Chapter 108: The Absurd Doings of Lin Guoshan

Still cooking.

Lin Jiayin shyly tugged at Chen Huajiang’s hand and nodded toward the wok, where garlic scapes were sizzling.

“I’m not even holding your hand,” Chen Huajiang said, rolling his eyes and refusing to let go.

Seeing that, Lin Jiayin could only give him another glance and keep stirring. The oil was hot and rising; if she did not turn the garlic scapes in time, they would burn.

So she kept cooking while explaining everything to Chen Huajiang.

It turned out to be about her elder brother, Lin Guoshan. That morning, Lin’s mother had hurried to Red Flag Factory to find Lin Jiayin, saying that Lin Guoshan had been beaten and his shop smashed.

The old lady had no idea how to handle such a thing, and when trouble came, the first people she thought of were naturally her own family.

Lin Jiayin did not dare delay. She immediately took leave and went home to deal with it, along with quite a few relatives from the Lin family.

“Uh, who did it? Why would anyone beat up your brother for no reason and smash his shop?”

“And why not call the police? What use would you people be if you went? You can’t exactly go fighting them yourselves, can you?”

After hearing his wife’s account, Chen Huajiang was a little stunned. The whole matter sounded absurdly inexplicable.

And he also suspected it might have been the Baldy and Wolf Dog crowd again. Had the lesson from last time still not been enough for them? Did they want another round with him?

“We’ll talk about it when we eat. First help me carry the dishes to the living room.”

Lin Jiayin handed him the plate, then rinsed the wok and poured in fresh oil again. There was still one more dish to make: eggplant with minced meat.

Chen Huajiang had no choice but to suppress his curiosity and carry the dish into the living room.

“Wash your hands first.”

Their daughter must have been hungry. She came out of the room, climbed straight onto a stool, and reached for the dish, only for Chen Huajiang to tap the back of her hand with his chopsticks.

Huanhuan withdrew her hand, puffed out her cheeks, and made a series of silly faces at Chen Huajiang.

Only then did Chen Huajiang notice, to his exasperation, that the little girl had actually drawn her own eyebrows. She looked almost like a little demon.

“I can’t bear to watch it when you draw on a doll, and here you are, not holding back at all and doing it to yourself.”

Amused and annoyed at once, Chen Huajiang lifted Huanhuan into the bathroom and helped her wash up.

Fortunately, Huanhuan probably knew it looked terrible. Apart from muttering some unclear complaints along the way, she did not struggle.

Otherwise, Chen Huajiang would have had to leave it to his wife. A little girl loving beauty was perfectly normal, but as for how to guide her properly in drawing and doodling, Chen Huajiang was completely unqualified.

When it came to drawing, he was the sort of beginner who could turn an apple into an egg, and an egg into a circle.

That night at dinner, Lin Jiayin explained the matter in full.

It turned out that not reporting it to the police was also Lin Guoshan’s own insistence, and the people who smashed his shop were not the Baldy and Wolf Dog crowd.

He had brought it all on himself. After listening to his girlfriend Fangfang’s goading, he had actually pretended to be Chen Yan’s lover and gone to negotiate with Chen Yan’s boyfriend.

Was that not asking for a beating? That was simply not the sort of business one could involve oneself in.

“I don’t know what my brother was thinking. The kind of thing people normally try their best to stay far away from, he actually went and got himself mixed up in it.”

“People break up and he has to meddle in it? I think it’s Fangfang. Huajiang, to be honest, I really have not the slightest good impression of that Fangfang.”

“You know what my brother used to be like. Honest, steady, the sort of man who could barely say three words without spitting. But ever since he met Fangfang, it’s been one problem after another.”

Lin Jiayin rubbed her temples, her face full of displeasure, especially when speaking of Fangfang.

It was as if Fangfang had led her brother astray.

Chen Huajiang secretly rolled his eyes. On this point, he felt his wife had misjudged things.

