Chapter 71: A Narrow Escape

Li Xiangdong pushed the still soundly sleeping Hou San. “Wake up, stop sleeping.”

Hou San turned over, his eyes half-closed as he mumbled, “What is it, Brother Dong? Stop shaking me, I’m dizzy. Let me sleep a little longer, I’ll skip breakfast.”

*Smack!*

Li Xiangdong slapped Hou San on the butt. The pain made Hou San yelp “Oww~” and he was instantly awake.

Li Xiangdong yawned and asked, “Are you still sleepy? Do you need me to wake you up some more?”

Hou San shook his head repeatedly, “Not sleepy, not sleepy anymore. Brother Dong, why did you wake me up?”

“Someone just came by to notify us that the train conductor wants to hold a meeting right now.”

Li Xiangdong walked to the washstand, washing his face while replying.

Hou San, with bleary eyes, looked at the time. He rolled out of bed and walked out of the room with an angry look on his face, “Three in the morning, what the hell kind of meeting is this!”

Li Xiangdong smiled upon hearing this; the two of them were finally on the same page.

When they came out of the room, there were only seven or eight people in the hallway. They all looked like they hadn’t woken up, leaning against the corridor walls and dozing off.

Li Xiangdong walked over to a colleague and asked, “Where are we having the meeting?”

The man shook his head with his eyes closed, “Don’t know, just wait here.”

“…”

Li Xiangdong saw Ah Zhe come out of his room and waved at him.

Ah Zhe walked over and asked, “Dongzi, what’s going on? Where is everyone else?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Li Xiangdong had a faint feeling that something must have happened, he just didn’t know who the unlucky one was.

Hou San rubbed his eyes and said, “There are so few people. I know several who aren’t here, and Brother Yang who lives across from me isn’t here either. They probably went out to trade goods and haven’t come back yet.”

Ah Zhe yawned, “Then why wake up us honest people who stayed in the hostel?”

Li Xiangdong nudged Ah Zhe with his elbow, “The conductor is here.”

The train conductor had messy hair and bloodshot eyes. He looked at the people standing in the corridor and saw that not even half were present.

“Good, very good. Every single one of you is a busy man. Who will go and call Old Zheng over for me?”

“Conductor, I’ll go.” After saying that, the man ran off.

Time passed quietly.

The corridor was filled with yawns. Just as Li Xiangdong was about to fall asleep standing up, a middle-aged man in a railway police uniform walked over.

He looked at the conductor and asked, “Why is everyone standing outside? Did something happen?”

The conductor took a sharp drag from his cigarette, blew out the smoke, and said, “Old Zheng, the Tanggu police station just called. They said our people have been arrested and they want us to go and identify them now.”

He threw the cigarette butt on the ground and continued, “I plan to have you come with me to negotiate. It would be best if we can get them to agree to hand the people over to Beijing for our own system to handle internally.”

Old Zheng cursed his bad luck inwardly. He frowned and asked, “How many people? What did they get arrested for?”

“Two. They said they were caught trading privately with the crew of a ship on the Hong Kong route.”

The conductor sighed and scanned the crowd in the corridor. “In our line of work, who doesn’t do a little trading on the side? We all know this. The reason I woke you all up in the middle of the night is to make you remember this lesson. Don’t be so damn bold as to do anything! Alright, go back to sleep.”

Holy cow!

The two unlucky ones who got caught should be the same two who used to bully Hou San.

Li Xiangdong, who had heard the entire conversation, felt a sense of relief in his heart!

Luckily, he had held his ground and resisted the temptation from Hou San and Ah Zhe. If the three of them had followed along, he might be singing the “Tears Behind Iron Bars” by now!

Hou San and Ah Zhe were still shaken with fear after hearing the news. They were no longer sleepy, feeling quite alert, but cold sweat was beading on their foreheads.

Li Xiangdong watched the conductor and Police Officer Zheng disappear from sight. “Ah Zhe, come inside with me.”

The three went into the room and locked the door.

Ah Zhe patted his chest, “What a close call! Dongzi, you were so right. It’s a good thing the three of us didn’t secretly follow them!”

Hou San nodded repeatedly, “Isn’t that right? If I got caught, my dad would have broken my legs.”

Ah Zhe smiled, “If you got caught, your dad wouldn’t even be able to touch you to beat you, there’d be iron bars in the way. Hey, Dongzi, what do you think will be the final outcome for those two who were caught?”

“I don’t know.”

Li Xiangdong shook his head. The conductor and Officer Zheng had already gone to the police station with the intention of transferring the men to the Beijing railway’s own police system.

If the men couldn’t be brought back, they would be sentenced according to the law, there was nothing more to say.

But as long as they could be transferred back, it was hard to say. What happened next would depend on how strong your connections were.

If your connections weren’t strong, your sentence might be reduced by one degree.

If you had a powerful background, you could continue to live freely. For someone like Hou San, the worst that could happen would be getting dismissed from his job, with no other consequences.

No wonder the train staff dared to trade goods so unscrupulously all over the country.

When they looked back, they had nothing but escape routes…

Li Xiangdong grabbed Ah Zhe’s arm and asked in a low voice, “What were you doing during that time before we started drinking last night?”

Ah Zhe was speechless, “Dongzi, you don’t think I went to report them, do you?”

“Then tell me, what were you doing during that time?”

Hearing Li Xiangdong press on, Ah Zhe rolled his eyes at him. “It’s all your fault!”

Li Xiangdong looked incredulous, “My fault?”

Ah Zhe said with great shame, “Whose fault is it if not yours? Of course, it’s related to you! It’s because of what you said in the toilet yesterday, about there being a ‘surprise’ in the first stall. I had diarrhea yesterday afternoon, and after we came back from the cafeteria, my stomach started acting up again. I was just curious.”

???

Li Xiangdong asked tentatively, “And then you squatted?”

Ah Zhe said with a red face, “Yes, I squatted! Now you know what I was doing, right?”

Li Xiangdong suppressed his laughter, “Alright, alright, I get it. It’s my fault, okay?”

No wonder Ah Zhe only changed his pants when he changed his clothes. He understood now. The flush in the toilet must have been quite powerful, and his pants probably got splashed with a lot of water.