At this hour, Shaxian was crowded. This sudden thunderclap not only startled Qiao Maimei’s group but also caused the remaining customers to turn their heads in astonishment, staring at the two of them. Amid curious glances, the waiter calmly served a steaming basket of dumplings to this “player.”

Li Jinyu leaned back in his chair with composure, as if truly burdened with romantic debts, displaying the demeanor of a seasoned player in the field of love. His long arm reached for the soy sauce and vinegar from the adjacent table, and even then, he didn’t forget to ask her: “Want some chili?”

Ye Meng suddenly realized they could never truly argue in the future. Li Jinyu could handle her with more than enough skill—it all depended on his mood. Thinking this, she became even more immersed in her role, nearly taking out a small handkerchief as she sobbed—

“You did touch her, you did! You even took photos, wuwuwu… you scumbag! I’ve been at home taking care of your grandmother and sister with all my heart, and you’re out here playing with women.”

These words left Li Jinyu with a hundred defamations and a thousand accusing eyes. The onlookers’ gazes immediately shifted, yet among the curious stares, there was even a hint of indescribable envy.

Li Jinyu listened with a face full of exasperation. Did she need to be so genuine about smearing him? He had been leisurely picking up a dumpling to put in his mouth, but hearing this, he immediately set it down and half-jokingly threatened: “Looking for a lesson, aren’t you?”

Ye Meng, like a pine or bamboo in a forest, persevered determinedly to continue the act: “I want to break up with you. First, return the fifty thousand your sister owes me. Isn’t your sister right over there? I’ll go talk to her.”

Qiao Maimei kept her head down, oblivious to what was happening around her. She didn’t seem right. The two men had finished paying and were about to leave when Ye Meng, quick and agile, grabbed Qiao Maimei who was lagging, and smiled at them: “Excuse me, gentlemen, please wait a moment.”

Qiao Maimei, caught off guard by Ye Meng grabbing her wrist, finally showed awareness. She numbly raised her head to look at her. In those eyes as dry as the Dead Sea, a flash of panic suddenly appeared, her first reaction being to escape.

Ye Meng gently tapped her wrist, signaling her not to panic.

Qiao Maimei froze.

Her entire body was cold, like a colorless skeleton. Ye Meng’s heart skipped a beat as if she had grasped a lifeless twig. Fearing the two men would notice something amiss, Ye Meng looked directly at her and said: “Qiao Maimei, I’ve broken up with your brother, so please return the fifty thousand you owe me.”

All afternoon, Qiao Maimei had been coerced by these two self-proclaimed “photographers” recruiting body models into taking indecent photos. They caressed her body looking for inspiration, threatening to release the negatives if she didn’t comply with their demand to shoot a series of sexually sadistic-themed photos. They dripped wax on her, applied oil… She was terrified, screaming, wanting to escape, but ultimately unsuccessful.

Qiao Maimei wasn’t a conservative girl. She had many boyfriends and was relatively open-minded about such matters. So when her friend approached her, she readily agreed—being a body model was a way to make money. Who knew she would encounter two perverts? Those two sinful cameras were filled with her photos.

Qiao Maimei’s body was actually numb, but she could still feel Ye Meng tapping her hand three times—one long, two short.

This was a secret code between her and her brother. When they played escape room games together, one of the decoded passwords was abbreviated as “BHP.”

Don’t be afraid, brother is here.

Qiao Maimei controlled her trembling body and said softly: “I don’t have the money.”

Ye Meng remained calm, smiled, and said: “No money means you can’t leave. I don’t want to stay with your brother for another moment. Now, we must, immediately, clarify things. When exactly will you repay the money you owe me?”

Qiao Maimei looked around blankly but didn’t see Li Jinyu. Feeling uncertain and afraid of involving Ye Meng, she could only stammer: “I… I have… something to do later.”

Ye Meng turned her gaze to the two men beside them, trying to make her smile as harmless as possible, and said to Qiao Maimei: “Then I’m sorry, I’ll have to call the police. For the money you and your brother owe me, I have no choice but to let the police handle it. Don’t say I’m not considerate of our past relationship—it’s your brother who’s too much of a scumbag.”

“No need to call the police,” one of the men carrying a tripod suddenly spoke up. “My brother and I will go smoke in the alley behind. You quickly sort out the money matter.”

After speaking, the two walked toward the back alley. The slightly shorter man, extremely vigilant, occasionally glanced back at Ye Meng, harboring doubts: “Will there be trouble, bro?”

