the mid-1950s, in order to promote the popularization of Mandarin, the country completed the Pinyin system to facilitate Mandarin teaching and Chinese character phonetic notation.

We have also compiled a Mandarin pronunciation dictionary for the purpose of determining phonetic standards, as well as a medium-sized modern Chinese dictionary for the purpose of determining vocabulary standards.

At the same time, the Education Department and the Broadcasting Bureau also recorded a large number of audio recordings for teaching Mandarin, and the Culture Department also produced films to promote and teach Mandarin.

These measures are aimed at promoting Mandarin across the country and increasing its usage and popularity.

The purpose is to avoid the situation where you go on a business trip to another place but have no idea what the other party is saying.

However, the standard pronunciation of Mandarin is based on the pronunciation habits of the north, which is not very friendly to southerners who are accustomed to their local dialect.

After all, Mandarin has only been promoted for more than a decade, and the current cultural penetration rate in the country is not high. It is almost impossible to expect those who have spoken dialects for decades to change their speaking habits in a short period of time.

Not to mention now, even decades later, many people born in the 1920s and 1930s still cannot speak Mandarin.

Brother Dao has been doing this side business for quite some time. Nanshi is also an important town with many people coming and going from the south and the north, and he has dealt with many people from other places.

In order to facilitate communication, he even learned Mandarin with his son, which was considered an effort.

At this moment, he saw the confused looks of the people opposite him and immediately realized that he wanted to do the splits.

These six people were definitely not here to grab territory, but were outsiders who came to Nanshi on business.

Since they are from outsiders, they must have national food coupons on them, which I can exchange for local food coupons. If there are any left when they leave, I can buy them back. Isn't this two business deals?
Thinking of this, the smile on Brother Dao's face became even wider.

He quickly switched his dialect to Mandarin. Although his Mandarin was terrible, this time Li Yancheng and the others were able to understand him.

In fact, as soon as Brother Dao came over and started talking, they knew what this guy did. The reason they pretended to be so confused was that they didn't want to have any conflicts with these local bullies.

"How to change?"

After listening to Brother Dao’s self-introduction and saying that he could exchange local food coupons from him, Lao Xu thought about it and asked.

"Let's be friends. I'll give you two catties and two ounces for one catty, but the minimum is ten catties."

In the past two years, domestic grain production has been increasing steadily year by year. Of course, it is not the kind of sky-high increase in those years, but a regular and down-to-earth harvest.

There is an old saying that goes, if you have food in your hands, you will not be worried. As long as you have enough to eat, the price of food coupons in the ghost market will naturally fall.

Now basically one kilogram of national food coupons can be exchanged for two kilograms or at most two and a half kilograms of local food coupons.

The two pounds and two ounces offered by Brother Dao was a reasonable price.

The six strong men including Lao Xu have surprisingly large appetites. Rice is the main dish here, so they have to order some dishes when eating rice.

Three dishes were not enough for six people. Based on last night's meal, their daily food coupon expenditure alone would be ten kilograms.

Restaurants won't give you a 50% discount just because you have national food coupons. It's what it is.

Even if these expenses were paid by the government, Lao Xu and his colleagues would still feel the pain. Now that someone is offering to exchange them for local food coupons, they will try to save as much as they can.

Lao Xu thought for a moment, gestured to Tian Linjun and said, "Linjun, let's change 50 kilograms first."

"Okay." Tian Linjun nodded, opened the bag on his body and began to count the food coupons.

When he heard that he had to exchange 50 kilograms, Brother Dao's eyes lit up.

He could earn at least five yuan for fifty kilograms, which was no small business. It was equivalent to the daily wages of his two and a half brothers.

He quickly turned around and waved to the other side of the post office door. A young man on the other side saw him and ran over.

In no time, the deal was done between the two parties.

Before leaving, Brother Dao said with a smile: "Brothers, if you still want to change, or if you haven't used up before you leave, you can come here to find me. If I'm not here, you can just find the guy just now. His name is Xiaoguai. He's always here regardless of wind or rain. My prices are absolutely fair."

"Okay, no problem, thanks!" Lao Xu nodded with a smile.

"You're welcome, you're welcome. I won't bother you any more."

Seeing Brother Dao walking away, several people quickly withdrew their gazes and started discussing business again.

"Director, according to what you just said, we should go directly to Professor Zhang and explain the whole matter to him, and try to get his cooperation. Let him trick Xue Baolai into coming to the guesthouse, and then we can proceed to the next step.

But what if Professor Zhang is unwilling to cooperate? We are resorting to the last resort. As an intellectual, Professor Zhang is likely to be dissatisfied with our style of doing things.

Although he was suspicious of his students, being suspicious did not mean that he would agree to resort to arbitrary means without any evidence."

These words were said by Zeng Honglin, and what he said made a lot of sense. Once they revealed their plan to Professor Zhang and didn't get his support, there was a high possibility that the professor would go to the higher authorities to file a complaint against them.

"This requires some skill in communicating with Professor Zhang."

Of course Lao Xu had considered this, and he had even decided who would contact the old professor.

After he finished speaking, his eyes fell on Li Yancheng.

The other four also looked over when they saw this.

"I?"

Li Yancheng was stunned. He raised his right hand and pointed at himself with disbelief on his face.

"Let me talk to Professor Zhang? Director, are you sure? You are the leader, you should be the one doing the talking."

"No, no, no, this has nothing to do with leadership or not. Professor Zhang doesn't even consider me as the director."

Old Xu's words were not really modest. Not to mention him, even if Director Zhong and Director Shen wanted to meet Professor Zhang, they would have to make an appointment in advance and speak politely. His small position as director really could not play any role.

(End of this chapter)