The day after Christmas, the scene Ge Fan had mentioned to Xiao Jiu at KFC—the battle between Wendu Water Resort and Le Sheng Huang—actually took place.

Yu Jiuqi was working at the bank that day, not sitting at the counter, and could occasionally glance at her phone. Around noon, she saw someone mysteriously saying in the Wendu Water Resort work group chat that Zhu Duomei had set a fire at Le Sheng Huang. Xiao Jiu was on the phone with a customer at the time explaining various procedures and policies, and didn’t have time to ask, assuming it was just the scandal between Zhu Duomei and Wang Heyuan making waves.

At lunch, the group chat exploded, with people relaying updates like a chain of firecrackers. One moment saying Meng Huihong had gone up, the next saying it seemed Second Brother Kai had also gone. Someone heard people crying and shouting upstairs, while others heard the sound of police cars coming this way.

By afternoon, Xiao Jiu suddenly felt panicked. She opened the group chat to look again and suddenly saw the young greeter at the Wendu Water Resort entrance post: [Huh? Why is that guy surnamed Sun also here?]

A restaurant service worker below asked: [Which guy surnamed Sun?]

The greeter posted a photo of someone’s back in the group.

Without even needing to enlarge the image, just from that lazy posture of lifting his leg to walk toward the side entrance steps of Le Sheng Huang, and that black standing-collar thin down jacket, Xiao Jiu recognized him.

How could he be there, why was he getting involved in this mess everywhere?

A service worker in the group didn’t recognize him: [Who is this person?]

The young greeter had wide connections upstairs and downstairs, clearly knew about this person Sun Xi, and replied with a sentence that immediately made Xiao Jiu explode: [Never mind, anyway the rumor is he’s now the new boss of Le Sheng Huang.]

Yu Jiuqi couldn’t sit still. She gathered her things, grabbed her coat, rushed to the team leader’s desk and said there was another emergency at home and she needed half a day off.

Team Leader Sister Qin looked helpless, roaring and asking, “Can your family give people some peace of mind? What’s happened now? Did your mom drive into someone again? Or is your stepmother fighting at the card room again?”

Xiao Jiu hemmed and hawed for a while, extracting from the series of explosive information in the group chat something relatively speakable, saying it was nothing serious, just that her older sister was going to burn down someone’s shop.

After leaving the bank, Yu Jiuqi hurriedly hailed a cab. Unable to wait to get to the scene, as soon as she got in the car she called Ge Fan to ask what happened, telling him to focus on the important points.

Ge Fan was washing his hands, seeming to be enduring pain amidst the rushing water, saying in a muffled voice that today’s battle was satisfying—everyone upstairs and downstairs had gathered, almost alarming the police. To explain from the beginning, he’d have to start with Zhu Duomei.

After Ge Fan received that threatening call from Zhu Duomei this morning about blowing up Wang Heyuan, he went to find her without a moment’s delay. He certainly didn’t believe Zhu Duomei really had explosives, but he also clearly knew that his half-sister from the same mother—famous for her boldness, strange temper, and daring to think and dare to act—if she really wanted to blow someone up, wouldn’t need weapons at all.

But he never expected that what Zhu Duomei called the too-heavy-to-carry explosives was actually a pile of fur coats of different materials, colors, and styles.

When Ge Fan walked into the apartment Zhu Duomei rented, he saw such a bizarre scene. Several layers of furry fur coats were spread on the orange leather sofa—black, white, and gray mink, zebra-striped weasel fur, animal-natural-colored raccoon fur coats, shiny black fox fur capes, and dyed pink and green colored mink velvet, all fully displayed like an exhibition on the sofa.

And Zhu Duomei, dressed entirely in black fitted innerwear, legs crossed, black hair tied high in a ponytail, hands spread on both sides—one hand stroking fox fur, the other holding a cup of her self-created iced Americano—like a female bandit surrounded by spoils of war, shook her cup at Ge Fan and said:

“Roll up these furs and help me return them to Wang Heyuan.”

Ge Fan guessed they were all probably sent by Old Wang. He touched them—the material wasn’t bad: “Had a fight? Couples fighting, no need to return everything.”

