Chapter Sixty-One: The Silent Lamb

Yang Tai was an ordinary coal miner at Panmei Coal Mine. His days began and ended in darkness, and only the monthly day off allowed him to gather with his family and enjoy the warmth of home. The moments Yang Tai cherished most were those spent with his son, Yang Ye; every time he saw the innocent smile on his son's face, he felt all his hardships were worthwhile.

Yang Tai was a native of Mingnan and intimately familiar with both the city and the Pan Group. As the largest private enterprise in Mingnan, Pan Group employed both him and his wife as humble cogs in its vast machine. Their food, clothing, and shelter all came from the group’s subsidiaries. For Yang Tai, this was his entire world.

He was content with his life: a couple of ounces of liquor at lunch, lively banter with his coworkers during breaks, and card games during downtime—this was the life he knew best, and he expected it would always be this way.

If there was one thing he disliked about Mingnan, it was the terrible air quality. The city’s air was always tinged with an acrid odor. Yang Tai had long grown accustomed to the sourness in the air, but his son Yang Ye had not. With every change of season, Yang Ye would fall into bouts of persistent coughing, forcing Yang Tai’s wife to take him to the hospital again and again.

Yang Tai was powerless in the face of his son’s illness. Watching Yang Ye’s small frame shake as he coughed relentlessly, all he could do was hope for an early payday, so he could buy his son some nourishing food. He believed Yang Ye coughed so often because he was frail, and that with better food and more strength, his son’s health would improve.

Fortunately, Yang Tai’s wages were considered decent in Mingnan; he brought home about ten thousand yuan each month. He knew that every cent was earned at the risk of his life, but he felt it was worth it. In his eyes, it was not a tragedy to die with money unspent—so long as it was left for his wife and child, their well-being justified everything. But to be alive without money was truly unbearable; without money, one could scarcely be sure of breakfast the next day, let alone taking a wife or raising a child.

Yang Tai had little education, only his strength to rely on. For him, Panmei Coal Mine was the best fit, and he was deeply grateful to the Pan Group and the Pan family for providing him a means to support his family.

But fate is ever unpredictable. Yang Tai never imagined there could be a downturn in the coal economy. In the blink of an eye, the long queues of coal trucks vanished; each day, only a handful remained to be loaded in the yard.

What diminished was not only the number of coal trucks but also Yang Tai’s salary, which kept dropping. This infuriated him—he could not understand why his life was becoming less and less valuable.

Yang Tai grew irritable. When Yang Ye coughed, gone was the tenderness; instead, he lashed out in anger, blaming his son for draining the family’s money with his illness, for his constant coughing that ruined Yang Tai’s rare moments of rest, and berating his wife for failing to care for the family, for raising a child who was perpetually sick.

Yang Tai’s long days of labor dwindled into working every other day, then to one day on and two days off. Though he had more time at home, he could find no joy in it; the sharp drop in wages made him anxious for his family’s survival. The invisible pressure had no outlet except in drinking and cursing, numbing himself just enough to ease his mood.

When he heard the national environmental inspection team was coming to Mingnan, Yang Tai felt no happiness. He knew they were there to protect the environment, to create a more comfortable living space—but he cared nothing for the environment or comfort. Survival was all that mattered, and to survive, he needed to earn enough to keep his family fed.

Yet every time the inspection team came, the mine would shut down. When production stopped, so did his income, and his family would go hungry. Thus, Yang Tai ground his teeth in resentment every time these people were mentioned, blaming them for his family’s empty stomachs.

He could not understand the inspectors’ actions. To him, food was the most important thing. What good was a beautiful environment if you could not even eat? Lush mountains and clear waters could not be eaten for breakfast.

Moreover, in Yang Tai’s experience, these visits were always much ado about nothing. When the inspectors arrived, the surrounding coal mines, chemical plants, and paper mills would all halt production, but as soon as the inspectors left, operations and pollution resumed as usual. Nothing ever changed; the acrid air remained.

To Yang Tai, the arrival of the inspection team never affected the wealthy factory and mine owners, but it always harmed ordinary folk like himself. Each lost day of work meant another day without food, another day his family would go hungry. He resented these leaders who knew nothing of common hardship.

But this time, even Yang Tai sensed things were different. The inspectors stayed longer than ever before and seemed well-prepared, pinpointing every source of pollution in Mingnan, leaving the local officials sweating with anxiety.

What was even more puzzling was that, in the past, petitioners and complainants were always detained or kept at least five kilometers away, but this time, some managed to get into the hotel where the inspectors stayed. Those responsible for intercepting petitioners were not praised for their efforts as before, but instead were criticized.

Yang Tai knew these petitioners well; some lived better than he did, yet made a profession of petitioning. Some officials, wanting to keep the peace, treated these people with special care, which Yang Tai found unfair.

He even thought it was like the child who cried the loudest getting the most attention; his own hard work seemed worth less than their complaints. But as an ordinary man, his discontent was useless—he could only accept reality.

