Rebirth of Corrupt Officials

Jiang Xiaochuan, who was tortured by Rong Shaobai’s plan in his last life, was naturally extremely disgusted with this plan now.

He had to persuade Rong Shaobai: “What can you gain by rashly participating in the fight between the two? I’ve always felt that President Rong is a very smart man, but I really disagree with how he handled this matter.”

Unfortunately, just as Jiang Xiaochuan thought, Rong Shaobai was a smart man. When he heard this, he smiled and said, “Since Mayor Jiang thinks this Rong is a smart man, why would he think that I would do something like this, which would injure the enemy a thousand times and damage myself eight hundred?”

“Then, President Rong, what do you want to do?” Jiang Xiaochuan was asked for the green light for the fight between them without a reason. Jiang Xiaochuan was not a fool.

Rong Shaobai gave a bitter smile, “I find that Mayor Jiang is becoming more and more unreasonable.”

Jiang Xiaochuan was surprised by his frankness, but when he looked at Rong Shaobai again, he found the man’s expression immediately turned defensive and cautious, as if he was shocked that he had just said the wrong thing.

In the political world, people had to be particularly careful when speaking. A single mistake or omission might be regarded by others as a problem with the organizational line. A very typical thing happened to Jiang Xiaochuan. In a certain decade, a teacher was responsible for writing big-character posters and asked him to write “Down with Chiang”. However, the teacher accidentally wrote “Down with Mao”.

He knew it as soon as he wrote it down. Oops, he quickly put the word away, but someone still saw it. Later, the teacher was directly beaten as an anti-Maoist and sent to the prison. This was just a special example of that special era. Although it wouldn’t be so affecting now, in the political world, it was necessary to be careful when speaking.

Rong Shaobai was a gangster and a businessman. Although he was very talented, he was still slightly lacking in some aspects.

“Mayor Jiang must know that there are two words: retreat to advance and leverage on strength.” Rong Shaobai returned to normal but began to slowly turn his ring again.

‘Use retreat to advance, use strength to fight…’

He probably knew what Rong Shaobai was going to do.

However, this was not necessarily the best way; it was very risky.

Jiang Xiaochuan was silent for a long time, thinking that he couldn’t stop this fight. These people would come sooner or later, but with what Rong Shaobai said now, he didn’t mind getting some benefits from it.

“I won’t interfere beforehand, but I hope that when it’s almost over, someone can give a message to the people below me to clean up the whole matter and explain it to the public.”

Rong Shaobai nodded, “That’s just right. Those people—it’ll be better if it’s cleaned up.”

It was a seemingly win-win deal. Jiang Xiaochuan concluded this meeting.

.

He got out of the car in front of the municipal compound. As he walked forward, he took out his mobile phone and called Lian Cheng. Now he no longer held complete independent decision-making power, let alone trading power. What about a shady incident?

Although he knew the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection had its principles for handling matters, within a certain range, as long as officials’ behavior of stepping outside the line wasn’t too excessive, they usually turned a blind eye. After all, societal harmony was still needed. Occasionally arresting a few to sound the alarm and kill chickens to scares the monkeys was also for the sake of harmony, so Jiang Xiaochuan’s behavior was probably within the scope allowed by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

He dialed Lian Cheng’s number and heard Lian Cheng’s voice.

“It’s Lian Cheng. Did Mayor Jiang call me specifically because of the Chengzhou economic review?”

– Wrong.

Jiang Xiaochuan glanced at his phone subconsciously. The phone number on the screen was still the same, and the voice on the receiver was also Lian Cheng’s. He even reported his home address and said he was Lian Cheng, but – what Lian Cheng said was wrong.

It was absolutely impossible for Jiang Xiaochuan to call Lian Cheng because of the financial review issue. There must be something wrong.

A lot of things flashed through his mind at once, and it felt very slow to think of it, but the real time just flashed by. He followed Lian Cheng’s words and said: “Yes, Chengzhou’s economic review work is still in progress, but I have just taken over the work in this area and am not very familiar with it, so if there are any mistakes or omissions, please feel free to enlighten me.”

“Mayor Jiang, you are too polite. I will ask someone to send you the details later. Please don’t be too worried.” Lian Cheng’s tone sounded very kind, but because of the wrong topic, Jiang Xiaochuan always felt that there was a strange heaviness in it.

“Then I’ll trouble the deputy director.”

“It’s okay.”

Then hung up the phone.

Jiang Xiaochuan looked at his phone and frowned. This situation… was really… very difficult.

As expected, less than a minute later, after ending the call, another unfamiliar number called Jiang Xiaochuan’s cell phone, and he picked up the call.

“Mayor Jiang, my phone has been tapped. It was just a temporary measure, don’t mind it.” Lian Cheng seemed to be laughing, but Jiang Xiaochuan couldn’t tell what he meant.

Jiang Xiaochuan’s heart sank. Lian Cheng’s phone could be tapped. This was no longer something ordinary power could do. He was worried about his future and also worried about Lian Cheng, but he couldn’t ask anything.

He just said “hmm” to express that he understood and told what happened to Rong Shaobai before. There was no objection from Lian Cheng. His opinion was just to say that he must remember to report this kind of thing in the future, and there was nothing more to say.

He allowed this to happen.

After hanging up the phone, he looked at the two call records on his phone and then looked at the phone number that Lian Cheng originally used. He suddenly felt that the sky above his head was so dark that it was almost overwhelming him.