Kneel and Apologize

"Search!"

Holding up his phone, Liu Fugui was the first to charge in.

Right behind him, seven or eight members of the Liu family swarmed in aggressively.

"Hurry up, search every corner! A full-grown person can't possibly have that many places to hide!" Liu Dafu roared at the top of his lungs. "You must find them for me!"

Chen Dabao stood with his arms crossed, following them inside with a sneer.

"Liu Fugui, watch your step. Don't break my things. Whatever you break, you pay for. If you can't pay, none of you are leaving today!" Chen Dabao said indifferently.

"Humph! Whatever gets broken, I, Liu Fugui, will pay for it!"

Liu Fugui snorted coldly, holding up his phone to search thoroughly.

The group of Liu family members searched upstairs and downstairs, inside and outside the courtyard, but after searching for a long time, they found nothing.

"Where is she? Where did my wife go?"

"There's no one here! We've looked everywhere!"

Liu Qiang ran around like a headless fly, but couldn't find a trace. The crowd of Liu family members had checked every nook and cranny, yet discovered nothing at all.

Every single place in Chen Dabao's house where a person could possibly hide had been checked.

Still nothing.

"Well, Liu Fugui, did you find anything?" Chen Dabao asked calmly, crossing his arms.

Liu Fugui's face turned ugly. His arm was sore from holding up his phone, but the camera hadn't captured a damn thing. Unwilling to give up, he barked another order: "Search again! Check more carefully—on the roof, inside the wardrobe, under the bed!"

"Search the whole place thoroughly again!"

Liu Dafu, Liu Xiaowu, and Liu Qiang led the younger Liu family members in another painstaking search, but the more they searched, the gloomier their expressions became.

The wardrobe was empty, holding only a few sparse garments.

There was nobody under the bed.

Even the roof had been climbed onto and inspected; absolutely no one was there.

Xia Xiaoxue simply was not in Chen Dabao's house.

"Uncle, we've looked everywhere. She's really not here!" a young man from the Liu family said helplessly.

"Liu Fugui, what do you have to say for yourself now?" Chen Dabao asked coldly.

"Humph, Chen Dabao, you got lucky this time. Let's go!" Liu Fugui's face was livid. He couldn't figure out what had gone wrong, but without anyone to be found, how could they frame Chen Dabao for rape?

Unable to frame him, they had no choice but to clear out first.

"Wait. My house—is it somewhere you can just come and go as you please?"

Chen Dabao suddenly blocked the doorway, his expression menacing.

"Chen Dabao, what do you want? Haven't you heard? In Taohua Village, nobody dares to mess with the Liu family!" Liu Xiaowu glared fiercely, and several young Liu family members brandished their weapons, closing in.

Even among the crowd of onlookers, quite a few relatives of the Liu family began to stir restlessly.

The Lius were a prominent clan in Taohua Village, which was precisely why Liu Fugui could act so tyrannically in the village.

"Nobody dares to mess with the Liu family?"

*Whoosh!*

*Crack!*

With a cold sneer, Chen Dabao suddenly flashed forward, appearing right in front of Liu Xiaowu. Before Liu Xiaowu could react, Chen Dabao delivered a fierce, resounding slap across his face.

"Ah!"

With a miserable scream, Liu Xiaowu was knocked flying by the blow, tumbling across the ground several times before coming to a stop, his mouth full of blood.

"Chen Dabao, you have some nerve! You even dare to hit my son!"

Liu Fugui's expression shifted drastically, and he flew into a rage. Just as he was about to order the Liu family members to attack, Chen Dabao let out a light grunt. Channeling his celestial divine power, he kicked viciously at the fir tree by the courtyard gate.

*Snap!*

The fir tree, thick as a calf's leg and two to three meters tall, snapped instantly, cleanly severed by Chen Dabao's single kick.

*Gasp!*

The surrounding villagers instantly erupted into commotion.

Eyes widened in sheer disbelief.

