Rebirth 77: From Beachcombing to Becoming a Tycoon and Spoiling My Wife

On the beach of a small fishing village in Linghai County, a striking two-story white house stands out among the low-rise fishermen's houses. This is Wu Anshun's home.

Wu Anshun, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, was playing cards with someone on the second floor. He glanced down at the cards in his hand and couldn't help but shake his head.

He was extremely agitated. His luck had been terrible these past few days, and all of this was thanks to that bastard Yang Bai.

A while ago, he was tricked by Yang Bai and was directly detained in the police station for half a month.

When he came out, he discovered that the transportation routes in Hai'an County, which he had firmly controlled, had been almost completely cut off.

In just one month, he suffered huge losses, both inside and out, to the point of financial ruin.

A plump, fair-skinned man sat opposite them, and upon seeing this, he smiled and tried to smooth things over.

"Captain Wu, don't be angry. Getting angry is bad for your health."

Wu Anshun raised his hand and tapped the table, his tone full of anger.

"Li Xiao, don't talk like that when you're not the one suffering. If you were dealt this bad hand, I guarantee you'd curse me even more vehemently. Forget about cards, has the cannery gotten any new orders lately? Share some with me, let me make some money."

The person opposite him was Li Xiao, the head of the supply and marketing department of Fuhai Canned Food Factory.

Li Xiao smiled upon hearing this and spoke the truth directly.

"We have the order, a large order of 80,000 catties of mackerel, but the region has already made arrangements to prioritize allocating this order to the Haian County Aquatic Products Company."

Wu Anshun slammed his hand on the table, throwing all the bad cards in his hand onto the surface, his face turning ashen.

"What! Our fleet hasn't received a decent order for a whole month, and our men are practically starving. And we're going to give this huge order all to Hai'an County?"

His anger surged, but in the end, it was Yang Bai who was suppressing him.

The most critical issue is that he also has a way to transport smuggled goods, which he has to cover up with legitimate seafood orders. Without a legitimate business to cover it up, his smuggled goods simply cannot be shipped out smoothly.

Right now, the brothers have no income, and morale is about to collapse.

Li Xiao quickly raised his hand to press down, signaling him to calm down, and looked up at him calmly.

"Calm down. Yang Bai is riding high lately, having closed several big deals in a row. The regional leaders will be personally inspecting the aquatic products work in Hai'an soon. Naturally, these high-quality orders will be given priority to Hai'an."

Wu Anshun snorted coldly, sat back down in his chair, feeling resentful yet helpless.

He softened his tone and looked at Li Xiao.

"Section Chief Li, you should at least give me some work to do. You can't just stand by and watch the brothers who follow me go hungry."

Li Xiao put down the cards in his hand, rubbed two fingers together lightly, and the implication in his words couldn't be clearer.

"Asking someone for a favor isn't something you can just do by talking the talk."

Wu Anshun clenched his fists tightly, feeling a surge of anger.

In the past, when he was at the height of his power, Li Xiao would fawn over him and actively seek out orders.

Now that he has fallen on hard times and lost power, the other party immediately began to take the opportunity to demand benefits.

But he needed someone's help, so he had to swallow his anger and turn to give instructions to Xiao Liu behind him.

"Xiao Liu, go downstairs to the safe and bring up a pack of cigarettes."

Liu Xiaoliu behind him immediately nodded, quickly walked to the next room, opened the safe, and took out a whole pack of cigarettes.

Wu Anshun took the cigarette and pushed it directly in front of Li Xiao, suppressing his temper as he spoke.

"I went through several connections to get this pack of cigarettes, you can have it."

In those days, supplies were scarce. Hua Zi was a top-grade cigarette brand, and it couldn't be bought with ordinary cigarette coupons. You had to collect twenty Class A cigarette coupons to exchange for it. An ordinary person might not be able to smoke one cigarette for several years.

Upon seeing this, Li Xiao immediately smiled with satisfaction, reached out and picked up the whole carton of cigarettes, examined it thoroughly, and praised it with a smile.

"Captain Wu has so many connections; he can even get his hands on such in-demand items."

He put down his cigarette and finally let go.

"Alright, seeing how sincere you are, I'll try to mediate for you. Hai'an is insisting on getting the lion's share of the 80,000 jin order, so I can only manage to get you 20,000 jin at most."

"Twenty thousand?!"

Wu Anshun's eyes widened instantly, his finger pointing at Li Xiao, anger surging up in his heart again, but in the end he still forced his hand back.

He originally thought he would at least get half, but he didn't expect the other party to only give him 20,000 catties.

After distributing this small amount of goods among his men, he himself barely had any money left; it was no different from giving money to a beggar.

But then he thought that with 20,000 jin of legitimate orders as a safety net, his smuggling route could continue to operate as usual, and he could still make up for the shortfall with smuggled goods, so he had no choice but to grit his teeth and accept it.

Li Xiao noticed his dissatisfaction and reached out to pat him on the shoulder to comfort him.

"Captain Wu, calm down. Twenty thousand catties may not seem like much, but as long as you do a good job with this batch of goods, I'll put in a good word for you and next time I'll definitely arrange a big order of over forty thousand catties for you."

Wu Anshun nodded. "Alright, I'll take this order. Make sure you arrange 40,000 jin of this order properly. If you don't, I won't consider you my brother. Okay, I'm not in the mood for cards anymore, let's call it a day."

Wu Anshun stood up dejectedly and walked downstairs.

Suddenly, one of his underlings ran up to him.

"Boss, your sister wants to see you?"

"Is my sister going to see me?"

Wu Anshun immediately sensed something was wrong, and he arranged for Zhang Sheng to deal with Yang Bai.

If it works out, he should come alone or with his sister.

Now that only his sister wants to see him, something must have happened to Zhang Sheng.

"where?"

Wu Anshun asked.

The younger brother replied, "It's in the reception room downstairs."

Wu Anshun strode into the reception room.

A beautiful woman with a beauty mark on the corner of her mouth sat anxiously on a leather sofa.

Seeing Wu Anshun come down, she immediately got up.

"Brother, something terrible has happened! Your brother-in-law is in trouble."

Wu Anshun immediately reassured him, "What happened? Tell me."

His sister's name was Wu Mei, and she sounded flustered.

"Brother, didn't you say you wanted Ah Sheng to temporarily be the captain of Yang Baigang's ship? And while you're at it, make a mess of things and hopefully get someone jailed."

"The plan has failed. He's been arrested, supposedly for intercepting Yang Bai, but he's been charged with robbery."

"Little brother, can you please get him out? I'm begging you."

Wu Mei sobbed uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face.

Wu Anshun handed her a tissue, but unexpectedly, Zhang Sheng was pulled inside by Yang Bai instead.

He's such a useless piece of trash!

"Sister, I'll definitely try to get my brother-in-law to come back, but it's not certain if it will work out. If he really gets locked up, I'll give you enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your lives!"

Wu Mei was stunned, staring blankly at her younger brother.

"What did you say? You might even go to jail?"

"Little brother, your brother-in-law went to jail because of you."

Wu Anshun held her hand.

"That makes sense, but I never expected things to turn out this way."

Sister, if I could go in and get my husband out, I would definitely do it, but can you really bear to watch your brother go in?

Don't worry, I'll do my best.

What do you mean by "for his own sake"? He was given the choice back then, but Zhang Sheng chose this path, messed it up, and still wants to get out.