Courtyard House: From Deputy Division Commander to Civilian, Progressing All the Way

As Zhao Lichun cried out, she gripped the cracks in the blue bricks on the ground with both hands, her fingernails cracking and bleeding.

"I've forgotten who I, Zhao Lichun, am! I've forgotten that back then I was just a worthless scholar who almost got beaten to death in the basement of the Ministry of Heavy Industry!"

"If you hadn't pulled me out of that pool of blood back then, if you hadn't lent me that immense power, I, Zhao Lichun, wouldn't even have been able to get close to the threshold of Handong! How could I be so arrogant as to want to establish some kind of local hegemony behind your back? I was simply blinded by greed, worse than a pig or a dog!"

Zhao Lichun wept bitterly, his forehead slamming heavily against the blue bricks with a dull thud, and a shocking patch of blood instantly seeped from his forehead.

He raised his old face, which was covered in tears and blood, and looked at Lin Yang's back with despair and fervor.

"Chairman, do you remember back then? Those rebels stormed into your office, wielding ashtrays to smash you, and it was I, Zhao Lichun, who stood firmly in front of you! I bled half a basin, but I didn't utter a single word, nor did I betray you with a single syllable!"

"Even if I, Zhao Lichun, have made a thousand mistakes, my loyalty to you is as clear as day! Chairman, I beg you, please don't treat me like a useless person and leave me to die in that pile of moldy paper. Even if you want me to go to the Gobi Desert in Northwest China to dig stones for you, or to go to a steel mill to remove furnace ash for you, I would do it willingly!"

"If you'll let me serve you one more time, you can take my life anytime!"

In the study, only Zhao Lichun's hysterical cries and heavy breathing remained.

Lin Yang still had his back to him.

He slowly wiped the glass surface of the brass compass one last time with the piece of silk cloth in his hand.

A barely perceptible glint flashed in those deep, cold eyes.

If he had truly forgotten Zhao Lichun's loyalty and decisiveness back in the basement, Zhao Lichun wouldn't be alive today. He would have been torn to pieces by his political enemies and thrown into the Huangpu River to feed the fish.

The reason Lin Yang left Zhao Lichun at the local history office for several years without paying any attention to him was to use this absolute cold violence and power stripping to completely crush the arrogance in his bones.

A piece of good steel, if the quenching temperature is not high enough, will not be able to withstand the forging of the storms that follow.

Wipe away your tears.

Lin Yang finally spoke.

His voice was not loud, there was no deliberate roaring, and no excessive emotional fluctuations.

But the absolute majesty emanating from his very bones instantly silenced Zhao Lichun's cries.

Lin Yang slowly turned around and casually placed the polished brass compass on the rosewood drawing table.

He looked down at Zhao Lichun, who was kneeling on the ground, with a gaze as if he were examining a weapon that had been sharpened anew.

"If I had forgotten that basin of blood from back then, do you think you would still be qualified to kneel in my study now?"

Lin Yang's voice was icy cold, each word like a heavy hammer striking Zhao Lichun's soul.

"Back in Handong, you used ruthless methods to build the Kengkou Power Station, safeguarding the energy lifeline of the south. That's your achievement, and I remember it. But you tolerated your thugs running rampant, disregarding the law, and attempting to create an independent kingdom—that's a capital offense!"

Lin Yang walked to the armchair, sat down slowly, and stared intently at Zhao Lichun like a searchlight.

"I put you in the local history office to wake you up, to let you know who really holds the reins of power. Without the restraint of that reins, no matter how sharp your blade is, it's just a piece of scrap metal that can hurt both yourself and others!"

Zhao Lichun knelt on the ground, nodding repeatedly, tears mixed with blood dripping onto the blue bricks.

"Lichun understands...Lichun completely understands...Without the guild leader's guidance, I, Zhao Lichun, am nothing..."

"Stand up," Lin Yang coldly uttered three words.

With trembling legs, Zhao Lichun gripped the armrest of the chair beside him and struggled to his feet. He was hunched over, head bowed, barely daring to breathe.

Lin Yang picked up a cup of strong tea from the table and gently stirred the tea leaves.

"The situation in the Handong region has been under the leadership of Chief Executive Gao Yuliang during the years you've been away," Lin Yang said calmly, getting to the point.

Upon hearing the name "Gao Yuliang," Zhao Lichun's eyelids twitched violently.

Of course he knew this legal giant whom he had suppressed back then.

Lin Yang personally went to Handong University to invite him to come out of retirement and take over the mess at Handong.

"Gao Yuliang is a good official, a loyal minister who understands the rules and abides by the law." Lin Yang took a sip of tea, his gaze lingering on the economic map of the Handong region on the wall. "After he went to Handong, he swiftly and decisively cleaned up the mess of crime you left behind. He used the absolute rule of law to restore order to the social order of the Handong region. Now, Handong has the best public security in the country, and the people's grievances have been quelled."

Lin Yang paused slightly, and then a cold, sharp glint flashed in his eyes.

"but!"

Lin Yang slammed the teacup heavily onto the table.

"If the water is too clear, there will be no fish!"

"Gao Yuliang is an impregnable shield of the rule of law, but he can never become a sharp economic weapon for expanding territory!"

Lin Yang stood up, walked to the map, and pointed heavily twice at the vast plains of Handong.

"In the current international situation, foreign capital is flooding in like a tidal wave. What do those Western capitalists and Southeast Asian tycoons want when they come here to invest and build factories? They want efficiency! They want the audacity to handle things specially! They want the administrative skills to streamline all approval processes in a single day!"

"But what about Gao Yuliang?" Lin Yang sneered, his tone tinged with a helpless frustration. "He's too protective of his reputation, too insistent on procedural justice. For a Sino-foreign joint venture heavy-duty truck chassis processing plant project, the foreign investor's funds were already in place, but just because of a minor flaw in the data on an environmental impact assessment report, he stubbornly refused to sign it off for three months!"

Lin Yang suddenly turned around, staring intently at Zhao Lichun.

"Foreign investment can't wait! The country's economic development can't wait either! In these three months, foreign businesses have directly withdrawn their investments and moved to the special economic zones in the south. Because of his almost rigid caution, the Handong region missed out on billions of yuan in industrial investment! Handong's GDP growth rate has consistently ranked in the bottom half of the country for the past few years!"

As Zhao Lichun stood there listening to Lin Yang's analysis, his political brain, which had been dormant for many years, suddenly started working like crazy, as if injected with a stimulant.

He immediately understood Lin Yang's current predicament.

Gao Yuliang has a bottom line and principles, but he lacks the "wolf-like" spirit to break with convention in order to achieve rapid economic growth.

During the period of building the rule of law, he was a pillar of strength;

But in this era of economic explosion that required the frenzied plunder of capital and the extensive land grabbing and project acquisition, he became a stumbling block to the economic take-off of Handong.