As night fell, Huo Zheng arrived at an urban village on the east side of San Jiang Kou.

The tracking device he had installed in the cultural relic travel suitcase was an illegal item from the black market. Its accuracy naturally couldn’t compare to professional police equipment, so it could only locate a general area, not precisely. According to the tracker, Liu Bei was hiding in this urban village.

This was a chaotic cluster of buildings that had been vacated months ago awaiting demolition. Liu Bei, being a fugitive who had also stolen their bronze bell, naturally didn’t dare stay in a hotel. Hiding here wasn’t surprising. There was no one around, making it convenient to eliminate him later.

Huo Zheng patiently and cautiously started searching from the outskirts of this urban village, going house by house, room by room.

Meanwhile, inside a locked residential house in the urban village, Liu Bei sat alone on an empty bed. Before him was an opened suitcase. He lifted with both hands from the case a bronze bell about twenty centimeters tall, ancient and heavy, examining it carefully, his heart surging with waves.

Stealing Zhu Yifei’s property hadn’t been his original intention.

San Jiang Kou’s most famous cultural relic dealer was him alone. Initially, Zhou Rong’s trusted aide Zhang Debing had found him through underworld friends, asking if he could obtain a set of bronze bells. Bronze bells were bronzeware, all national treasures. Like the Marquis Yi of Zeng bells that appeared in history textbooks, such cultural relics couldn’t be bought at any price. Even goods that occasionally appeared at auctions could cost tens of millions or over a hundred million for a complete set. How could Liu Bei have the ability to obtain cultural relics of this level? However, he knew Zhu Yifei had them in his possession.

Last year, Zhu Yifei had acquired a set of bronze bells—smuggled excavated cultural relics that had never been registered. For such goods that couldn’t see the light of day, only major buyers could afford them. But major buyers were all people with status and position who often didn’t want to cross legal red lines, so this set of bronze bells in his hands had remained unsold. Thus Liu Bei contacted Zhu Yifei and introduced this business deal. Zhu Yifei promised him three hundred thousand as an intermediary fee if the deal succeeded, so he participated in this transaction.

Who knew that as soon as he arrived in San Jiang Kou to scout the environment, after staying at Zheng Yongbing’s home for just a few days, he was nearly caught by the police. Since killing the police officer that year, he had paid for plastic surgery to change his appearance and had been safe for years. Now, being discovered by police again with his identity exposed meant he had to begin fleeing for his life once more.

However, fleeing required money, and three hundred thousand wasn’t enough. So after much deliberation, Liu Bei decided to take one last risk.

He knew Zhu Yifei’s set of bronze bells consisted of nine pieces, each different in size and pattern, extraordinarily valuable. If one piece was missing, leaving eight, it would no longer be a complete set, and its value would naturally plummet. His plan was to take one piece while helping Zhu Yifei transport the bronze bells, then contact Zhou Rong and sell him this piece for five million. When Zhou Rong bought from Zhu Yifei, because it wasn’t a complete set, bargaining down by ten million would be easy. Of course, if Zhou Rong didn’t want to save this money, Liu Bei could then use this single bronze bell to extort Zhu Yifei, making him pay five million to buy it back.

Liu Bei knew Zhu Yifei’s influence ran deep, but this was San Jiang Kou—a strong dragon couldn’t suppress a local snake. Zhu Yifei couldn’t do anything to him here.

After examining the bronze bell for a while, Liu Bei took out his phone, removed the original SIM card, inserted a new card, then rebooted and dialed Zhang Debing’s number, only to receive a prompt that the phone was turned off. Zhou Rong had long instructed Zhang Debing to use a temporary SIM card to contact Liu Bei, and after contacting Zhu Yifei, to throw away the SIM card. He didn’t want any dealings with fugitive Liu Bei to avoid leaving evidence for the future. Liu Bei had no choice but to search for Rongcheng Group’s company phone number and call it. The receptionist had already left work—after the call connected, there was only an automated message asking to leave a voicemail. Liu Bei tried various methods but couldn’t contact Zhou Rong, so he could only put the bronze bell back in the case and stay the night in this dilapidated house first.