“Who’s in a relationship with him?” Zhu Duomei’s standard oval face dropped. “Are you all thinking I’m in a relationship with him?”

Ge Fan didn’t dare speak: “Aren’t you?”

Zhu Duomei didn’t waste words, stood up with two fur coats in one hand: “Let’s go, you carry the rest, let’s go to Le Sheng Huang to find him.”

Ge Fan pulled his sister and a car full of furs back to Le Sheng Huang. Each person carried an armful down, not daring to take the front elevator, quietly climbing up from the side entrance, attracting quite a bit of attention along the way.

Ge Fan knew that as a rising comedic internet influencer, he could be considered thick-skinned, but to awkwardly wear a full set of animal furs in front of numerous colleagues and subordinates was somewhat embarrassing. His sister didn’t care at all, walking ahead with her head held high, expertly leading the way to the fifth-floor VIP private room. She pushed the door open, saw something unknown, threw the furs in her hands on the ground, turned back and waved to beckon Ge Fan.

Ge Fan went over to look and saw Wang Heyuan sprawled on the sofa, not yet awake. On another sofa far away slept a young girl. They were both fully dressed, the lights were on, and looking at the mess on the table, it didn’t seem like a private gathering of just two people. Zhu Duomei didn’t care, casually picked up an empty wine glass, threw it at Wang Heyuan, and said wake up.

Old Wang and the girl woke up at the same time, both stunned seeing Zhu Duomei and the furs all over the floor. Old Wang hurriedly explained he hadn’t done anything, swearing to heaven, swearing on his ancestors—in his excitement, if Ge Fan hadn’t stopped him, he would have knelt. The young girl was about to cry, saying originally several friends were together, these bastards left without calling her. Sister-in-law, Brother Wang and I really had nothing going on!

Zhu Duomei couldn’t listen anymore, rolled her eyes, calmly said: “Stop, I’m not your sister-in-law, I’m nobody’s sister-in-law, I have absolutely no relationship with Wang Heyuan.”

Wang Heyuan smiled obsequiously: “Look at you, always saying such things.”

Zhu Duomei was thoroughly disgusted, standing there tall, looking down at him: “I came to confirm with you—we’ve just met up a few times, and that was all you pestering and begging me. You’ve never even entered my home. I’ve clearly said I don’t like you. We are not in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. If you go out spreading nonsense again, I’ll tear your mouth apart.”

Then she suddenly thought of something, turned to look at the Tuscany small curly fur coat on that girl, and said: “Little sister, let me remind you—all these furs, he bought them wholesale from the tail-end goods at the Changchun Fur Festival. Nothing special. He buys a whole carload at once and gives them to every woman he meets. In the future, if you like something, buy it yourself. Don’t take this seriously.”

The girl kept her head down and didn’t speak anymore.

Old Wang still wanted to try: “What do you mean by this, Duomei?”

“I’m returning these furs to you. I haven’t worn a single one.”

“But these are all my sincerity, Duomei!”

“Not interested in taking them.”

“Then burn them all in one fire!” Old Wang waved his hand excitedly. “Just burn them, anyway I can’t take them back!”

Zhu Duomei looked at him seriously, said okay, turned and picked and chose from the latticed wine cabinet behind, selected a bottle of vodka with the highest alcohol content, knocked it on the table corner to smash it, poured the liquor on that pile of furs, casually grabbed a pack of matches, struck one, threw it on—no reaction. She struck another one, threw it on—the flame quickly went out.

She muttered disdainfully that even this cheap liquor was fake, and simply pulled out several paper napkins and piled them on the furs. Ge Fan and Wang Heyuan at this point both saw she was serious and hurriedly went up to stop her, but it was too late. Zhu Duomei lit the napkins and stuffed a burning ball of napkins into the center of the furs.

Although the fire wasn’t large and was quickly extinguished without triggering the fire alarm, the customers in the shop and timid employees, upon hearing someone had set a fire, fled downstairs like refugees with thumping footsteps.

