After breaking up with my boyfriend, I made a fortune and rose rapidly in my career.

The next morning, sunlight shone on the peeling paint on the wooden table. A note on the table read "Dawan Township Central Primary School".

Chen Ping hadn't slept all night, but he was in good spirits and had already figured out his plan.

"Knock knock knock".

A knock sounded at the door, and Li Wei, director of the county party committee office, pushed the door open with a standard warm smile on his face and a schedule in his hand.

"Good morning, County Chief Chen! This is the itinerary that Secretary Ma specifically instructed me to arrange for you. This morning, we'll first visit Qingyuan Textile, a model enterprise in our county, and this afternoon we'll go to Hongqi Village, an advanced village, to see the achievements of new rural construction..."

As Li Wei spoke, he handed over the itinerary.

Chen Ping took it and glanced at it. It was filled with various inspection schedules for model projects and star enterprises, with a dedicated presenter and accompanying official for each activity. This was not an itinerary at all; it was a trap, designed to tightly confine his activities to the places they had arranged.

Chen Ping calmly looked through the itinerary, smiled, and pushed it back to Li Wei.

"Director Li, thank you for the county committee's thoughtful arrangements."

His voice was gentle, but the meaning behind his words was completely different.

"However, I'm new here and not familiar with Qingyuan County yet. I'd like to wander around on my own first and see the real situation. As for these official inspections, I think... let's postpone them."

Li Wei's smile froze instantly. He had prepared a whole host of arguments, but he hadn't expected the other party to reject them outright.

"This... County Chief Chen, what about Secretary Ma...?"

"I will explain to Secretary Ma myself," Chen Ping interrupted him, his tone still calm, but with an air of not wanting the other to say anything more.

Li Wei didn't dare say anything more, and could only smile awkwardly as he took the itinerary and left. As soon as he stepped outside, his smile vanished. He immediately went to a secluded corner, dialed Ma Changsheng's number, and explained the situation.

On the other end of the phone, Ma Changsheng listened and gave a disdainful sneer.

"Young people always want to do something different, to try something new. Don't be afraid," he instructed dismissively. "Let him be. Can he escape our grasp? Send someone to keep an eye on his car and see what tricks he's up to. As long as he's in Qingyuan County, he can't cause any trouble."

Ma Changsheng felt that Chen Pingfang could at most just drive his Passat around, and where he went was still under his control.

However, what happened next was something no one expected.

After leaving the county government compound, Chen Ping didn't head towards the parking lot, nor did he look at his own black Passat. Amidst the curious gazes of the crowd, he turned directly into a side alley and entered an inconspicuous grocery store.

A few minutes later, Chen Ping came out pushing a slightly worn-out old bicycle.

The car was black with some rust, and an old, ringing bicycle bell hung on the front. Chen Ping bought the car for fifty yuan.

Then, he took a long stride, mounted his bicycle, and skillfully rode into the morning rush hour crowd on the street, heading towards Dawang Township in the west of the city.

The two young men who were keeping watch in the parking lot were stunned when they saw the empty Passat and the bicycle that quickly disappeared into the traffic.

"Where...where are they?"

He rode... rode away on his bicycle...

"Quickly! Report this to Director Li!"

When the news reached the county government building, it immediately sparked a considerable discussion.

The newly appointed county head, instead of riding in the Audi provided by the city and his own Passat, rode a bicycle to the countryside.

This was an unprecedented and novel event in the officialdom of Qingyuan County.

Some officials whispered among themselves in their offices, smiling, all thinking that the young man was just putting on a show and trying to get attention.

Upon learning this, Ma Changsheng became even more certain of his judgment. He laughed to his trusted confidants, "See? This is what young people who have never worked at the grassroots level think they can win people's hearts with these kinds of tricks? How naive! Let him do whatever he wants. I want to see what he can come up with."

Suddenly, the number of people who looked down on Chen Pingfang even more in the entire county committee building increased significantly.

By this time, Chen Pingfang had been riding for over an hour.

