The door was about to be closed and Yu Zi kicked it open again. He was so agitated that he grabbed Wang Jing’s collar, afraid that he might run away again.

As Wang Jing stumbled forward, Yu Zi noticed there was another person behind him, looking somewhat familiar. He appeared older, with graying hair.

Yu Zi couldn’t remember where he had seen this old man before.

“Dongcheng!” The old man waved inside the room, looking very pleased.

Xie Dongcheng had just gotten off the bed and also waved to the old man. The two of them seemed very familiar.

The four of them stared at each other, with Yu Zi being the only one with question marks all over his head. What was going on here?!

It wasn’t until the two men entered the ward and Xie Dongcheng closed the door behind them that he turned to explain, “This is Lao Liu, you’ve met him before, the boss of Shixing who supplied us with ingredients.”

Only then did Yu Zi remember that he was the one who broke his coccyx in the heavy snow at the beginning of the year, and then was sent to the hospital by Xie Dongcheng. No wonder he looked so familiar.

But in just three or four months, Lao Liu looked noticeably older, with half of his hair turning white.

“But how does he know…” Yu Zi looked at Lao Liu and Wang Jing, unable to figure out how these two had any connection.

“I’ll explain later,” Xie Dongcheng signaled to him with his eyes.

“Dongcheng, I’ve brought the person for you,” Lao Liu pushed Wang Jing forward, “and he said he brought the money.”

Upon hearing “money,” Yu Zi became alert and stood in front of Wang Jing, staring at his face intently.

Wang Jing didn’t look as composed as before, with a scruffy beard and sunken eyes, appearing very haggard. He slowly took off the backpack behind him, unzipped it, and took out a leather paper bag, which felt heavy. He hesitated as he gripped the mouth of the paper bag.

Yu Zi couldn’t be bothered to waste time with him and directly grabbed the leather paper bag, opening it to check, “Are these real banknotes?”

“Yes, they are. I’ve already checked them before bringing him here,” Lao Liu hastily added.

But when Yu Zi took out the banknotes and counted them several times, he found there was only a total of 150,000 yuan inside. Wang Jing had cheated him out of 300,000 yuan!

As soon as Wang Jing looked up, he met Yu Zi’s piercing gaze.

“I only have 150,000 now. The rest of the money is mortgaged…” Wang Jing explained hastily after seeing him count the money, but he swallowed the rest of his words and begged, “Can the remaining 150,000 be replaced with something else?”

Yu Zi couldn’t help but feel angry: “What are you going to offer?! Don’t play these tricks with me, I want the money now! I haven’t even asked for the interest yet, don’t push it.”

Wang Jing was startled by him, his shoulders shrank, and then he tentatively asked, “Can I give you my warehouse? You can dispose of the alcohol inside.”

Without mentioning the alcohol, just the mention of it made Yu Zi even more furious: “Stop talking nonsense! Who cares about your pile of fake alcohol! Give me the money!”

Seeing him shrink his neck, Yu Zi immediately reached out and grabbed his collar fiercely, making it hard for him to breathe.

Wang Jing stretched out his hands in surrender, “I really have no money left, this is all I have. If you force me, I have no choice. Or you can wait for me for a while, I’ll pawn my ID card, passport, and everything to you. Will that work? I’ll definitely pay you back when I have the money.”

Wang Jing quickly took out the money from his backpack and handed it all to Yu Zi.

Yu Zi opened it and glanced inside, indeed finding an ID card. He guessed it right, Wang Jing was indeed using a fake name, his real name being Wang Yuhua.

“Daring to use a fake name, why should I trust you?” Yu Zi threw his wallet to the corner of the wall.

Wang Jing hurriedly bent down to pick it up, patting off the dust on it, “I really pledge everything to you. You can dispose of it as you wish. I have fifteen thousand now…”

Yu Zi frowned and stared at his eyes, he didn’t seem like he was pretending.

“Give a deadline, how long to clear the debt.” Suddenly, Xie Dongcheng behind Yu Zi spoke up.

“Two months, can two months work?” Wang Jing seemed to see a lifesaver and quickly clasped his hands together, bowing to him several times.

“One month, not any longer.” Yu Zi extended a finger.

“Okay, okay. One month it is.” Wang Jing nodded repeatedly.

Yu Zi snatched the wallet from his hand, took out his ID card, and then found a piece of paper from the ward.

“Write an IOU and put your thumbprint.” Yu Zi tossed the pen to him and turned around, “Lao Liu, take out your phone and record.”

Lao Liu nodded repeatedly, standing aside and opening the phone’s camera. After a beep, the recording started.

Wang Jing could only tremble as he picked up the pen and wrote the IOU. After finishing, he handed it to Yu Zi.

Yu Zi clicked his tongue, “You’re deaf? I asked for a thumbprint.”

Wang Jing’s voice was weak, “I don’t have ink…”

“Use your own finger, do I have to teach you?!” Yu Zi glanced at him as if he was dealing with an idiot.

Wang Jing could only shakily bite his thumb, using the blood to make a thumbprint.

Yu Zi picked up the IOU satisfactorily, dusted it off with his finger, “Black and white, see you in a month.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the door was pushed open from outside. The nurse seemed to have heard the commotion in the ward and came to check.

