The rain gradually stopped.

Chen Yuan pushed open the courtyard door and found that the small courtyard had almost been cleaned.

Broken rubble had been piled up in the southwest corner, and the branches of the jujube tree had been thrown to the wasteland outside, but the shocking crack in the trunk still reminded Chen Yuan of the devastation that this humble farmhouse had suffered.

Chen Yuan said hello to Chen Kexiong, who was cleaning the yard, and walked straight into the hut.

Her mother, Guo Weilan, was holding a broom and cleaning the mess in the house.

The sixteen blood-red characters on the wall are still eye-catching, but the word "owed" for "debt" is missing half, which was obviously sharpened with a file.

Chen Yuan stood in the room, looking at the broken photo frame that had been put back on the table, for a long time, sighed, and said slowly: "Mom, how long do you plan to hide the debt from me?"

Guo Weilan's body stiffened, the hand holding the broom trembled slightly, lowered her head, and said gloomily: "You know everything?"

Chen Yuan turned his head, his eyes were red, and he said word by word: "Yes, I know it." ”

Guo Weilan didn't look at her son, put the broom aside, walked outside the house, and whispered to Chen Kexiong: "Son, dad, come in, it's time to make it clear to your son." ”

Chen Kexiong was also stunned.

After standing for a moment, he put the stone in his hand to the side, patted the dust on his hand, walked into the house without saying a word, sat on a chair, and lit a cigarette.

Guo Weilan moved a chair for Chen Yuan, and she sat down on a low stool.

Seeing that her husband was silent, he sighed deeply and said, "Yuan'er, you have grown up, and the family's debts should not have been hidden from you. But at that time, you were in your third year of high school, and I was very nervous about reviewing every day, and your father and I were worried that it would affect your normal revision, so we decided to hide this matter. ”

Chen Yuan was silent for a long time, and then said, "How much does our family owe to others?"

Guo Weilan hesitated for a moment and stretched out a finger.

"Ten thousand?" Chen Yuan frowned.

Guo Weilan didn't answer, only shook her head slightly.

Chen Yuan's face changed slightly, and he lost his voice: "One hundred thousand?"

Guo Weilan turned her head away, her eyes were red, and she nodded silently.

"How...... What," Chen Yuan was a little incoherent, "how can you owe people so much money?"

Guo Weilan sighed, and two lines of tears burned in her eyes.

At this time, Chen Kexiong's cigarette had burned out, he let out a long breath, and said in a hoarse voice: "Don't ask your mother, I'll tell you." ”

The middle-aged man, who had never been good at expressing himself, pulled out a cigarette from the cigarette case, knocked it on the table with the cigarette holder facing down, then stuffed the cigarette into his mouth, lit it, and said, "The spirit stone mine where your mother and I work has not been paid for half a year. ”

"Half a year?" Chen Yuan was stunned on the spot.

Chen Kexiong took a deep breath of his cigarette and said slowly: "In the past few years, the market of 'spirit stones' has not been good, coupled with fierce competition, many 'spirit stone mines' have closed down, and the house where I and your mother work has long been on the verge of bankruptcy. ”

"We thought about quitting our jobs and changing jobs, but we soon found out that it wasn't realistic. Your mother and I have signed a long-term labor contract with the mine owner, and there is a large salary in his hands, and now he resigns, and the money will never be returned. ”

Chen Yuan's nose was sour, and he couldn't say a word.

Chen Kexiong looked up at his son and sighed softly: "Without salary, our family's source of income will be cut off, your mother and I don't want to delay your review, so under the guarantee of 'Li Haozi', I borrowed 5,000 yuan from 'Dingrong Company', wanting to overcome this difficulty first, but I didn't expect ......."

"What kind of business is Dingrong Company doing, you don't know, how can they borrow money?"

Chen Yuan looked at his father, who seemed to be ten years old for a moment, and couldn't help but feel a heartache.

People in the entire slum know that the "Ding Rong Company" is a loan shark company that "sells dog meat on the head of a sheep".

On the surface, under the banner of "formal financial business", behind the scenes, it is engaged in a series of illegal activities such as collecting protection fees, lending usury, and laundering money.

In Chinese law, usury is expressly prohibited, but there are many difficulties in regulation.

Especially in densely populated areas such as slums, it is even more difficult to investigate and deal with them.

In the long run, "financial companies" such as "Ding Rong Company", which are superficial and backward, have long blossomed everywhere in the slums.

In addition to wantonly usury, the "Ding Rong Company" is also inextricably linked with the underground forces in the slums, and has raised a number of professional "collection teams" to violently collect money from those who cannot repay their debts.

Chen Yuanjia's situation was caused by the violent collection of "Dingrong Company".

Chen Kexiong snuffed out the cigarette butt and said slowly: "We also know that the 'Dingrong Company' eats people and does not spit out bones, but it can't borrow money, what is the way? You also know the situation of our family, there are no relatives, the circle of friends is small, most of the people we know are workers in the mine, they can't get wages, they are enough to choke on themselves, where is there spare money to borrow from us?"

"If you can't borrow money, your mother and I can still get through, but you have to drop out of school, you have to go hungry, you have been preparing for the college entrance examination for so long, it doesn't matter if we are a little tired, what should we do if we drag you down?" He looked gloomy, and continued: "At that time, I thought that a few thousand yuan should be able to be repaid soon, but the mine has been in arrears of wages, not to mention thousands of yuan, and even the monthly interest has not been repaid, and after a few months, the debt has doubled to 100,000 ......."

