ECG -Chapter 198 The Invisible Hand

Lin Hao ignored them and continued walking with his head down.

What Fatty Meng had just said—”blinded by money”—suddenly made everything clear to him. He realized that Ma Daya must have been talked into it by his brother-in-law, Li Lang, which was why he hadn’t helped with the matter.

Li Lang’s visit today was probably because he had heard that Zhou Dongbing had gotten involved. He had come to vent his anger on Lin Hao and then pressure him into cooperating with them.

Most likely, Ma Daya had already turned down Zhou Dongbing’s request yesterday, so Zhou had used his connections to have Ma Daya’s group taken in.

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Lin Hao sighed inwardly. He now owed Zhou Dongbing a huge favor. What had started as a minor issue had escalated into something much bigger. Who could have imagined that Ma Daya, who had dominated the provincial capital’s seafood market for so many years, would end up getting burned because of an outsider?

At this point, Lin Hao still couldn’t see the deeper forces at work behind the incident. By the time he learned the truth, several months would have already passed.

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In reality, if it had only been about helping Lin Hao, Zhou Dongbing would never have gone to such lengths. But Ma Daya had tried to bully He Qing’s widow and seize the businesses He Qing had left behind. That had crossed Zhou Dongbing’s bottom line.

When Lin Hao had called earlier, Zhou Dongbing had been driving. After ending the call, he took out another Nokia phone and dialed Xiao Yuan.

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Very few people knew about the relationship between Zhou Dongbing and Xiao Yuan. They had been neighbors since childhood. Xiao Yuan was three years younger than him and had spent his childhood following behind Zhou with a runny nose.

From being an ordinary teacher to eventually becoming the secretary of Xia Yuan—Xia Yumeng’s father—Xiao Yuan had received considerable help from Zhou Dongbing, both openly and behind the scenes.

After hearing about Wu Xiaozhou’s situation, Xiao Yuan hung up without saying much. He immediately made a phone call, and the order was passed down through multiple levels. Less than ten minutes later, Wu Xiaozhou was released.

When Zhou Dongbing entered his office, the Nokia phone in his pocket rang. The caller was Gu Honghui.

“Dongbing.”

A somewhat hoarse voice came from the other end of the line.

“I thought you’d have your phone turned off.”

“I forgot,” Zhou Dongbing replied, then asked with concern, “Honghui, your throat still hasn’t recovered?”

“It’s nothing,” Gu Honghui said. “I’ve reviewed Ma Baoyi’s file. I didn’t find any murder cases directly tied to him, but he’s done plenty of bad things over the years. Depending on how it’s handled, the consequences could be serious or minor. What do you want done?”

Zhou Dongbing knew that Ma Baoyi was Ma Daya.

After a moment’s thought, he said, “One of his men, Zhao Sanlengzi, was involved in a murder case back in the winter of 1998. It was ordered by him. There’s also Lin Dazhi from the Pingfang District—people called him Brother Dazhi. Although he stopped associating with Ma Baoyi in 1996, there was a serious assault case involving him, and Ma Baoyi participated in it as well.

Also, in 2001, Ma Baoyi spent three months in the Shuangchengbao Detention Center. The abnormal death of Tang Laowu, who shared a cell with him, was related to him.

And another thing…”

Gu Honghui understood immediately.

It seemed Zhou Dongbing had no intention of leaving Ma Baoyi any way out.

“Oh, and his brother-in-law, Li Lang. See if you can keep him locked up for a few extra years. If necessary, add the piracy charges.”

“No need. The kid has plenty of problems of his own. He’ll probably get no less than five years.”

Zhou Dongbing fell silent.

He remembered all the drinks he had once shared with Ma Daya. Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could still see the man with an arm around his shoulder, calling him brother.

He let out a sigh and said in a deep voice,

“Honghui, thank you.”

“Thank me for what? This matter isn’t that big, and it doesn’t really involve Jia Xiangwen and the others. But it’s a good way for me to get started and send a warning shot. Besides, Ma Daya’s gang has been causing trouble in several major seafood markets in Xuecheng for years. Getting rid of them is doing the people a favor.”

“Alright. I’ll come treat you to a drink sometime.”

Gu Honghui laughed loudly.

“It’s a deal!”

After returning to school, Lin Hao told the others to head back first while he went to the Music Department’s administrative building to see his teacher, Fan Gang. After all, Wu Xiaozhou had gotten into a fight right at the school gate and had even been taken away by the local police station. Within a couple of days, the incident would certainly spread across campus. If he gave Fan Gang a heads-up in advance, the teacher would be able to help keep things under control.

