Chapter 98: When Man Dies, The Lamp Goes Out

  "It's getting late, you all go back first. Lai Zi's case can be handed over to the court for trial now. I will inform Uncle Wang of the trial date. If you have time, you can also come together."

  Wang Haodong nodded and asked: "Can we handle Wang Kai's funeral as soon as possible?"

  "Alright, take a break." Chen Yue patted Wang Haodong's shoulder and then entered the office.

  Looking at her back, Wang Haodong helplessly supported Wang Bo away.

  For the next three days, Wang Haodong and his brothers were busy with the funeral arrangements. Wang Kai's father was still alive, but his mother had passed away. He originally had a younger brother and sister, but they had died of illness when they were young, so there was no one in the family to take care of the funeral, and it was up to the brothers to help with the arrangements.

  Dealing with the funeral expenses required money, so Wang Haodong and others chipped in to help. However, Wang's uncle was adamant that he didn't want their money. He had previously done business in town and had a 200,000 yuan time deposit at the post office, which hadn't yet matured. For his son's funeral, he would have to withdraw it anyway, so he politely declined Wang Haodong's kind intentions.

  On the day of the funeral, the weather was not good, and it rained drizzles.

  Wang Kai is also considered a big shot, and some influential people from Linyuan Town have come, including both good and bad guys, adding up to over 100 people. Wang Dahai choked with emotion, saying, "Brother Kai has been struggling for several years, and being able to reach this point is worth it."

  When a person dies, it's like a lamp going out. No matter what grudges or kindnesses there were, they all disappear in an instant when the body is buried. At the funeral, even King Kai's brothers, who had followed him for so long, couldn't help but shed scalding hot tears, and the atmosphere was somber to the extreme.

  Wang Dahai was the one who cried the most, Wang Kai and he were originally relatives, he had been following Wang Kai since childhood, with the deepest feelings, treating him like an elder brother, kneeling on the muddy ground, his whole body covered in mud, Wang Haodong had no choice but to ask Liu Lele to bring people, forcibly pulling him to one side.

  After the funeral, everyone had a meal. After Wang Kai's death, his brothers lost their backbone and Wang Hao Dong was persuaded by Chen Yue not to continue messing around. He couldn't lead his brothers in doing things anymore, so they disbanded after some discussion.

  Those who have a way out will find their own way, those who don't will think of another solution. Some people continue to choose to stay on the road, while others withdraw and focus on working or doing business...

  The police collected enough evidence and soon transferred the case to the procuratorate, which reviewed it and handed it over to the court. The trial was held publicly twenty days after Wang Kai's burial. Lai Zi did not deny his crimes and confessed to the charges. The verdict of the first trial was death sentence with immediate execution, deprivation of political rights for life, and compensation of 180,000 yuan to the plaintiff Wang Bo.

  These one hundred and eighty thousand, is the court letting Wang Kai's father compensate for his old age, after all he only has one son, after Wang Kai's death, he will be old and helpless, this money is necessary...

  All this is after the event, let's not mention it for now.

  After Wang Kai's matter was handled, Wang Haodong stayed in Linyuan Town. The decoration of the song bar was quickly completed, and after waiting for two days, the smell of decoration inside had dissipated. He then called Boss Wang to bring over the audio equipment they had ordered, installed and tested it, and after confirming it was working normally, he gave the remaining money to Boss Wang.

  Wang Haodong and Xiao Yufen ran several times in the city, purchasing the necessary items for the bar, such as the counter, wine cabinet, small sofa, chairs, tea table, etc., and arranged them according to their ideas.

  At this time, Wang Hao Dong also took out the license he had handled at the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, and went to the tax authorities and other departments for two rounds, handling the relevant certificates.

  After busy for several days, the bar is almost ready. After careful calculation, a lot of money has been spent. Wang Haodong's savings of 80,000 yuan are left with less than 2,000 yuan, not even enough to buy wine. He had no choice but to borrow 10,000 yuan from Xiao Yufen. He contacted the supplier and ordered 100 boxes of beer, as well as some red wine and cigarettes. All the goods that could be displayed were put on the wine cabinet, and a unique heart-shaped design was created with great ingenuity.

  The house that had just been renovated had a very strong smell, and it was not possible to open for business at the moment. So Wang Haodong consulted with Xiao Yufen, looked at the calendar, and set the opening date on July 10th, a week later. According to the almanac, that day was a auspicious day, suitable for all things.

  "Yu Fen, is the tune correct?"

  Wang Hao Dong stuck the words "air conditioning open" on the tempered glass door, asking Xiao Yu Fen. After she nodded, he climbed down the small ladder, looked at the font, and found it very regular. He patted his hands and smiled: "OK."

  Xiao Yufen looked up at the sky and asked: "It's almost noon, what are we going to eat?"

  "Let's buy some clams to eat." As he spoke, Wang Haodong took out a bottle of beer from the refrigerator behind the bar, bit off the cap, and gulped down a mouthful. He then put his arm around Xiao Yufen and said, "Come on, let's close up the shop and go buy some vegetables on the street."

  Xiao Yufen nodded and closed the door, locked it, then went out onto the street with Wang Haodong.

  "Yu Fen, want to buy a cell phone?" Wang Hao Dong stopped in his tracks as they passed by the mobile business hall, asking with a smile.

  Xiao Yufen thought for a moment and said: "I've never played with a mobile phone before, I won't know how to use it even if I buy one."

  "It's just like a fixed phone, it's just added some functions, very simple."

  Wang Haodong smiled and said, pulling Xiao Yufen into the business hall. The store had no customers. The owner of the business hall was a woman in her thirties, idly reading a newspaper. When the two entered, she quickly put down the newspaper, stood up and smiled: "Two, recharge or buy something?"

