Chapter 196 - 158: A Casually Placed Piece

「3:00 PM」

「Inside the captain’s office of the Third District Police Chief Bureau.」

Secretary Zhang was dressed in a crisp suit and wore gold-rimmed glasses. A gentle smile graced his face, giving him a refined, scholarly air. He looked every bit the typical intellectual.

"Hello, Mr. Zhang." Chu Bamboo stepped forward and shook Secretary Zhang’s outstretched hand.

"Minister Chu, you’re truly young and promising." Secretary Zhang’s smile was as brilliant as ever, but inwardly he was a little shaken.

Long before Huo Qiming had issued his orders, he had heard of Chu Bamboo. After all, this was the man suspected of single-handedly orchestrating the legitimization of the shantytown gangs—a matter that was all too famous...

That’s right. Forming a ’union.’ In the Daqian Dynasty, where such sensitive ideologies had not yet been born, the high-level officials mostly just believed that Chu Bamboo was the unprecedentedly powerful boss of a mega-gang who had unified the entire shantytown district—

It wasn’t just the officials who thought so; even the oppressed factory owners and the Demonic Influence all saw it that way.

So even when they ran into trouble, they rarely wanted to eliminate the union. Instead, they wanted to eliminate its die-hard leadership so they could infiltrate and control it themselves—

In their eyes, this new gang Chu Bamboo had created, this so-called ’union,’ was just a bit more orderly, a bit more reasonable, and treated people a bit more humanely...

At best, this only meant that Chu Bamboo, the new-generation godfather of the shantytown gangs, was a bit more decent. As for anything else... what could it possibly prove?

Were they suggesting they wanted to rebel? Was that even possible? Throughout history, there had been rebellions by the Orthodoxy, rebellions by Demon Dao Sects, and peasant rebellions... but no one had ever heard of a gang staging a rebellion!

Secretary Zhang used to look down on Chu Bamboo. ’A gangster, unfit for polite society!’

But this whole maneuver of legitimizing a gang had simply left him dumbfounded... or rather, it wasn’t just him. Everyone who knew the inside story was equally stunned!

Never mind the sheer difficulty of bringing the shantytown district into the fold... The successful execution of this plan alone had won immense prestige for Governor Lu in the First District. In other words, this matter wasn’t just a huge help to Chu Bamboo; it was also a massive boon for that governor!

A mutually beneficial partnership... Such resource integration! Such networking prowess! The fact that he actually pulled it off... This deeply shook every person who knew the inside story...

After the shantytown union was truly and peacefully restructured into the Management Department, even the old governor himself made a statement—

If the shantytown agency ran smoothly for two years, he would personally report Governor Lu’s achievements to the Imperial Capital.

While this wasn’t the old governor promising that Lu Jin would be the next governor of Jinghai City—even he didn’t have that kind of power. Only the Heavenly Monarch in the Imperial Capital could decide with a single word. But this was undoubtedly the old governor placing a massive bargaining chip on Governor Lu’s side!

In a sense, if the other candidates couldn’t produce more dazzling political achievements in the next few years, and provided Lu Jin himself made no major blunders—

Then the Imperial Capital would, in all likelihood, not want to disrespect the old governor and would choose the talent he had endorsed.

After all, the fact that the old governor had been entrenched here for decades was proof enough of the immense trust the Imperial Capital placed in him.

Generally speaking, a regional leader’s term in one place rarely exceeded ten years. Any longer, and they could potentially build a local faction too powerful to be controlled! To be rooted in one place for so long could only mean that the Heavenly Monarch believed that even if the old governor established a local power base, that power was still one the Heavenly Monarch could command!

The Heavenly Monarch trusted the old governor’s loyalty!

And Secretary Zhang, as secretary to Captain Huo of the Captain’s Office and a Transcendent himself, held a terrifyingly vast amount of intelligence...

It was precisely because he knew so much that he understood with perfect clarity: at least half the credit for Governor Lu’s current soaring success was owed to the man standing before him.

Moreover, this time it seemed... Captain Huo also regarded him with special favor!

All of these factors combined were simply terrifying...

Building an empire from scratch in the shantytown district was one thing. But to be able to move so freely in the unfathomably deep sea of politics, stirring up monstrous waves—that was the mark of a truly prodigious talent!

"My name is Zhang Xuyi. You can just call me Lao Zhang! Of course, if you prefer Secretary Zhang, that’s fine too." Secretary Zhang paused briefly, then gestured to another silent, powerfully built man beside him.

His muscles were frighteningly swollen, his arms even thicker than his legs. With every breath, the blood vessels on his exposed muscles quivered slightly.

"This is Yang Youqian, Vice Captain Yang! He was originally... well, because a problem came up with the Second District Special Operations Brigade, he was promoted to vice captain! If there aren’t any major problems in the future..." Secretary Zhang shrugged. Though he didn’t finish, his meaning was obvious...

Barring any surprises, he would be the next captain of the Second District Special Operations Brigade in due time.

"Mr. Zhu, hello!" Yang Youqian came forward, bowed slightly, and respectfully took Chu Bamboo’s hand.

"...Hmm?" Secretary Zhang froze, realizing something was off about Yang Youqian’s attitude. He asked in surprise, "You know Minister Chu? Wait, you didn’t call him Mr. Chu... You called him Mr. Zhu?"