The commotion upstairs naturally alarmed Wendu Water Resort below, and thus this great battle opened its curtain.

Meng Huihong was having a meeting at the first-floor bathing department at that time. Several massage therapists wanted to rearrange shifts, and she was asking for opinions one by one. At this time, gossip from upstairs came down through various channels. Everyone knew Zhu Duomei, so naturally they couldn’t hide it from her. Meng Huihong’s face darkened. Without even changing clothes, wearing only her cool sauna outfit, she headed straight upstairs.

Meng Huihong had heard about the matter between Zhu Duomei and Wang Heyuan, but because she’d interfered in Zhu Duomei’s romantic life in the past and it had turned out very unpleasant, she knew that her stepping forward would be counterproductive. She’d indirectly hinted for Ge Fan to remind his sister that Old Wang wasn’t reliable, but in turn, Ge Fan had also been blocked.

Zhu Duomei had been a stubborn and tough type since childhood. After her grandmother died, she became even more used to being alone, with a violent temperament and bad temper, finding everything unpleasant, fighting with everyone. Meng Huihong often felt that when she was in a bad mood, even passing dogs could get into a fight with her.

But Meng Huihong also understood this was all because of that terrible childhood experience. At such a young age, her parents divorced. Her mother quickly remarried and drifted to another city. Her father went to Japan to work and couldn’t be contacted. She had to take care of her deaf-mute grandmother while fighting wits and courage with the uncle and aunt who bullied her. Meng Huihong later learned that during those years when she traveled north and south performing opera and sent money to her eldest daughter, it had all been hidden away by the older brother and sister-in-law of her first in-laws’ family. In the most difficult times, in order to buy a new pair of cotton pants for her grandmother, Zhu Duomei had stolen things.

That time she was targeted by a theft gang who threatened her to continue stealing with them—if she didn’t obey, she’d be beaten; if she obeyed, she’d get money. The following spring, when Meng Huihong was performing opera on a temporarily built stage in the Liaoning countryside, she suddenly received a call from the police saying your nine-year-old daughter was caught stealing by us. Her legs went weak immediately.

Without even removing her stage makeup, Meng Huihong transferred through several long-distance buses to get home as quickly as possible. At the police station, seeing Zhu Duomei, somehow, she slapped the child across the face first. Zhu Duomei stared at her fiercely, recognized through the already smeared stage makeup the mother she hadn’t seen in years, didn’t cry, and came up to bite Meng Huihong’s wrist like a little beast.

Although she’d never told anyone, every time Meng Huihong recalled that scene she felt guilty. She should have hugged her first, told her not to be afraid, that mom had come back, that mom would stand up for her. She shouldn’t have hit her.

After she brought Ge Fan to settle in Stone City, in her interactions with Zhu Duomei, she warned herself countless times to be patient, to understand the impact of that childhood experience on the child, to overcome her controlling desire as a mother, to be softer, gentler. But sadly, after all these years she still couldn’t change the roughness in her character.

Even today, when Meng Huihong heard her daughter was tearing into a greasy, gambling-addicted old man, she ran over almost stumbling in nervousness. Panting and seeing the embarrassing scene before her, hearing others repeat what had happened, turning to look at her daughter’s face full of disdain toward her, despite reminding herself repeatedly to defend her, the words that came out changed flavor.

Meng Huihong glanced at Zhu Duomei and asked: “If you didn’t want to date someone, why accept all these clothes from him?”

One sentence ignited Zhu Duomei: “You’re saying this is my fault?”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong.” Meng Huihong tried hard to suppress her anger. “I’m saying you shouldn’t have accepted them in the first place. It’s not like you can’t afford them.”

“So it’s still my fault.” Zhu Duomei snorted. “I’m greedy, vain, old habits never change—I just love taking other people’s things, right?”

Meng Huihong flared up: “Why are you saying all this!”

Zhu Duomei suddenly felt her nose tingle, forcefully glared to the side, suppressed it, then turned and said: “Fine, today I’ll make it clear—these were all forced on me by him, not things I asked for.”

