Chapter 684 — The Motive for the Crime
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
And so the two of them burst into merry laughter there in the hospital room. After a while, though, Zhong Yongliang sensed something was off and hastily said, "Dad, stop laughing. Liu Wangli said he was going to send officers to protect me, so don't let them see through us!"
Zhong Fabai's laughter broke off at once, and he nearly choked on it. It was a good while before he managed to say, "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?"
……………………
Jin Maoxing had rehearsed it many times already, so once he reached the police station he knew the way by heart and went straight to confessing. As for why he had come to surrender, it was because he had seen the television reports and could no longer withstand the pressure.
His motive, in truth, was quite simple: it had been a whim of the moment. After hearing Zhong Yongliang's tale of grievance, he had hit on this plan of revenge on the spot. And the roots of that revenge stretched back to an incident a year earlier.
A year before, Jin Maoxing's household had been in dire straits. He alone supported two children, and the money he made reselling Chinese medicinal herbs was nowhere near enough. It covered the daily expenses, but sooner or later he would have to find wives for his two sons, wouldn't he? With no house and no car, who would marry them?
So Jin Maoxing's mind began to work. He wanted to strike out on his own, and he went to his distant relative Jin Gubang, asking him to find some way to pull strings and let him contract the cafeteria of First High School. That would have solved his pressing troubles in one stroke.
A cafeteria is a money-making business; run well, it can bring in hundreds of thousands a year. And Jin Maoxing figured that contracting a cafeteria should be no difficult matter for Jin Gubang, the second-largest shareholder of the Gu Group. In fact, Jin Gubang did not think it difficult either. Though they were only distant relatives, they shared the same surname, so he would help where he could. It would cost him no effort at all, nothing more than a word or two.
But to his surprise, when Jin Gubang raised the proposal at the board meeting, Gu Pengzhan vetoed it. The reason was simple: the cafeteria of First High School was to remain self-operated. That way the freshness of the ingredients could be guaranteed, and the school could still create a hefty income for itself. Why not do it?
Jin Gubang had been publicly snubbed, and he harbored a bitter hatred for Gu Pengzhan. But he had long been scheming to take his place, so he showed nothing of it; he merely passed Gu Pengzhan's exact words on to Jin Maoxing.
Having failed to win the cafeteria contract, Jin Maoxing hated Gu Pengzhan to the bone. It was not as though he refused to pay the contracting fee; their self-operation could not possibly earn much more than his contract would have, so why would they not contract it to him? Did he not have connections of his own?
But because Jin Gubang was still a shareholder of the group, Jin Maoxing, for all his resentment, did nothing further.
In the blink of an eye a year passed, and Zhong Yongliang's outpouring of grievance reminded Jin Maoxing of that old grudge. And now that Jin Gubang was no longer the group's chairman, whatever Jin Maoxing did could no longer affect him.
Already soured by the failed cafeteria bid, Jin Maoxing turned his schemes upon the school cafeteria. So you insist on self-operation, do you? Then I will make sure something happens to you, and let us see what the fruits of self-operation are!