Suddenly at that moment, a black shadow flashed past the window. Liu Bei quickly crouched down below the window. He quietly listened to the sounds outside. The surroundings were completely silent. Then he noticed the phone’s signal light glowing on the opposite bedside—clearly, the person outside must have also spotted the phone. He didn’t dare breathe loudly. After waiting a while, he heard footsteps gradually moving away from outside the window. After several minutes, Liu Bei finally relaxed, slowly straightened his body, and looked toward the window. Suddenly, he saw Huo Zheng’s head pressed right against the window—their four eyes met.

The next second, Liu Bei knew something was wrong and immediately jumped out, grabbed a broken chair left in the room. Before he could ready himself, with a “bang,” the door was kicked open. Huo Zheng rushed into the room. Liu Bei grabbed the chair and swung it at him. Huo Zheng blocked the chair with his left hand—”bang”—it struck his arm. He only felt piercing pain in his forearm. Without time to worry about it, he pounced forward, grabbed Liu Bei’s hair with one hand, while his other hand pulled out a dagger and slashed directly at the carotid artery in his neck.

With a “swish” sound, the trachea and carotid artery were severed together. A gush of fresh blood spurted out. Liu Bei covered his neck with both hands and retreated, staring at his opponent in terror. After retreating a few steps, he collapsed against the wall corner. Blood from the artery continued gushing out.

Huo Zheng walked to the bedside, opened the case, saw the bronze bell was safe and sound, and breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to close the door and asked coldly: “Why did you steal our goods?”

Liu Bei wanted to beg for mercy but discovered his throat had been cut. His mouth opened and closed without making a sound. After struggling a few times, he died completely.

Huo Zheng snorted coldly through his nose, took out a small flashlight to illuminate, and checked the room once—no traces of other accomplices. He saw Liu Bei’s phone, opened it, and checked the call records, discovering Liu Bei had just called a landline number for over a minute. Huo Zheng entered the number into Baidu search and found it was “Rongcheng Group.” He couldn’t help but frown.

Could Zhou Rong have instructed Liu Bei to steal the bronze bell? Liu Bei was a San Jiang Kou native. At the beginning, it was Zhou Rong who had sought out Liu Bei, and Liu Bei then contacted them. Could this be a setup?

This matter was significant. Huo Zheng needed to report to Zhu Yifei.

He immediately dialed Zhu Yifei: “Brother Fei, it’s handled.”

“Where’s the item?”

“Here.”

“What about the person?”

“Dead.”

“Clean up thoroughly, leave no traces.”

“Alright. Brother Fei, Liu Bei previously called Zhou Rong.”

The other end of the phone paused for a few seconds, then slowly asked: “You suspect Liu Bei took the item under Boss Zhou’s instruction?”

“I don’t know, but Liu Bei is a San Jiang Kou native. This matter was originally initiated by Boss Zhou and Liu Bei.”

“There’s no reason though, right?”

“Missing one bell, the price difference isn’t just the cost of one bell. Boss Zhou was very straightforward about the entire deal. Either he needed the goods urgently, or he had other motives.”

The other end fell silent again for a moment: “Not necessarily. I think Boss Zhou isn’t that kind of person. Most likely Liu Bei stole my item wanting to sell it to him privately. Bring the item back first.”

“Alright.”

After hanging up, Huo Zheng put on a pair of gloves, dragged Liu Bei’s corpse to a corner, went outside to find some yellow sand, poured all the sand on the pool of blood on the ground, carefully stirred it thoroughly, and swept the blood-mixed sand outside to the pile of debris. This way, after a few days when the sand dried, no one would be able to tell it was blood.

After cleaning up the bloodstains, he emptied the fake cultural relics from the case, leaving only the small bronze bell. Enduring the severe pain in his left hand from being hit by Liu Bei’s chair, he struggled to stuff the corpse into the case as well, forcefully closing it tightly.

After checking once more, he turned his blood-stained clothes inside out and wore them that way, dragged the heavy suitcase containing the corpse, left the urban village, and prepared to find a place to dispose of the body first.

He walked out to the street outside. Just then, a taxi drove by. Huo Zheng waved his hand to hail it.

The taxi stopped in front of him. He opened the rear door, was about to load the case into the car. The taxi driver looked through the rearview mirror at his actions and kindly said: “Sir, need help?”

Huo Zheng replied coldly: “No need.”

