Bai Jiu wasn’t actually trying to kill herself, so she naturally hadn’t used much force. Otherwise, given her strength, even a grown man might not have been able to stop her.
"Sister, you have no idea..." Bai Jiu said, directly revealing the Bai Family’s background. "Tell me, the country has acknowledged us, so why must our family still suffer so much? It’s all because of these bad elements trying to destroy our internal unity!"
Thanks to Old Mrs. Song’s influence, Bai Jiu had a silver tongue that could talk the dead back to life.
"Don’t worry, sis, we definitely won’t let these bad guys off the hook." The surrounding men immediately encircled Li Baoguo and his group.
Li Baoguo panicked. "What are you doing? I’m a security guard at the wool factory!" he cried, swallowing hard in fear.
"We don’t care who you are! You’re destroying our unity. Come on, you’re coming with us to the Public Security Bureau." The bystanders couldn’t bear to just watch anymore and directly grabbed them.
In this day and age, people were more eager to catch a "bad element" than to pick up money off the street.
"No, don’t do this! It’s all because of this woman! She was the one yelling, which is why we came over. We didn’t have any bad intentions, really!" Li Baoguo was terrified. He immediately pointed the finger at Liu Zhaodi, who was still on the ground. To him, nothing was more important than saving his own skin. After all, they had only come over because they heard her shouting.
But Bai Jiu wasn’t about to give him an out. If she didn’t teach him a lesson today, he wouldn’t know who he was messing with—always picking on her older brother day in and day out.
"They’re in this together! This woman’s husband also works at the wool factory. Later, we need to have the public security officers thoroughly investigate her husband, too!" She wouldn’t let a single bad guy slip through the net. Besides, it was a fact that they bullied the Bai Family on a daily basis. She hadn’t uttered a single lie. "Let’s send them to the Public Security Bureau first. We’ll let the officers arrest her husband when the time comes."
Liu Zhaodi was terrified. How did her husband get dragged into this? "N-no, it’s not like that! Don’t listen to her nonsense, she’s just taking revenge!" she stammered in fear.
"Then tell me, what exactly am I taking revenge for?" Bai Jiu found this woman incredibly stupid. Wasn’t she just handing over leverage on a silver platter?
"If you hadn’t bullied us, why would I need to take revenge?" Bai Jiu sneered internally. She had seen stupid people, but never anyone this stupid. "That just proves you’ve been oppressing good people and sabotaging our unity!"
Soon, Li Baoguo and his group were restrained by the burly men in the crowd, while Liu Zhaodi was hauled up by several older women. They were marched off to the Public Security Bureau.
Seeing this spectacle, Bai Xingguo grew a little fearful. "Will things go wrong if you make such a big fuss, Xiaomei?" he asked, mostly out of worry for his younger sister.
"I didn’t lie, so what is there to be afraid of? Hasn’t her family bullied you regularly? Haven’t Li Baoguo and the others bullied you?" Bai Jiu rolled her eyes. "Don’t worry about it, Big Brother. I’m going to tag along and see." It wouldn’t do for her not to be there. "Oh, right. Don’t eat at the cafeteria at noon. I’ll bring you some food." With that, Bai Jiu slung her basket onto her back and hurried after the crowd.
Bai Xingguo was still uneasy, but it was his first day at work, making it incredibly difficult to ask for time off. "Gao Li, could you go keep an eye on my sister for me? I’m afraid she might be too impulsive." He had no choice but to plead with Xiang Gaoli.
Xiang Gaoli, of course, couldn’t have asked for anything better. "Alright, don’t worry, Brother Bai. I definitely won’t let anything happen to her." Leaving those words behind, she grabbed her meat and ran off.
The Public Security Bureau wasn’t far away; it took only half an hour to arrive. Along the way, both Liu Zhaodi and Li Baoguo’s group cried foul, claiming they had been wronged. If they hadn’t been marching straight to the Public Security Bureau, they probably would have been let go on the road.
"What’s going on?" As soon as they reached the entrance of the Public Security Bureau, the officers on duty rushed out. Seeing such a massive crowd swarming them was quite intimidating.
"It’s like this, comrade..." The two men leading the group explained the situation.
Public security officers were experienced professionals; they could tell at a glance whether the people being hauled in were actually "bad elements." They suspected it was just another petty squabble.
"Let’s go inside first," the officer said.
Bai Jiu and Xiang Gaoli followed them inside. Xiang Gaoli felt a little uncomfortable; it was her first time in such a place.
"Are you sure you’re going to be okay?" Xiang Gaoli had tried to persuade Bai Jiu to turn back halfway there, but ended up being persuaded to tag along instead.
"Relax, everything will be fine. Even if something happens, we won’t be the ones in trouble." After all, she had Gao Zhijun’s report safely stored in her spatial dimension. She wanted to see who could possibly do anything to her.
"That’s good, then." In truth, Xiang Gaoli had long known about how everyone targeted the Bai Family. She frequently spoke up to defend them in her daily life, but as a young female outsider, her words carried little weight.
Soon, an officer in charge came over to take over the case. After questioning everyone to clarify the situation, he locked his gaze onto Bai Jiu.
"Speak up. How do you know they are bad elements?" The officer in charge felt a headache coming on. He had thought they’d actually caught some spies, but as it turned out...
"It’s like this, comrade..." Bai Jiu recounted the Bai Family’s situation once more. "The Bai Family’s status was granted by the state. Not only do they use our background against us, but they also target us at every turn! If that isn’t destroying unity, what is? Our Bai Family is an honorable worker’s household, and my husband is even..."
As she spoke, Bai Jiu burst into tears. "Comrade, you have to stand up for me, or I won’t be able to live anymore! My husband hasn’t been dead for long, and people are already using my background to bully me, calling me ’Young Miss’ every time they open their mouths. If there was truly a problem with my background, how could the higher-up leaders have approved my marriage to my husband?"
Her documents had been officially submitted and vetted; no one could use her background against her. She retrieved Gao Zhijun’s graduation report and missing person certificate from her spatial dimension. They bore a large five-star red flag—something not just anyone could possess.
The officer took the documents and, upon seeing them, immediately adopted a solemn expression. "Don’t worry, Ma’am. We absolutely will not let those who destroy unity off the hook, nor will we allow such parasites to harm the hardworking spouses of our comrades."
With Bai Jiu’s status revealed, the nature of the case was already half-settled.
Li Baoguo was terrified, and Liu Zhaodi literally wet herself.
"N-no, it’s not like that! The Bai Family used to be landlords! They were a family of hedonists, full of capitalism!" Liu Zhaodi immediately began to bite back in her terror.
"Bullshit! During the country’s most difficult times, our Bai Family donated our entire fortune! We gave money when we had money and labored when we had strength! How dare you slander my family like this? Boohoo, I can’t go on living like this!"
The Bai Family did indeed have money in the past; everyone in town knew this. However, they had been in the medicinal herbs business. When it came to helping the country, they had spared absolutely no effort. She remembered her grandfather telling her that the state had even borrowed money and grain from him back then. There were IOU notes for all of these contributions, which were currently kept safely hidden away. Bai Jiu had discovered them while sorting through the original owner’s books.
"They promised to protect our family back then, but now, every random person can step all over us! Oh, Motherland! Oh, leaders! You need to come and see this!" Bai Jiu pulled a few more pieces of paper from her pocket. "Take a look, comrade. See if I’m lying! These are the IOU notes written by the leaders back in the day!"
Bai Jiu knew that the leader who had written these IOUs hadn’t fallen from grace, so using his name was the perfect move.