Chapter 273: Your Path Is Narrowing!

Amidst Gao Dayi's suspicions, Li Xian looked at him with a half-smile, reached into his pocket, but didn't immediately pull out the contents. Instead, he asked with a grin, "Uncle Gao, do you admit to this?"

Gao Dayi's expression fluctuated between anger and confusion. "What kind of trick are you playing?"

Li Xian nodded.

If that's the case, then… let's tear the mask off.

Oh? But wasn't that what today was all about? Forget it.

He gave a self-deprecating smile, "Uncle Gao, don't think you're the only one with connections. These days, everyone has a few links."

Saying that, he took his hand out of his pocket and pulled out several… printed telephone records.

Upon seeing these, Gao Dayi's pupils constricted! "Li Er, what… what do you mean by this?"

Noticing the panic on Gao Dayi's face, Li Xian smiled. "Nothing much. You wanted evidence, and here it is. Uncle Gao, nowadays, phone numbers come with passwords. With the number and password, checking the call records is not difficult."

Hearing this, Gao Dayi's eyes widened.

Then he laughed!

"Haha," he pointed at Li Xian and then glanced at the crowd watching eagerly, "Li Er, you should have some sense when fooling people. How would you know the password for our phone?"

He lowered his voice and growled, "If you broke into our phone's password, that's illegal."

Gao Dayi, who had been nervous before, was now calm. He knew their phone's password had long been changed.

Li Xian, unhurriedly, unfolded the printed telephone records. "Uncle Gao, who said I accessed your phone records? I retrieved the records for the family planning office's two tip-off lines, covering all calls to our logging station over the past year!"

Seeing the thick stack of records, Gao Dayi's pupils shrank again!

Li Xian noticed he instinctively took a step back.

Now you're scared?

Where to run?

Old buddy, you've already narrowed your own path!

Li Xian chuckled and completely unfolded the excessively long phone records, walking to where the crowd was lined up. He pointed to several marked phone numbers on the list and announced loudly, "Over the past year, our logging station received six calls from the family planning office. On March 22, May 19, May 29, June 7, July 11, and then on March 13 of this year, which was February 2!"

Upon seeing these calls, some people stared at Gao Dayi with anxious expressions, their fists clenched.

But Li Xian wasn't finished yet.

"Interestingly, all these calls came from one number." He turned to Gao Dayi, "Uncle Gao, my memory isn't great, and I don't spend much time at the station. So… 4571115, whose number is that?"

"I don't know! The call wasn't made by me!"

Gao Dayi was completely flustered!

That number was their home landline.

He wanted to explain, but seeing the cold, indifferent, or even hostile looks from the crowd, he was choked with a thousand explanations that wouldn't come out.

"I! I-I-I, really, folks, don't you know me? I-I really really…"

He could only place his hands on his chest, shaking them like two accelerating pendulums.

"You're really something!" A loud voice came from the crowd!

It was Bai Laosi, who had his third wife seized by the family planning office last year.

By now, everyone knew what was going on.

"Gao Dayi, it's said that even a rabbit doesn't eat the grass by its burrow, but you, damn it, have ruined even the grass in the burrow! Whenever there was a task in the logging station, I, Bai Laosi, was always at the front helping out. As a nine-year station manager, have I ever caused trouble for you? Last year, when I was caught by the family planning office, I thought it was weird and suspected it was Lai Laoda messing with me. I argued with him about it several times. I never expected…"

Bai Laosi walked up to Gao Dayi, who was trying to flee, grabbed him by the collar, contorted his face, and shouted, "You, as a station manager, are worse than the scum in the logging station! I saw my child when it was born, it was a son, a son! Are you even human?"

Bang!

Bai Laosi, tall and strong, punched Gao Dayi, sending him crashing to the ground.

"Spit!"

"Hmph! Spit!"

"Crack… Spit!!!"

