You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 256 The Second Ray Fong?

The next morning, at Lin's Metal Recycling Station.

The paint on the metal fence had faded from the Seattle rain, and a handwritten cardboard sign hung at the entrance, which read in marker, "Copper prices are down today, iron prices remain unchanged," the ink blurred by the fog.

Lin Jianping stood next to the desk, holding an enamel mug in his hand, and blew away the tea dust floating on top.

He was wearing a blue overall, with machine oil and rust on the cuffs, and looked no different from usual—an honest, middle-aged scrap yard owner who was terrified of being extorted by ICE.

But to be honest, he was a little nervous today. After all, it was the first day of scrap metal delivery. According to the previous agreement, the person who would come would not be an ordinary homeless person or a scrap metal collector, but someone from Guiyan.

He picked up his enamel mug, took a sip of tea, and glanced through the window at the empty intersection outside the fence.

However, Lin Jianping didn't let himself get too nervous. During his years working in the peripheral industry in Seattle, his specialty was making himself look like an ordinary, timid scrap yard owner when he was nervous.

The sound of an engine came from outside the door.

Lin Jianping's ears twitched as he saw a pickup truck slowly driving along Sixth Street. The truck was gray-blue, probably a Ford F-150 from about twenty years ago.

The left front fender was dark green, the right rearview mirror was taped to the door frame, the exhaust muffler was probably about to fall off, and every time the accelerator was pressed, it produced a dry sound. The truck bed was piled high, and several bent galvanized steel pipes extended from the edge of the truck bed, swaying with the bumps of the vehicle.

The pickup truck slowly turned into the weighing entrance of the junkyard.

Lin Jianping put down his teacup, picked up a folder, and pushed open the office door to walk towards the weighing area.

The pickup truck door was pushed open, one foot was on the ground, a pair of old military boots, dark military trousers with patches, and an old but still stylish military uniform with a bottle cap twisted into the shape of a medal pinned to the chest.

Then the man straightened up, and Lin Jianping looked at him as well.

The other person was about the same height as him, not very tall, but with straight shoulders, a slightly tucked chin, and eyes looking at him. He clearly didn't seem to be there to sell scrap metal.

"Excuse me," Lin Jianping cleared his throat, adopting a businessman's tone, "which company sent you, sir? Or are you a small business owner?"

MacArthur stood ramrod straight, his right hand raised from his side.

Lin Jianping subconsciously took a half step back, because he didn't know what the other party was going to do.

MacArthur placed his hand on the bottle cap medal on his chest and nodded to Lin Jianping in a very formal gesture.

"I am Douglas MacArthur, and I have been entrusted by Mr. Ray Fong to discuss the transfer and settlement of waste materials with your station."

Lin Jianping's mouth opened halfway.

The wind blew from the pile of scrap metal in the yard, flipping the cover of the folder in his hand over.

He bent down and pressed the cover back down, then looked again at the old man in front of him who called himself MacArthur.

"————" Lin Jianping's lips moved, then closed again.

His mind was racing.

Comrade Guiyan — did he send over a lunatic?

No, it could also be a code name.

is it possible?

Who the hell uses a five-star general as a code name?

However, it makes sense. In the western district, Comrade Guiyan had to deal with gangs, corrupt police, and terrorist attacks from time to time. It was normal for him to use whoever he could get his hands on.

He can understand.

Lin Jianping gradually convinced himself.

The old man was picked up by Guiyan, and he has already believed it.

Lin Jianping decided not to dwell on the name for now.

"Okay, okay, it's the one I know, the one, um, the very powerful general, I've heard of him before." Lin Jianping tucked the folder under his arm and pointed, "General MacArthur, let's weigh him first."

MacArthur turned around, got into the car, started the pickup truck, and slowly drove it onto the weighbridge.

Lin Jianping went into the weighing room next door, checked the tonnage reading through the window, wrote it down, and then came back.

The pickup truck was parked in the unloading area, and MacArthur unloaded the scrap from the truck bed piece by piece.

