At this moment, the eldest brother wasn’t here, so naturally, Zhang Zihua pushed all the blame onto him.

He thought that by saying this, Jian Xiu would let him go.

However, just as he finished speaking, Jian Xiu swung her stick down hard on his right foot.

Bang!

“Ahhh!”

Instantly, Zhang Zihua’s screams, as if a pig were being slaughtered, filled the entire courtyard.

Old Madam Liu, who was the closest to him, even heard the sound of her son’s bone breaking.

Just hearing that sound was enough to imagine how painful it was.

Not to mention Zhang Zihua himself—even Old Madam Liu was now trembling in fear.

At this moment, she felt incredibly lucky that she hadn’t laid a hand on Zhang Zixuan earlier.

Back then, she had been too focused on searching the house for valuables.

If she had attacked him, she would be suffering the same fate as her second son now.

Just thinking about it made Old Madam Liu’s face turn deathly pale.

Just as everyone thought the ordeal was over, Jian Xiu coldly glanced at Zhang Zihua’s right hand and said,

“And this right hand, huh? Well, no need to keep it either!”

With that, she grabbed his right hand and, using her full strength, gave it a vicious twist…

Crack!

The sickening sound of bones snapping echoed through the air.

“Ahhh! Mother! It hurts! Save me! Mother… Ahhh! Help me…!”

Before he could finish begging for mercy, Jian Xiu’s stick was already raining down on him again.

“I already warned you—if you dared to cause trouble at my house again, I wouldn’t spare you. Yet it seems like you people just don’t listen. What I’m giving you today is just the interest. However many blows you gave Zhang Zixuan, I will return them tenfold!”

This time, Jian Xiu didn’t waste her breath on him, nor did she give him a chance to argue.

She casually grabbed a handful of straw from the ground, roughly bundled it up, and stuffed it into Zhang Zihua’s mouth.

She had no interest in attracting more onlookers while she dealt with him.

“Mmm! Mmmph!”

Seeing this, Zhang Zihua trembled violently with fear.

He wanted to beg for mercy, but his mouth was now stuffed shut.

Only then did Jian Xiu’s lips curl into a faint smirk, and she resumed ‘greeting’ his body with her stick.

“Mmmph! Mmmph!”

Her strikes appeared random, but in reality, each one landed precisely on pain points.

At the same time, she ensured that there wouldn’t be any visible injuries.

This was a basic skill for elite special agents, something Jian Xiu knew all too well.

This was the highest level of punishment—inflicting excruciating pain without leaving a trace.

Making sure he suffered every bit of agony but didn’t die.

Right now, Zhang Zihua was experiencing this firsthand.

“You wretched woman! You bitch—!”

Old Madam Liu, seeing her son being beaten so brutally, was naturally heartbroken.

She completely forgot about the thrashing she had just received from Jian Xiu and pointed at her, cursing.

Hearing this, Jian Xiu simply turned her head and gave her a cold glance.

As soon as Old Madam Liu met Jian Xiu’s eyes, she instinctively shut her mouth.

She immediately recalled the wooden stick striking her legs earlier and dared not utter another word.

“Jian Xiu, that’s enough. If you keep going, you’ll kill him.” Wang Xiuying spoke softly from the side.

At this moment, Doctor Zhang was utterly dumbfounded by everything he had witnessed.

But he quickly snapped back to reality.

Thinking about Zhang Zixuan’s earlier condition, he couldn’t blame Jian Xiu for being so furious.

If it had been him, he would have been just as enraged.

What truly puzzled him was—when did Zhang Zixuan’s wife become so formidable?

Her movements earlier were clearly those of someone professionally trained.

Looking back at Zhang Zihua and Old Madam Liu, neither of them had any visible wounds or blood, unlike Zhang Zixuan.

But judging by Zhang Zihua’s current state, his legs were likely crippled.

As for Old Madam Liu, Jian Xiu hadn’t struck her as hard.

However, based on what he saw, she was probably not far from being permanently disabled as well.

Jian Xiu had no idea what Doctor Zhang was thinking.

If she did, she would tell him—Old Madam Liu might not have external wounds, but her leg bones were shattered.

Even if she appeared fine on the surface, she would never truly recover.

This was the consequence of provoking Jian Xiu.

Hearing Wang Xiuying’s words, Jian Xiu turned to her and questioned,

“Enough? Just like that, it’s over? Compared to what my husband went through, does this even count as suffering? Do you see any wounds on him? And tell me—if it were your husband lying there covered in blood, would you just let it go?”

Wang Xiuying: “……”

She hadn’t expected Jian Xiu to confront her like that.

Of course, compared to Zhang Zixuan’s injuries, Zhang Zihua’s pain was nothing.

Jian Xiu knew that Wang Xiuying was only trying to help her.

But in her heart, she felt that this beating wasn’t nearly enough to quench her anger.

“You… what else do you want?”

Zhang Zihua, curled up on the ground in pain, stammered upon hearing this.

By now, he was drenched in cold sweat, staring at the woman before him as if she were a living nightmare.

This time, he was truly afraid.

Compared to their last encounter, this time he had fully realized just how terrifying Jian Xiu was.

“I was wrong, Jian Xiu. Second Brother was wrong… I really know my mistake now…”

Zhang Zihua used his only functioning left hand to wipe his tears as he pleaded.

However, his words did nothing to sway Jian Xiu.

She knew Zhang Zihua too well.

If given the chance, he would definitely seek revenge.

There was a reason why people said, “To remove the weeds, you must pull them out by the roots.”

“So your legs can still move?” Jian Xiu asked casually.

Anyone who wasn’t a fool could hear the underlying threat in her words.

Especially Old Madam Liu.

She had personally witnessed how much agony Zhang Zixuan had gone through when his legs were broken.

If her own son lost both his legs, how would he survive?

Recalling Jian Xiu’s earlier words, Old Madam Liu quickly cried out,

“Jian Xiu, you can’t… you can’t go back on your word! You said that if Zihua told you the truth, you would consider… consider…”

But then, Old Madam Liu suddenly fell silent.

She realized something—Jian Xiu had never actually made any promises.

She never said she would let them go.

She never said that if they confessed, she would show mercy.