My Wife is Actually a top-tier Soldier King?!
Chapter 760 - 760 760 Driven by Profit!

760: Chapter 760: Driven by Profit!

A Ruthless Person!

760: Chapter 760: Driven by Profit!

A Ruthless Person!

Racing along the way.

Around five in the afternoon, Wu Jie and his group, after transferring between a high-speed train and a minibus, arrived in Handong City.

Handong City, located amidst vast mountains, is known for its natural resource scarcity and is a famously impoverished county-level city.

There’s a common saying, “The poorer one is, the more children one has; the more children one has, the poorer one gets.”

Often, the more economically backward a place is, the more likely people are to have more children than permitted.

Because the older generation always feels that having children is a way to ensure care in their old age.

Moreover, the mindset of favoring boys over girls is still deeply ingrained, and it’s not uncommon to find cases of abandoned girl infants.

Many young people have gone to big cities to work, and they usually come back only for the Spring Festival each year.

Therefore, both urban and rural areas are populated with a particularly large number of left-behind elderly people and children.

If the elderly in the family pass away, the children are left without anyone to look after them, and taking them to big cities for education is unaffordable.

Consequently,

These children either live with relatives and friends, or they can only go to boarding schools.

The worst-off are the children who are neglected by all, with no elderly to care for them, and whose parents are away working with no news.

These children, as well as abandoned infants, can only be sent to the Children’s Welfare Institute (commonly known as the orphanage), supported by government funding.

Some time ago,

Wu Jie and Tang Xiao, as husband and wife, invested two billion yuan to establish the Tianyuan Benevolent Charity Auxiliary Business Association.

This Auxiliary Business Association focuses on supporting orphans and left-behind rural children and providing aid to sick children.

In every municipality across the country, there is a Children’s Welfare Institute responsible for providing free services to orphans and disabled children.

The range of services is vast, including adoption, fostering, education, nursing, rehabilitation, medical care, and more.

A wide range of services means high expenses.

The funding for Children’s Welfare Institutes mainly comes from government allocations and social donations.

In economically prosperous areas, there is more government funding and, naturally, more donations.

Just like Jiang Linyuan, who grew up in the care of the Handong City Children’s Welfare Institute where Yuan Zihan currently is.

Tianyuan City is extremely economically prosperous, with annual government funding of tens of millions of yuan.

With donations from caring individuals and entrepreneurs in Tianyuan itself, the institutes are well-funded and the children enjoy good treatment.

In contrast, Handong City, already impoverished, receives little funding and few donations, yet has many orphans to care for, and one can imagine the level of treatment they receive.

Being able to maintain basic food and warmth is already an achievement; it’s not possible for them to receive the generous benefits that orphanages in developed cities offer.

Quite a while back,

Shortly after the establishment of the Auxiliary Business Association, the group arranged for people to come and inspect the situation.

Many problems were discovered at that time.

Due to insufficient funding, baby cribs, children’s beds, wardrobes, desks, televisions, and washing machines were all very old.

In the winter there was no air conditioning, and in the summer there were only ceiling fans.

As for the children’s clothes, toys, tableware, and other items, they were even more worn out.

In light of this situation,

Tang Xiao immediately ordered an investigation into the conditions of Children’s Welfare Institutes in other impoverished areas.

After compiling all the information, it was found that the treatment of children in economically developed areas was vastly different.

Like Yuan Zihan and others, not only do they have good daily meals, but they also have fresh fruit and clean drinking water.

The dormitories they live in are air-conditioned, each person has an individual wardrobe, and their clothes are replaced with new ones at least once a year.

As for regular physical examinations, toys, stationery, teaching facilities…

Simply no comparison!

For this reason, Tang Xiao arranged for the Auxiliary Business Association to focus on improving the conditions of children’s welfare institutes in impoverished areas.

Through a unified tender, they replaced old furniture and appliances, purchased clothing, stationery, and toys suitable for children of various ages…

They renovated or built new teaching buildings, dormitories, playgrounds, and canteens.

With a one-time expenditure of nearly a billion yuan, the effort was undeniably tremendous, and the effect was quite good.

However…

After the unified tender and the dispatch of specialized personnel for supervision of the charity project, there were no issues with material procurement and infrastructure projects.

