Chapter 07 - Alarming the Officials

The station was roughly 500 meters away from the Old Street, which could be reached in just 3-5 minutes. When Inspector Zhao heard of this matter, he knitted his brows and knew that it wasn’t easy to handle this matter as he got someone to put Su Tao in the interview room.

Inspector Zhao was the Second-in-Command with the Station Chief above him. He’s in charge of matters regarding the political work in the station, handling those people with sensitive status. Thus, he felt that this matter was related to commercial demolition; and thus, it wasn’t good for him to meddle in this affair.

Inspector Zhao had instructed his subordinates to inform the Hongsheng Group to handle this matter and classified this case as a civil dispute.

The dispatched team leader held onto his painful lower abdomen while being fearful of Su Tao, who used a simple jab to paralyze him.

Ten-odd minutes later, a decent-looking man walked into the interview room and sat opposite of Su Tao. “Nice to meet you, I am the Assistant of the Hongsheng Group’s Chairman, Xiao Yifeng.”

Su Tao merely raised his eyes and spoke in a faint voice. “Speak whatever nonsense you have.”

Su Tao would usually show an image of a gentleman; but occasionally, he would also be crude with his words. He wasn’t too fond of himself being uncivilized.

Xiao Yifeng coughed with an awkward expression. He knew that it wouldn’t be easy to deal with Su Tao. He retrieved a document from his bag and placed it before Su Tao. “I’ll have to ask you to look at this demolition contract.”

Su Tao merely cast a glance and knew what it was about. The Hongsheng Group offered compensation of ¥70,000 for every square meter, which was ten times the market price.

Xiao Yifeng smiled. “You must keep this offer a secret. Chairman Nie gave you such an offer based on his relationship with Old Physician Su. Others would not be getting such an offer.”

This was a sky-high price, since the Three Flavour Hall was merely a tattered Pharmacy. He could easily open a new one in prime locations with this money and sufficient funding. So there’s no reason for Su Tao to reject this offer in Xiao Yifeng’s view.

But it was a pity that Su Tao had knitted his brows before he shook his head. “I decline!”

“Don’t be too greedy, it’s more than the market price.” Xiao Yifeng spoke in a hard tone.

However, Su Tao sneered as he replied, “Why don’t I give you this money and you sell your wife to me?”

Money was truly important, but that didn’t mean it was everything.

“You!” Xiao Yifeng’s face turned unsightly as he warned, “You must know what is best for you. An arm could never fight against the thigh. If you refuse to sign this, then you can forget about walking out of the station.”

But facing his threat, Su Tao casually spread his hands out. “Then I’ll just stay in the station.”

Xiao Yifeng angrily slammed on the table as he walked out. Inspector Zhao had been waiting and asked, “Is the matter settled?”

Xiao Yifeng shook his head in anger. “That fellow refused to concede. I’ll have to trouble you to let him stay here for this period of time.”

However, Inspector Zhao was instantly unhappy. “Assistant Xiao, I can help you but you can’t expect me to commit a mistake.”

Xiao Yifeng patted Inspector Zhao’s shoulder and lowered his voice, “You’ll definitely be paid for your trouble.”

Inspector Zhao smacked his lips, since there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The Hongsheng Group was very powerful and influential, they had already spoken to Station Chief Cheng, so there wasn’t a thing he could do but leave Su Tao in the interview room.

Not long after Xiao Yifeng left, a commotion came from outside and Inspector Zhao walked out to see that a group had gathered.

The group was manned by Grandpa Xu. He was pretty close to Inspector Zhao. “Xiao Zhao, release Su Tao quickly. He was just defending himself.”

Facing Grandpa Xu, Inspector Zhao could only smile as he replied, “Grandpa Xu, we have to go according to the process. Su Tao is suspected of being involved in a brawl and the mediation between him and Hongsheng Group fell off. So he can only stay here for a while more.”