The pickup truck was obtained from the construction site by Lyon through Big T. Lyon paid for it, and Big T earned a middleman's fee.

The truck was carrying a pile of scrap, most of which consisted of building materials damaged during construction or materials that had been taken from Big T but turned out to be unusable. All of these were sent to Lin's scrap recycling station.

When Lyon delivered the gun holster yesterday, he had already explained the general process to MacArthur. These goods would not be sold at the normal price, but he still needed to pretend that he was there to sell scrap. The process could not be skipped, and the appearance had to be done well.

The truck was unloaded with galvanized steel pipes, several sections of old aluminum alloy window frames, two bundles of stripped copper core cables, a bag of flattened aluminum cans, seven or eight bundles of old steel bars twisted together, two bent steel construction site fence posts, and a pile of old plasterboard that had been dismantled, some of which was cracked and had bubbly, damp edges.

"These are the drywall boards left over from yesterday's reinforcement of the ventilation ducts." MacArthur unloaded the last stack of drywall boards. "The fortification plan didn't use them all; these are consumables."

Lin Jianping no longer wanted to question MacArthur's choice of words.

"My God, these things are clearly the result of excessive construction damage. Your construction teams must be working like they're in a war zone."

MacArthur turned his head and glanced at him, his eyes unusually serious.

"Organizational principles are part of professional principles, and their planning and execution have been sound so far."

"I'm not saying your construction team is unprofessional, I'm saying your materials—never mind." Lin Jianping sighed.

He squatted down on the pile of scrap metal and flicked the outer wall of the steel pipe twice with his finger.

"To be honest, most of your stuff is just scrap metal."

"The aluminum window frames are all made from second-hand scrap aluminum. Copper cores are good, but there aren't many of them."

"Plasterboard has virtually no recycling value. We buy it to give to contractors as partition mats, and we don't make much money from it."

"You don't think they are valuable."

"It's an objective fact." Lin Jianping pointed to the flattened aluminum cans next to him. "For example, these aluminum cans take up space, and if you buy them by the ton, the price is about the same as giving them away."

MacArthur didn't seem offended at all, because he didn't seem to be listening to the other person at all.

"These cans are supplies left over from the beverage distribution yesterday evening."

He squatted down, picked up a bag of aluminum cans, placed it on a flatter surface, and stood at attention.

"The supply of luncheon meat, energy drinks, and mineral water we are providing to the construction workers is currently sufficient. This needs to be reported to Mr. Ray Fong."

Lin Jianping suppressed his expression.

MacArthur gestured with his chin to a galvanized steel pipe that looked the most dilapidated, and then to the miscellaneous building material scraps.

"These are the gun barrels and building materials for the positions, as well as consumable parts for construction equipment. If a quartermaster is willing to make an offer, we can also negotiate."

,

Lin Jianping paused for a moment, then pointed to the peeling galvanized steel pipe, "You call this a cannon barrel?"

"The caliber is different from the smoothbore gun barrels of modern tanks, but some infantry guns on the Bataan Peninsula back then also had this thickness." MacArthur stared at the water pipe.

"If you ask whether it can fire a cannon, the answer is no. But as a waterproof tarpaulin to support a wall, it is no less effective than any currently serving equipment of the same caliber."

Lin Jianping opened his mouth, then closed it again.

He opened the folder, took out a form and a pen, and began to write.

"Alright, Mr. MacArthur, I'll now price these things at market value."

"This is the price for brass and bare copper cables, the price for zinc alloy window frames, the price for welded steel pipes (based on gray cast iron), and the price for gypsum board is not included."

"You also have tin buckets over there, right? I'll include that in the count."

His pen paused briefly on the form.

"You can check out other places to see if the price is right. I'm in the cleaning business, so I don't weigh things."

"No need to compare prices. The boss instructed us not to compare prices from three different vendors, because we only need to deliver to one supplier," MacArthur said.

Lin Jianping raised his head.

"Did the boss tell you this?"

MacArthur nodded and stared at him for a few more seconds.

"Boss RayFong said that as long as the goods match the accounts, it's fine, but we have a lot of things that require money."

