Chen Ergou, whose belly had been stuffed with medicinal herbs by his crazy grandfather since childhood, had managed to hold on to the ink for over a decade. He knew that as a man, he should be carefree and unrestrained, so when he left Zhangjiashan on a tractor, he thought about waving goodbye and throwing away the paper slip with the phone number written on it. When he took the train to Shanghai, he wondered if he should fold it into a paper airplane and toss it out the window. In the end, however, he carefully tucked it into his pocket like a treasure. After all, Chen Ergou was just an uncultured, unconnected poor farmer from Zhangjiashan, and the cunning that had allowed him to thrive there might be shattered in Shanghai. As it turned out, not throwing away the phone number was the right decision.

  Such a commotion quickly attracted the police's attention, and several big thugs ran away in a hurry. Some quick-witted small-time hooligans didn't forget to kick their opponents a few times as they retreated. Only Chen Erdou and six or seven unlucky ones who were beaten down remained at the scene. Chen Erdou wasn't unable to escape, he just couldn't escape. He couldn't give up this job. As an outsider in a strange land, he wanted to find another job that was no less than getting him into Fudan University in Shanghai within a short period of time.

  Along with the hoodlums, Chen Ergou was dragged into a police car. As he listened to the ear-piercing siren, he glanced at the fierce and scowling police officers as well as the dejected and dispirited thugs. For the first time in handcuffs, Chen Ergou found it strange that he didn't feel even a bit anxious. He didn't regret what he had done today. He wouldn't deny that directly beating up the tattooed man from Jiangxi was an extremely impulsive mistake, but for someone like Chen Ergou who liked to nitpick, even if they did something wrong, they wouldn't admit it. Most importantly, the tattooed man who was sent to the hospital on a stretcher had happened to offend Chen Ergou's greatest taboo - he could curse anyone, but not his brother or mother. With an expressionless face, Chen Ergou sat in the police car, his mind most concerned with the bank deposit slip worth almost 6,000 yuan.

  The image of the boss squatting at the door with a bewildered and nervous expression, the boss's wife wailing loudly as she cleaned up the mess, and Little Li Wei's dazed and sparkling eyes all flashed before his mind. Chen Er Gou subconsciously stroked the thin red rope tied to his wrist, ignoring the policeman opposite him who looked at him like he was crazy, muttering to himself in dialect.

  Li Sheng returned to the second floor staircase after finishing his phone call at the street phone booth, picked up his rice bowl and continued eating, as if the disaster that brought no small loss to his family was just a farce. Sitting on the stairs, he took two big mouthfuls of rice, saw his sister staring at him, and imitated the boss's signature move by raising an eyebrow, saying: "It's a woman, prettier than you."

  "How can you know if someone is pretty when you haven't seen them before?" Li Wei frowned and said.

  "I just know." Li Sheng said with a bad tone, in his own opinion, talking about romance and love, he was a hundred times better than Chen Erdou. Although he had always disliked this Northeasterner making moves on his sister, but after comparison, Li Sheng felt that among so many suitors, this black dragon from Heilongjiang was the most to his liking.

  Li Wei sat beside his younger brother, propping up his cheek with his hand, lost in thought.

  "Sister, you're not being very righteous." Li Sheng muttered vaguely as he busied himself peeling rice.

  Li Wei didn't refute, she was just an ordinary girl who got the "Three Good Student" award every year. The word "righteousness" was too unfamiliar to her, she didn't think she did anything wrong, but felt a bit inappropriate, that's all. She imagined what the owner of that phone number looked like, beautiful? Could Chen Er Gou recognize a beautiful woman?

  Chen Ergou, who had mentally prepared himself for the worst, felt that something was off as soon as he got out of the car. Logically speaking, a fight like this shouldn't have warranted such a big response from the police station, with all the leaders coming out to greet him. The director and instructor-like figures were standing at the entrance of the police station, looking tense, making it seem like they had cracked a major drug trafficking case. Not just Chen Ergou was confused, but several other police officers also looked puzzled. Among them, a middle-aged man wearing a crisp uniform with an air of authority scanned the area before finally turning to Chen Ergou and asking tentatively, "Excuse me, are you Chen Ergou?"

  Chen Ergou considered himself a thorough and utter good citizen. In the past, he would feel nervous when seeing high-ranking officials such as school principals or village heads. Now that he had arrived in Shanghai and met his first high-ranking official, who was also an upright and honest police officer, how could he not be nervous? As soon as this big shot spoke, Chen Ergou immediately responded with utmost respect: "It's me, it's me."

  The police station head, who had been hostile towards Chen Ergou, was even more puzzled when he saw his humble appearance, but didn't show it on his face. He took the initiative to step forward a few steps, shook hands with Chen Ergou and said: "Comrade Chen Ergou, we have already investigated the incident clearly, you can go back now, just give us an accident report when you're free."

  Dazed and confused, Chen Ergou hesitantly asked: "Can I go back now?"

  The epaulette gleamed brightly and dazzled people's eyes. The captain smiled and said: "Of course, if you have an urgent matter, we can send a car to take you there."

  Chen Ergou fled in a very ungraceful manner, looking like an unsophisticated country bumpkin or a guilty and timid commoner.

  The director ignored the inexplicable civil police and the little rascal who was caught with Chen Ergou, looked at Chen Ergou's back, lit a cigarette, Hongdoulao, which Shanghai people like to call "Little Zhonghua", the instructor of the police station gestured for everyone to disperse, he came to the side of the first-hand man and asked in doubt: "What's going on?"

  The director sighed and said: "I don't even know what's going on myself. I just received two phone calls, guess who they were from."

  The instructor is not unfamiliar with this kind of thing, and it's normal to ask for a favor through connections. This kind of thing happens every now and then, but the police station is small, so they usually don't get to catch any big fish. The people who call in are just some minor officials, which makes the instructor laugh: "Is this someone from your wife's family?"

  The director slowly exhaled a ring of smoke and laughed scoldingly: "You're not unaware of my temper, if you were one of my own people, I would have dragged you in and whipped you with a leather strap long ago."

  The instructor frowned and whispered: "Is it a big deal?"

  The captain sighed, squatted down, took a deep drag on his cigarette and said: "It's huge. To be honest, even if Chen Ergou had beaten up several thugs, I would have to let him go, not to mention that he actually killed someone."

  The instructor took a deep breath of cold air and remained silent.

  "The director lowered his voice and said: 'Two phone calls, one from the Shanghai Garrison Command and one from the Shanghai Armed Police Corps, one belongs to the Nanjing Military Region and one belongs to the Armed Police Headquarters. Both are military-level units, no matter what level the person who made the call is, do you think I dare not release him?'"

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  Chen Ergou didn't understand what the Shanghai Armed Police Corps was, nor had he ever heard of the Shanghai Garrison Command. The most promising guy in Zhangjiacun was still doing odd jobs at a Northeastern-style small restaurant. Yet this insignificant figure from a mountain village managed to get two military-level units from different systems to extend an olive branch simultaneously. Chen Ergou couldn't guess or imagine the connections and energy involved, but he wasn't stupid - he knew it must be that woman's doing. For the first time in his life, Chen Ergou took a taxi, not knowing if it was extreme self-abasement that made him burst out with distorted self-respect. Sitting in the taxi, this small ant who toiled in Shanghai and could be crushed by anyone at any time told himself loudly in his heart: "Chen Ergou, next time those rich and powerful beauties come to Shanghai, you'll have some money in your pocket to treat them to a good meal, won't you?"

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