The tripod man said: “If there’s trouble, can’t you run? It shouldn’t be a problem. Qiao Maimei needs money so badly, that she wouldn’t voluntarily tell that woman what we do, cutting off her source of income unless she doesn’t want to survive in this town anymore. Relax, those who do this work aren’t chaste virgins. Keep an eye out—if anything seems off, we’ll run first. Then we’ll deal with that bitch Qiao Maimei later.” As he spoke, a flash of cruelty passed through his eyes.

“Filthy bitch,” the shorter man cursed in agreement.

The two stood at the alley entrance, cursing as they lit their cigarettes. The strong tobacco smell entered their lungs, invigorating them. Their gazes grew increasingly lewd, inexplicably gleaming with a green light like two frogs lurking in the dark grass waiting to pounce. The shorter man rudely propped one foot against the wall and exhaled roughly: “Hehehe, wonder if that woman is available? Her figure is much more exciting than Qiao Maimei’s—voluptuous, with those legs. I noticed the moment she walked in. Next time, maybe we could have someone knock her out and bring her over.”

Ye Meng sat with Qiao Maimei at a table by the entrance, seriously calculating on her phone’s calculator how long it would take to repay fifty thousand if done in installments, and how much each installment would be.

Seeing her seriousness, Qiao Maimei couldn’t help but feel as if she did owe her fifty thousand. She looked around, “Where’s my brother?”

Ye Meng, without looking up, continued pressing random buttons on her phone: “Don’t know, maybe he’s gone home to sleep.”

“Why are we sitting here then?”

“Waiting.”

“For what?”

Ye Meng checked the time, “For seven forty-five when the old ladies finish their square dancing.”

This alley was an L-shaped enclosed passage. Several zhang long, the L’s tail corner used to be the back door of a wealthy family’s courtyard. But later the family moved to Guangdong, leaving the yard vacant. Unfortunately, someone died there a few years ago. The original owner, feeling it was unlucky, had the back door sealed. This area was essentially a dead-end alley about a zhang wide. There were no surveillance cameras inside.

But across the entire alley was a residential building with surveillance that captured the I part of the L. No one could come out from inside, and anyone going in would be visible on the monitors.

Li Jinyu leaned somewhat boredly against the wall at the corner of the alley’s end. One hand in his pocket, the other holding a baseball he’d found somewhere, he repeatedly threw it to the ground, catching it calmly as it bounced back. After several rounds, in the quiet alley, only the rhythmic sound of the ball hitting the ground could be heard, but no one could be seen.

The sound made the two men uneasy.

“Bro, did you hear that?”

“Someone’s playing ball back there, what are you panicking about? Guilty conscience?”

“You’re not guilty? Although we haven’t done anything substantially bad, if that bitch calls the police, all those photos would cause us a lot of trouble.”

“If you’re scared, don’t do it!” the man cursed. “Weren’t you being brave earlier, wanting to drug that woman?”

Another round of lewd laughter.

The tripod man added, “Relax, we’re just taking a few photos, it’s fine.”

At seven-forty-five, Li Jinyu continued calmly bouncing the ball, finally checking the time. Suddenly, the outside of the alley became noisy—probably the old ladies finishing their square dancing as usual.

In another minute, when foot traffic would be at its peak, the old ladies would densely pass the alley entrance, directly blocking the surveillance camera monitoring the alley. But he still needed to be mindful of the camera’s angle.

“I understand the density of old ladies since they all like to walk together, but can their height hide my brother?” Qiao Maimei asked.

Ye Meng’s instinct said no, but Li Jinyu said it could, so it probably could. He might have calculated the angle. Li Jinyu’s observational skills still shocked Ye Meng—not everyone could precisely remember the old ladies’ routines and the surveillance camera’s angle. How bored must he be normally to pay attention to such details?

“Qiao Maimei, do you want to report this to the police?” Ye Meng looked at her and asked.

Qiao Maimei was stunned, seemingly not expecting Ye Meng to have anticipated this. With bitterness in her heart, she asked, “You both guessed it?”

Ye Meng crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair, and said: “Anyone with eyes here should guess what those two men are up to. It’s just that they don’t want to bring trouble upon themselves. He’s your brother; he had no choice.”

Qiao Maimei’s heart tightened, finally understanding what this earth-shaking commotion was about. Why do they go to such lengths—pretending to argue, using old ladies to block surveillance? If they weren’t concerned about her reputation, they could simply call the police and wait for them to handle it. But this way, she probably wouldn’t be able to show her face in town anymore, would she?

Qiao Maimei’s lips were dry and cracked as if glued together. After a long while, she moved her lips and said: “Did my brother lure them in there to delete the negatives?”

“What else? Beat them up? Could your brother’s physique handle that?” Ye Meng checked the time, her knuckles tapping the table. “But we need special measures, can only block the surveillance. I’ll bring the car over. Your brother should be out soon.”

“Bro, are you serious? You have connections?”

