Rebirth of the Rising Sun

At night, Feng Sizhe did not wear a suit and tie like he did during the day, but casual clothes, looking like a passerby. No one would have thought that this man was the second-in-command of the Capital Province and the head of the province.

Accompanied by Yin Fenglei, Zhang Yang and others, Feng Sizhe walked towards the night market. Of course, Li Shuang did not follow him, he had his own task, which was to look after the cars. And he also knew that if he did not follow the boss, Chen Hu would go there. Relatively speaking, in terms of his own ability, Chen Hu was better at protecting people than him.

The night market is a mixed bag of people, with all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. There are stalls selling small things, gadgets, clocks, toys, food, and everything else. It is precisely because of its wide range that it can attract more people to come here.

Walking forward, Feng Sizhe would stop in front of some stalls from time to time, ask about the prices of some things, and chat with the stall owners, acting like a people-friendly governor.

After a while, Feng Sizhe walked to the stall of an old man who was selling some books.

I saw that the eldest man was over seventy years old, with very little hair on his head, and the little hair he had was completely white, which showed that the old man had experienced a lot.

When walking in front of this stall, Feng Sizhe stopped again because he was very curious. Although the books sold in this stall were very diverse, there were middle school textbooks, high school textbooks, some miscellaneous books that he couldn't name, and even famous works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

"Uncle, how much do you sell these books for?" Feng Sizhe came to the stall and squatted down.

Seeing that there was a customer, the old man became more cheerful. "You can pay as you see fit. Thicker books are 10 yuan, thinner books are 5 yuan, and the thinnest books are 2 yuan or 1 yuan."

Hearing that the price was so low, Feng Sizhe picked up a copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms curiously and asked, "Is this book only ten yuan? Isn't it too cheap?" The reason why Feng Sizhe said this was because he could see that this was a hardcover edition, and it might have cost several hundred yuan when he first bought it.

"Hey, it doesn't matter whether it's expensive or cheap, just pay for it. Otherwise, these are useless to keep at home, and it would be a pity to burn them. You can't even get that much money if you sell them to a junk collector." The old man said honestly.

Hearing the old man say this, Feng Sizhe's curiosity was aroused, "Uncle, where did you get these books from? Don't you know the price of these books?"

"Hehe, these books were used by my two grandsons when they were in school. They are now attending college outside. I thought they are of no use anymore, so I thought of selling them. At least I can get some money to supplement the family income." It can be said that this old man is very honest. He really answers whatever is asked.

Hearing that he was selling books to supplement his family income, Feng Sizhe took another careful look at the old man. He saw that he was wearing green military pants that had turned a little yellow and a white shirt on his upper body. However, due to the age, the white luster had long faded, especially at the collar, which was even torn.

Judging from his clothes, the old man's living conditions should not be too bad. But judging from his age, he should be retired. Doesn't the country give him a pension? So Feng Sizhe continued to ask, "Uncle, don't you have a salary after retirement?"

Maybe it was because there were too few people patronizing his business on weekdays, and now that he finally had someone to talk to, the old man was willing to talk more. Facing the questions raised by Feng Sizhe, he answered them patiently, "Haha, I retired, and my salary is more than a thousand, but my two grandsons are going to college, and their father passed away early, so the money is always not enough."

After hearing what the old man said, Feng Sizhe finally understood. It turned out that the old man had to take this step out of necessity. But no matter what, this was also self-reliance and was not shameful.

After understanding the situation, Feng Sizhe stood up from his squatting position, thinking that he would learn some other questions. But when he stood up, the old man looked at the customer and said anxiously, "Are you not going to buy a book before you leave? Just pick one at random. If you can't find a replacement, you can give me one yuan."

Hearing the old man say this, Feng Sizhe lowered his head again, picked up the hardcover copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, then stretched out his hand and Yin Fenglei handed him a hundred yuan.

Young Master Feng is the head of a province, but he doesn't really have the habit of carrying money when he goes out. He put the hundred yuan in the old man's hand and said, "Uncle, this is money for books."

"Oh, there are too many. I'll come to you." The old man said hurriedly when he saw that it was a red ticket.

"Haha, no need. Actually, this book is worth more than this money. I made a profit." Feng Sizhe said with a smile. Yes, the new book is more expensive than this, but it is useless for him to get it. He already has more than one set of hardcover editions of the four great classics at home.

