Chapter 65: Death or Severe Injury

"From now on, all family matters will be decided by the third son."

"You're married now and living on your own. Ever since you started making money, you've never brought a single cent back to this household."

"Since that's how it is, if your little family runs into trouble or faces difficulties, don't keep your hopes pinned on this house."

"Right now, I'm supporting a whole family all by myself. Even if you were to smash these old bones of mine to pieces, you wouldn't squeeze out a single drop of grease."

"You can give up on that idea once and for all."

Having said this, Li Mantang drained the last drop of liquor, leaned back against the stack of bedding behind him, and closed his eyes, playing dead as if he had already breathed his last breath.

If someone else's family had a scandal, he would gladly pull up a chair to watch the spectacle. But when trouble hit his own family, it was nothing but a headache.

He didn't want to deal with it anymore. He had carried the burden for a lifetime, yet never reaped any rewards. He was exhausted—let it all just burn to the ground.

Li Peng looked silently at Li Qi, then at his eldest sister, and finally even at Gao Junmei.

The young girl was so frightened that she scrambled backward into the depths of the kang bed, curling herself up tightly in the corner.

"Eldest Uncle, don't look at me. I don't have any money—not a single cent."

Li Peng offered a desolate smile, filled with the bleak despair of reaching a dead end. Like a walking corpse, he stood up and began walking home step by step.

He lived in an apartment building with heated brick beds assigned by the school. He opened the door, ignoring the questioning gazes of Du Li and his father-in-law Du Shuangquan, walked straight into the bedroom, climbed onto the bed, and pulled the quilt over his head.

Du Li furiously ripped the quilt off him.

"Li Peng, who are you trying to play dead for?

Where is the money?

I'm talking to you, where is the money?

Hand over the money right now!"

Li Peng said with a completely blank expression, "I don't have any money left, and my family won't give me any either. This apartment was assigned to me by my workplace, and I have the right to live here. If you really want a divorce, go ahead and make a scene—the two of us will head to the Civil Affairs Bureau tomorrow. Right now, I need to sleep, and I have a public lecture tomorrow."

After saying this, Li Peng remained utterly silent, refusing to respond no matter how wildly Du Li threw her tantrum.

In the end, Du Shuangquan gave Du Li a meaningful look and led her out of the bedroom.

The family of three whispered quietly in the living room.

"Are we pushing him too hard? What will you do if he actually divorces you?"

"He wouldn't dare. I'll lend him the guts."

"Even a cornered rabbit will bite. We can't keep crushing him like this forever."

"Then if we just drop it, what about our son?"

Cai Jiamei lost her temper.

"Let me figure something out. As it happens, an old leader from back in the day is meeting me tomorrow."

Du Li lowered her voice to a whisper, terrified that anyone might overhear, and pointed toward the east.

"An old leader from *over there*?"

Du Wushuang nodded silently, placing a finger over her lips to signal Du Li to stop asking questions.

Du Li nodded hastily.

"That's wonderful, then. Maybe we can make some quick cash again, and we can take the money to bribe the right people and get my brother out."

The night passed without incident. Li Qi pedaled his bicycle, setting out on his journey once more amid the morning light.

Liu Yuting reappeared at the mouth of the alleyway like an NPC resetting on a fixed schedule.

This time, she seemed to have abandoned all vanity, wrapping herself in a heavy military greatcoat.

On her feet she wore padded cotton boots with woolen uppers, a thick woolen scarf wound around her neck, and heavy winter mittens on her hands.

She was armed to the teeth.

Some lessons cannot be taught by mere words, but a single experience brands them into the soul.

Only those who freeze know the bitter truth.

Clothes were nothing more than a superficial shell; once you put on a giant padded cotton coat, you were just another rustic country bumpkin.

Liu Yuting had finally cast aside her pretense of aloof pride and completely bowed her head to the harsh reality of life.

Seeing Li Qi approach, she stripped away every shred of dignity and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Li Qi, get down off that bike! I want to sleep with you!"

No more pretenses—her cards were fully on the table.

If she couldn't drag Li Qi back today, she and the four old men were all going to freeze to death. The Ivory Village Extortion Squad was doomed before it even truly began; they hadn't even figured out what their opponent looked like, and they were already about to suffer a total wipeout.

Yesterday, her father Liu Neng had downed half a jin of white liquor just to regain a semblance of humanity. He had grabbed her hands with tears streaming down his face, his speech stuttering uncontrollably.

