208: Chapter 204: Destiny of Breaking Army 208: Chapter 204: Destiny of Breaking Army Outside the gate of the annex, Tian Mingjian stood as straight as a javelin, silently on guard.
Chen Hai turned his head and sized him up from top to bottom.
“Brother Tian, I’m just a student, and with you dressed in that outfit, standing guard here, it somehow looks awkward to me.”
“Brother Cheng ordered this, and I know you can’t refuse.
You’ll definitely follow the order, but changing into another set of clothes shouldn’t be a big deal.”
He fished out a few banknotes from his pocket and stuffed them into Tian Mingjian’s hand.
Chen Hai continued, “Take this money and buy two sets of clothes.
After all, you’re following me, and you can’t let down my reputation, right?”
While laughing, Chen Hai’s old habit kicked in, he couldn’t resist, and he used his face-reading skills to take another few glances at Tian Mingjian.
His face-reading skills were not entirely complete.
Just a few glances, and what he could discern was actually very limited.
The only good thing was that each time he used face-reading, the consumption of his Mana was negligible.
With the help of face-reading, the little insights he gained, as long as he kept them to himself and didn’t broadcast them everywhere, there was no risk of Heaven’s Secret backlash.
Ye Cheng had mentioned that the Tian Mingjian before him was known as the Gun God.
Naturally, Chen Hai was a bit curious and wanted to understand more about him through face-reading.
Unfortunately, it would have been better if he hadn’t looked because when he did, he was dumbfounded for quite a while.
“The Destiny of Breaking Army?
With one gun, easily cleaving through a thousand soldiers?”
“In September of next year, he will encounter an ambush of six thousand men and lose his life near JianGuo Gate…”
Chen Hai silently gasped for air and took a long time to come back to his senses.
He looked at Tian Mingjian up and down again carefully.
If he didn’t have knowledge of face-reading, no matter how he looked, he wouldn’t be able to tell that the man before him, who seemed to be full of righteousness, could be so fierce.
“Young Master Chen, I have plain clothes in my dorm.
Driving for you and protecting you is the task assigned by the higher-ups!”
“Taking your money to buy clothes goes against military discipline and really isn’t appropriate!”
Tian Mingjian quickly waved his hand to decline in the face of the banknotes Chen Hai handed to him.
“There’s nothing inappropriate about it.
By my side, you need to follow my rules.”
“If this small matter causes you to be accused of violating military discipline and gets you punished, I’ll personally find Brother Cheng to stand up for you.”
“If worse comes to worst, you needn’t be a soldier anymore; come work for me instead.
Whatever your current pay is, I’ll double it!”
Chen Hai forcefully stuffed the banknotes into Tian Mingjian’s pocket and chuckled.
As long as someone was talented, to him, they were worth winning over.
Although a great calamity appeared to await Tian Mingjian next year, and under normal circumstances, he would likely not escape death,
since ancient times, there have always been ways out for those destined not to die.
With the help of a noble person, it might be possible for him to avoid disaster and find a ray of hope.
“Well then, Young Master Chen, I’ll go out later and buy two sets of clothes!” With a troubled face, Tian Mingjian hesitated for a long time, but ultimately he nodded and agreed.
Although he was a Lieutenant and deputy company-level officer, his monthly salary and allowances added up to only about one or two hundred yuan.
The few hundred yuan Chen Hai gave him was not a small amount of money.
Though it was given to him for buying clothes, after taking the money, Tian Mingjian looked at Chen Hai with a clearly more grateful gaze.
“You take the car key first.
You’ve already got the money, so what are you waiting for?”
“Go buy the clothes now, don’t come back until you’ve spent it all!”
He casually pulled out the car keys, handed them to Tian Mingjian along with a pat on his shoulder, and joked with a laugh.
“If I leave, what about the safety here…?” Tian Mingjian still hesitated.
But his words were only halfway through when Chen Hai interrupted him, “As a grown man and nice to everyone, I have no enemies to speak of, so it’s quite safe here.
What’s there to worry about?”
Hearing Chen Hai say this, Tian Mingjian no longer persisted.
He nodded, took the car keys from Chen Hai, and immediately headed out of the yard.
The next few days were calm.
Ye Qingqing and Chen Hai met only twice.
With Tian Mingjian, the third wheel, by their side, it was inconvenient for them to be intimate, and, in the end, they merely chatted idly before having to part ways.
In the blink of an eye, October passed, and it was now November 1st.
Chen Hai had given the several tenants in his yard about twenty days to move out by the end of October.
Those who still stubbornly remained there today were definitely unwilling to move.
He had done what had to be done and said what had to be said.