Secretary Zhang keenly realized that calling him by his given name instead of his surname must have some specific meaning.

"You wouldn’t know, Secretary Zhang, but until I was four, I lived in the shantytowns of the Second District!" Yang Youqian said with some emotion. The reason he had such a rustic name was because his parents were uncultured, ordinary workers who just wanted to get rich.

"Although my parents died early and I left the shantytowns a long time ago, it’s still my hometown!" Yang Youqian looked at Chu Bamboo, his voice sincere and heartfelt. "I once wanted to change things too, but I couldn’t do it! And you, you did what I wanted to do. So..."

Strictly speaking, since Chu Bamboo had consolidated the shantytowns long after he left, he hadn’t personally done Yang Youqian any favors... but Chu Bamboo’s actions still made him willing to call him Mr. Zhu from the bottom of his heart.

Of course, there was another reason that was harder to mention: he owed his current position, and his impending promotion to captain after a transition period, to Chu Bamboo. After all, the man had wiped out both the captain and the vice captain in a single stroke!

Originally, he had thought the credit belonged to Li Kang... but on the way over, Li Kang had deliberately pulled him aside to explain in detail that Chu Bamboo was the true mastermind.

The message was clear: ’If you want to be grateful, then be grateful to Chu Bamboo!’ Li Kang disdained to take credit for the favor.

"It was the right thing to do." Chu Bamboo’s expression was calm. He naturally recognized Yang Youqian; he had even calculated that Yang was the most likely candidate to be promoted. After all, he had been the number-three figure in the Second District’s Special Operations Brigade!

This was just another piece he had casually placed on the board in the past.

In the past, on the main timeline, he had made countless such moves; some failed, some succeeded.

It had even become a habit for him. Many times, he would make such a move without any immediate reason, just on a whim.

’After all, who knew when it might be useful in the future?’

And wasn’t it coming in handy right now?

Secretary Zhang looked back and forth between Chu Bamboo and Yang Youqian. After a long silence, he suddenly gave a wry laugh.

"Before Director Huo came, he instructed me several times to properly coordinate between you and the Second District’s Special Operations Brigade. He was concerned that because you were the reason the Zone Two captain and vice captain were taken down, the people over there would resent you and refuse to cooperate. But now, it looks like it would have been fine even if I hadn’t come!"

"Not at all!" Chu Bamboo chuckled. "If it weren’t for you, Secretary Zhang, I wouldn’t dare to go after Qi Heng so brazenly! By the way, Secretary Zhang, you’re a Cultivator, aren’t you? And your specific realm is..."

"I am indeed a Cultivator!" Secretary Zhang pushed up his glasses but didn’t mention his specific realm.

Yang Youqian blinked, quickly adding, stating the obvious, "And I, I guess I’m a Body Cultivator!"

"...I can tell." Chu Bamboo glanced impassively at Yang Youqian’s swollen muscles. After a moment of contemplation, he suddenly mused, "I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like those of us from the shantytowns are almost all Body Cultivators, and the pollution is also very..."

Yang Youqian was one, and so was Guan Fei!

"It can’t be helped," Yang Youqian said, shaking his head. His voice carried a flat, numb tone born of long habit. "We people from the shantytowns have cheap lives! If we don’t risk it all, how could we possibly compete with those pampered, officially sponsored trainees?"

The barrier to entry for Body Cultivators is incomparably lower than for Cultivators!

And as long as you dared to stake it all, dared to grit your teeth and endure the threat of high-concentration pollution for a short time, and actually held on, you could genuinely become stronger...

Moreover, as long as you could find an official channel and were willing to sign an agreement to donate your ’corpse’ to the government upon failure... even if you didn’t have a single cent, the government was willing to advance the money to prepare medicine and Cultivation Resources for you.

If you lost, your ’corpse’ was naturally given to the government to cover the debt. As for winning...? Well, then you’d join a government agency and slowly pay off the debt! It was precisely because of this policy that Yang Youqian had joined the Captain’s Office, spending five years paying off his loan...

Of course, this was also why the number of people who came out of the shantytown districts, successfully became Transcendent, and joined the Captain’s Office, while not the majority, was by no means a rarity...

The atmosphere in the room grew heavy for a moment.

"Alright!" Secretary Zhang was a shrewd man; realizing the mood had soured, he immediately interjected to change the subject. "Minister Chu, we should first... You know, I think I’ll call you Mr. Chu from now on! It feels a little closer."

After all, Yang Youqian was calling him Mr. Zhu. If he kept calling him Minister, it would feel a bit out of place...

Secretary Zhang suppressed the thoughts bubbling up in his mind and said with a smile, "Mr. Chu, first, let’s have Captain Yang take you over to the Second District Police Chief Bureau to meet your temporary subordinates..."

"That won’t be necessary!" Chu Bamboo refused directly. He gave Secretary Zhang a deep, meaningful look, a strange smile on his face. "For now, just the three of us will be enough."

"Besides, if we really contacted the Second District’s Special Operations Brigade right now and told them the plan," Chu Bamboo paused, then sneered, "I’m afraid the intelligence I have would become useless... Qi Heng would probably have to flee Jinghai City overnight."