She pointed at Old Wang, getting somewhat agitated: “He even specifically stuffed them to me in front of my students’ parents, making them misunderstand we’re a couple. Then turning around, using the name of being my boyfriend to borrow money from my students’ parents, asking them for favors, and even having them come to the KTV to top up cards! Making everyone think I’m collecting gifts in disguise—I can’t even hold my head up at work.”

Meng Huihong looked angrily at Old Wang. Before she could speak, Ge Fan suddenly rushed forward: “Is what my sister said true?”

Old Wang’s small eyes darted around. He smiled at Meng Huihong behind him, trying to change the subject: “Sister-in-law, you’re a reasonable person. You tell me, Zhu Duomei accepted my furs…”

Ge Fan reached out and pushed Old Wang, interrupting: “I’m asking you—did you borrow money using my sister’s name?”

Old Wang had never seen Ge Fan truly angry and didn’t take it seriously, even smiled. With this smile, Ge Fan couldn’t hold back anymore and fiercely swung at him, feeling it wasn’t enough, swung again.

Wang Heyuan was small in stature and had just woken from a hangover. Being pressed on the sofa by Ge Fan and beaten, he still wasn’t willing to take the loss. Cursing, he shouted outside for people. He also had quite a few younger brothers at Le Sheng Huang who came at the sound and were about to move up, when Meng Huihong suddenly blocked the middle, holding an unopened bottle of beer.

“I’ll see who dares touch me—just try touching me.” Then she turned to Ge Fan behind her and said, “Son, you beat him for me. Beat him hard. If you hurt him, Mom will take responsibility!”

With Meng Huihong saying this, Ge Fan grabbed Wang Heyuan by the collar and flung him, throwing him against the latticed wine cabinet behind. Various foreign liquors fell down and shattered. Old Wang fell to the ground, looking around distressedly, cursed, casually grabbed a broken bottle and stabbed it toward Ge Fan.

Seeing Old Wang make such a vicious move on her younger brother, Zhu Duomei, teeth clenched, went over and kicked Wang Heyuan’s hand with her thick-heeled long boots, kicking the weapon away.

Seeing this scene, several young men familiar with Ge Fan immediately took sides, standing next to Meng Huihong, but clearly outnumbered by the other side. Meng Huihong gave Xiao Zhuang a look. Xiao Zhuang understood, quietly slipped downstairs to go call people from Wendu Water Resort.

Before Xiao Zhuang went downstairs, Yu Kaixuan came up with two people. He didn’t bring many people, even stopping several employees who wanted to follow, saying don’t make things bigger. That’s what he said, but Second Brother Kai had his own calculation—the two people he brought weren’t easy to deal with. If their own people didn’t suffer losses later, that was good; if they did suffer losses, the three of them could still handle that bunch of skinny monkeys from the KTV.

Yu Kaixuan walked into the private room with a stern face. At a glance, he saw his second wife Meng Huihong like a female war goddess leading several of Ge Fan’s colleagues blocking the center. In front was a group of young people also wearing KTV uniforms. Behind, the Ge Fan and Zhu Duomei siblings were pressing Wang Heyuan on the ground beating him—it looked rather pitiful.

Second Brother Kai was no longer the young man who needed to fight for face in his youth. Seeing his family clearly had the advantage, and also afraid of beating someone badly and attracting police which would be more troublesome, he went over and yelled at the siblings, saying that’s enough, stop fighting, even friendly pulling Wang Heyuan up.

After the scene stabilized, Yu Kaixuan made a statement in front of everyone, saying words that sounded impartial. The general meaning was that today’s matter should be considered even—everyone doing business in the same building, harmoniously, mutually not holding grudges. Wang Heyuan wasn’t stupid—naturally he didn’t agree. Crying and whining, he said the one who got beaten was me, and so many of my good liquors were smashed—this can’t just be settled like this.

Ge Fan’s hand was cut and bleeding quite a bit. It had also gotten alcohol on it earlier and hurt badly. Seeing Yu Kaixuan controlling the scene, he was too lazy to listen to Old Wang’s whining and went to the bathroom to wash his hands.

