Chapter 50 Intentional Provocation

Lin Yu quickly recovered his composure.

Seeing that the two vicious robbers had already been subdued, he hurried forward and asked with a pleasant expression of surprise, "Uncle, you're a policeman? Your moves were really impressive."

Lin Yu gave him a thumbs-up.

This was the truth.

The man must have undergone professional training. Just now, during the physical struggle with the criminals, his kicks and footwork had been clean, precise, and powerful—something he had previously only seen on television.

Hearing Lin Yu's words, the man smiled and nodded, saying, "That's right. My name is Xu Weiguo. These two scoundrels committed crimes elsewhere and hid deep in these mountains to evade capture. I figured that old habits die hard and they would surely continue their evil ways. So, for the past few days, I've been wandering along this road disguised as a wealthy man. I had actually planned to give up today, but running into them here just proves they walked right into the net."

Xu Weiguo dusted off the dirt from his clothes, looking rather proud of himself.

Lin Yu's smile grew even wider as he buttered him up, "I knew you had an extraordinary aura about you! A policeman, no less—that is just amazing!"

Xu Weiguo was amused by Lin Yu's enthusiastic reaction, and he praised him with a smile, "You're a clever kid, too. If it hadn't been for your help today, capturing these two probably wouldn't have gone so smoothly. I really have to thank you."

Lin Yu chuckled and said, "Uncle, don't mention it. It was only right for me to help. Anyone else in my shoes would have done the same."

Xu Weiguo frowned slightly, pondered for a moment, and then said, "Xiaoyu, I have to trouble you for one more favor. Given the current situation, it's not easy for me alone to transport both prisoners back to the police station. Could you help us out by driving your donkey cart and giving us a ride?"

Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Yu readily agreed, "That's no trouble at all, Uncle. I'll take you right over."

Hearing this, Xu Weiguo escorted the two prisoners onto the cart. Handcuffed and wearing grim expressions, the two men realized their game was up. They exchanged looks inside the cart and remained completely silent.

And so, Lin Yu drove the donkey cart, carrying Xu Weiguo and the two handcuffed criminals all the way toward the police station.

Upon arriving at the police station, Xu Weiguo got off the cart, handed over the prisoners, and turned back to Lin Yu. "Xiaoyu, thanks to you today, everything went well. If you ever run into any trouble in the future, come find me here. As long as it's something I can help with, I won't refuse."

Warmth flooded Lin Yu's heart. After exchanging a cheerful farewell with Xu Weiguo, he turned the donkey cart around and headed toward the vegetable market.

When he reached the market where he usually set up his stall, however, he couldn't help freezing in surprise.

He had only been away for two days, yet three new stalls selling fish had popped up here.

Those stalls were also piled high with various kinds of fish, and the vendors were loudly calling out to attract customers. Lin Yu couldn't help feeling a pang of worry. After all, with more people selling fish, competition was bound to arise, and fish prices would surely be affected.

He stood in place for a moment to think. Since he had arrived early today, he could try selling his fish first. If he could move them, great; if not, he planned to head to the state-run restaurant and sell the remaining fish to them instead.

However, to Lin Yu's surprise, his fish sold just as well as ever.

During his previous two trips to sell fish here, he had already become a familiar face. Combined with his youthful appearance, sweet tongue, and polite manners, his enthusiastic calls and courteous greetings made people feel comfortable and very well-disposed toward him.

Furthermore, his fish were genuinely superior to those at the other stalls—large, fresh, and gleaming brightly under the sunlight. Their vibrant vitality instantly won people over, and within a short while, a crowd gathered to buy fish, selling them off at a rapid pace.

This naturally provoked the jealousy and resentment of one of the neighboring vendors.

That vendor was a coarse, thick-set middle-aged man with a fierce face, dark rough skin, and small eyes that constantly gleamed with calculation. Beneath a bulbous nose, his wide mouth was currently curled downward in an expression of deep displeasure.

He wore a filthy, tattered apron stained with fish scales and blood, making him look utterly slovenly. On his head sat a broken felt cap with a crooked brim—an appearance that would make anyone think twice before messing with him.

Watching the crowd gathered around Lin Yu's stall, the man's jealousy flared up. Intent on picking a fight, he bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Hey! You kid, do you even know the rules? Is this a place for you to sell fish? Scram, scram, scram! Don't sell your fish here!"

Lin Yu initially had no intention of engaging with him. He continued calling out to sell his fish, skillfully weighing fish and making change for customers, maintaining such a focused demeanor as if the trouble-maker standing nearby didn't even exist.

Seeing that Lin Yu completely ignored him, the man instantly flew into a rage. His face turned as red as a ripe tomato, and his coarse flesh trembled with anger.