“Such a large suitcase isn’t easy to handle. Why don’t you put it in the trunk?”

Huo Zheng said coldly: “My belongings cannot leave my sight.”

“What’s so valuable?”

Huo Zheng didn’t answer him. Enduring the pain in his left hand, he gathered his strength and lifted this case weighing over a hundred pounds onto the back seat. He then pushed hard to move the case further in but couldn’t push it through after two attempts.

The driver turned to look at the back, said: “The wheel’s caught on the seat. You should sit on the other side.”

Huo Zheng had no choice but to close the door, prepared to walk around the rear of the car to the other side. He had just reached the car’s rear when suddenly, a smile appeared at the corner of the taxi driver’s mouth. He directly floored the accelerator and accelerated thunderously. Huo Zheng instinctively grabbed at the trunk lid. The driver swung the steering wheel left and right twice, dragging and throwing Huo Zheng to the ground.

“Go to hell!” Huo Zheng fell on the road, both hands bloody, watching helplessly as the taxi sped away and disappeared from his view.

The taxi drove rapidly. Driver Xiao Mao hummed a tune, glancing from time to time through the rearview mirror at the large suitcase on the back seat, feeling extremely happy.

After the debt collectors came to the door that day, he and Brother Gang discussed that they needed to quickly get tens of thousands of yuan to pay off the debt. But they had no capital or ability—where could they get tens of thousands? Fortunately, they still had a scrapped taxi in their courtyard. So the two tinkered with the taxi and drove it onto the road. They only operated at night, specifically picking up passengers with luggage. Many passengers with suitcases would put their cases in the trunk. The moment the passenger got out to retrieve their case and close the door, Xiao Mao would floor the accelerator and drive away. After all this effort, they obtained several suitcases, but unfortunately the harvest was limited—only one laptop and over a thousand yuan in cash. The rest were worthless clothing and supplies.

This trip was different. Just now, before that passenger even got in the car, he said “My belongings cannot leave my sight.” Xiao Mao concluded there must be money inside.

The taxi drove for a stretch. Not far ahead by the roadside appeared Brother Gang. Xiao Mao drove the car to stop in front of him, rolled down the window, and reported: “Brother Gang, got a big score.”

Brother Gang looked through the rear window and saw the enormous suitcase. He quickly opened the door and got in the car, tried to lift it but couldn’t, and couldn’t help being curious: “It’s so heavy, what’s inside?”

“I don’t know either, but judging from that idiot’s behavior just now, it’s probably very valuable!”

Hearing “very valuable,” Brother Gang quickly told him to drive fast, don’t let anyone catch up.

The car started moving again. Brother Gang used both hands to forcefully drag the case to the middle of the seat, his expression solemn. Opening someone else’s suitcase felt like scratching a lottery ticket. He rubbed his hands together, his heart full of anticipation.

“Let me take a look at why you’re so heavy, my dear!” Brother Gang patted the suitcase, then slowly unzipped the entire circumference of the zipper, then forcefully flipped open the lid.

“Oh oh oh—” One second after opening the case, Brother Gang stood up directly and his head hit the car ceiling, yet he didn’t feel any pain at all. His two large eyes stared straight and rigid at the suitcase.

“What thing got you so excited? Could it be a suitcase full of gold?” Xiao Mao glanced at the rearview mirror and saw Brother Gang’s expression.

He received no answer. Brother Gang was dumbstruck.

Xiao Mao vaguely sensed something was wrong. With one hand still gripping the steering wheel driving, his body leaned over to check the situation. This look nearly scared him to death on the spot. Liu Bei’s corpse curled up and deformed in the case, eyes wide open, staring right at him—their four eyes meeting.

Right at that moment, a beam of headlights shone from ahead, accompanied by urgent honking. Brother Gang looked up and instantly shouted: “Brake quickly!”

Xiao Mao instinctively stepped on the brake, turned his head to see a black car rushing toward them head-on. He immediately twisted his head and turned the steering wheel to dodge. A few seconds later, the car stopped. They looked and saw their car was safe and sound, but beside them, a black Mercedes had crashed into a large tree by the roadside. The tree was directly broken, and black smoke emerged from the car’s front.