  "Recharge my phone with 100 yuan." Wang Haodong took out a 100-yuan bill, reported his number, and after the recharge was successful, he let Xiao Yufen choose a mobile phone she liked at the counter. Anyway, he had long planned to buy her a mobile phone, and today was a good opportunity to do so.

  "Sister, what type of (phone) do you like? Domestic or imported, flip cover or straight board..."

  The boss simply put it this way: the time when this article started was around 2004, when there were no smartphones and even touch screens were rare. The mobile phones in this small place were all keypad phones.

  Xiao Yufen looked at it for a while, and asked Wang Haodong to help her refer to it. After considering it for a moment, Wang Haodong set his sights on a Nokia mobile phone that cost over 800 yuan, with functions such as mp3, camera, video recorder, etc. The phone came with a 50-yuan phone card, which was quite reasonable.

  "Let me try first."

  Xiao Yufen started fiddling with the phone, she was a clever and intelligent woman, although she didn't have her own phone, Wang Haodong had one, and she occasionally played with it, operating it wasn't a big problem, under his guidance, she quickly learned to operate the phone and even called him.

  "You wait here for a while, I'll go out and walk a bit further and call you, let's try the call quality of this phone."

  Wang Haodong finished speaking and ran out in big strides, running to a tree 20 meters away to answer the phone and start chatting with Xiao Yufen.

  The quality of this phone is not bad, the call is clear, and the sound is also quite good. Wang Haodong tried it out and hung up the phone, went into the business hall, and asked Xiao Yufen to buy the phone. She also listened to him, nodded and said: "Okay, let's buy it then."

  "Your husband is really good to you."

  The female boss was handling the registration formalities while sighing and saying: "Two years ago, when I hadn't opened this store yet, I went to the city to ask my husband to buy me a mobile phone. He refused to buy one for me, no matter how hard I begged him. It took me several months of persuasion before he finally bought me a cheap black-and-white screen phone, which really annoyed me."

  Listening to the boss's praise and emotion, Wang Haodong couldn't help but laugh, "Now you open a store, whatever phone you want to use, your husband can't control you."

  "Big brother, you're telling the truth, I'm using Motorola now, he's using a black and white screen, haha."

  After chatting for a while, Wang Haodong and Xiao Yufen left the business hall and went to the vegetable market. On the way, she kept holding her mobile phone, just like a child who had just received his favorite toy.

  Just as Wang Haodong was sighing, his phone rang. He took a look and saw that it was an unfamiliar number, so he quickly picked up the call. It turned out to be Liu Lele calling, and he asked: "Lele, what's going on?"

  "Big Brother Dong, I'm at Liujiayuan now, these days are so boring, do you have any plans?"

  Wang Haodong smiled and said, "Didn't I tell you? I'm opening a bar. It'll be open in a week. Come play when you have time."

  "What's the point of just singing? Why don't you do something big?"

  "Big deal? Wang Haodong smiled wryly, 'I don't have what it takes to do big things, let's start with something small for now.'"

  "Ah." Liu Lele sighed and said after a long time: "Dong Ge, are you going to start yet?"

  In the face of his inquiry, Wang Haodong could only express that he was temporarily not interested. He knew Liu Lele's purpose was to get Wang Haodong to take the lead and do something, and then she would follow along with him, just like when she used to follow Wang Kai.

  However, Wang Haodong now wants to take the right path. After seeing the tragic end of Wang Kai, he temporarily lost interest in these things. Since he decided to do small business, let's take a proper route first.

  "Never mind, I'm going to eat now, and when you open for business, I'll definitely go support you."

  Hanging up his phone, Wang Haodong took Xiao Yufen's hand and entered the vegetable market.

  Today is Sunday, a day for gathering. It's about 11 o'clock now and there are many people on the street. The rain from the past few days has made the air quite humid, not particularly hot and dry, and it feels very comfortable with the breeze.

  Wang Haodong and Xiao Yufen navigated through the crowd, saying to her: "Yufen, stop fooling around, let's buy some good food and go home to have a good time."

  Xiao Yufen nodded, put the phone in her pocket, picked up the mobile phone box with charger and headphones inside, and walked quickly towards Zhang Shufang's vegetable stall.

  In the past few days, Xiao Yufen bought vegetables from Zhang Shufang. If Zhang Qian was around, Zhang Shufang would symbolically charge her the cost price; if Zhang Qian wasn't there, she wouldn't take any money. All these things were kept secret from Zhang Qian for the time being and he still didn't know about them.

  After walking for a while, they passed by a butcher's stall and stopped to buy some pork. As it happened, there was also a fishmonger nearby, so Wang Haodong bought a pound of shrimp as well. When he was paying, he suddenly heard Xiao Yufen say: "Haodong, someone has stolen my phone."

  Damn it! I just bought this phone for my woman, who dares to steal it?

  Wang Haodong turned his head and saw a young man in his 20s, holding Xiao Yufen's mobile phone, putting it into his pocket, and running westward with big strides.

  Damn it.

  Wang Haodong cursed and stuffed the thing in his hand into Xiao Yufen's hand, then chased after him directly.

  "Make way, make way, catch the thief."

  Wang Haodong ran while shouting, quickly weaving through the crowd. Some people didn't dodge in time and were knocked to the ground. At this point, he couldn't be bothered to care about them, first catch the thief and then talk.

  The thief did not expect that Wang Haodong would chase after him so quickly, and at a speed even faster than his own. He had only run less than thirty meters when Wang Haodong caught up with him from behind, leaping high into the air and landing a vicious knee strike to his back.