He became even more aggressive, spewing a continuous stream of curses as he strode menacingly toward Lin Yu's stall. He thrust out a thick finger, nearly poking it into Lin Yu's face, and roared at the top of his lungs, "I'm talking to you! I told you not to sell here—are you deaf? Can't you hear?"

"What gives you the right?" Lin Yu raised his head and retorted, completely unfazed.

"You selling here steals all the business! What do you mean what gives me the right? Are you trying to starve us out?"

"That's right! Once you show up, all the customers get stolen away."

"A kid like you has no respect for the rules!" Two other vendors chimed in to support him.

Hearing this, Lin Yu was practically amused to the point of laughing.

Wasn't this just deliberate fault-finding?

I sell my fish, you sell yours, and everyone relies on their own ability. How on earth did that become stealing his business?

The more Lin Yu thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. He rolled his eyes and said, "I'm not hurting your business. Before I came, I didn't see your sales being all that booming anyway, so how am I stealing from you now? Besides, this place isn't owned by your family. What right do you have to chase me away? Where is your logic?"

"Oh, you cheeky little brat! You've got quite a mouth on you!" Seeing that Lin Yu dared to talk back, the man's temper spiked even higher, and the veins on his forehead bulged. He bellowed in rage, "Are you leaving or not? If you don't go, don't blame me for smashing your stall!"

With that, he aggressively shook his palm, which was as wide as a cattail-leaf fan, as if he were about to tear Lin Yu's stall apart at any second.

Yet Lin Yu remained utterly calm. He let out a cold laugh and leisurely replied, "Go ahead and smash it! Let me tell you, the remaining fish I have here are worth at least a hundred and twenty yuan. You'd better check if you have enough money to compensate me. In fact, you might as well hit me a few times while you're at it—I've been wanting to replace my horse-drawn cart and was worrying about not having the cash. The compensation you pay me will be just enough to buy a brand-new cart, so I'll even have to thank you."

At this point, Lin Yu paused. He even leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice—while intentionally speaking loudly enough for the surrounding crowd to hear—and added, "Don't think just because I'm a kid I'm easy to bully. Let me tell you, I have powerful connections up top. Why don't you try laying a finger on me and see what happens? Hmph, you'll be crying tears of regret soon enough."

Lin Yu delivered these words with such a convincing, unhurried, and deeply confident demeanor that it actually managed to bluff the man for a moment.

But it lasted only a brief instant. The man snapped back to his senses, thinking to himself: *Hmph, Lin Yu is just a little punk. What kind of powerful backer could he possibly have? He's just trying to scare people.*

"I'll smash it anyway! What are you going to do about it?"

The man yelled with utter disdain, his arrogant momentum roaring back to life. "So you've got people high up, huh? Go ahead and call them to deal with me!"

With that, like a maddened bull, he thrust out his thick arms and overturned all of Lin Yu's fish cages onto the ground with a flurry of swift movements. A series of clattering and crashing sounds rang out as the fish spilled from the cages, flopping frantically on the dirt and splashing muddy water everywhere.

Still unsatisfied, the man raised his foot and began stomping viciously on the cages and fish, cursing as he smashed them down. The fierce and terrifying display frightened the surrounding onlookers and customers, who immediately scrambled backward. Frowning with intense disgust, they began to point fingers and condemn the man in a chorus of murmurs.

"My goodness, you're going way too far! Bullying a child like that—your conscience must have been eaten by dogs!"

"Exactly! With that kind of character, none of us are ever going to buy fish from your stall again. Despicable!"

Watching the fish and cages he had prepared with such hard work reduced to this miserable state, Lin Yu felt his lips tremble with rage. Fire seemed to shoot from his eyes, and he clenched his hands so tightly into fists that his knuckles turned white.

Still, he did not let anger completely cloud his judgment. He knew that brawling head-on with this unreasonable man right now was pointless. Gritting his teeth, he dropped a harsh warning: "You wait right here. If you've got any guts, don't run off."

With that, he quickly leaped onto the donkey cart, cracked his whip hard against the animal's rump, and drove the donkey away at a gallop.

Watching the retreating figure of the donkey cart, the man sneered contemptuously and scoffed under his breath, "Just a little punk, scared out of his wits! Trying to throw down threats in front of me—completely ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth."

Seeing that Lin Yu had left after dropping his threat, the man loudly mocked him, "I'll be waiting right here, and whoever runs is a coward's grandson! Hmph, I'd like to see what kind of people you can summon. This business today is far from over!"

With his arms crossed over his chest, he stood proudly in place, radiating such supreme arrogance that he seemed utterly convinced Lin Yu could do nothing to him. The surrounding crowd could only shake their heads and sigh as they looked at him.