After all, group representatives oversaw what was purchased and how construction progressed.

But the ‘nutritional meals’ part of the project went awry, since it was not possible to have someone watch every day what the children were eating.

On the way there, Wu Jie had read the whistleblower’s letter over and over again.

The letter claimed that,

with the help of the Auxiliary Business Association, the children were better clothed and housed.

But the ‘eating’ aspect didn’t see any significant improvement.

The Auxiliary Business Association conducted a thorough investigation into local prices for the welfare institutes it sponsored and set a standard for meal subsidies.

In impoverished areas like Handong City, prices were not cheap.

Therefore, the charity project stipulated a daily meal subsidy of 30 yuan per child.

Infants received an additional 20 yuan for milk powder and cod liver oil; disabled and sick children received an additional 20 yuan for medical subsidies.

Together with the original government funding, the children could have bread, eggs, and milk for breakfast and a meat dish, a vegetarian dish, and a fruit for lunch and dinner.

But what was the actual outcome?

The letter mentioned that the institute housed over five hundred children, bringing in a daily food subsidy of twenty thousand yuan.

The money from the Auxiliary Business Association’s sponsorship was initially not spent at all.

It was only when the Supervision Garden group conducted inspections and discovered issues that they forcefully demanded the installation of surveillance cameras in the kitchen, requiring remote monitoring over the internet to supervise the kitchen’s food hygiene, and then initiated reforms.

And how were the reforms carried out?

Milk, eggs, and milk powder were all bulk-purchased expired discount goods from supermarkets.

As for fruits, vegetables, meat, and rice, they purchased the cheapest, spoiled goods from the local vegetable market.

Regarding cooking oil, soy sauce, white vinegar, etc., they were all in bulk with no clear understanding of which small workshops produced them.

Anyway, there were cameras in the kitchen, but not in the backyard!

Even if they were seen on remote surveillance, it would still appear as if there were vegetables, meat, eggs, and fruit…

How could the quality be clearly distinguished by the surveillance cameras?

Could someone tell by looking at the footage whether the cooking oil was sewer oil or if the milk was expired?

In short.

The letter vehemently accused that the twenty thousand yuan of daily subsidies from the Auxiliary Business Association not only failed to improve the nutrition of the children but also risked their health with various expired and spoiled foods.

Wu Jie read the whistleblower’s letter several times.

The charitable donations intended to nourish the children’s growth, and some dared to embezzle them!

Such heartless scum could no longer be tolerated.

Therefore, before setting off, he made sure to check his service pistol and credentials in the shoulder bag.

If he got angry enough, he would shoot on the spot!

With a creak.

The van pulled up to the side of the road—the Handong City Children’s Welfare Institute had arrived.

Yu Hui paid the fare, and Wu Jie opened the door to get out, casting a glance at the institute’s main gate.

It had been renovated not long ago thanks to the financing from the Auxiliary Business Association.

The disappearance of Yuan Zihan had a significant impact on Wu Jie, prompting special renovations of the welfare institute’s gate and perimeter walls.

On the tall surrounding walls, surveillance cameras were installed at intervals.

While the gate was still made of iron, cameras had also been added to provide no-blind-spot monitoring of the vehicles and personnel entering and exiting the institute.

On the roof of the building located in the courtyard, antennas for the children’s smart tracking management system had been mounted.

All the children were equipped with smart bracelets that sent data to the antenna at a set frequency.

These served not only to prevent them from getting lost and to call for help in emergencies but also to provide real-time feedback on their health conditions, including heart rate, heartbeat, body temperature, and more.

As for how the playground, cafeteria, dormitory, and others were constructed inside the institute, Wu Jie wasn’t particularly interested.

The group had sent specialists to supervise the construction, so it was definitely up to standard.

But if the children couldn’t even eat well, what was the point of having all these impressive facilities?

“I guess going straight in would definitely spook them!”

Yu Hui came over to Wu Jie’s side, lighting up a cigarette.

“Let’s find somewhere to eat first!”

Wu Jie took a deep drag from his cigarette and turned to leave.

Yu Hui and two other colleagues hurriedly followed.

The wealth of a place was evident in its urban architecture.

Cracked and broken roads gathered dust as vehicles passed by.

On the streets, there were red-brick buildings housing car repairs, hair salons, and small restaurants of all sorts.

