Chapter 4 – Damn it, My Sister’s Being Abused?!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Open up! Hurry, open the door!”

Early in the morning, loud knocking echoed at the front door of the Xia family’s detached villa. Chen Ling shot up in alarm — her guess from last night had been right. She quickly turned to her daughter beside her.

“Wanwan, wake up! Baby, wake up!”

“Mooom~”

Xia Wanwan had gone to bed late the previous night and had finally been sleeping well, only to be woken by the noise outside. She sat up, her face full of annoyance.

Chen Ling hastily threw on her clothes, stuffing some cash into her waistband as she spoke urgently to her daughter:

“They’re about to come in. We probably can’t save anything in the house. I’ll go stall them. You pack quickly and sneak out the back door.”

“Baby, listen to me. With your dad and me gone, you’ll have to keep your wits about you, understand?”

“Mm… okay, Mom~”

“Good. Now hurry and get dressed.”

“What’s with all the shouting? Can’t even let me put clothes on?” Chen Ling snapped, finally exploding under the pressure. A cornered rabbit will bite — and in this life-or-death moment, for her daughter’s sake, she showed a rare fierceness.

It was the first time Xia Wanwan had seen her gentle mother this angry. She couldn’t help but think — so badass.

Dropping any pretense, Wanwan quickly dressed. With one wave of her hand, she swept everything in her mother’s room into her space.

The storage room — gone. Her own room — emptied. Even her sister’s room, though there wasn’t much left, she cleared out completely.

Not a single thing left behind.

Her father’s study too — if it belonged to the Xia family, it was taken. She had plenty of room in her space, and besides, she still had a luxury villa salvaged from the apocalypse stored there.

All she did was move the items from one house to another. One day they would return — but no outsider would ever lay a finger on these things.

Carrying the suitcase her mother had handed her, Wanwan slipped out the back door, then blended into the crowd to watch quietly as people stormed into the villa, ransacking it. After failing to find anything, they sealed the door with tape and led her mother away.

In the crowd, Chen Ling took one last long look at her daughter, silently praying her little troublemaker could keep herself safe.

Perhaps it was the original body’s lingering emotions, but Wanwan’s chest tightened, and to her shock, tears welled in her eyes.

Since the apocalypse, how long has it been since I last cried?
In that world, tears meant weakness — and weakness meant death. So she hadn’t allowed herself to shed a single tear.

But today, she cried.
Because in this moment, she wasn’t a hardened survivor. She was simply Xia Wanwan, daughter of Xia Chengzhi and Chen Ling.

Don’t worry, Mom, Dad — I’m already avenging you.

---

Bai Yanlang woke in pain, staring in disbelief at his hands — both shattered beyond repair. There was no chance of fixing them. His hands… were gone. But what on earth had happened last night? Hadn’t he just gone to sleep?

Liu Simu woke to her husband’s pained screams, sitting up groggily — and then she saw his limp, useless hands.

“Old Bai… what happened to you?”

“It’s over… everything’s over…” Bai Yanlang couldn’t bear the blow and fainted on the spot.

Before Liu Simu could even dress and get him to a hospital, the Enforcement Brigade blocked her door.

“What do you want?” she demanded in panic.

“We received a tip-off that Doctor Bai accepted bribes by abusing his position. We need to bring him in for questioning. If he’s innocent, the organization will clear his name.”

“What? That’s impossible! My Old Bai would never take bribes! This is a false accusation! And anyway, both his hands are broken — he needs a hospital now!”

“That’s… quite the coincidence.”

The men, wearing red armbands, exchanged uneasy glances. They checked his hands themselves and were stunned — no blood, no visible wounds, but completely ruined. How did this happen?

That was when Liu Simu noticed something even more shocking — the house was empty. Everything was gone.

Frantically, she searched every room. But no matter where she looked, the result was the same — nothing left.

Last night, had they been robbed? Was that when Bai Yanlang’s hands were broken? But why hadn’t she woken up?

“Comrades, comrades! We’ve been robbed! The thieves cleared out our house and crippled my husband’s hands! You must investigate!”

Who the hell is this ruthless?

“This will ruin us! Completely ruin us!”

Liu Simu sat on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. She couldn’t understand it — how had everything spun out of her control overnight?

Her children, Bai Huanxi and Bai Wangxiang, soon woke and noticed something wrong. Still in their pajamas, they went to their parents’ room — only to find it filled with strangers and stripped bare.

“Mom, what happened? Why is my room empty too?” Huanxi whimpered, hugging her crying mother.

“God help us… We’ve been robbed, and your father’s hands are shattered. Hurry, we need to get him to the hospital!”

Once her mind cleared a bit, Liu Simu scrambled to organize people to carry him out.

The red armbands agreed — saving a life came first — but they still intended to investigate the bribery report.

Yet when they arrived at the hospital, they unexpectedly ran into her in-laws.

“Sister-in-law, why are you here?”

“Little sister, you won’t believe it — some bastard broke your brother’s leg and cleaned out our house. We came to get him treated, but since you’re here, can you lend us some money for the medical bills?”

Wang Cuilan looked at her sister-in-law with relief, thinking she’d finally found someone who could help.

But Liu Simu froze — how could it be the same?

“Sister-in-law, we were robbed too! Yanlang’s hands are smashed… I don’t even know if they can be fixed. Please, go borrow money from your family. We need to get through this first.”

“I… I don’t have any either…”

Wang Cuilan’s eyes went wide — they’d been robbed too?

What a coincidence!

But with no other choice, she left to borrow money. Medical bills couldn’t wait.

Liu Simu watched her go, collapsing again in despair. Just last night, she’d been thrilled — the Xia couple was about to be sent away, and the hospital director’s position was finally within reach. But now…

Who destroyed my dream of becoming the director’s wife?

---

Xia Wanwan could already guess what had happened here, but she didn’t dwell on it. After checking on her sister, she planned to sign up for the “Down to the Countryside” movement, aiming to arrive just before her parents — and with the treasures she’d taken, life would be smooth sailing.

She didn’t expect that when she arrived at her sister’s apartment building, she would hear a filthy, venomous tirade coming from the second floor — in a voice she remembered all too well.

Taking the stairs two at a time, she burst into the apartment — and the scene before her made her blood boil.

Without a second thought, she rolled up her sleeves.

“Tang Wensong! Who the hell gave you the guts to lay a hand on my sister?!”