The two men stared at each other in disbelief, cigarettes hanging from their mouths. The tripod man casually offered Li Jinyu a cigarette, which he didn’t accept. He continued leaning against the wall with one hand in his pocket, carelessly tossing the baseball, smiled, and said: “Yes, have you heard of the dark web?”

The tripod man said: “Heard of it, but not sure if buyers on the dark web are reliable.”

“Let me put it this way—the buyers you usually deal with through WeChat and QQ are all real-name registered. Any method carries the risk of getting caught, except the dark web, because all information there is virtual. The police can only trace it to servers abroad.”

One could say there existed an unpredictable number of buyers on the dark web. If they could establish a channel for their photos there, these brothers would strike it rich. But because the dark web’s scrutiny was strict, preventing police undercover agents from infiltrating undetected, ordinary people found it difficult to open sales channels there. They had been looking for such connections.

But still cautiously asked, “Why should we trust you?”

Li Jinyu lowered his head, opened his phone, and anonymously entered an IP address in the browser. The page suddenly jumped to a blue-green website, all in English letters. He quickly entered a string of passwords, logged into an account, and showed them a screenshot of an order: “Brothers, do you believe me now? I bought this film just last night.”

The two men were surprised—they hadn’t expected this guy to watch such stimulating content.

The shorter man said: “With such a beautiful girlfriend, you still watch that stuff?”

He snorted, put away his phone, tucked it into his pocket, leaned against the wall, and lazily tossed the baseball, saying, “If she wasn’t my sister, I wouldn’t bother with this. But she begged me for help. What can I do? As a brother, I should do my part, right?”

The two men still didn’t understand when Qiao Maimei asked for help. Were they too obviously lecherous?

But thinking deeply, this transaction was inherently biased. Qiao Maimei was just one of their many small models. Li Jinyu only wanted to delete her negatives, which wasn’t a big loss for them. And if they could gain access to the dark web channels in exchange, it would bring them a spider web of potential dark web clients. Even if this guy was deceiving them, all they would lose was one small model like Qiao Maimei. This deal seemed profitable any way they looked at it.

The tripod man remained cautious and said: “How about this—you help us establish the connection first, and we’ll delete your sister’s negatives.”

Li Jinyu chuckled with his head down, looking completely casual. “You’re in no position to negotiate with me. Qiao Maimei is just my cousin, not my wife or biological sister. I’m not that close to her. Whether you delete them or not, whether this business happens or not, whether you want to make money—I’m indifferent.”

Wow, what a heartless person. What do bad people fear most? Someone who doesn’t care about anyone. At this moment, the initiative was clearly in Li Jinyu’s hands.

“If you don’t want to do it, I’m leaving.” Li Jinyu tossed the ball and prepared to leave.

“Wait,” the tripod man pondered for a moment, gritted his teeth, and decisively said: “We’ll delete them now. Help us establish the dark web connection.”

The shorter man seemed hesitant and called out uncertainly: “Bro! How do you know this guy is reliable?!”

Ignoring him, the tripod man removed the SD card from his camera, determined to take a gamble. “He’s not asking for all the photos, just Qiao Maimei’s. Even without them, we have other merchandise. Give him yours from your camera too!”

Li Jinyu took the two SD cards and asked: “How do I know you don’t have backups? What about cloud storage?”

“We haven’t had time to upload them. All photos are here. These camera cards are newly replaced and have only photographed your cousin,” he said, opening his cloud storage and phone. “All deleted, nothing left.”

“Good, wait for my message.” Li Jinyu turned and left.

The shorter man still felt disgruntled and said behind his back: “This guy doesn’t care about anyone, bro. Let’s not be fooled!”

The alley was secluded and clean, without miscellaneous junk in the corners. The path was lined with neat stone brick walls. A winter plum bloomed in the corner, bright yellow, standing alone in the world. A pale yellow petal had fallen to the ground, as clean as a newborn girl.

Ye Meng had already driven the car to the alley entrance. As Li Jinyu reached the corner, the headlights unexpectedly shone in, illuminating the entire dark, quiet depth of the alley, almost blindingly. The two men saw Li Jinyu slowly stop, as if remembering something, suddenly turning back toward them.

Behind him was a beam of light, the headlights bright, dust dancing freely in the air, making him much more clearly visible. They realized this man had handsome features, cold pale skin, appearing worldly, yet with focused, cold eyes.

The shorter man hadn’t reacted before being unexpectedly grabbed by the collar and pushed against the wall by Li Jinyu, who casually dusted off his shoulder, smiled, and said: “I may not care about family, but I care about my girlfriend. Next time you stare at my girlfriend’s legs, believe it or not, I can gouge out your eyeballs without anyone knowing.”