Inside the black Mercedes, the 4S store salesman Du Cong pushed aside the airbag and got out of the car. Although his head had been knocked silly by the airbag, seeing the broken fallen tree and the black smoke from the car’s front, he knew he was in big trouble.

He had originally just borrowed a car to help an old schoolmate from a wedding company—less than twenty kilometers round trip for two thousand yuan. So he borrowed out the Mercedes S600 that Zhou Rong had left at the store for maintenance to drive once. Who knew an accident would happen on the return trip.

Du Cong had no time to think carefully about how to handle the aftermath. Rubbing his head, he rushed to the front of the taxi, pounding hard on the car window, roaring wildly: “Get the hell out here! Can you even drive? The road is so wide, why did you keep veering into my lane? Are you blind or deaf!”

Xiao Mao rolled down the window, timidly looking at him: “Big brother, are you okay?”

“Okay?” Du Cong pointed at the smoking Mercedes sedan and cursed angrily, “The car’s crashed like this, what do you say? What do you plan to do about this!”

“I…” Xiao Mao was at a loss, turned back to look at Brother Gang.

Brother Gang glanced at the corpse in the suitcase, slowly closed the case lid, covered his mouth with one hand pretending to cough, and said in an extremely small voice: “Go, leave quickly.”

Xiao Mao turned back and explained to Du Cong outside the window: “Big brother, I didn’t do it on purpose either. How much do you think the compensation should be?” Xiao Mao spoke with a sincere attitude while his right hand reached for the gear lever.

“How much money, how would I know right now? You call the insurance company, then—damn!”

Before he finished speaking, he saw Xiao Mao whoosh, stepping on the accelerator. The car leaped out thunderously.

Du Cong urgently reached out to grab Xiao Mao’s collar pocket. Xiao Mao didn’t care at all, both hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, desperately pressing the accelerator. Du Cong’s feet followed the car running, but how could a person outrun a car? After running dozens of meters, Du Cong tore off Xiao Mao’s collar pocket and fell hard to the ground, scraping skin all over his body.

He stood up trembling, turned to look at that Mercedes, feeling as if the entire sky above his head was pressing down on him.

On the other side, Fang Chao and Liu Zhi had been bitterly staking out Zhou Rong’s villa for many days, never finding an opportunity to make their move.

Three sides of the villa had walls over six meters high—climbing over was completely unrealistic. The other side had a river plus a tree barrier zone. The river wasn’t a problem—the water wasn’t deep. With their height, at worst it would be like a pony crossing a river. To avoid getting wet, Fang Chao had specially bought a canoe and hidden it in the grass. However, behind the barrier zone was another security room where several security guards were always on duty. This was a defensive line they couldn’t break through.

Contrary to the anxiety of these two outside the villa, Zhou Rong inside the villa tonight was quite happy.

“Little Qian, don’t call me Director Zhou anymore, call me Brother Rong.” Zhou Rong lowered his status, staring affectionately at Li Qian across the dining table.

On the table were exquisite small plate dishes—Western cuisine carefully prepared by a professional private chef. Beside them was an entire row of red wine. Overhead was a magnificent crystal chandelier. Romantic melodies played through the speakers. The atmosphere was more nightclub than nightclub.

This dinner made Li Qian feel like days were years. She had no experience dealing with this kind of man, and with her heart set on getting into the study to investigate as soon as possible, she inevitably appeared nervous and awkward. Fortunately, Zhou Rong was quite talkative. Seeing her like this, he thought she was an unsophisticated young woman, which made him even more delighted.

After dinner finished, when Zhou Rong wasn’t paying attention, Li Qian secretly took some powdered substance from her bag and poured it into her own glass. Shaking the wine glass twice, she stood up and walked toward Zhou Rong, thanking him for today’s warm hospitality and toasting him. Of course he wouldn’t refuse a beautiful woman’s toast. Zhou Rong took her glass and deliberately moved the rim to where Li Qian’s lip print was, drinking it all in one gulp. The wine had a slightly bitter taste entering the mouth, but he didn’t pay much attention. Afterward, he returned the wine glass to Li Qian, deliberately lightly touching her hand. Li Qian gave a coquettish laugh and withdrew her hand.