Cai Yan pointed her finger at Inspector Zhao’s nose as she yelled, “You guys have colluded with the Hongsheng Group, right? Arresting Su Tao on purpose while letting those that caused troubles to go freely. You guys are simply acting as accomplices!”

“The reason why we arrested Su Tao is that there are injured parties being sent to the hospital. Please understand this, since we’re doing as our procedures. Once the investigation is done and there’s no issue, he will be released.” Inspector Zhao could only explain helplessly.

He was good at politics, so dealing with others was easy, since he was careful with his words.

Inspector Zhao returned to his office with his heart raging. The Hongsheng Group had stirred trouble for him. He couldn’t let Su Tao leave nor leave him here, leaving him in a dilemma.

The neighbours of the Old Street stood outside the station, refusing the leave. Inspector Zhao gave Xiao Yifeng a call, but Xiao Yifeng instructed for him to let Su Tao stay in the station to grind Su Tao’s will.

Inspector Zhao secretly took a glance at Su Tao. Seeing how calm and composed Su Tao was compared to him, the anger in his heart brewed even more.

Vera sat in a Buick commercial car with her legs crossed as she instructed Secretary Li with a solemn expression. “Call Zhang Ping of the Secretary of the Municipal Committee.”

Secretary Li pondered since he knew that Vera was raging in her heart. He immediately dialled a series of number and passed the phone to Vera.

“Secretary Zhang, this is Vera. Just earlier, I had personally witnessed a matter regarding a forced demolition. So since the investment environment of Hanzhou is so bad, I think I will take back my promise and give up on the investment.” Vera returned to her image of a business queen as she slowly spoke.

“What’s wrong?” Zhang Ping furrowed his brows. They had just come to an agreement, so what’s with the sudden changes?

Vera replied in a calm voice, “Please send someone to investigate the matters regarding Hanzhou’s Old Street. Just earlier, my friend, Physician Su who treated me was arrested by the police.”

Hearing those words, Zhang Ping immediately slammed on the table in a fury. His assistant quickly walked in, since it was rare to see Zhang Ping so furious.

“Simply ridiculous! Is this still a lawful society? The officials and commerce colluding together to pressure citizens. Quick, inform the Head Police Station and have them release Su Tao! Such a nasty incident was actually witnessed by a foreign investor, will there still be investors coming over to invest? The influence of this is too bad, you will personally make a trap to deal with this matter!” Zhang Pin knitted his brows.

Letting his assistant handle this matter personally would represent his own attitude.

When the assistant heard what was going on, he immediately returned to his seat before he dialled to Yao Lin, the Station Chief of the Head Police Station. “There’s an urgent matter that I need you to handle.”

The Secretary of the Municipal Committee’s Assistant didn’t hold much power, but his words represented the Secretary of the Municipal Committee himself. Thus, Yao Lin immediately asked without daring to delay the matter, “What is it? To make Assistant Du sound so serious?”

Du Pin sighed, “A local police station has colluded with a developer to force a demolition and arrested a friend of a foreign investor.”

Yao Lin swiftly figured out what was going on as he explained, “That’s not surprising. The local stations are required to deal with such issues.”

Su Pin sighed again, “Problem is, the foreign investor is extremely important and was prepared to sign a project which involves ¥500,000,000. If this incident gave her a bad impression, then wouldn’t the project go down the drain? Secretary Zhang is enraged by this matter, so you have to deal with this seriously!”

Actually, the rest of his words didn’t really matter except for one, Secretary Zhang was enraged!

Du Ping arrived at the door of the station. Yao Lin had already been waiting there for quite some time. The neighbours of the Old Street were all gathered there, which caused Yao Lin’s face to turn a little unsightly.

Du Pin walked up with Yao Lin following behind and they spoke to one of the guards, “Call your Station Leader out, the City’s Office is here.”

“Who are you? My Station Leader is currently not present, he’s out for a meeting.” The guard felt that for some reason, Yao Lin was familiar. Thus, he had carefully inquired the other party’s identity.

