Chapter Eleven: Ideas for Making Money

  "Really? Is it that bad?" Liu Li couldn't believe it.

  "My words are truer than pearls." As soon as he mentioned this topic, Tian Hu had some lingering fear: "Those debt collectors were too crazy, not only did they block us during Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival, but even Qingming Festival and Lantern Festival were not let us spend happily.

  I was so scared when I was burning paper for my ancestors, worrying that those debt collectors would catch up with me. Under such high tension, I accidentally burned several copies of IOUs to my ancestors.

  "After the cremation, my grandfather who had passed away for over 20 years kept appearing in my dreams for a whole month, scolding me non-stop. I was so scared that during that period of time, I didn't dare to sleep at night and instead slept during the day and worked at night. Brother, I'm not lying to you, if you don't believe me, ask Du Suo and them, they'll tell you that's what happened."

  Hearing such a sorrowful tone, Liu Li believed the situation in front of him: "What's that? What did the countryside say? Don't they usually allocate funds? Won't they? Our village leaders are very stingy and won't even allocate one cent of funding."

  Upon hearing this, Feng Yong shook his head: "You're wrong about that. Our village's Wang Secretary and Huang Village Head are very generous, but they're generously poor. They sound good when they speak, but in reality, they don't have any money.

  Our police station is still better, the countryside allocates 500 yuan of funds every year, don't think it's little, having 500 is not bad, other departments in the countryside can't even get 50 cents, have you seen those rows of houses at the back?

  It's so dark because no one is on duty in each department, not that they don't want to be on duty, but Secretary Wang doesn't let them, just to save some electricity bills. You think our police station owes a lot of external debt? The countryside owes even more.

  Du Suo, I, and Old Tian, the three of us are hiding during the holidays, but Wang Shuji from the village and Huang Xiangzhang are now in a semi-dormant state. Not to mention those who owe debts can't find them, even we can't find the two of them."

  After listening to the three people's complaints, Liu Li's head suddenly became big, thinking that he had to work in such an environment, Liu Li felt very depressed. After chatting for a few more sentences, Liu Li couldn't take it anymore and asked about his accommodation before returning to his dormitory to rest.

  Liu Li's residence was allocated inside the police dormitory, no choice, the police station's housing is limited, can only make do with it, having a place to live is good enough. So far, Du Zhiqing and Feng Yong have only one office, not even a resting place.

  Tian Hu's office is in the household registration room, which is located on the west side of the police station in Tudi Township. The household registration room shares an office with the land administration office. Usually, Tian Hu often runs to the dormitory of the land administration office to rest.

  There were four beds in the dormitory of the police officers. Three auxiliary police officers occupied one bed each because they were on duty every day, and the remaining bed was used for formal police officers to take turns resting when they were on duty. Now this bed belonged to Liu Li. Several auxiliary police officers helped Liu Li spread out his bedding, then looked at him with a serious expression.

  Liu Li was a bit exhausted from running around today, and after lying down, he wanted to sleep. However, when he felt the gaze of the three auxiliary police officers, he couldn't help but sit up again: "What's wrong with you guys? Why are you staring at me?"

  "Liu Ge, can you play mahjong?" Zhang Liang asked cautiously, looking at Liu Li.

  As soon as he heard this, Liu Li suddenly sat up: "Damn... what do you mean I can play mahjong? If you remove that 'ma', brother not only knows how to play, but also plays very well."

  When Liu Li said that, Zhang Liang and the others all laughed: "Liu Ge, it's only 9 o'clock now, can you sleep so early? Or shall we four play a couple of rounds?"

  Two minutes later, the sound of "rattling" came from inside the police dormitory. Liu Li and others pulled over a table, and four people lay on the table to play mahjong.

  But fifteen minutes later, the four people lay on their own beds to rest. It turned out that Liu Li's luck was exceptionally good today, and in just a short while, he won all the money from Zhang Liang and the others. Helpless, everyone had to announce the end of the game.

  Lying in bed resting, Liu Li asked Zhang Liang: "Little Zhang, isn't our police station short of funds? Why not go catch gamblers? Our town will have a few tables playing mahjong, right? Catch one table and fine them 2,000, this way the police station will have some income, won't it?"

  Zhang Liang was lying in bed regretting the money he had lost, when he heard Liu Li's words, he replied with some helplessness: "Alas... I've also been caught gambling before, but not only didn't I get fined, I almost even paid out some money to others.

  The men in our area, except for the busy farming season when they return home to work for a period of time, spend all their time working outside and never come back. As a result, those who play mahjong are all women who stay at home.