After eating and drinking their fill, what Zhou Rong ultimately still wanted was to sleep with Li Qian. But this wasn’t prostitution—talking about money alone wouldn’t work. What he pursued was for the woman to be moved by his charm. So he took Li Qian around the villa, pretending to be low-key and restrained while showing off his wealth, hoping to make the girl worship him more.

Li Qian dealt with it superficially while taking this opportunity to scout Zhou Rong’s home environment.

After touring the large villa once, Zhou Rong alone didn’t take her to the study. She couldn’t help but pretend to be curious, pointing at a room with a closed door and exclaiming: “Your house is so big! Hey, what’s this room for? Can I go in and take a look?”

“This is the maid’s room, no need to tour it.”

“Uh… then what about this room?” Li Qian pointed to the adjacent room.

“That’s also a maid’s room.”

“Oh, oh,” Li Qian broke into a cold sweat looking around. Suddenly noticing a room with a closed door opposite, thinking this one surely couldn’t still be a maid’s room, she asked, “What’s that room for?”

“The study.” Zhou Rong was completely unaware of the light that sparkled in Li Qian’s eyes after hearing this answer.

“Can you take me to see it?”

“Oh…” Zhou Rong hesitated for a second, then immediately said, “Sure.”

Zhou Rong took Li Qian to the front of the room. That door was different from other rooms—it had a fingerprint password lock installed. Zhou Rong pressed his finger on the fingerprint reader. The door lock automatically opened. He stood at the doorway and gestured around, saying: “My study is very simple, nothing much.”

He was preparing to close the door when Li Qian walked straight into the room, looking at the bookshelf and exclaiming: “Wow, you have so many books!”

The bookshelf was filled with thick tomes—”Das Kapital,” “Marxism-Leninism,” “Selected Works of Mao Zedong,” “Building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” These books were brand new from top to bottom—clearly never opened. Yet Li Qian stared at these books with great interest, appreciating them.

Zhou Rong looked at her appearance and felt slightly strange in his heart, then said: “There’s nothing much to see in the study. Let’s go upstairs—there’s a large balcony with a great view up there.”

At that moment, Zhou Rong’s phone suddenly rang. He picked it up and saw it was Hu Jianren calling, so he apologized to Li Qian, left her alone in the study, and walked outside to answer the call.

“What is it?”

“Brother Rong, your car was stolen and driven out, then crashed. The damage is severe.”

Zhou Rong looked confused: “What car?”

“The Mercedes that Li Qian scratched at our 4S store a few days ago. The car had just finished getting painted at the store. Today a salesman from the store secretly drove it out to work as a wedding car for extra money, and it crashed into a tree. The entire front end is deformed.”

“I—” Zhou Rong was furious. Then thinking the female lead of tonight’s date was still in the study, at this time he also wasn’t convenient to curse loudly. He forcibly lowered his voice and scolded: “Too bold! It’s my own 4S store, and an employee dares to secretly drive out my car. What about customers’ cars normally? How is this store managed! Who will dare to do business at my store in the future!”

“Right, this matter is too serious. I don’t dare make the decision myself. Brother Rong, what do you think should be done?”

“How is that salesman?”

“He’s completely fine, just the car is ruined.”

Zhou Rong took a deep breath and said angrily: “Handle it severely. This is a management problem with the store. I’ll arrange for a few subordinates to go over there and deal with that bastard, and make that guy pay until he’s bankrupt. Let everyone remember this lesson!”

After hanging up, Zhou Rong angrily walked to the door and called over the security captain on duty that day, having him immediately bring more people to the 4S store to find Hu Jianren.

Liu Zhi lay in the car staring blankly at Zhou Rong’s villa. Fang Chao lay in the back trunk already snoring.

After waiting days for an opportunity to strike but never getting one, both were physically and mentally exhausted. They discussed taking turns watching for a few more days. If there really was no opportunity, they could only turn around and try to target Fang Yong instead, emptying his home of cultural relics and antiques, then figure out how to sell them later.

At this time, Liu Zhi saw cars driving out from Zhou Rong’s villa—one car, two cars, three cars in succession. After the cars drove out, they turned and drove straight toward them.