"Okay." Lin Jianping turned the page of the form.

"I'll sort these scrap materials by type first: aluminum window frames go into the aluminum scrap bin, copper cables into the fine copper bin, steel pipes into the scrap iron bin, and plasterboard into a separate bin. I'll issue the weighing slips separately."

He pointed to the pile of things.

"I registered the aluminum window frame as aluminum material, at the normal price. I registered the copper cable as brass, also at the normal price."

Then he lowered his voice.

"The actual settlement amount recorded in the accounts will be much higher than your normal selling price, and the extra part will be transferred directly to your boss at the end of the month."

"The cash you actually receive is the normal selling price of this truckload of goods."

MacArthur's eyebrows twitched, and for the first time in front of Lin Jianping, he showed a somewhat relieved expression.

"To be honest, the logistics you guys have are much better than the quartermaster Washington assigned to me back then. If this batch of supply funds can come in every month, my company can get some bulletproof plates in the next phase."

Lin Jianping no longer intends to dwell on the term "company".

He and MacArthur completed the sorting and entry of the waste, registered everything clearly, and signed the weighing slips and forms.

Finally, he took out the prepared wad of cash from the drawer, counted it, and handed it to MacArthur.

"This is the money from selling the scrap metal, a total of five hundred and fifteen yuan."

MacArthur took the money, folded it neatly, and put it into the top pocket of his uniform.

Lin Jianping locked the folder in the drawer, then picked up an enamel mug from the workbench next to him, handed it to MacArthur, and pointed to the automatic water heater next to him.

"Have a glass of water, I don't have much to offer you."

MacArthur took the cup, smelled it, and instead of filling it with water, looked at another enamel mug of the same style in Lin Jianping's hand.

Then he stood there for a few seconds holding the cup, and spoke in somewhat broken Mandarin.

"Thanks."

Lin Jianping's hand froze in mid-air.

He almost slipped from his enamel mug, spilling a few drops of tea onto his work pants without even noticing.

He looked at MacArthur with an expression as if he had seen a ghost.

"What—what did you just say?"

MacArthur placed the enamel mug on the windowsill, looked at him, and his expression remained as serious as if he were reporting military intelligence.

"I appreciate your freshwater supply, comrade."

Lin Jianping placed the teacup on the table.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Douglas MacArthur".

MacArthur stared at the enamel mug he had placed on the table. It was white with red lettering and a faded five-pointed star on it. The words of a row of slogans had been worn away, leaving only the original half of each word.

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze fixed on that star.

"I recognize this; it's the same one you guys received back in the north."

Lin Jianping's throat moved, but he didn't make a sound.

He stared at MacArthur for several seconds, then slowly exhaled, as if suppressing the shock back into his stomach.

He put the folder into the filing cabinet, locked the door, and when he turned around, his expression had returned to that of a tired boss, but there was still a hint of surprise in his eyes.

Could this guy also be an Asian like RayFong? (Sea?)

Actually, this should be said to be something MacArthur naturally learned from his previous work in the East, but Lin Jianping really couldn't figure out the details of this strange MacArthur in such a short time.

"Okay, now that you've managed to overcome the language barrier, it's not easy for you here either. Clean the back of the pickup truck thoroughly, and next time you need to deliver scrap, remember to have your boss contact me," he said.

"clear."

MacArthur walked toward the pickup truck, pausing as he opened the door.

"Mr. RayFong asked me to tell you that he's been busy with some other things lately. The initial integration of the base has been completed, and similar collaborations will become more frequent in the future."

Lin Jianping leaned against the door frame and nodded, then started the pickup truck, the exhaust pipe spewing out a puff of gray smoke, and slowly drove out of the recycling station gate, disappearing around the corner of Diqiu Street.

He looked down at the five-pointed star printed on the enamel mug in his hand.

After standing for a long time, he took his teacup back to his office, poured himself a cup of hot water, and sat behind a pile of documents, staring out the window at the empty weighing area.

"What kind of monsters did Comrade Guiyan find over there?" he muttered, shook his head, and took a sip of tea.

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