Oh No, A Green-Eyed Old Geezer Is Fighting His Way In!

Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Inside the stifling office, heavy gasps echoed through the silence. A thick, wet sound followed as nosebleeds and saliva dripped onto the floor. Everyone stared wide-eyed, bearing witness to a miracle of life. Seeing that it was working, Ji Jue slapped him even harder. Under slap after slap, the choking man's face swelled rapidly, and his chest finally began to rise and fall. Yet the moment Ji Jue paused, the man began suffocating again. His face swiftly turned purplish-blue, looking even worse than before! "I can't... I'm running out of strength!" Ji Jue called out anxiously for help, looking just like an unathletic college student who couldn't even finish an eight-hundred-meter run. "Everyone, lend a hand!" After all, a human life was on the line. No matter how callous someone might be, how could anyone bear to just stand by? People rolled up their sleeves and lent a helping hand, scrambling to be first. When one grew tired, another took over. The staccato crack of slaps continued non-stop until the ambulance arrived and loaded him onto a stretcher. The shocked nurses had never seen such a bizarre sight: a group of people lining up to take turns slapping someone across the face, not stopping even after concussing him. For a moment, they didn't even dare step forward to administer aid. *Oh crap, could this be some cult headquarters?* Fortunately, that very good-looking, smiling young man stepped up to maintain order and told everyone to let the victim be carried off for emergency care. By the time the man was loaded into the vehicle, his face was swollen completely into a ball. "Phew. Good thing nothing went wrong." Watching the ambulance drive away, Ji Jue finally breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. At the same time, he released the third hand that had been pinching the victim's windpipe... Turning back now, though the debts remained, an incredible sense of solidarity had mysteriously emerged among the people who had taken part in the rescue. *Mm, he's a good kid.* *And man, slapping someone felt great.* Those who hadn't gotten a turn to administer first aid silently committed this method to memory, saving it for future use. Now, everyone had to face reality. Ji Jue walked past the middle-aged man whose hand was still tucked inside his coat and casually patted his shoulder. He felt the man give an involuntary shudder, frozen stiff, not daring to move an inch. "Everyone, please rest assured. The debts will definitely be paid, and they must be paid." Ji Jue clapped his hands, drawing all eyes to himself, and promised, "Even though there's no money in the accounts right now, Haian Auto Works is going to restart and resume operations after all. No matter how poor our earning capacity might be, there will at least be some revenue coming in, right? If any of you think what I'm saying makes sense, and are willing to help out, show some mercy, and grant me some leeway for a while, let's sit down together, sort out priorities, register everything, and slowly start repaying you. I can't promise you much else, but time will tell, and time reveals a person's true character, right?" He paused, gauging the looks of pleasant surprise, suspicion, or subtle mockery before continuing, "If someone is truly in a rush—having waited all these years but unable to wait even a few more days—then we can just go through the legal channels. Only, even with compulsory enforcement, the prior bank loans would likely have to be settled first. How much money you'd actually recover from the IOUs in your hands by then would be anyone's guess." Having laid out both the sweet and the bitter, calming people down and haggling back and forth ate up a great deal of time. Before all the creditors were even seen off, he saw a crestfallen Yan Jian return, followed by several warmly smiling, genial individuals whose grins made Ji Jue's heart clench. By now, he was nearly suffering from PTSD. The brighter someone smiled, the more terrified he felt. Then he realized he had started worrying a bit too early... "What did you say?" Inside the office, Ji Jue looked suspiciously at the two suited gentlemen before him who looked nothing like workers in any sense. "You are..." "The Haian Auto Workers Union," the man in gold-rimmed glasses said, straightening up with an air of complete composure. "The union," Yan Jian explained numbly. "The union?" Ji Jue was dumbfounded, completely bewildered. "This beat-up dump of a factory has fallen into this sorry state, and it still has a union?" "How can you say such a thing?" The union representative smiled slightly. "Haian Group hasn't gone bankrupt, and the union has always existed. We've come today on behalf of the former employees to officially serve you notice." "..." Ji Jue went numb as well. Looking down, he stared at the strike notice placed before him. *A. Strike. Notice?* He was almost pushed to the point of laughing from sheer anger. The factory was already in such a pathetic state; did it even *need* a strike? "Are you serious?" Ji Jue's expression twitched as he struggled to suppress a laugh. "Our visit today is to convey our demands and dissatisfaction to you and the senior management of Haian Group," the union representative said with a faint smile. "Unless Haian Auto Works makes up the unpaid back wages and the compensation for all these years of suspended operations, we will not respond to any call to return to work. Furthermore, our union stands in solidarity with the Yacheng Labor Association. Until Haian Auto demonstrates sincerity, our union members will not consider or respond to recruitment on your end. If you have any objections, we can resolve them through discussion. However, the specific amount that needs to be paid is roughly—" "All right, no need to look at it." Ji Jue waved a hand and yawned. "I've received the notice." The representative's expression froze slightly. "And then?" "I said I received it." Ji Jue shrugged and spread