  They play mahjong purely to kill time, just playing with a few coins, the total amount of money on the four people is less than 20 yuan, which does not constitute gambling at all.

  The last time Director Feng led the team to catch gamblers, there was an old lady inside who was 73 years old and was having a stroke. As soon as she saw our police car, she fainted from fright.

  Luckily, Comrade Feng was quick-witted and said he was asking for directions. As a result, they encountered the old man who had fainted, and asked his daughter-in-law if she needed help. When they heard that they weren't there to arrest them, the old man slowly came to. We didn't have time to figure out whether the old lady was really or fake fainting, anyway after that we never went to the village to catch gamblers again."

  "What about the village officials? The villagers' mahjong betting is small, as far as I know, some village officials bet a lot of money. If we catch those village officials, not to mention fines, just the on-site bets are quite impressive." Liu Li continued to ask.

  At this time, Li Cheng beside him took over: "Village cadres? Village cadres are even more hopeless. In other towns, village cadres have some salary, but in our Yingxiang Township, the village cadres don't have a single cent.

  For a living, many village cadres have gone out to work, some are working as security guards in factories, some are working part-time as electricians in power plants, and several older village party secretaries are said to be working as gatekeepers for companies. Although the name doesn't sound good, the salary is not low. When there are tasks in the countryside, they take leave to come back and attend meetings, after finishing, they go back to work, neither affecting the other.

  Having heard this, Liu Li was speechless. He had originally thought of making some fines by cracking down on gambling, but now it seemed that this wouldn't work out. Seeing that he couldn't think of a good solution for the time being, Liu Li simply went to sleep with his head covered.

  The next afternoon, Du Zhiqing and Feng Yong took Liu Li to meet the leaders of the county bureau. Before leaving, Du Zhiqing asked Liu Li to wear a police uniform, fearing that his own high police rank would intimidate Du Zhiqing and the others.

  So Liu Li lied that he didn't bring his police uniform, and then he and Zhang Liang, who was about the same size as him, borrowed a auxiliary police uniform, put it on, and followed Du Zhiging and Feng Yong to report to the county bureau.

  After meeting with the political commissar of Guyong County Public Security Bureau, they put down their transfer orders and chatted for a while. Coincidentally, several leaders from the Legal System Department and the Public Security Brigade came to ask the political commissar about work, so Liu Li and the others returned to Dizhang Township.

  As the main leader of Deying Township, he has been hiding debts outside for many years. On his way back, Du Zhiqing made two phone calls to Wang Jie, the party secretary of Deying Township, and Huang Zhen, the township head, telling them that the police station had added strength, a new formal police officer had been transferred, and asked if the two leaders would come back?

  After listening to Du Zhiqing's report, the two leaders were very happy and fully affirmed the recent work of the police station over the phone. They encouraged Liu Li to work hard and carry forward the spirit of not being afraid of hardship or fatigue, making a contribution to the development of Deying Township.

  After finishing these polite words, Wang Jie instructed Du Zhiging to find a good restaurant in the countryside, order some good dishes, buy two bottles of good wine, and let Du Zhiging represent the township party committee government to entertain Liu Li. The meal expenses will be recorded on the township's account.

  After hanging up the phone, Du Zhiqing looked at Liu Li beside him: "How's that? Secretary Wang is quite generous, right? However, I'd like to declare first, this welcoming banquet, none of us are allowed to go, because whoever goes will have to pay, and all the restaurants in our town won't give credit to any of our township officials.

  Secretary Wang says nice things, but he's actually very cunning. We can't keep track of accounts, and if we go, we'll have to pay out of our own pockets. When it's time to settle the bill, no one will be able to find him. Do you think Secretary Wang and Mayor Huang are just avoiding those debt collectors outside?

  To be honest with you, they also evaded the cadres who came to the countryside to collect debts. Previously, many people listened to their words and paid a lot of expenses to purchase office supplies on their own, and some even borrowed money to buy an official car.

  As a result, when they went to report with the invoices, it was only then that they discovered the two leaders were nowhere to be found. Not mentioning others, I still have more than 3,000 yuan of invoices here that haven't been reimbursed yet, these invoices in my hands are almost worn out."

  After the words fell, Du Zhiqing took out a few crumpled invoices from his pocket: "I thought that today I would take you to meet with the two township leaders and be able to bring up the issue of the invoices with them, but it seems my hopes have been dashed again."

  Looking at Du Zhiging sighing, Liu Li was speechless for a moment. He was secretly thinking about how to get the money.