The Delicate Darling with Her Rough Man

”Alright, Brother Leng, I’ll be going then.”

Lu Yuanbin was ecstatic. His mind was completely filled with the plan they had just discussed. He could already picture the defeated look on Old Nine’s face. The thought made him even more smug.

He wheeled his bicycle out of the courtyard and, as a thoughtful gesture, turned back to wave.

But Leng Yuan had already shut the courtyard gate without a hint of sentiment.

Lu Yuanbin happily straddled his bicycle. Just as he was about to push down on the pedals, he felt something was off.

’Wait a minute!’

’I’m just leaving like this?’

But the matter was resolved, so he really should be on his way.

Lu Yuanbin couldn’t quite put his finger on it at that moment. He started pedaling away. Halfway home, a cold gust of wind snapped him to his senses, and he finally understood what was wrong.

His Brother Leng was shooing him away.

He was obviously afraid Lu Yuanbin would stick around and freeload a meal.

Lu Yuanbin was instantly speechless. ’Brother Leng has gotten so stingy since he got married.’

Grumbling to himself the whole way, he pedaled furiously and soon arrived back in County Town.

He immediately summoned his men.

Lu Yuanbin’s house was packed with over twenty people, none of them very old. To others, they were just a bunch of hooligans who didn’t have proper jobs.

In reality, they wanted to work too.

But the factories had limited openings, and they couldn’t get one. On top of that, living in County Town meant they had no land, so they ended up as idle drifters just getting by day to day.

At home, their parents looked down on them, and their siblings who had jobs scorned them as well.

In the beginning, they’d gotten into the black market business either to fill their stomachs or to save face.

But over time, they had grown to like this line of work.

They helped people from the countryside who had grain but no money bring it to County Town, selling it to families who had money and ration coupons but no grain. They saw it as a mutually beneficial arrangement—as doing a good deed.

Now, even the people around them had changed their opinions. They would greet them politely on sight and willingly pay the twenty-cent stall fee.

This was money they earned with their own skills.

Everyone took this under-the-table job very seriously.

When everyone finished listening to Lu Yuanbin explain that Old Nine might get An Mingjiang to suppress them, they erupted.

”That bastard! If he has any guts, he should beat us fair and square. What kind of skill is pulling these dirty tricks behind our backs?”

They were just a group of ordinary people. How could they possibly be a match for an official?

The men were furious, but there was nothing they could do.

”After Old Nine got beaten today, I saw him go into the An Family’s little courtyard with my own eyes. He must have gone to ask An Mingjiang for help. Old Nine has paid a lot of respect money to An Mingjiang over the years, so he’ll probably make a move.”

Before, it had just been Lu Yuanbin’s speculation, and the men could still deceive themselves. But now that Old Nine had already gone to see An Mingjiang, it was clear their rival was really going to take action.

”Fuck! If we’d known, we should have kicked him out of the black market from the start.”

But back then, seeing that the guy had a group of his own brothers to feed, Lu Yuanbin had stopped everyone, not wanting to press him into a corner and have him do something desperate.

”Then we need to think of something, fast! We can’t just let the black market fall apart like this!”

Those words made everyone’s eyes turn red.

They relied on the black market to make a living, but over time, it had become more than that. They’d watch the vendors make money to take home, knowing their families’ lives might get a little better. When someone got sick, they would now be willing to spend money on a fever-reducing pill.

And those people with money and ration coupons but no land—people who had cash but couldn’t buy grain—could come to the place they provided and trade without fear.

Letting everyone get what they needed—that was their purpose.

Now, even that sole purpose was about to be taken away.