Seeing that Gao Dayi had been dealt with, more than ten people who had been fined for exceeding birth quotas surrounded him. They didn't continue beating him but each spat a mouthful of thick phlegm on his face. Then, they decisively moved to the right-side election box.

With this small portion of people leaving, the long queue at the left-side election box began to waver.

It was like a long dam collapsing under a flood peak.

First, a small segment of the dam gave way, and once that gap was created, the entire dam began to collapse!

People looked at Gao Dayi, who was sitting on the ground with his gray jacket covered in phlegm and spit, with complicated expressions, then silently moved to the right side. In no time, the left-side election box, which had just had a long queue, was completely empty!

Seeing this, Li Xian couldn't help but recall Li Shimin's famous admonition.

He sighed, walked over to Gao Dayi, and looked down at the trembling… former station manager. He lightly tossed the phone records at him.

"After nine years as a station manager, here's a memento for you."

Then, he nodded at Li You, who was standing by the election box with a serious expression, and helped Chen Guixiang, who was exhausted from exposing the troubles caused by the former manager, up.

"Fifth sister-in-law, let's go check on the child."

Chen Guixiang wiped her tears and looked at him gratefully. "Okay!"

Half an hour later.

The 94' Eighth-Ninth Logging Station election meeting ended amidst a flurry of verbal conflict. Many people left without even eating the pork and vermicelli dish. When they left, they specifically explained why they didn't eat the dish.

"It's really disgusting!"

In the afternoon.

Zeng Xianzhi, the deputy director of the forestry bureau in charge of logging station personnel, received a call from the Eight-Nine Logging Station headquarters.

He answered and asked, "Has the Eight-Nine election been completed? Haha, let me know if it's finished, and make sure to tell Old Gao to drink some clean wine! Isn't this the fourth term?"

"Uh," the voice on the other end sounded awkward, "Deputy Director Zeng, this time it's not Gao Dayi."

"Ah?" Zeng Xianzhi was surprised, "Then who is it?"

"It's Li You. You might not know him, but you surely know his son, Li Xian, the manager of our forestry bureau's Xinao Paper Factory."

Hearing this name, Zeng Xianzhi frowned. "I've heard of him. So, is there something fishy about this election? No under-the-table deals or vote buying, right? If that's the case, our bureau won't recognize this station manager!"

The person on the other end sounded even more awkward. "Deputy Director Zeng, there… um… let me put it this way, this time Li You was… was… elected unanimously!"

Hearing this result, Zeng Xianzhi was stunned.

"Damn! What did Old Gao do to make everyone so angry?"

He couldn't help but exclaim.

---

In the evening.

The Gao family was exceptionally quiet. When Gao Dayi returned home, he didn't change his clothes or wash his face, diving straight into bed.

No matter how much Guo Guixiang asked, he didn't say a word.

Guo Guixiang guessed something about what had happened but was puzzled. When she went out to ask the neighbors who had attended the election about the situation, she was met with spit in return!

Seeing those disdainful eyes, Guo Guixiang hurried back home and locked the doors tightly.

But the night wasn't quiet.

Around ten o'clock, Guo Guixiang, who had just fallen into a drowsy sleep, was startled awake by a loud crash. She lit a candle and saw that the glass in the south window had been shattered!

The October autumn wind whistled through the large hole, like a vengeful spirit, scaring her into not daring to move. She could only huddle in bed, trembling.

Before her heart could calm, she heard the same loud crash outside.

The second south window's glass shattered.

This time, in the dim moonlight, Guo Guixiang clearly saw that the object smashing their windows was a gleaming kitchen knife!

With a scream, she buried her head under the covers.

Trembling, from the gaps in the quilt, Guo Guixiang saw that Gao Dayi's eyes were wide open.

---

The next morning, as soon as it was light, Guo Guixiang packed up her belongings and, dragging the mute Gao Dashan, boarded the big bus to

 the forestry bureau.

When they left, not a single window in the house was intact.

The room, covered in broken glass, bricks, kitchen knives, manure, and ghost money, was a mess.