CHAPTER 434: CHAPTER 4: FARMSTEAD DEFENSE BATTLE

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It was past eight in the evening when Huang Tengchong, hands clasped behind his back, paced back and forth inside the villa.

The past two months had been excruciating for him, and instead of diminishing with time, his troubles had only become increasingly knotty.

All the blame fell on those two girls from Sacred Heart Middle School; if they hadn’t barged in recklessly, the Feng Bird wouldn’t have revealed its presence in front of Aisha and others, nor would it have been stripped of its feathers by that girl named Zhu Xiaoxian. Without its feathers, the Feng Bird was listless and lost all of its effectiveness.

Aisha, with her deep knowledge of animals, seized the opportunity to declare that the Feng Bird was traumatized and would eventually starve to death if not treated promptly. Under Aisha’s mix of persuasion and intimidation, Huang Tengchong handed the bird over to her for treatment in the United States.

Without the help of the Feng Bird, the output at the farms owned by Huang Tengchong – whether it was livestock breeding or aquaculture – had significantly decreased. The Yanqing Milk Factory, which had been quite profitable in previous years, was still not operational after all this time.

Furthermore, there were those fraudulent Hairy Crabs from the Miyun Reservoir. Huang Tengchong was like an ant on a hot pot, restless. Not long after the crab breeding had started, the Huangs had signed agreements to supply crabs with several star-rated hotels and the State Guest House in Beijing and Tianjin. With September, the deadline for crab delivery, fast approaching, the crabs in the Miyun Reservoir were all phonies. The purchasing managers of those hotels were experts – even if they were deceived by the appearance, the taste would give it away upon eating.

"This won’t do; I have to urge Miss Aisha. She said she has a way to help me," Huang Tengchong quickly made a phone call.

After the phone call, Huang Tengchong’s face brightened. He nodded and bowed over the phone, "Thank you, Miss Aisha. The Feng Bird’s experiment is completely flawless. Give my regards to Lady Serlin. That girl named Zhu Xiaoxian, I’ve had some people follow her. The Xu Family is only watching for now and hasn’t made a move. Please rest assured, I will notify you immediately if the Xu Family takes action."

After respectfully hanging up the phone, Huang Tengchong made another call to the thugs he had paid, "Did you find out everything? Is that Zhu Xiao girl related to the family in Yanqing? It’s really bizarre; wherever I go, I run into them. I’ve gotten you guys a couple of barrels of gasoline; go around there and pour it out, regardless of their fate, who asked them to be in our way."

On a moonless night, the darkest part of the night crept silently towards the Yanqing Farm.

At the farmstead in Yanqing, Zhuo Feng and Feng Xing had just finished harvesting the new batch of sweet potatoes, worn out to the core. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet when they went to bed.

After half a year of management, the once-abandoned farmstead had a new look. A new ditch had been dug, drawing water from a distant stream into a pond at the edge of the farm.

The cleared weeds had been piled up in a shaded corner of the farm, and several hundred pounds of sweet potatoes that had not been loaded onto the truck were lined up on the field ridges, revealing their pointed ends.

After the flowers of the old plum tree had withered, new branches and leaves had grown. The night wind blew, and the leaves rustled.

A six-seater van without a license plate stopped outside the farmstead, and seven or eight men jumped out. In pairs, they carried two cylindrical oil drums and stood beside the farm’s fence.

"Boss, could this be trouble? There’s nobody around for dozens of kilometers. What if the fire gets too big and someone dies?" one of the minor thugs carrying the oil drum was afraid; although he hadn’t been educated for many years, he knew arson was a serious crime.

"Shut up! We set fires because there’s no one around. The land is vast, and there are few houses. If people inside are choked by the smoke, they’ll have plenty of chances to escape. Besides, even if someone dies, so what? Boss Huang said these people are blind; it’s not enough to scare them – they need to see blood and learn their lesson, to realize whose territory this is." The leader took out a cigarette from his chest pocket and put it in his mouth.

The men easily climbed over the farm’s fence. When they reached the edge of the field, one of them kicked several sweet potatoes by accident. The sweet potatoes rolled into the field, making a noise.

"Are you courting death? Be careful," the thug boss chased after the sweet potatoes into the field, stepping on the most restless one. The newly planted sweet potatoes at the field’s edge had started blooming. White trumpet-shaped flowers were coated with dew from the night.

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