The mountain road was difficult to travel, and the weather was unpredictable. Just a moment ago the sky was clear, but in the blink of an eye, dark clouds gathered, and large raindrops began to fall without warning, quickly turning into a torrential downpour.

When he arrived at the Central Primary School in Dawan Township, he was soaked to the bone, his white shirt clung tightly to his body, and water streamed down his face from his hair. He looked very disheveled.

Without alerting anyone, he parked his bicycle under a big tree at the school gate and went into the teaching building.

As soon as I entered the building, I saw several people gathered at the door of a classroom, and the atmosphere was tense. The roof was leaking badly, and rainwater was pouring down like a small waterfall. Several teachers were frantically trying to salvage the wet books and belongings from inside the room, and the ground was already covered with a layer of muddy water.

Without hesitation, Chen Pingfang rolled up his soaked trousers and sleeves and rushed in, bending down to pick up a stack of old books that had been soaked in water.

"Hey, who are you?" A middle-aged female teacher looked at him strangely.

"Just passing by and helping out," Chen Ping replied before burying himself in his work.

The teachers initially thought he was just a helpful passerby. Seeing how hard he was working, they didn't ask any more questions and focused on the intense rescue efforts.

Just then, a parent who had come in the rain to bring an umbrella to his child walked to the classroom door and saw this scene. He saw the young man in the white shirt, covered in rain and mud, carrying heavy stacks of old books with great focus.

He subconsciously took out his phone, pointed it at the young man's profile, and snapped a photo.

After the rain stopped, Chen Ping, looking disheveled, had just helped the teachers move their belongings to a safe classroom when the principal, who had rushed over upon hearing the news, finally recognized him.

"You...you are County Magistrate Chen?" The principal was so frightened by the young man who looked like a mud monkey that he didn't know where to put his hands and stammered.

Chen Ping waved his hand, telling him not to make a fuss, and refused the suggestion to go to the office to change into dry clothes. He simply rinsed the mud off his hands with water.

"It's lunchtime, Principal. I'll have a simple meal with the teachers in the school cafeteria."

The meal was very simple: cabbage, potatoes, and winter melon soup. The quality was also poor, with the vegetable leaves turning yellow.

While eating, Chen Ping casually asked the principal next to him about the school's daily expenses, and the conversation naturally turned to the issue of the cafeteria's procurement costs.

Seeing that the new county head had no airs of an official and genuinely helped the school, unlike those leaders who only made empty promises during their inspections, the principal hesitated for a long time before finally letting out a long sigh.

After the meal, he invited Chen Ping to his simple office and took out a thick purchase invoice from a locked drawer.

Chen Ping took the ledger and casually flipped through it.

His eyes sharpened the moment they swept over the bill.

On the bill, the most common potatoes cost 3.2 yuan per jin (500g). Cabbage cost 1.8 yuan. These prices are more than three times the market price! And the price of bottled cooking oil is even more shockingly high.

He casually flipped to the supplier information section and saw a clear company name – "Qingyuan County Hengtong Agricultural and Sideline Products Supply Company".

The name was exactly the same as the company under the name of Wang Heng, the brother-in-law of County Party Secretary Ma Changsheng, in the information Xiao Yuhan gave him.

The clues match up.

Chen Ping slowly closed the ledger, thanked the tense-looking principal, but did not offer any opinion on the matter, as if he had just glanced at it casually.

That evening, the photo of "young cadres rescuing books in the rain" was posted on a local forum in Qingyuan County by the parent, who added the caption "Thumbs up for the most beautiful volunteer at our Dawan Primary School," and it began to attract some attention and discussion.

Meanwhile, Ma Changsheng and his team, who were drinking and chatting at the county guesthouse, were completely unaware of Chen Pingfang's gains that day, or the photo that was quietly going viral online.

In the dead of night, Chen Ping returned to his dilapidated dormitory. He opened his notebook and, on the complex relationship diagram, used a thick, straight black line to connect "Dawan Township Elementary School" and "Hengtong Company".