Chapter 3

3: 3

“Noah, since we've laid it all out, there's no point hiding anything anymore. My goal is to make you get out of Lambert Village. And I'll be honest with you, even if you agree to all these terms today, I'll still send the villagers to give you grief, until you're gone from our village for good.”

Dominic's face twisted uglier with every word.

“I'm telling you, if you don't leave, one of these days you might just find all your fish floating belly-up.”

Looking at that ugly expression on Dominic's face, the last trace of warmth in my heart drained away right then.

“Fine, Dominic. You'd better remember what you said today. Don't you dare regret it.”

I looked at Dominic the way you'd look at a dead man. My deskmate in high school, my bunkmate in college, a friendship solid as iron, and in the end it still lost out to greed.

I took out my phone and called my assistant.

“Tell Lowell Lawrence's crew to send people over and haul all our fish to Base 2. And call the equipment supplier, have them come strip out every piece of our equipment.”

The moment Dominic heard that, his face changed.

“You, you've got a Base 2?”

“That's none of your business.”

I ignored Dominic and went straight to the farm, dialing the police on the way.

Before long Lowell showed up with his crew and the harvesting gear.

“Mr. Dickerson, all these fish going to Base 2?”

“That's right. Not a single fry left behind.”

“All right, everybody get to work. Bring the water tankers over.”

At Lowell's word, my workers started scooping the fish out of the Lambert Village farm.

The mayor and a crowd of villagers watched with anxious eyes, and quite a few of their faces had already gone uneasy.

“Noah, do you really have to take it this far? Folks just wanted to make life a little better.”

I gave the old mayor a single glance and said flatly, “You see the next village over? Their people can only go work out of town, a few thousand a month. You get five or six thousand a month right here at home and you're still not satisfied. If I agree today, are you going to come back tomorrow and demand another raise?”

“You, don't you worry. As long as you raise the wages we're asking for this once, we absolutely won't ask you for a raise again.”

“Is that so?”

I looked at the villager who'd spoken.

“You're sixty this year, aren't you? I remember when I first got here, you'd just been let go from the construction site, sitting at home with your two acres of land, pulling in less than ten thousand a year. Back then I gave you a wage of five thousand, and you got down on your knees to me, called me the parent who gave you a second life. Forgotten it all this fast?”

At that, the old man dropped his head in shame.

Just then my equipment supplier arrived too, along with a few work crews, and they started hauling out the equipment from my farm piece by piece.

“You're taking the equipment too?”

That set all the villagers off.

“Weren't you supposed to leave the equipment for us? Without it, how are we going to farm the fish?”

“Right, I heard this setup costs a few million. If it's gone, what are we supposed to do?”

“Hurry, stop him, don't let them take the equipment away.”

Dominic and the mayor were off to the side discussing something.

Then the mayor gave the order, and the villagers immediately closed in and blocked the work crews.

“Noah, let me tell you, this equipment of yours is sitting on our village's land, so it should belong to the village.”

“That's right, all this equipment is our village's. Nobody's taking it anywhere.”