his hands. "You came to deliver a notice, and I received it. Your task and job are done. I have a mountain of affairs to handle next, so I won't keep you." Casually, he tossed the notice into the trash bin, stood up, pushed open the door, and walked out. He couldn't even be bothered to engage. For scum like this who buzzed over like flies the moment they smelled a benefit just to cause trouble, he couldn't be bothered to waste his breath on them. "Are you serious?" Yan Jian chased after him, looking grave. "Even though the factory union is just a bunch of trash out to rake in cash, if they stir up trouble and sway the Yacheng Labor Association, I'm afraid we won't be able to hire a single skilled worker. I advise you to be more cautious." "This *is* the result of cautious consideration." Ji Jue waved his hand dismissively. A union? What a joke. The auto works had been shut down for all these years, and there was still a union... Morons like that came knocking specifically to make trouble and waste his time. If he didn't deal with it, he wouldn't be able to hire workers anytime soon. If he tried to resolve it, he'd have to swallow his disgust to bicker with those flies, wasting energy and time. Like a trash bin blocking the doorway, it wasn't hard to move, but it reeked to high heaven. "Let them stir up trouble. We'll see how long they can keep it up," Ji Jue said coldly. "Let them strike if they want. I don't care. Master Yan, you can ask your former acquaintances. If they're willing to return to work, the pay will naturally be generous. If not, it doesn't matter either. But anyone hoping to ride their coattails and strike it rich off this can piss off." "Then what about the factory?" Yan Jian shook his head. He could only chalk it up to youthful arrogance; the kid had never taken a beating from society or suffered losses, leaping straight into the pit like this. Ji Jue thought for a moment and said, "I'll handle the staffing issue. For now, just find people to clean up the workshops. Get the dorms and cafeteria back in working order first. By tomorrow at the latest, the first batch of workers will be in place." With that, he waved, walked off, and made a phone call. The next morning, having toiled all night, Yan Jian had finally managed to roughly clean up the factory with a few temporary cleaners he'd called in when he received good news from Ji Jue. The workers had arrived! Overjoyed, Yan Jian finally felt his heart settle back into his chest. He rushed outside to welcome the freshly penned beasts of burden—and then, despair gradually crept into his eyes. In his dead-eyed gaze, two tour buses delivered a massive crowd of machining majors from colleges all across Yacheng. Look at those clear, naive expressions, their eyes brimming with innocent light—every single one fresh off the assembly line, young starter beasts of burden that didn't even have full factory settings installed, the kind that probably didn't even know how to drive a screw... Then looking at Ji Jue standing beside the buses, counting heads and exchanging cash for bodies on the spot with the leading instructors, Yan Jian felt his vision go black. *There is no fucking way to live like this!* *There is no way to live like this!* Clutching his hair like a cat holding its head, Ji Jue silently wailed in his office. People! There were no people! A total lack of staff! Apart from a bunch of clear-eyed college students doing heavy lifting to prep the machinery, they lacked everyone. They even lacked cleaners to sweep the floor; the cafeteria auntie duties were temporarily being covered by Old Man Zhao Jinzhu, the former gatekeeper and security guard. Wang Haichuan in finance did nothing every day except drool and read the newspaper, while Yan Jian's mental state had completely shattered under the college students' world-shaking wisdom and bizarre maneuvers, teetering on the verge of a stroke-induced ragequit. Not only that—water and power supplies, repairing factory buildings... Once work actually began, everything immediately turned into a tangled mess of a thousand loose ends. Every corner was stretched thin, and every crack was filled with old pitfalls left from before. Not to mention the mountainous piles of records and archives left behind, which he still hadn't mustered the courage to open. From the start until now, for two whole days, he had been overwhelmed and battered by endless chaotic nonsense, not even having had the chance to touch a single machine. He felt as if he were on the verge of breathing his last. "Director, this is bad! A water pipe burst!" "Director, this is bad! The main power cable is on fire!" "Director, this is bad! Big Yellow has the runs..." "Director, this is bad! The new college students ate the scallions Old Man Zhao planted!" ... "Director, this is bad!" Another shocked shout came from outside the office. Ji Jue looked up with faint breath, only to see, accompanying the familiar voice, a smiling face appearing at the doorway, looking at him with utter schadenfreude: "—Outside, there's a green-eyed old geezer fighting his way in!" "Mi—" Ji Jue gasped in shock, staring blankly at Ye Chun in business attire. "Y-You... why are you here?" "Auntie saw that I was bored out of my mind at home, so she kicked me out with one boot. Hearing that you'd stooped so low as to lay hands on college students, I dropped by to take a look." She clicked her tongue in wonder, glancing around Ji Jue's drafty office, and shook her head with regret. "I was thinking of lending a hand, but judging by how things look, it seems I'm not very welcome. You're not even willing to call me Senior S—" *Bam!* Before she could even react, the office door slammed shut. Then, after a dark blur flashed past, Ye Chun found an extra ornament attached to her leg, hugging it tight as if welded on. "Senior Sister, save meee!" Ji Jue wailed, tears practically welling up in his eyes. "There were too many people outside just now! Your junior brother will kowtow to you, okay? I knew Senior Sister wouldn't leave me to die, right?"