When Guo Weilan heard this, she couldn't hold back her emotions, covered her face and cried bitterly: "Yuan'er, my parents are sorry for you, it's useless for us, and we have affected you......"

"Mom, don't say it. ”56

Chen Yuan raised his head and took a deep breath to prevent tears from flowing.

After a while, he took out a dark green card from his pocket, handed it to Guo Weilan, and said, "Mom, the card is the living expenses I saved in three years of high school, and the money is not much, only about 10,000 yuan, if it is not enough, let's find a way to make it up." ”

"How can this work?" Guo Weilan couldn't help but say, and pushed the card back: "This is the money you saved by frugality, we can't take ......"

"Chen Yuan, take the card back," Chen Kexiong also said on the side: "The debt we owe, we will pay it ourselves, and we can't ask for your money." ”

"Listen to me, take it. Chen Yuan stuffed the card into his mother's hand and said, "The family does not distinguish between you and me, and if anything happens, we will carry it together as a family." ”

Guo Weilan choked up instantly, crying silently.

Chen Kexiong hung his head deeply, his eyes red.

......

......

Meanwhile.

Several figures were striding towards the courtyard of Chen Yuan's house.

At the head was a burly man with a pockmarked face, carrying a thick iron rod in one hand and a little boy covered in bruises and blood in the other.

Behind him, there were five or six thugs dressed in black, all with guys in their hands, looking very angry.

The pock-faced man put the iron rod on his shoulder and said, "Damn...... Chen Kexiong's calf finally came back, and he actually hid from Lao Tzu for a month, to see that I didn't take off his whole family's arms. ”

Behind the right, a yellow-haired thug with a machete tilted his head and smiled, "Brother Li, against these miscellaneous birds, how can you take action personally, and let the little brother take the lead for you later." ”

"That's it, Brother Li, the brothers haven't done it for a while, and they'll take Chen Kexiong's family to practice for a while. The other thug immediately picked up.

Li Haozi glanced at everyone, "Damn, what kind of excitement are you making up one by one, Lao Tzu's account, naturally Lao Tzu will collect it." ”

He looked at the boy who had fainted in his hand, and said with a cruel smile: "If it weren't for Wang Dongxu's hairy children to report the news, I wouldn't have known that Chen Kexiong had sneaked home, this time I will personally take action, and he will definitely be worse than dead!"

"Brother Li, let's listen to you. ”

"Concoct Chen Kexiong's family well!"

"Let them spit out all the money!"

A group of thugs shouted loudly and rushed towards Chen Yuan's house with great momentum.

Soon attracted the attention of the surrounding residents, and one by one they walked out of their yards and rushed to Chen's house to see the excitement.

More than a dozen old men, seven or eight good girls, and three or five hairy children who are born with boldness......

A group of people followed behind Li Haozi and the others from a distance, and no one dared to say a word.

for fear of provoking this gang of vicious villains and causing themselves to suffer.

Li Haozi glanced back from the corner of his eye, hooked the corner of his mouth, and led a group of people to stride into the door of the Chen family's courtyard.

A group of honest residents all stopped not far from the gate of the garden, sticking their heads out and looking inside.

Li Haozi walked into the hospital, threw the injured boy to the ground, and turned his head to look around.

Seeing that the courtyard had been cleaned up, a cruel smile appeared on his ugly face.

In order to stand out in front of the eldest brother, Xiao Huangmao didn't say a word, and immediately rushed towards the closed door.

Li Haozi smiled playfully, stretched out his hand to stop him, made a "silence" movement, and walked forward slowly, while turning his ears sideways and eavesdropping on the crack of the door.

When the onlookers saw this scene, some of them widened their eyes, their faces were full of curiosity, and some looked sad, worried about Chen Yuan's family, and the neighbor Zhao Yougen stood in front of the crowd, not only wanting to stand up for the Chen family, but also not having the courage, so anxious as ants on a hot pot.

A middle-aged woman sneered: "This time Kexiong's family is miserable, if you provoke Li Haozi's gang, it will definitely not end well, if you want to blame Kexiong himself, it is not good to borrow anyone's money, but to find the 'Dingrong Group' that eats people and does not spit out bones." ”

"Stop chewing your tongue," a man beside him couldn't take it anymore and frowned, "When Kexiong was looking for someone to borrow money everywhere, did you make any efforts?"

"I don't have any money, what can I do," the middle-aged woman disdained the man's statement, glanced at Zhao Yougen, and said sourly: "How can it be like some people, who obviously have that spare money at home, and are still neighbors of other people, but they can't save them when they die, and now they still have the face to run here to see the excitement." ”

"You know a fart!" Zhao Yougen's face turned red and said, "When Kexiong borrowed money, I was buying goods from other places, and there was no one at home!"

"Whether there is anyone or not, only your own family knows. The middle-aged woman sneered.

"You ......" Zhao Yougen still wanted to argue, but suddenly felt someone squeezing up behind him.

When I looked closely, I saw an old man with gray hair and a red armband on his arm squeezing out of the crowd and walking towards Li Haozi and his group, he couldn't help but be startled, and shouted in a low voice: "Uncle Zhang, come back quickly, you don't want to die!"

The old man was the street administrator Uncle Zhang, he coughed twice, turned his head, looked around at everyone, and said lightly: "I made a mistake once, I don't want to make a second mistake, you don't help Kexiong's family, I'll help." ”