Liu Zhi quickly woke Fang Chao. Both were on full alert, but saw these three cars drive straight past them from the side. They relaxed afterward. Fang Chao was complaining that Liu Zhi shouldn’t disturb his sleep for no reason when suddenly, looking through the green tree barrier across the river, he saw the lights in the security room behind the villa turn off. He immediately perked up and took out binoculars to carefully confirm.

After Zhou Rong finished instructing Hu Jianren to handle the 4S store matter, he restrained his anger, took a deep breath, put his smile back on, returned to the study, and saw Li Qian standing in the study with nothing to do, looking around.

“Sorry, the company had something that needed handling just now.” Zhou Rong said with a smile. Suddenly his gaze swept over a circular object on the wall. His brow furrowed slightly, a trace of vigilance rising in his heart. He turned to look at Li Qian’s innocent-looking face. The wariness in his heart relaxed again. He probed: “What were you doing alone just now?”

“Nothing really. I could only boringly wait here for you. Everything in your house looks so valuable, I didn’t dare touch anything.” Li Qian responded by pretending to act coquettish.

“Haha, why are you so timid?” Zhou Rong walked to her front, stared at her affectionately, and slowly said, “Stay tonight.”

“Uh…” Li Qian didn’t know how to answer.

“Can you?”

“I…” Li Qian urgently thought about stalling for time, “Brother Rong, I’m thirsty. Could you pour me a glass of water?”

“Sure.” Zhou Rong smiled, was about to turn around when suddenly, his stomach made a loud gurgling sound. He looked at Li Qian awkwardly, then came another loud gurgling sound.

At the crucial moment, he needed to have a bowel movement—what should he do? Zhou Rong considered whether to endure it for a while, but who would have thought this urge came on so fiercely, not giving him any chance to hold it in. In the blink of an eye, after an uncontrollable large fart was released, he felt a warmth behind in his underwear. He said sorry and ran out of the study with his legs clamped together.

After he left, Li Qian finally breathed a sigh of relief. The laxative had taken effect.

After receiving Zhou Rong’s invitation, Li Qian considered how to cope. Finally, she thought of a brilliant move—using laxative. A large dose of powerful laxative sufficient to cause dehydrating diarrhea—even if Zhou Rong wanted to act inappropriately toward her later, naturally he would have the desire but lack the strength.

While Zhou Rong ran to the toilet, Li Qian quickly ran back to the front of the circular object on the wall, reaching up to turn it. She could see this was a safe embedded in the wall. The circular object was the rotating password dial, but how to open this password dial was a problem.

She turned it several times, then pressed her ear tightly against the wall to carefully distinguish sounds—she couldn’t hear anything. She thought about forcing it open, but the safe’s gaps were extremely small—even a needle couldn’t be inserted. After trying many times, there was still no method. Just as she was at a loss, she heard footsteps approaching from outside the room again. She quickly ran to the bookshelf and continued pretending nonchalantly to look around.

This time in the toilet, Zhou Rong’s diarrhea was simply earth-shattering. From the time he could remember until now, decades later, he had occasional diarrhea, but such violent diarrhea was the first time ever. Even the dinner he had just eaten appeared clearly visible in the excrement. Just after pulling up his pants from one bout, the next wave attacked again. He spent over ten minutes in the toilet, his whole body weakened from diarrhea, his face pale. Only after there was no excess water left in his stomach did he stand up, but vaguely he still felt an urge in his stomach. He barely managed to rinse himself, changed into home clothes, had the maid bring some anti-diarrheal medicine to take, and didn’t dare drink much water—only taking a small sip. Thinking that tonight he had no fortune to enjoy Li Qian, this rare beauty, he would go to the study to explain to her, have security send her off, and reschedule for another day.

After returning to the study, he explained to her that he probably ate something bad today. Li Qian also expressed that this was quite understandable as human nature. While they were talking, Zhou Rong suddenly noticed the password dial of the safe. His expression immediately turned cold. His attitude toward Li Qian made a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn as he directly questioned: “Who are you?”

“I… I’m Li Qian.”

Zhou Rong walked to her front, grabbed her arm, and pushed her toward the safe: “Why did you turn this thing?”

“I didn’t turn it.” Li Qian explained in panic.

“Didn’t turn it? Both times I came in, I saw the dial’s scale had changed. The first time I thought you were curious and randomly touched it, but what about this time?”

