Chapter 2481: Chapter 2384: Tired of Living

It seemed he could see that Wu Jun’s mind was already made up, so Liao Agong stopped trying to persuade him. He just let out a sigh and said, unable to bear it a little:

"A real man can bend and stretch; as long as the green hills remain, you never run out of firewood. If things really get too much, remember to grit your teeth and bear it till it passes. Don’t get stubborn and butt heads with people, or the one who suffers will be you!"

With that, the old man shouldered his hoe and headed down the mountain.

The old man’s words truly came from the heart; even Huo Sining couldn’t help nodding over and over:

"This old guy’s not bad. He really is trying to talk sense into you out of concern."

Wu Jun gave a little smile, nodded, and said, "He’s my father’s old co-worker. Back in the day they worked together in the production team. He’s always had a very good relationship with my father."

"Later, when something happened to my family, he’s the one who kept helping my little sister. If it weren’t for him, back then my sister could never have escaped from my aunt’s clutches. She’d probably have been sold off to some godforsaken backwater long ago."

Huo Sining was taken aback: "He’s the one who helped?"

Wu Jun nodded. "My sister overheard my aunt negotiating with traffickers about the price to sell her. She was only eleven at the time. For her to even sense something was wrong was already rare. But an eleven-year-old girl—even if she knows my aunt means her harm, what can she possibly do?"

"The little girl stumbled and staggered as she ran out of my uncle’s house, but just as she got out the door, my aunt realized and came chasing after her."

"It was Liao Agong who hid her in a stack of hay, then at dawn the next morning used an ox cart to send my sister to the bus station in town, bought her some random bus ticket to Dali, and shoved her onto the bus. That’s the only reason she managed to escape."

When Huo Sining first came to this town, she’d already seen just how remote Wu Jun’s hometown was. With no parents, no support, and nowhere to turn, the danger of Wu Ya escaping her aunt’s hands was something Huo Sining could imagine clearly just by thinking about it.

Three years ago, when she first met this little girl Wu Ya, she’d felt the child’s background was very similar to her own, which was why compassion moved her to take in the siblings.

But now, hearing Wu Jun revisit those old events, Huo Sining realized she had underestimated how rough Wu Ya’s fate had been. Compared to what she herself suffered in Huo Yong’s household, this little girl’s situation was even more tragic.

If it weren’t for the good man Liao Agong stepping in, what kind of miserable state would Wu Ya be in today?

A pang of emotion welled up in Huo Sining’s heart, and she was also deeply stirred.

Among all those impoverished backwaters she hadn’t seen, how many other girls were out there with experiences just like Wu Ya’s?

Huo Sining felt that maybe she needed to do something for these girls who might be sold off—but she also knew clearly that the complexity of this was far beyond anything like gambling on jade or treasure appraisal.

Returning to the matter at hand, Huo Sining had already heard what Liao Agong said about the origin of this tea garden. Even with all her mental preparation, she hadn’t expected the owner of this tea garden to be so domineering and arrogant—leasing nearly a thousand mu of forest for one hundred years, and only paying one million. It was simply unbelievable!

You have to know, when Huo Sining contracted that mountain behind the village in Xishuangbanna, where the Pili Trees that produce balsam grow, she signed a hundred-year buyout lease—and the price was eighty million.

Moreover, the contract clearly stated that the lease target was only the Pili Trees in that stretch of forest, not the usage rights to the forest itself.

In addition, Huo Sining had ceded a lot of profit margins, such as setting up a company locally, providing substantial employment opportunities for villagers, allowing them to harvest Pili oil, and purchasing it at market price, and so on.

Even with this kind of contract, Huo Sining still felt she was getting a huge bargain in the process. But compared to the boss of this tea garden in front of her, she realized she was simply not cut out to be a heartless profiteer.

Still, this feather-plucking, Zhou Bapi-style behavior was truly outrageous.

They say cutting off someone’s livelihood is like killing his parents, and on top of that this Boss De even dug up the villagers’ ancestral graves. This kind of vile act was almost unheard of.

Even Cao Cao, that warlord who once said "I’d rather wrong the world than let the world wrong me," didn’t dare do such things openly when he dug up ancestral tombs to loot the gold and silver inside to supply his army. He only dared secretly set up a Colonel of Touching Gold unit to sneak out on dark, windy nights.

Even Emperors wouldn’t stoop to this, yet this local tyrant could bring himself to do it. Huo Sining had always thought her tolerance threshold was already very low, but she hadn’t expected Boss De to keep pushing down the bottom line of what she could accept.

Dealing with someone like this, there was naturally nothing to talk about. Huo Sining had no intention of leaving him any room. In anything she did, she’d always press the advantage without letting up. Since he’d come rattling her cage, if she didn’t strike while he was sick and finish him off, was she supposed to save him for the New Year?

The three of them waited calmly, and after about half an hour, the reinforcements that security captain had called finally showed up, dragging their feet.

The roar of engines came from beyond the iron fence, and before long, a pounding noise sounded from the gatehouse door—thud, thud, thud.

The old gatekeeper fumbled to open the retractable gate, and as soon as it opened, a swarm of thugs brandishing weapons poured in from outside and headed straight up the mountain toward where Wu Jun was.

"Who dares make trouble in my Brother De’s Yingfeng Shanyuan?! You must be tired of living!"

The one in front was a ferocious-looking middle-aged man with a thick gold chain around his neck, an ugly stud in his ear, and sleeves rolled up to reveal black tattoos. He bellowed so loudly the entire tea mountain could hear him.

At the sound of his voice, the few tea-picking women who had been watching the commotion all showed fear in their eyes. Terrified, they hurriedly backed away and didn’t dare come anywhere near.

From the way those women reacted, it was clear that this middle-aged man wasn’t putting on a show—he really was a nasty piece of work.

But even so, both Huo Sining and Wu Jun showed no trace of fear. Their expressions stayed calm as they looked at the newcomers.

The gang of thugs came up wielding iron rods and machetes. Once they stepped onto the tea rows, they very naturally spread out and surrounded the three of them.

Wu Ya was still young and had never seen a scene like this. She shrank back in fear, and when Huo Sining saw it, she quietly pulled the little girl into her arms to shield her.

The security captain who’d been slapped twice by Wu Jun and vanished who knew where earlier now suddenly sprang out.

Perhaps because his reinforcements had arrived and he had someone backing him, this petty man—who had been scared by Wu Jun until he was practically rolling on the ground like a ridiculous clown—straightened his back, his face full of smugness. Pointing at Wu Jun, he shouted:

"Brother Hao, it’s him, it’s him who beat up several of our guys and dug up the tea trees in the garden. He’s way too arrogant! He doesn’t take you or Brother De seriously at all!"

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