After hearing what Feng Sizhe said, the old man stopped, but he still said, "You gave too much, too much..."

Feng Sizhe stood up again. To him, this was just a small episode. He wanted to continue moving forward to see if there was anything else going on.

But as soon as Feng Sizhe stood up, several people rushed over. The guy who ran to the front stretched out his hand and snatched the hundred yuan that had not yet been put into the old man's pocket. "Old man, this money is considered tax?"

This scene happened very quickly, and Feng Sizhe just realized that the money had been taken away by someone else. Faced with this sudden scene, Feng Sizhe was very curious, because he looked at the other person's clothes and he didn't look like an industrial and commercial tax officer.

The old man reacted quickly. When he saw that the money was gone, he immediately stood up from the small stool and said, "What are you doing? I'm a disabled soldier. The government said that they don't charge taxes for my stall."

It was not until this time that Feng Sizhe noticed that the old man's foot was a little lame. Looking at the old military pants on the old man, he began to believe that the old man was not lying.

"That's because the government doesn't collect taxes. But here, we don't have that. Not to mention that you are a disabled soldier, even if you are a national hero, it won't work." The young man who robbed the money said righteously.

Feng Sizhe was immediately displeased when he heard someone say this, but he didn't say anything right away, because he had already seen that there were more than one or two people behind the young man. Five or six people had already come over, and they should be in the same group. Let's wait and see how the situation develops. If these people really want to harm the old man, then Young Master Feng will definitely take action to deal with it.

"Bullshit." The old man got angry when he heard the young man say that, and he reached out with his cane to hit the young man. "The country has said that I am tax-free, why are you still collecting taxes?"

The young man didn't expect that the old man would start fighting him right away, and he was hit unexpectedly. This made him angry, and he wanted to punch him immediately, but a middle-aged man walked out from behind him, stretched out his hand to stop the young man and glared at him.

It was obvious that this middle-aged man still had a lot of prestige. After being glared at by him, the young man immediately lost his temper and stopped talking.

After stopping the young man, the middle-aged man laughed and walked forward a little. "Mr. Li, I know you are a disabled soldier and the country does not collect taxes from you, but we brothers maintain the night market law and order every day, and we also need to eat and wear clothes, which cost money. You see other stall owners pay monthly, don't you want to pay a little too? I don't think I need to remind you that you have been setting up a stall here for several months, but you only give us brothers ten yuan. Isn't this too little? Okay, I think we will follow this standard in the future. I will charge you one hundred yuan a month. What do you think?"

Hearing what the middle-aged man said, the old man's face immediately became anxious, "Liang Wuzi, you know who I am, and you still dare to say that. Do you have a conscience? This is the night market built for us by the Party and the government. The country doesn't take my money, so why do you take it? You still have the nerve to say that you are maintaining public order. Why do I need you to protect my small bookstall?"

Obviously, the old man knew the middle-aged man, and he called out his name right away. And his question was very practical. After hearing this question, Feng Sizhe wanted to see how the other party would answer.

Facing Mr. Li's questioning, the so-called Mr. Liang Wu did not feel embarrassed at all. On the contrary, he answered loudly, "What do you say we are protecting? Don't you know that colleagues are enemies? Look around, there are so many people doing business here, and many industries overlap. Think about it, if there were no people like us protecting it, how could the public security here be good? Will colleagues fight for a little bit of profit? If so, wouldn't it implicate other people who set up stalls here, and at the same time they themselves would suffer serious economic losses."

Speaking of crooked theories, this Liang Wuye has a lot of them. Taking this opportunity, Feng Sizhe also heard other people who were setting up stalls at the night market talking about how Liang Wuye was responsible for the security of the night market. He usually managed the underground order here with a group of brothers, and their main source of income was collecting security protection fees. They also threatened that as long as the fees were paid, the personal safety would be guaranteed, but if they didn't pay, it would be hard to say. Some stall owners also said that basically every month there would be several major injuries due to failure to pay the fees in time.

It was simply because Uncle Liang Wu had a large number of people and power, and he had a very good relationship with the local police station. It was said that he also had some connections there, and it seemed that he was also related to Bai's Real Estate, the boss of the real estate industry in the capital province. So even though everyone was unwilling, considering their own strength, no one dared to mess with these people.