During this time, he received Yu Jiuqi’s call.

While recounting to Xiao Jiu the whole process of this battle, he went to the office again, rummaged through the medicine box for some gauze to wrap his hand, and finally told Xiao Jiu there was nothing to worry about now—Dad was here.

But Yu Jiuqi on the phone suddenly asked: “Did Sun Xi also go?”

Ge Fan frowned, didn’t make a sound. Now whenever he heard Xiao Jiu mention those two characters, he got annoyed.

Yu Jiuqi explained again: “I saw someone in the group saying he went.”

“I’ll go check.”

Ge Fan hung up the phone and walked back, guessing that if Sun Xi really came, Old Wang must have called him.

The fact was indeed so. Wang Heyuan knew he couldn’t win against Wendu Water Resort today but was unwilling to give up. He wanted to find someone more ruthless to deal with this gang of rogue bandits. After thinking for a long time, in terms of being mixed up enough and ruthless enough, recently he only respected one person.

So he spread both hands and said Le Sheng Huang he’d already transferred out, sold as a package. All these famous liquors you smashed now belong to someone else, nothing to do with me. Wait till I call the new boss over—you can argue with him properly and see if he’ll make you compensate!

Then he made a phone call, saying wait a bit, the person would arrive soon.

At this time, Yu Jiuqi had just arrived downstairs at Le Sheng Huang, jogging up from the main entrance elevator while dialing Sun Xi’s phone.

The call did connect, but the elevator signal was poor. Xiao Jiu softly called his name, unable to hear any response.

After the elevator stopped on the fifth floor, the signal finally improved. She walked quickly toward the private room where the incident happened, about to open her mouth to stop the person on the phone from appearing, when she suddenly looked up and froze in place.

She saw that person standing at the other end of the corridor, only a few meters away from her, phone by his ear, gaze lifting and pressing on her face.

In the KTV corridor, the ring-shaped wall lamps separated a blue-purple light between the two of them, like a kind of warning.

They looked at each other in the alternating brightness and darkness, breathing sounds amplified by the clear phone signal—this end rapid, that end calm.

Xiao Jiu looked at him. In a very short time, although knowing it was too late and might not be useful anyway, she still earnestly and extremely softly said into the phone: “Don’t go.”

But Sun Xi only looked at her heavily once, his eyes flashing, seeming apologetic yet also like a declaration of war. Then he put away his phone, avoided eye contact, and continued walking forward.

Xiao Jiu suddenly shivered, knowing this chaos was unavoidable, that the war was just beginning.

Also knowing that the insignificant trust and understanding they’d just picked up between them, from this moment on, disappeared and reset to zero.

When Sun Xi and Yu Jiuqi coincidentally, by chance, walked to the private room entrance from different directions at almost the same time, everyone present looked over. It became instantly extremely quiet, gazes colliding chaotically with each other, colliding out countless complex emotions.

This was Meng Huihong’s first time seeing Sun Xi. She was a bit surprised, thinking this KTV’s new boss was quite young, but his temperament was extremely steady.

Also staring at Sun Xi was Zhu Duomei. She carefully looked at that dangerous yet quite tempting face, always feeling it looked familiar.

Ge Fan was simpler—he glared at Sun Xi knowingly, then looked toward Xiao Jiu, his eyes turning back and forth between the two of them several times.

And Second Brother Kai just looked at him indifferently, said nothing, lips lightly pressed, eyes dark and gloomy throughout.

Oh! Zhu Duomei finally remembered—she’d seen this new boss before!

Some time ago, Wang Heyuan asked her to go to a teahouse where he was also there, seemingly asking Old Wang for a favor. Zhu Duomei had a deep impression—at that time, this man said he borrowed money from women, and she’d scolded him soundly.

Zhu Duomei met his gaze again, saw him frown slightly—it seemed he also recognized her.

But suddenly, she didn’t know if it was her illusion, this scumbag who borrowed money from women briefly showed a flash of fear, imperceptibly glancing to the side.

Zhu Duomei followed his peripheral vision and looked over, seeing Xiao Jiu on the other side.