His brother-in-law was never some genuinely honest and upright man. He was simply ambitious but lacking in ability, and too concerned with saving face.

A man like Lin Guoshan, when he had no skill, would indeed be timid and cautious, saying so little you could not get a single decent word out of him.

But once he had even a little achievement, no one would need to egg him on; he would be the first to boast and show off, turning three parts of success into ten.

In his previous life, because of the divorce, Chen Huajiang had little to do with Lin Guoshan and did not know him well, so he had also thought Lin Guoshan was just an honest man.

But now it seemed he had merely not yet reached the point where he could start making a spectacle of himself.

After dinner, Lin Jiayin came to Chen Huajiang for help. She felt the other side would not let this go so easily, and her brother refused to call the police. What if something happened?

“Don’t worry. Tomorrow we’ll go over together and take a look. Your family’s troubles are my family’s troubles. You don’t need to be so hesitant with me.”

Chen Huajiang took her hand and comforted her.

So the next day, after sending Huanhuan to kindergarten, the two of them went to the Lin household.

What surprised Chen Huajiang was that not only was Lin Guoshan at home, but his girlfriend Fangfang was there too.

Could they already be living together? That was moving quickly, he thought.

“Huajiang, sit down, sit down.”

Seeing his daughter and son-in-law arrive, Lin Laogen let out a breath at once and forced a smile as he pulled out a chair.

Last time, when he had helped at the Kunlun Catering shop, he had seen his son-in-law’s ability for himself, and he also knew that Chen Huajiang knew plenty of people on the street.

After all, Black Tiger and Ermao had helped out then, and he had seen it with his own eyes.

He might once have thought Chen Huajiang’s friends were too mixed, that people like that were not good company, all smoke and noise, and that sooner or later he might go astray.

But after something like this happened, Lin Laogen felt that the more friends one had, the more help one had, and that perhaps they could solve Lin Guoshan’s problem.

“Dad, don’t fuss. I’ll do it myself.”

Chen Huajiang hurried over, took the chair Lin Laogen had pulled out, and then pulled one out for his wife as well.

“What exactly happened? Guoshan, how do you plan to deal with it?”

Chen Huajiang did not bother with any roundabout talk and asked Lin Guoshan directly.

As soon as he spoke, everyone turned to look at Lin Guoshan.

Lin Guoshan sat rigidly with a dark face and said nothing.

That made Chen Huajiang speechless. Who was he putting on this act for? They were all family. What was there to be so gloomy about in front of them?

Still, he was his brother-in-law, after all, so Chen Huajiang could only wait.

Just then, his mother-in-law poured him a cup of tea. Chen Huajiang thanked her and accepted it with both hands.

Time passed slowly. Fangfang also asked Lin Guoshan a few questions from the side, but he still would not say a word.

“All right, then I’ll handle this. Brother-in-law, how does that sound?”

Seeing that there was no other way, Chen Huajiang took the matter upon himself.

He felt rather helpless. It all made him seem as though he were begging the other man to dump the trouble on him.

As soon as he said this, his father-in-law and mother-in-law both let out a breath of relief. With their son-in-law stepping forward, the problem should not be too serious, and their son’s matter ought to have an ending now.

Fangfang also relaxed and gave Chen Huajiang a grateful nod.

Word of the time Chen Huajiang had taught the Baldy and Wolf Dog men a lesson had already spread far and wide on the street, and with Chen Yan, her close friend, adding fuel to the fire whenever she spoke of it, of course she knew what kind of weight Chen Huajiang carried.

But then—

“Enough, Chen Huajiang, don’t strut around in front of us!”

“You handle it? What right do you have to handle my business? Am I, Lin Guoshan, without brothers? Am I, Lin Guoshan, without friends? And if nothing else works, can’t I call the police?”

“I don’t need you pretending to be kind and righteous here, and I don’t need your help!”

Lin Guoshan suddenly shot to his feet, exploding all at once.