Of course, he knew some petitioners had genuine grievances. One of his coworkers, for instance, collapsed while mining, and was later diagnosed with silicosis. He died soon after. His family lost their breadwinner and fell into debt caring for him, while the mine’s meager compensation barely covered anything. They petitioned repeatedly, accusing the Pan Group of polluting the environment and disregarding human life, and blaming the authorities for negligence.

But after so long, nothing came of it. Even Yang Tai stopped feeling sympathy, seeing their efforts as futile, their complaints against the Pan Group as a joke. Over time, he began to believe the family’s endless petitioning was just greed for more compensation.

Yet this time, those family members also managed to get into the inspectors’ hotel.

The workers began discussing the Pan Group’s pollution. Over the years, Mingnan’s air quality had steadily worsened. Many people became ill; even more suffered chronic coughs. The miners began to question whether the Pan Group’s actions were really justified, and whether Mingnan’s pollution should finally be addressed.

At first, Yang Tai dismissed such talk as mere gossip. He had lived in Mingnan for years without falling ill; pollution was nothing new. To him, pollution was just a byproduct of earning a living—should one give up eating for fear of choking?

But as he listened to his coworkers day after day, his perspective gradually shifted. He began to suspect that his son’s persistent cough might also be due to Mingnan’s terrible air, and thus, to the Pan Group itself.

But even if that were true, what could he do? He still relied on the Pan Group for work. He had seen what happened to those who petitioned against the group: beaten, bloodied, ruined. His instincts told him the Pan Group was no simple adversary; a few ordinary people could never bring it down. There was no point in hoping for change.

The inspection team seemed in no hurry to leave Mingnan, and for once Yang Tai believed they would not be so easily fooled. Whether things would truly change, he did not know, nor did he have the heart to ponder it. For him, the most important thing was to keep his family fed. In a sense, he did not wish for the Pan Group’s downfall—for all its pollution, it had not made life unlivable, but if it collapsed, he would lose his job and his family might truly not survive.

At this time, Pan Lun had already returned from Manchija to Mingnan. Watching the complainants striding into the inspectors’ hotel unimpeded, while the locals did nothing to stop them, Pan Lun felt that all those he had nurtured and promoted were nothing but ingrates, useless when it mattered most.

To prevent the inspectors from uncovering Pan Group’s pollution, Pan Lun dispatched his men to threaten or bribe the most troublesome petitioners, but some stubborn ones still went to the inspection team.

Pan Lun was plagued with headaches, unable to direct these people from the central government. All he could do was try to gather information, prevent the inspectors from discovering the group’s dirty secrets, and silently pray for their departure.

Contrary to his wishes, the inspectors stayed and continued digging into the Pan Group’s pollution.

What Pan Lun did not know was that another group had their sights on him: the White Tiger Unit. They had returned from Manchija and had been investigating Pan Lun in Mingnan for almost half a month. Pan Lun was completely unaware of their presence, his attention entirely focused on the inspection team.

Nearly another month passed, and with the New Year approaching, the inspectors finally left Mingnan. Pan Lun breathed a sigh of relief, feeling he had weathered yet another storm. He ordered all shuttered factories to resume operations at full capacity, eager to make up for lost earnings.

With the inspectors gone, Pan Lun resumed his role as the mastermind behind the scenes, indulging in his web of social connections.

For Pan Lun, the Pan Group’s issues were settled, and Manchija had quieted down. Wang Zhi informed him that, though Haifeng and his associates had disappeared, they had not returned to the casino. The casino continued to yield him generous profits, and the gambling website’s business soared, filling his coffers. He felt the clouds had passed, and even his calls with Song Xin regained their former swagger.

At first, Song Xin still warned him to be cautious of Haifeng, but eventually, Song Xin relaxed as well. Song Xin helped Pan Lun track down Haifeng, who had returned to China and posed no further threat to the gambling site.

With his worries behind him, Pan Lun began preparing for the New Year. To him, all trouble was in the past; he was still the scion who ruled Mingnan from the shadows, still the gambling tycoon raking in money day after day.

He had already made plans for the coming year: after the New Year, he would move the gambling website back to China, to his own territory, eliminating any vulnerabilities and freeing himself from fear of Haifeng.

What Pan Lun did not know was that the inspection team had not truly left. They had actually entered Mingnan in secret before Pan Lun even got wind of it, gathering ample evidence of Pan Group’s pollution and receiving many public complaints. They were fully prepared to take action against Pan Group.

The only reason they had not acted, and instead pretended to leave, was because Qiu Zhiyong had informed them of the White Tiger Unit’s operation, letting them know that Pan Group was involved in more than just environmental crimes. To avoid interfering with the ongoing investigation, the inspectors staged their departure.

Not long after, the White Tiger Unit obtained complete evidence of all Pan Lun’s crimes—not only those committed in Manchija, but also his misdeeds in Mingnan. They were just waiting for the final blow.

Haifeng returned to Ming City to report to Qiu Zhiyong and the inspection team. The White Tiger Unit was confident that the battle would be won before the New Year, that Pan Lun and his cronies would be swept up in one decisive action. The team was eager and ready.

Mingnan was now peaceful and festive, as everyone busied themselves with preparations for the holiday. But amid the lively atmosphere, a great storm was about to erupt…