“You… don’t come closer!” Li Qian knew Zhou Rong had seen through her and couldn’t explain. She could only retreat while her right hand quietly reached toward the back pocket of her jeans where a folding knife was hidden. This was her self-defense weapon prepared before coming to the date. If both the laxative and the self-defense weapon failed in the end, she could only reveal her police identity to have Zhou Rong let her leave.

Seeing her appearance confirmed Zhou Rong’s judgment. At this moment, he wasn’t anxious either. Calmly and composedly, he walked to the front of the safe and smiled: “Speak up. Who are you? Why did you target me? If you don’t tell the truth, you can’t leave here safely today. Outside the villa are all my bodyguards. You can’t get out.”

“I…” Li Qian was panicked and flustered, not knowing what to say.

Zhou Rong touched the password dial and smiled: “By this calculation, you’ve been turning the password dial for about twenty minutes, right? How about it, still can’t open it? Haha, of course you can’t open it. Even the best thief in the world couldn’t open my password dial. Because—” Zhou Rong gripped the password dial and pulled hard. The entire password dial was actually pulled out by him.

“Because this thing is just a decorative object for idiots like you to play with. It’s essentially a voice-activated safe. Without my voice password, no one can open it. Forced opening will automatically destroy everything inside.”

“So high-tech!” Suddenly a male voice came from the doorway.

“Of course it’s high-tech, several hundred thousand imported—Who!” Zhou Rong suddenly awoke, turned his head toward the doorway, and saw two masked men walking in. The leading man held a gun in his hand, pointed straight at him.

“Don’t call for people, or I can only shoot and we’ll die together.” Fang Chao behind the mask sneered coldly.

He threatened Zhou Rong with the gun. Liu Zhi closed the study door and walked toward Li Qian. Li Qian was just thinking about how to resist when Liu Zhi chopped her with one palm on the back of her neck. Her whole body went soft and she quickly fell to the ground pretending to faint. She was immediately tied up firmly with rope by Liu Zhi.

“You… who are you?” Seeing one person holding a gun and another person knocking out Li Qian with one palm, Zhou Rong could see these two weren’t ordinary small-time thieves.

“Don’t be nervous, Boss Zhou. We just want to borrow some money from you.” Fang Chao said blandly.

“Money, no problem.” Zhou Rong forcibly swallowed his saliva.

Liu Zhi walked to the safe’s side and studied it for a while. He had never seen such an advanced safe—he couldn’t even tell where the lock was. He couldn’t help but admire: “A voice-controlled password safe, truly high-tech! Let me try.” He cleared his throat and articulated clearly: “Open sesame!”

The safe naturally had no response.

“Idiot, such advanced equipment would use that password?” Fang Chao scolded once, then directly pressed the gun against Zhou Rong’s temple, threatening: “Say the password, now! Count to three then shoot. One—two—”

“Sesame open door!” Zhou Rong blurted out.

With a “bang” sound, a door popped out from the wall. The safe opened in response.

“Truly high-tech!” Liu Zhi gave Zhou Rong a thumbs up, immediately moved closer to look. The safe wasn’t large—inside were only various contracts and a small USB drive on top.

Liu Zhi searched around and reported back to Fang Chao: “There’s no money inside.”

“No money?” Fang Chao’s handgun continued pointing at Zhou Rong. He stuck his head out to look into the safe, surprised: “Such an advanced safe, and there’s no money inside?”

“Brother, I… I don’t keep money at home.” Zhou Rong stammered in explanation.

“Screw you!” Liu Zhi kicked Zhou Rong, knocking him over, followed by several more vicious kicks, then took out rope and tied him up completely.

Zhou Rong begged repeatedly for mercy. Fang Chao questioned: “I’ll ask you once more, where did you hide the money in your house?”

“I really don’t keep money at home.” Zhou Rong was telling the truth. Although he was wealthy, it was all in bank accounts. Who keeps money at home for no reason?

Fang Chao gritted his teeth and asked: “Are you telling the truth?”

“The truth, the truth,” Although Zhou Rong was a big boss, big bosses were also flesh and blood. Being threatened by desperados, all his presence vanished. He repeatedly responded, “I don’t keep money at home. There might be a few thousand yuan in the desk drawer. If you think it’s too little, I can transfer money directly from the bank.”

