Chapter 179 The Little Shop Owner

However, he paid no mind to it, simply wrapping the burlap sack draped over his shoulders tighter, rubbing his hands together to generate a sliver of warmth against the biting chill.

Eventually, near a construction site, he found a small food stall.

The stall sold simple boxed lunches and soups. With his five yuan, he bought a bowl of winter melon and pork rib soup.

Though called winter melon and pork rib soup, it was essentially nothing more than a bowl of winter melon broth with a few floating bone fragments, to which meager shreds of meat still clung.

Yet for Fang Pingxi, this was already more than enough; his icy, hollow stomach could be temporarily filled with warmth.

Cradling the bowl of soup, he squatted in a corner alongside the migrant workers, soaking up the heat from the fire they had built.

As he ate, he listened to the idle chatter of the workers.

"Does this stall make good money? We come here to eat every single day."

"Let them make a bit if they can. Look at these seven or eight kinds of boxed lunches—they have to get up at the crack of dawn to prep the ingredients. When you get right down to it, they're just poor wretches like us."

"Don't go lumping us in with the likes of them. I heard the owner of this stall used to be a security officer."

"What? That scrawny kid who looks like a twig?"

"Nonsense, that's just a hired hand. The boss has probably gone to the restroom."

"Then why would someone give up a lucrative gig like that just to run a dinky food stall?"

"God knows what happened. Probably got busted for something shady and fired."

"Even so, doesn't make sense. Don't security officers always rake in hundreds of thousands through bribes? No matter how low they fall, they shouldn't end up selling boxed lunches here!"

"Oh, stop speculating, Old Gu! Isn't a fallen security officer a good thing anyway? Gives those damned bloodsuckers a taste of our hardships!"

"You're right! Should we go grab some extra side dishes? Let's eat him out of business!"

"Let's go! Together!"

"..."

Blankly, Fang Pingxi watched as the migrant workers swarmed the stall for extra portions of rice and dishes, leaving the thin, gaunt young man at the counter utterly at a loss.

In no time at all, the food was completely gone, leaving nothing behind in the takeaway containers except a thin film of grease.

The workers chewed voraciously. Although it was merely a simple boxed meal, they ate it with the fervent satisfaction of peasants dividing the landlords' land.

A three-wheeled cart chugged into view from the distance, and a pot-bellied middle-aged man climbed down from it.

Walking behind the stall, he asked, "Xiao Zheng, how did things go today? Did we sell well?"

As he spoke, his gaze fell upon the empty food containers spread across the counter, and his expression turned to one of pleasant surprise. "Well, look at that, they're all empty. Did we have more customers dining in today?"

Stuttering, Xiao Zheng failed to give a coherent explanation. The middle-aged man simply patted him on the shoulder, pulled out the empty cash bucket from beneath the stall to inspect it, and immediately frowned.

"Why is there so little here? With us selling out so fast today, shouldn't we have taken in a lot more?"

With a bitter face, Xiao Zheng recounted the whole sequence of events.

The owner glared at the migrant workers lingering in small groups, his face darkening as he unleashed a vicious tirade against Xiao Zheng, hurling every harsh insult imaginable.

Humiliated and burning with anger, Xiao Zheng finally reached his breaking point. "You said it yourself—ten yuan for all-you-can-eat! Now you're complaining that they ate too much? You shouldn't have advertised it that way in the first place!"

"And now that things have turned out like this, you're blaming me!" Xiao Zheng tore off his apron and slammed it down onto the counter. "I quit! You can deal with them yourself!"

With that, the young man turned and strode away without looking back.

Cursing and swearing, the owner called after him to come back, but to no avail. Standing there in a daze for a moment, he silently began to pack up the stall.

His bulky, overweight frame busied itself before the counter, greasy vegetable broth occasionally splashing onto his cuffs, making him look utterly disheveled and pathetic.

Fang Pingxi witnessed the entire scene, his gaze completely transfixed.

It was not because of this commonplace dispute, but because the owner looked hauntingly familiar.

Straining his memory to recognize the man, he gradually saw the owner's face overlap with the visage of the security officer from years ago.

He was entirely certain that the man before him was none other than the security officer who had caused him to lose the will.

A tumult of emotions washed over Fang Pingxi.

He had originally believed himself reduced to nothing more than a puppet, yet he never expected that seeing the security officer reduced to such a wretched state would still stir ripples within his heart.

He felt a long-lost sense of elation; indeed, the heavens possessed eyes after all and would never let such wicked men escape.

He did not step forward to exact immediate revenge on the officer. The fellow's present state of destitution meant he was no longer worth the risk of arrest and retaliation.

To let this creature live out the rest of his days in such utter cowardice and misery—that was the truest form of revenge.

And so, as he departed, Fang Pingxi quietly used a rusted iron nail he had picked up off the ground to puncture the tires of the tricycle, letting the air hiss out.

One could easily imagine the towering rage the security officer would fly into when he finished packing up his stall and discovered his ruined tires.

From then on, Fang Pingxi seemed to find a spark of purpose. He no longer wandered the streets aimlessly, choosing instead to take on odd jobs at various construction sites.

Once he had saved up some money, he changed into cleaner attire and secured a less grueling job at a convenience store that offered better pay.

This lifestyle continued for more than five years.

He slowly accumulated a sum of money, intending to rent a small storefront and open a convenience store of his own.

Then befell the event that plunged him into his current downward spiral.

After renting the small shop, the cautious disposition he had cultivated through years of destitute living allowed him to manage the business quite successfully.

When elderly customers came by, he would even offer free home delivery services for them.

Moreover, he never resorted to deception, refusing to sell counterfeit cigarettes or alcohol. Operating with absolute integrity, his business gradually flourished day by day.

The following year, he even rented the adjacent shopfront, expanding his operational floor space.

Just as his business was growing increasingly prosperous, everything took a sharp turn for the worse.

One day, several young men wearing floral print shirts and dyed hair of various bright colors strode into his store.

At the very sight of them, a premonition of dread struck Fang Pingxi—these fellows were clearly up to no good.

Chances were they were local thugs coming to collect protection money.

Years ago, when Fang Pingxi had witnessed the internet cafe owner being forced to pay protection money, he had felt nothing but contempt, boasting that if his own shop ever encountered such a situation, he would never pay a dime and would fight the dark forces to the bitter end.

Yet when that very ordeal loomed on the horizon and threatened to befall him, his past bravery vanished completely into thin air.

Facing this small shop he had painstakingly built up over five or six years, he had transformed into the very same cowardly internet cafe owner he once despised.

Paying a little money to buy peace suddenly seemed like a compromise he could accept.

However, those thugs never once asked Fang Pingxi for money.

Instead, they simply enjoyed wandering aimlessly around his shop, frequently dropping by seven or eight times a day and lingering for over half an hour each time.

On one later occasion, it became even more absurd: several thugs stood chatting inside the store for a full two hours, only to leave after casually purchasing a single pack of cigarettes.

Fang Pingxi could not fathom what they were up to, but since these fellows neither caused trouble nor attempted extortion, he had no choice but to let them be.

He even began to doubt himself, wondering if he was suffering from extreme paranoia and whether it was wrong to judge people purely by their appearance.

Over the years, he had witnessed too much malice in human hearts, making his own soul feel tarnished, seeing a potential villain in everyone. He needed to change this mindset.

Yet, those thugs were quick to teach him a harsh lesson.