“Why are there so many people here?! Only two visitors at a time, the rest of you leave now!” The nurse knocked on the door with her knuckles and issued an eviction order.

Lao Liu, seeing the task completed, grinned with satisfaction, looking like an aged general. He then escorted Wang Jing out of the ward, “I won’t disturb your rest. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

After the two left, Yu Zi turned to Xie Dongcheng, “He won’t run away again, will he?”

Xie Dongcheng shook his head firmly, “No, Lao Liu can judge people very well.”

After the nurse left, Yu Zi remembered to ask, “How does this Lao Liu know Wang Jing?”

To be honest, Yu Zi didn’t have a good impression of Lao Liu. Back then, in heavy snow, they couldn’t deliver the goods to the door and were forced to use a small van to pick them up. Obviously, Lao Liu was being unreasonable, and calling him an old fox wouldn’t be an exaggeration. How could he act like a different person after a few months?

Xie Dongcheng pulled a chair for him and explained after he sat down, “After you left, I encountered him once. Since he broke his tailbone, his family doesn’t allow him to handle deliveries anymore. After I told him about this matter, he said that if it wasn’t for me, he might have frozen to death in the snow, and he insisted on helping me catch Wang Jing.”

Yu Zi burst out laughing. But his doubt was still unresolved, “How was he planning to catch him? He didn’t even know Wang Jing.”

“I only knew about it after he told me. Lao Liu has a background in the underworld and has been in this area for decades. He knows a lot of people.”

“No wonder he was so unreasonable back then.” Yu Zi couldn’t help but feel angry thinking about delivering goods in the heavy snow with a small van.

“At first, he really couldn’t find him. But after several days, he came to me and said that he knew someone named Wang Yuhua from his early years, and the description matched the one I gave of Wang Jing. He used to do legitimate business, owning several liquor stores. Later, I don’t know what happened, his fortune declined, and he started selling alcohol as a street vendor in another city. This time, he probably wanted quick money, so he deceived someone…”

Yu Zi clicked his tongue. Declining fortune was the reason for engaging in such activities?

“But how did Lao Liu find him?”

“He has informants who said they saw Wang Yuhua return home. Lao Liu followed him overnight. He just lay there every day…”

“Lay there?!”

“He broke his tailbone before, and even though he recovered, his legs were still a bit unsteady. He said he found a piece of wood and lay at his door.”

Yu Zi felt that he was too civilized, his quality needed to be lowered.

“Wasn’t he afraid Wang Jing wasn’t home?”

“For three hundred thousand, Wang Jing couldn’t flee the country just for that amount of money. He would return sooner or later. Besides, he has an old lady at home. He can’t escape even if he wants to.”

Xie Dongcheng finished explaining and continued, “Lao Liu doesn’t care about day or night, he eats, drinks, and goes to the bathroom nearby. He estimated that Wang Jing wouldn’t dare to call the police, and when he didn’t come out, he spread rumors in the neighborhood, causing numerous old neighbors to come and complain, making a big fuss. I guess Wang Jing was really annoyed this time…”

Yu Zi was greatly shocked and sighed in amazement, truly believing that sometimes evil needs to be dealt with by another evil.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” He listened to Xie Dongcheng vividly narrating, and it seemed like he had known all along.

Xie Dongcheng shook his head: “We couldn’t catch him all this time, and we didn’t know if he could repay the money. If I had told you earlier, it might have raised false hope.”

Yu Zi thought about it and agreed. Xie Dongcheng wasn’t confident about the outcome either, otherwise he wouldn’t have hurriedly mortgaged the house.

“But why was he willing to do all this? These things take a lot of time.” Yu Zi knew that finding someone was troublesome, even if Xie Dongcheng owed him a favor, it wasn’t likely that he would be so dedicated to finding and catching someone every day.

Xie Dongcheng sighed: “After he was discharged from the hospital last time, his children used to take care of him. But as time went by, they began to resent him for being useless, blaming him for reducing the labor force in the family. Families here are like this, more mouths to feed means less hands to work. After staying at home for a long time, he might have become depressed…”

Xie Dongcheng could understand Lao Liu’s anxiety. He felt the same way when he first went to Uncle Wu’s house, afraid of being disliked and sent away again. At that time, he would wake up twenty minutes earlier every morning, tidying up the house, fearing leaving any traces.

Yu Zi remembered Lao Liu’s expression when he had just left the hospital, feeling somewhat moved. The wrinkles on his old face almost extended to his ears, as if he had finally realized a heroic dream.

In this indifferent city, even the closest family relationships are very practical. There’s no such thing as unconditional love in the world; living under someone else’s roof means being at their mercy. This is an iron law that no one can escape.

Yu Zi threw the paper with the thumbprint into a leather bag, then resealed the bag. He tossed the bag into the air and caught it steadily, feeling reassured by the weight of the bundled bills in his hand.

He threw the sealed bag back to Xie Dongcheng. “I’ll repay you half for now.”

But Xie Dongcheng threw it back to him, saying, “I don’t want it. You still have many places to spend money recently.”

“Are you doing charity?!” Yu Zi was surprised to encounter someone who wouldn’t accept money. This was fifteen thousand we’re talking about.

Xie Dongcheng looked out the window. “I really don’t want it. Let’s talk about it when you have money in the future.”