Liu Zhi said angrily: “Do you think we’re idiots, accepting transferred money?”

Liu Zhi thought about how they had staked out for many days, finally finding an opportunity to enter the large villa today, yet ended up with nothing. He became even more furious with rage, raised his foot and kicked him nearly to death. Zhou Rong screamed in pain. His stomach tensed nervously, and another wave of the urge came. Under the other’s kicking and beating, he directly let it out.

Fang Chao stared at his expression for a few seconds, seeing his buttocks were a mess of foul yellow. Although he had beaten many people in his life, this was the first time seeing someone beaten until they defecated. Someone beaten until they defecated was naturally telling the truth. Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but feel grief rising within: “You really conned us miserably. You said your house was full of money, but the result, the result!”

Liu Zhi was even more furious: “Just kill him. I’ve had enough!”

Zhou Rong had no time to worry about when he had deceived these two about his house being full of money. At this moment, his only thought was survival. Hearing the other wanted to kill him, he urgently thought of Zhu Yifei’s suitcase left at his home containing the one million US dollars he had prepared for Zhu Yifei. He hurriedly said: “There’s money, there’s money. I just remembered, there’s money in the suitcase over there.”

Liu Zhi stopped beating him. Following Zhou Rong’s direction, he pulled open an enormous travel suitcase from the corner. After opening it, it was full of clothing. After rummaging around, he only found three stored-value cards for a spa center with a face value of ten thousand each. Holding up the cards, he asked: “This is the money you mentioned!”

Zhou Rong quickly explained there was a button inside the case that was a switch. Press it down and there would be a hidden compartment with one million US dollars hidden inside.

After Liu Zhi opened it, he indeed found one million US dollars. Fang Chao inspected it once—confirmed without doubt. One million US dollars was worth over six million yuan—this was a substantial sum. The two used various intimidation and threats on Zhou Rong. During this period, Zhou Rong couldn’t hold it in again several times and had more bouts of diarrhea. He couldn’t produce any more money.

Seeing this, they knew Zhou Rong wasn’t lying and could only give up.

Still unsatisfied, Fang Chao came to the safe and searched around. Inside were all contracts—these things were useless to them. Only that USB drive sat alone on one side, quite strange.

Fang Chao took out the USB drive and asked him: “What’s stored in here?”

As soon as Zhou Rong saw the USB drive, he immediately panicked and said: “Just some work files, nothing much.”

Fang Chao stared into his eyes for a few seconds, knowing something was abnormal. He took the USB drive to the computer, booted up, inserted the USB drive, opened the USB drive and found several files. He clicked open one spreadsheet—inside was densely filled with names, numbers, times, and locations. After thinking for a few seconds, Fang Chao understood. He looked at Zhou Rong: “This is your bribery ledger for giving money to people, right?”

Li Qian, lying on the ground dizzy and lightheaded, heard these words and forcibly concentrated her spirit, quietly observing them.

Zhou Rong lowered his head not daring to make eye contact with Fang Chao, trembling as he said: “This… this thing is useless to you. Just take the money.”

“This suitcase of money, of course we’ll take it.” Fang Chao pulled out the USB drive. “But I’m also taking this USB drive. If Boss Zhou wakes up wanting to report to the police, this USB drive will go to the police.”

“What do you mean ‘wakes up’?” Zhou Rong didn’t understand.

Liu Zhi sneered coldly and chopped with one palm on the back of his neck.

“Ouch, ouch.” Zhou Rong cried out in pain but didn’t get knocked unconscious. Opening his mouth urgently, he said: “Write down my phone number. Tomorrow I’ll use money to redeem the USB drive.”

Fang Chao noted down his phone number and glanced at Liu Zhi. Liu Zhi came with another palm chop on the back of Zhou Rong’s neck. Zhou Rong cried out in pain again. Liu Zhi frowned slightly and quickly chopped again. After trying several times in succession, finally getting both the position and force right, he finally knocked Zhou Rong unconscious to the ground.

Fang Chao tucked the gun at his waist, feeling the suitcase’s hidden compartment design was quite good. He called Liu Zhi to take the entire suitcase and leave.

This entire process was heard by Li Qian lying to the side pretending to be unconscious.