Beneath the sweltering sun, squinting through the dust, it was nearly impossible to see any high-rise buildings in the distance.

There were none of the skyscrapers and apartment buildings with elevators that are found in first-tier cities.

Instead, utility poles were plastered with all sorts of advertisements like psoriasis patches, and at their tops were webs of interlaced wires and cables.

The amenities found in big cities—like shared bikes and online food delivery—were completely absent here.

Being newcomers, they did not know where it would be suitable to eat and stay.

Wu Jie chose a roadside restaurant that appeared relatively clean, and the owner did not recognize him.

He had made a simple disguise on the road, and combined with the limited information flow in a small place, it was normal that his identity wasn’t recognized.

The owner was very attentive, quickly providing a menu and then busying himself with serving tea and water.

Wu Jie glanced at the menu and raised his eyebrows involuntarily.

Although it was a small place, the cost of living wasn’t low!

Some of the home-style dishes were almost as expensive as Tianyuan’s prices.

After ordering a few dishes casually, Wu Jie passed the menu to Yu Hui and started browsing on his phone.

Yu Hui, for his part, was quite the ‘regular’—he chatted enthusiastically with the owner, inquiring about the children’s welfare institute across the street.

They were just across the road, within an arm’s reach.

Naturally, the owner was quite familiar with certain details.

What it used to be like, the changes that occurred after receiving support from the large enterprise…

the owner knew it all.

As for the situation inside the institute, he was clueless.

Now with towering walls, stringent access control, and strict management, he could no longer invite a few friends to play basketball inside; not even the gates were accessible anymore.

Yu Hui further inquired about the living and procurement situations.

Running a small restaurant meant buying meat, vegetables, and condiments from the local market, so the owner was naturally well-acquainted with the vendors there.

Mentioning this topic, the owner burst into laughter.

Before receiving corporate sponsorship, the children ate poorly.

After getting the sponsorship, their diet became even worse.

If interested, he suggested visiting the market for gossip.

Butchers and fruit and vegetable vendors all sought to ingratiate themselves with Ninth Master.

The bald, chubby man known as Ninth Master had a tough background and could deliver goods to the welfare institute across the street.

Each evening around seven or eight o’clock, when the market was nearly closing, he would arrive in a mini cargo truck to purchase goods.

The vendors would sell him the unsold fruits, vegetables, and meats at significantly reduced prices.

In the heat of summer, unsold goods that would spoil and stink were gladly disposed of at a low price by the vendors.

But Ninth Master was ruthless.

He haggled fiercely.

Pork sold for more than a dozen yuan during the day was only bought for seven or eight yuan in the evening by him.

Infected pork, dead pigs’ meat—he bought it all, though at even lower prices.

The situation described by the owner was largely consistent with the report letter.

As for why there had been no incidents…

Anyone with common sense knew that most food poisoning was caused by bacteria.

Certainly, ingredients that were spoiled, out of date, or even partially rotted contained bacteria.

However, once the food was boiled at high temperatures, there would be no poisoning—the germs would have been killed by the heat already.

So, the same vegetables, fresh and good-looking, were of course more expensive.

Those that were less fresh and partly rotted were cheaper.

After cutting away the rotten parts and cooking them a bit longer, they naturally wouldn’t be toxic.

Wu Jie remembered when his family was poor, his mother would buy small, split, or sprouting potatoes.

After all, once peeled and processed, whether sliced or diced, they could still make a variety of delicious dishes.

In fact, to make more money, many restaurants would try to save as much as possible on ingredients.

Otherwise, where would gutter oil come from?

…

After a full meal, Wu Jie and his group left.

They did not go directly to the welfare institute but first sought out second-hand car dealers and rented two local vehicles for a fee.

The team split into two.

Wu Jie and Yu Hui drove to the market to stake it out, while the other two colleagues went to investigate and monitor near the children’s welfare institute.

They knew the security was tight in the institute, and ordinary people couldn’t get in at all.

Going in and revealing their identities for inspection would definitely spook the operators.

Thus, they had brought an aerial drone specifically for the purpose—it could take photos from the air and also deploy surveillance equipment.

Around eight o’clock in the evening.

A box-type mini cargo van slowly entered the market, and Ninth Master appeared…