"Good grief, he kicked a tree right in half! If that kick landed on a person, wouldn't they be sent straight to the underworld?"

"Since when did Dabao get so strong?"

"Unbelievable, unbelievable! Chen Dabao is really something else now!"

The villagers buzzed with discussion, many of them drawing sharp intakes of breath.

They looked at Chen Dabao with a mixture of shock and fear.

Who on earth would dare take a kick like that?

The Liu family villagers who had previously wanted to step forward all shrank their necks and quietly took a few steps back. If they really got into a fight with Chen Dabao and got hurt, who would care?

Everyone had families to feed. Helping Liu Fugui out with bullying was one thing, but risking their lives for him? Absolutely not.

Even Liu Fugui and Liu Dafu stepped back a few paces in terror, staring at Chen Dabao in horror.

Since when did Chen Dabao become this insanely powerful?

"Chen Dabao, you... what do you want? Assault is a crime!" Liu Fugui roared, putting up a brave front.

"What do I want? Liu Fugui, don't forget what you just said. If Sister Xiaoxue wasn't found in my room, you and Liu Qiang would have to kneel and apologize to me. Is my home a place you can just search whenever you please?" Chen Dabao said coldly.

"Hey, it's just a small matter. We're all neighbors here—look at you losing your temper like this. Such a fine tree, what a pity to kick it in half!"

Liu Fugui forced a smile, then put on a stern act as he glared at Liu Qiang and scolded, "Liu Qiang, you wronged Dabao! Why aren't you kneeling down to apologize to him right now?"

Liu Qiang looked utterly unwilling. His wife had gone missing tonight, and on top of that, he was expected to kneel to Chen Dabao? Wouldn't that completely strip him of any remaining dignity?

"Qiangzi, kneel down right now! Did you hear your uncle tell you to apologize?" Liu Dafu hurriedly pressed down on Liu Qiang's head, forcing him to kneel and apologize.

Losing a bit of face wasn't a big deal for Liu Qiang; he certainly didn't want to get beaten by Chen Dabao.

"Dabao, I'm sorry!"

Like a defeated rooster, Liu Qiang knelt obediently on the ground and apologized to Chen Dabao.

He was terrified of getting beaten by Chen Dabao too.

"Dabao, Liu Qiang has apologized to you. Can we leave now?" Liu Fugui squeezed out a smile and said hastily.

"And what about you?" Chen Dabao said coolly.

"What about me?" Liu Fugui's eyelid twitched.

"Liu Qiang knelt, but you haven't yet," Chen Dabao said coldly.

"Chen Dabao, don't you dare push your luck! Let me tell you, my dad is the village chief. Offend our Liu family, and you won't come to a good end!"

Liu Xiaowu clutched his face and shouted threateningly, "My big brother is Zhang Biao! Go ask around in Qingshan Town—in such a big town, who dares to mess with Brother Biao? If you dare make my dad kneel today, I'll never let you go!"

Liu Xiaowu had spent the past two days at home scheming and hadn't gone to the lumber yard, so he had no idea that Chen Dabao had stormed a dragon's lair and rescued Chen Ya.

Otherwise, he would have known that even Zhang Biao held no weight in front of Chen Dabao.

"Are you going to kneel or not? If you don't, I'll do it myself!"

Ignoring Liu Xiaowu's threats entirely, Chen Dabao kept his freezing gaze fixed on Liu Fugui. Liu Fugui had pushed things too far, and today, he was going to strip him of every last shred of his prestige.

The sky over Taohua Village was about to change.

"Chen Dabao, wanting me to kneel to you is a pipe dream. Just try laying a hand on me today!" Liu Fugui's face darkened as he turned to leave; there was no way he was going to kneel to Chen Dabao.

However, before he had taken even two steps, Liu Fugui suddenly felt a sharp pain in his leg as someone delivered a vicious kick.

*Bang!*

"Ah!"

With a miserable shriek, Liu Fugui collapsed heavily onto his knees with a loud thud.