"D-D-Daughter, tomorrow, n-n-no matter what it takes—even if you have to strip off your underwear right in the middle of the street—you must bring Li Qi back. Your father truly can't take it anymore; my knees are about to shatter from the frost. Uncle Zhao Si is about to be chemically castored by the cold. Uncle Zhangkun's tailbone is about to require amputation. Only Wang Degui might manage to leave behind an intact corpse, because he already had a prostatectomy and squats to pee like a woman. Yuting, my l-l-lower... ah, no, the happiness of the rest of my life depends entirely on you. Tomorrow, either we finally do business, or you can prepare funeral banquets for the four of us old codgers. Take your pick."

Liu Yuting had been utterly speechless. The bloody example of Wang Fuliang was still fresh in everyone's minds, yet Liu Neng refused to accept reality—what could she possibly do?

But she knew that no matter what she said, it was useless; her father's eyes were blinded by money, and he was beyond persuasion.

Therefore, Liu Yuting was determined to succeed today by any means necessary.

She was genuinely terrified that Li Qi would turn around and flee again without looking back.

Sure enough, upon hearing her words, Li Qi immediately slowed his pace and stopped his bicycle not far from her. Just as Liu Yuting was about to pounce, Li Qi called out, "Wait for me a little over an hour, I'll be right back!"

Liu Yuting felt like crying without tears. Was this bastard even human?

She was offering herself to him, yet he had the nerve to make her wait?

However, since Li Qi had left those words behind, she had no choice but to keep standing in the freezing snow.

Waiting with a glimmer of hope was at least slightly better than the helpless waiting of the past two days.

As it turned out, an hour passed, two hours passed, and then two and a half hours passed.

Li Qi never came back at all!

Liu Yuting finally realized the truth.

She had been played by Li Qi! This little bastard never had any intention of coming back!

By this time, despite being wrapped up like an Eskimo, her body was completely stiff from the sub-zero temperatures of Northeastern China, which dropped below minus thirty degrees.

As she dragged herself toward the rented house, she felt as though her entire lower body no longer belonged to her.

Her legs had long since gone numb, and with a stumble, her feet failed her entirely, causing her to crash heavily to the ground.

Thud.

Her head struck the low wall by the roadside, and before the blood could even flow out, it froze solid right against her scalp.

This was the Northeast, where men had to carry a small stick when urinating because the stream would freeze solid the moment it left the body, requiring them to tap it off piece by piece as they went.

Liu Yuting half-crawled and half-knelt her way to the doorway of the house, where she caught sight of the four old men curled up and shivering beneath the cattle shed, frozen into twisted shapes. She let out a piercing shriek, "Dad!"

Liu Neng had already been crippled by the cold long ago. Over an hour earlier, Old Man Zhao Si had suggested they stop waiting and go inside to warm up.

Yet Liu Neng had insisted that for the sake of ten thousand yuan, they should endure just a little longer, promising that once the job was done, he would split five hundred yuan to each of them.

And so, sticking it out brought catastrophe upon them.

The old men had grossly overestimated their resistance to the cold; one by one, their legs had frozen solid, rendering them completely unable to stand!

Weeping and wailing, Liu Yuting dragged the old men indoors one by one. If even one of them froze to death here, how would she and her father ever face their families?

Xie Dahukun was already delirious, babbling nonsense.

"Great-grandmother? Great-grandmother, is that you? You've come to take me away. It was my fault back then; I shouldn't have exposed my cousin for hiding a few books, causing her to hang herself in the cattle shed in the end. Great-grandmother, please don't hit me... my legs, it hurts so much, my legs..."

"Quick, go outside and shovel a basket of snow to rub his legs with. If we don't, he might need an amputation."

Only Wang Degui managed to maintain a shred of composure, but Liu Yuting's own legs were frozen useless, and she had no strength left to go outside and fetch snow.

"Oh, my lower back... my lower back won't move anymore! Liu Neng, if I can't service women from now on, you son of a bitch is going to have to wheel me around in a cart for the rest of my days!"

Inside the small cabin, screams and cries rose in an endless chorus. Liu Yuting curled up in a corner like a walking corpse, her eyes completely devoid of light.

Several of the old men had lost half their lives. This operation had inflicted zero casualties on the enemy while suffering a thousand in self-inflicted damage; the four eccentric heroes of Ivory Village had all been left with varying degrees of disability.

Meanwhile, the mastermind behind it all, Li Qi, was currently experiencing a heart pounding with breathless excitement.

He had found it!