After listening to Lin Hao’s embellished version of events, Fan Gang’s face immediately darkened, and he launched into a lengthy scolding. Lin Hao maintained a smile throughout, repeatedly swearing that nothing like this would ever happen again. Only then did Fan Gang’s anger finally subside.

Seeing that everything was settled on his teacher’s side, Lin Hao was about to leave when Fan Gang suddenly said:

“By the way, Houlang Net came to the school today. They want to do a video interview with you. Interested?”

Lin Hao immediately understood. Someone in the audience must have uploaded the video of his piano duel with Qian Xiaoqiang to the Houlang Blog. He hadn’t had time to go online over the past few days, but the video’s view count was probably quite high if Houlang Net was already seeking him out for an interview.

Now that the topic had come up again, Fan Gang seemed far less emotional than before. He tossed Lin Hao a cigarette.

“They tracked down Bohan through their connections. Apparently people online are calling you the ‘Invisible Hand’ now. They’re even saying things like ‘unprecedented before, unmatched after’…”

Lin Hao scratched his head awkwardly.

The Invisible Hand? It sounded more like the title of some martial arts master.

He quickly weighed the pros and cons of accepting the interview. In the end, he decided it didn’t really matter. After all, he’d defeated a worshipper of the West. If it helped boost a bit of national confidence, that wasn’t a bad thing.

As for personal fame, he doubted this alone would create much of a sensation unless he kept stirring things up online. But becoming an internet celebrity wasn’t his goal. The bet with Yu Huai and the upcoming rock music festival would be more than enough to spread his name far and wide.

“Sure. I’m available anytime,” he agreed immediately.

Fan Gang sighed.

“You little brat—you just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?”

Lin Hao felt wronged.

“Teacher, I’ve been keeping a very low profile! I never wanted fame!”

“Oh, you’ve been keeping a low profile at school, all right,” Fan Gang replied irritably. “So low-profile that the entire faculty and student body says I misjudged you!”

“Tomorrow! Tomorrow I’ll have someone put up a big red announcement in your teaching building and publicize your award in Shanghai!”

“Please don’t!” Lin Hao thought that kind of publicity was hopelessly old-fashioned. “It’s just a domestic competition. What’s there to advertise?”

“Don’t? Heh, no way! That’s what you get for hiding all the time!” Fan Gang said with a sly grin. “Now get out!”

With a wave of his hand, he chased Lin Hao out of the office.

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After the Li Lang incident, life returned to normal.

Every morning, Lin Hao attended classes in the Drama Department. Guan Yuchi also helped him find a teacher in the Literature Department to study screenwriting.

Most afternoons were spent in his dormitory composing songs. Meiying Entertainment had finally sent over the list of singers, and after everything was finalized, they needed a total of fifty songs.

Occasionally, he also had to make time for his screenwriting lessons in the Literature Department. Every day was packed from morning to night.

Of the fifty songs ordered by Meiying, six were for Qin Ruoyun. Another six each were assigned to Luo Ke and the two female singers he had met during the meeting at Meiying. The company also selected two currently popular female singers, giving each of them six songs. The remaining fourteen songs were distributed among fourteen different singers, each receiving an EP single.

Lin Hao couldn’t help laughing to himself.

It seemed Yang Qianyi and the others were really bleeding money this time. They knew he wouldn’t renew his contract with Meiying once it expired, so they were squeezing every last bit of value out of him while they still could.

Fifty songs.

A full ten million yuan.

Excited by the amount, Lin Hao immediately began researching the singers so he could match songs to their individual styles and strengths.

It sounded simple, but the actual process was incredibly complicated.

Some songs whose copyrights he had already registered simply didn’t suit certain singers. Whenever that happened, he had to choose entirely different songs.

Choosing new songs meant rewriting the lyrics and music from memory, registering new copyrights, and then preparing complete scores afterward.

The workload left him overwhelmed.

The Yanjing Rock Music Festival was approaching fast, and he couldn’t neglect the band’s evening rehearsals either.

As promised, the very next day Fan Gang had someone write a congratulatory notice on a huge sheet of red paper and post it in the teaching building.

The publicity embarrassed Lin Hao so much that he avoided going over to see Wu Xiaozhou and the others for several days.

According to Fatty Meng, quite a few male students were speaking sourly behind his back, claiming he must be Fan Gang’s illegitimate son; otherwise, why would the teacher take such good care of him?

As for those rumors, Lin Hao couldn’t have cared less.