He had promised to give them extra money to encourage them to leave, and Chen Hai felt he really had done his utmost in righteousness.
Considering that the yard might be empty during the day, he only entered his property leisurely with a few of his men at around six or seven in the evening.
“Oh, if it isn’t our new landlord, Chen, coming over at this time.
Are you here to collect this month’s rent?”
“Fifty yuan a month, we’ve been living here for so many years and it’s always been this price.”
“I’ve got the money ready, here, take it!”
Old Man Li, who had dragged a chair to sit at the entrance of the courtyard and was puffing on his pipe, had a sly grin on his face.
He fished out a stack of wrinkled banknotes and handed them to Chen Hai as if dispensing alms to a beggar.
At this moment, the courtyard wasn’t just occupied by him; there were as many as seven or eight people.
After all, although there were only four sets of tenants in the courtyard, each set wasn’t just one person—it was a whole family.
“Old Man Li, last time I came here and spoke to you all, did you take my words as empty air, completely disregarding them?”
“Fifty yuan?
You might as well keep it for yourself!”
“I gave you guys plenty of time and there was still no movement from anyone, no sign of anyone willing to leave.”
“Seeing me come over, you still have the gall to pull out a few tens of yuan, offering to pay the rent?”
“It seems that you are planning to occupy my property and refuse to leave, aren’t you?”
Starting with Old Man Li, Chen Hai’s somewhat chilly gaze swept across the people in the courtyard one by one.
He scoffed with a darkened face.
“Chen, the way you’re talking seems rather offensive!”
“When I moved in, it was just an empty house.
I’ve lived here for over a decade and everything in it has been gradually acquired by my own hands.”
“I’ve developed a real attachment to this place, and now you’re asking me to leave with just one word.
Who’s going to compensate for my losses?” Old Man Li sneered in response.
“That’s right, we’ve been living here for so long and it’s not like we haven’t paid rent.
Why should we move?”
“If you want us to leave, that can be arranged.
But you’ll need to refund us for every penny we’ve spent on the house over the past decade-plus!”
“The house I’m living in now is just a few old planks that belonged to the original landlord.
It leaked so badly that I even had to have the roof’s tiles replaced.”
“I’m willing to move, but over the years, I’ve spent quite a bit on this house, thousands for sure.
As long as you’re willing to pay that back, I’ll move out immediately!”
…
Old Man Li had barely finished speaking when his words immediately sparked agreement among the other tenants in the courtyard.
Clearly, these folks had conspired beforehand, otherwise, their responses wouldn’t have been so uniform.
When it really came down to it, the excuse they came up with did have some merit.
After all, the several rooms within the courtyard were already in shambles.
For these tenants, who had lived there for so many years, it was indeed quite normal for them to have made some repairs to the rooms.
With this marginally justifiable reason, if things were to escalate and reach the community office, the dispute would be protracted and unresolved for the moment.
Perhaps they had used this same excuse to deal with the previous landlord, Wang Meili, not just once or twice.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that the disputes were so convoluted that Wang Meili couldn’t sort them out and had no way to handle these people, she probably wouldn’t have sold the courtyard to Chen Hai at such a price.
“Straight from your mouths, you’re asking for thousands; quite an appetite you all have!”
“If any of you think that some things inside the house belong to you and want to take them when you leave, I have no objections.”
“But thinking that I’ll cough up thousands to compensate each of you, that’s a pipe dream.”
“When talking nicely doesn’t work, it seems you all prefer punishment over a polite toast?”
Chen Hai looked at the people in the courtyard with disdain and sneered.
“What?
Can’t win the argument and thinking of resorting to violence?”
“Don’t think you can bully us just because you’ve brought a few people.”
“Let me tell you, Chen, compensation is a must.
Without it, we won’t move.
If you think you can force us out, you’ll have to ask my pig-slaying knife if it agrees first!”
Butcher Zhang, with a face full of rough features, stepped forward from the crowd.
Somewhere along the line, the gleaming butcher knife appeared in his hand.
With a fearsome look, he pointed the tip of his butcher knife at Chen Hai and spat fiercely on the ground, shouting.
However, Zhang’s words had just fallen when a tall figure swiftly approached him.
With an outstretched hand, the figure grabbed Zhang’s knife-holding hand and twisted hard.
With a clatter, the butcher knife dropped to the ground.
Then, the figure kicked out fiercely, hitting Zhang in the lower abdomen.
Zhang, a bulky man with a fierce face, staggered back several steps and then fell onto his behind, unable to get up for quite some time.
The one who had made a move was undoubtedly Bai Xiaohang.
This man, Xiaohang, would never waste words when a physical solution was possible.