Anyone who knows Shen Lang well knows this.
Whenever Shen Lang wears a ferocious grin, it means he is completely furious.
"On March sixteenth of this year, at a rental house on the east side of town, Liu Jiaqi went in arm-in-arm with a middle-aged man, and they didn't come out until two hours later."
"At the end of last year, Liu Jiaqi went to see a movie with Zhang Chuan, a young hoodlum from the neighboring village. When they came out, her legs were so weak she could barely walk."
"Last month, Liu Jiaqi took a trip to the town clinic. Does everyone know what kind of illness she was seeing a doctor for? A gynecological issue!"
As soon as these few remarks dropped, the surrounding crowd erupted in an uproar.
"Shen Lang, you bastard, you're spitting venom and framing people!"
Liu Deshui flew into a rage, shouting at the top of his lungs that Shen Lang was deliberately slinging mud at Liu Jiaqi.
Shen Lang calmly asked, "Aren't you guys even slightly curious about how I know so much? Doesn't anyone want to ask—I’ve got no old grudges or new scores with Liu Deshui, so why did he come looking to make trouble for me today, and even try to drag Lin Xiaoyu into the mix?"
Hearing this, the crowd began to whisper among themselves.
"Fellow villagers, my brother is showing mercy to the Liu family by leaving them some dignity, so there's one more thing he hasn't mentioned. My brother has a kind heart, but I'm not going to let this old bastard off easy. I saw it with my own eyes once—Liu Jiaqi was naked, hiding in the reed marshes and kissing a man."
Feng Xiaodong suddenly plunged in another knife.
Seeing this, Shen Lang wore a look of approval.
Figures.
Only in front of Shen Lang and his mother would Feng Xiaodong's intelligence and sharp tongue both fail him.
Put him anywhere else, and he was quite capable.
"No wonder Old Liu picked a fight with Shen Lang—turns out he was trying to shift the blame first."
"All the shameful things his own daughter got up to were seen by others. If I were Liu Deshui, I'd probably try to turn things around and bite back too."
"Old Liu, Old Liu, you're supposed to be an elder—how can you be so shameless?"
The speeches by Shen Lang and Feng Xiaodong completely shifted the public opinion in the area.
Vague accusations backed by specific times and locations.
Even though Shen Lang never explained how he knew about these things, leaving it unsaid opened up endless room for imagination.
The crowd let their imaginations run wild, convinced that all of Liu Jiaqi's shameless deeds had been witnessed by Shen Lang.
Fearing that Shen Lang would eventually spill the beans, Liu Deshui had tried to turn the tables, slapping dirty water on Shen Lang and Lin Xiaoyu beforehand.
That way, no matter what Shen Lang said, it would lack credibility.
"You punk, you've got guts!"
Liu Deshui stamped his feet in fury and cursed loudly.
Unfortunately for him, public opinion had swung entirely toward Shen Lang.
Compared to the notorious Liu father and daughter, the words of Shen Lang and Feng Xiaodong were far more trustworthy.
One was the famously honest boy of the fishing village.
The other had fought fiercely against provocations from the neighboring village to protect Ganquan Village at all costs.
"Fellow villagers, justice dwells in people's hearts. There are some things I don't want to spell out too clearly—you all understand in your hearts."
With that, Shen Lang called Feng Xiaodong to board the boat.
Seeing that Shen Lang was about to leave, Liu Deshui holstered furiously, "Punk, do you two really think you can go fishing on the open sea? Aren't you afraid the Dragon King will take you!"
"Why don't you beg me? Maybe if I'm in a good mood, I can teach you a trick or two to save your lives out at sea. Since your mother is too scared of accidents to come with you, kowtow three times and knock your head on the ground for me, and I'll guarantee you make it back alive."
"Go to hell! Why don't you kneel down and call me grand-grandfather three times, and I'll teach you how to catch large yellow croakers."
Shen Lang was busy hoisting the sails to head out to sea and couldn't be bothered wasting energy on the likes of him.
"You're going to catch large yellow croakers? Hahaha..."
Liu Deshui laughed uproariously.
He was practically laughing tears out of his eyes.
The onlookers turned to look at Liu Deshui.
Catching large yellow croakers—was there anything strange about that?
"Just wait and see, everyone. If Shen Lang manages to catch even a single one, I'll consider my whole life a waste!"
Looking out at the fishing boat heading into the deep sea, Liu Deshui said darkly, "Let me ask you this: over all these years, has anyone managed to catch more than three large yellow croakers?"
The crowd shook their heads and urged Liu Deshui to stop beating around the bush.
Why was he so certain Shen Lang would return empty-handed?
Shen Lang's fishing skills were among the best of the younger generation.
Liu Deshui's skills were hardly inferior either.
Even though Liu Deshui hadn't fished in years and was living off his daughter, a man's reputation precedes him, and a tree's shadow is cast long.
With his abilities right there, he had the most say when it came to matters of the sea.
Having sufficiently teased their curiosity, Liu Deshui said imperiously, "The large yellow croakers in our waters have all been fished clean by outsiders! This is what they call 'teaching the pupil until the master starves.'"
"Old Liu, are you talking about the tapping-bang operation?"
An older local local resident asked in surprise.
"That's right, the tapping-bang operation."
Liu Deshui said in a deep voice, "Back in the day, the people from Guangfu passed this method on to us, and from us, it spread to several other coastal provinces."
"Those damned bastards—learning our techniques was one thing, but relying on having more fishing boats than us, they nearly wiped out the large yellow croakers in our waters in one fell swoop over a decade ago, not even sparing the tiny fry."
Hearing Liu Deshui put it this way, anger spontaneously rose on everyone's faces.
Around 1980, more than two thousand large and small fishing boats from other provinces had unceremoniously invaded the Minnan waters.
Leaving absolute barrenness in their wake wherever they went.
Claiming they were only fishing in these waters to fulfill higher-up quotas, their actual actions were no different from outright plundering.
Over a decade had passed, and many had almost forgotten about the incident.
Liu Deshui continued, "Those people only pushed their luck further. Because their local economy was better than ours, they frequently upgraded and retrofitted their fishing boats. Over the past few years, they've been frantically catching large yellow croakers using purse seines, gillnets, and trawls."
"All the large yellow croakers ended up in the hands of out-of-town fishermen. It would take a miracle for you guys to catch any."
The crowd came to their senses as if waking from a dream.
Ganquan Village was located in a remote and economically backward area, and they knew little about the outside world.
They had originally thought that after the near-extinction-level fishing of the eighties, out-of-town fishermen would show some restraint.
Instead, those people had only pushed their luck further, upgrading their equipment and employing a dazzling array of methods to capture precious marine fish like large yellow croakers.
"A friend of my daughter's works at the Fishery Bureau. They said that back in the seventies, the official catch of large yellow croakers in our waters was around two thousand tons a year."
"Nowadays, the total quantity is down to less than fifty tons."
After showing off his professional expertise, Liu Deshui sneered, "Not only have we local fishermen not seen schools of large yellow croakers in years, but you won't find a single wild large yellow croaker in any of the provincial fish markets either."
"You tell me, can a punk like Shen Lang, relying on a beat-up fishing boat and a helper who knows nothing, catch wild yellow croakers when even the official fishing fleet can't?"
Faced with the question thrown out by Liu Deshui, the crowd shook their heads in unison.
Even the young people who usually followed Shen Lang's lead felt this was an impossible feat.
If Shen Lang had that kind of luck, he might as well go buy the local lottery!