“I am Yao Lin, this is my card. Have you taken a clear look at it?” Yao Lin’s face was solemn.

The guard was greatly startled with cold sweat dripping from his back. Isn’t that the boss of the Police Station Headquarters? Immediately, he stuttered as he spoke, “The Station Leader isn’t present, but Inspector Zhao is here! Please wait, I’ll go and inform Inspector Zhao right away.”

When Inspector Zhao heard that Yao Lin came, he immediately knew that this matter had gone out of his control. He was merely Second-in-Command of this local police station. Usually, he would only be taking a glimpse from afar when he saw Yao Lin. But today, Yao Lin had personally come!

When Yao Lin saw Inspector Zhao, his face turned solemn. “This is the Secretary of the Municipal Committee, Assistant Du Pin.”

This caused Inspector Zhao to feel even more uneasy. Could it be that even the Secretary of the Municipal Committee was shaken by this matter? Just what was Su Tao’s background?

Inspector Zhao brought Yao Lin and Du Pin to the interview room, but the moment they stepped in, the three of them were stunned when they saw that instead of doing nothing, Su Tao was actually taking the pulse of a policeman.

“You’re involved in a car accident two years ago and suffered heavy injuries to your head. There are still blood clots in your brain; and thus, you will feel a headache especially on rainy days. This isn’t a big problem, don’t listen to those doctors. No surgery is required, since the risk posed by that would be too great. Acupuncture treatment and two doses of medicine will do, so come to the Three Flavour Hall when you’re free.”

Su Tao was bored; and thus, he started to chat with those officers that arrested him, helping them resolve their minor illnesses. At the end, when the other officers heard about this, they started to come to the interview room as well.

Du Pin saw this situation as he exchanged a glance with Yao Lin and immediately explained, “I forgot to introduce you. Su Tao is a specialist from the Jianghuai Hospital.”

Inspector Zhao smiled in reply as he stood to the side. “It’s no wonder. Earlier on, he was examining some of my colleagues, accurately pointing out all their illnesses.”

Yao Lin coughed and knew that Su Tao did not suffer any indignance, which turned out to be good before pointing at Inspector Zhao and raged, “Now, immediately call Cheng Long for me!”

Cheng Long was the Station Chief of this local police station. In terms of level, he wouldn’t be bothered with dealing with those low-levelled officials in the local station.

Thus, the right chain of command was that he dealt with Cheng Long, while Cheng Long dealt with Inspector Zhao.

Inspector Zhao bitterly smiled as he spoke to Su Tao, “Physician Su, please explain to Station Chief Yao. We’re in a lawful society, we only invited you here to handle your matters with Hongsheng Group.”

Su Tao’s memory was pretty good and had once met Du Pin in Di Shiyuan’s office. Thus, he recognized Zhang Ping’s assistant. So he had figured out that Vera probably used her connections.

Su Tao knew that Inspector Zhao was versed in dealing in this matter, so he did not make things difficult for him. As for those officers that arrested them, they had all been turned into his loyal customers and he still required the local police station to take care of the Three Flavour Hall. Thus, he had to give Inspector Zhao some face.

Therefore, Su Tao explained, “Inspector Zhao was fair and impartial in his duties. After receiving the police report, he went according to the procedure. I only sat here and rested briefly without much loss.”

Yao Lin initially wanted the local Station Chief to fire Inspector Zhao, but since Su Tao was not willing to pursue, then he might as well go along with it, “You must still be punished. The crowd outside means that you have done things wrong and did not listen to the public voices. Tomorrow, you and your Station Chief will request disciplinary action yourselves.”

Inspector Zhao also felt lucky, since he initially thought that he would be fired. Thus, he was excited as he replied, “Thank you, Station Chief Yao, Assistant Du and Physician Su.”

While inwardly in his heart, he praised Su Tao for knowing what to do so that, in the future, he would also be taking extra care of the Three Flavour Hall.