Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

"Mm, you must be worn out too. Go to bed early, then." Chen Shutang knew Yang Ce had just gotten back and would surely need his rest.

After hanging up, Yang Ce couldn't even be bothered to take a shower. He turned off the light and sank into a deep sleep.

The next morning, he was woken by a call from his uncle.

"Daming, are you awake?" His uncle's voice on the other end sounded anxious.

"I'm awake—though you're the one who woke me." Yang Ce and his uncle had grown much closer lately, so he spoke more casually now.

"Ha, sorry about that. I forgot you just got back yesterday and needed your rest." Yang Dashan gave an embarrassed laugh.

"Come on, Uncle. You, forget?" Yang Ce didn't buy it. "Even the worst memory couldn't forget yesterday's business by today."

"Ha—the weather's sure nice today." At Yang Ce's words, Yang Dashan's face went red at once. Fortunately they were on the phone, so his expression couldn't be seen.

"Pfft—hahahaha!" Yang Ce laughed so hard he nearly fell off the bed. He hadn't expected his uncle to come out with something so ridiculous. "All right, Uncle, just tell me what's going on. You wouldn't call me this early just to give me the weather forecast."

"Of course not." Yang Dashan's tone shifted, turning serious. "Fenghuang City Investment and Construction Company just called. They've got a project coming up and need these construction machines urgently. They want us to deliver the goods as soon as possible."

"Urgent? Do we have all their goods ready on our end?" Hearing it was business, Yang Puqi dropped his smile and asked carefully.

"They've been ready for ages. Because of San Kun Machinery, we've been dragging out the delivery." Yang Dashan said, "But from the way the people at Investment and Construction sounded today, if we don't deliver soon, they'll call off the whole deal."

"All right then. You get the goods ready, and I'll head to Fenghuang City and take care of this." Yang Ce thought it over. Sooner or later this had to be settled—early or late made no difference.

"That's great. I'll have the things prepared in a bit." Hearing Yang Ce's firm answer, Yang Dashan breathed a sigh of relief. "But if you're going alone, you must be careful."

"Don't worry, there won't be any problem." Yang Ce had full confidence in his own skills. Even if the other side had experts, if he couldn't beat them, couldn't he still run?

After getting up and washing his face, Yang Ce remembered he had plans with Chen Shutang today, so he called her and explained, a little embarrassed. Chen Shutang was very understanding; once she learned he had something important to do, she only urged him to be careful and wasn't displeased at all that he was breaking their date.

After grabbing a few steamed buns downstairs, Yang Ce drove to his uncle's office at Mingyang Heavy Industries.

"Daming, you're here!" Catching sight of Yang Ce, Yang Dashan hurried over happily. "Everything's ready. When do you think you can set off?"

"Anytime." Yang Ce said matter-of-factly. "Depends on how much there is."

"The first shipment isn't much—just one heavy excavator and one pile driver. One truck can carry it all." Yang Dashan said. "But you'll have to drive the truck there yourself."

"No problem." Yang Ce didn't care what he drove; he'd long since had someone upgrade his license to a Class B.

After warning his uncle not to tell his father about this, lest he worry, Yang Ce drove a large Dongfeng truck off toward Fenghuang City.

Though Fenghuang City belonged to another province, it wasn't far from Songjiang—only about a three-hour drive. That was precisely why Yang Dashan had been able to expand his business there so quickly.

San Kun Machinery likely had informants inside Fenghuang Investment and Construction as well. Word that Yang Ce was making a delivery today had probably already reached their ears, and no sooner had Yang Ce driven into the city limits of Fenghuang than he was being watched.

A Hyundai business van pulled across the front of Yang Ce's truck. Yang Ce gave a cold laugh; he truly wanted to floor the accelerator and send it flying. But he knew this was the city proper—if he really did such a thing here, he would likely bear considerable responsibility.

The door of the Hyundai van opened, and two burly men in black jumped out. At a glance, anyone could tell they were no good. But Yang Ce had seen far too many of their kind; of the underlings under his own command, if not ten thousand then eight thousand dressed exactly like this.

"Bang, bang, bang!" A man with a full beard pounded hard on Yang Ce's door. "Get out! Get out!"

"What's the matter, brothers?" Yang Ce didn't open the door right away. Instead he rolled the window down a crack and asked politely.

Of course, if Yang Ce wanted to take care of these two, it wouldn't take more than a few seconds. But he knew very well that these two were mere underlings—dealing with them would be utterly pointless. To solve the problem at its root, he would have to find their boss.

"Where are you from? What are you here for?" As the bearded man questioned him, he shot a glance at the other man beside him, who had a buzz cut. The buzz-cut man immediately ran to the back of Yang Ce's truck, scrambled up onto it in a couple of moves, pulled aside the canvas covering the machinery, took a look inside, confirmed it was an excavator and a pile driver, then quickly climbed back down, came over to the bearded man, and gave a silent nod.

Naturally, his every move had fallen within Yang Ce's line of sight—Yang Ce simply pretended not to notice. "Brother, I'm just making a delivery. Might I ask what you gentlemen want?" To be continued.

894. Paying Them a Visit

"Delivery boy, didn't your boss tell you? It's very unsafe to deliver goods to Fenghuang City," the burly man with the sideburns said, glancing at Yang Puqi with a strange, mocking tone.

"What do you mean, unsafe?" Yang Ce began to play dumb.

"All right, no time to waste on you." They had already confirmed that Yang Ce was the one delivering goods to Zhaoshang Construction on behalf of Mingyang Company, and they didn't want to waste more words on him. "Hurry up, get out of the car, then you walk, and the car stays."

"Me walk, the car stays?" Yang Ce pretended to be astonished. "What do you mean? Where are you from? I have to deliver the goods to their destination first."

"Where are we from?" The sideburned man bared his teeth and sneered. "We're from Sankun Machinery. You goddamn Mingyang Heavy Industries, coming here to peddle your crap—go back and tell your boss, if he dares send anyone again, we'll kill them all together."

"Brother, I don't know any Sankun Machinery. I'm just a delivery man. I just want to deliver the goods to their destination. Please don't make things hard for me, all right?" Yang Ce continued to toy with the two men.

"Keep dawdling and I'll hold you here too, so you can't leave either," the buzz-cut man said impatiently.

"I can't do that. I can't leave the goods here. Talk to your boss, tell him if he has any problem to take it up with our boss. Don't make things hard for me," Yang Ce said, steering the conversation as much as possible in the direction he had anticipated.

"Our boss?" The buzz-cut man burst into mocking laughter. "Why don't you go talk to him yourself?"

"Fine, then take me to see your boss. I'll talk to him," Yang Ce said, nodding repeatedly.

"What do we do? This kid seems a bit hard to deal with." The buzz-cut man pulled the sideburned man around, and the two began whispering to each other.

"If he's willing to see the boss, just take him. He's alone anyway, what's there to be afraid of?" The sideburned man said indifferently. "Perfect—we'll keep him as a hostage and see if Mingyang Heavy Industries dares steal our business again."

"That works too." The buzz-cut man nodded. "Then take him back."