This week had been hell for Yuan Han.

The descent into hell began when Zhou Yi suddenly returned from America to catch him in the act of adultery.

After calming down, Yuan Han felt something was amiss about the situation. Zhou Yi was in America while he was in Pengcheng. Usually, they had to carefully coordinate their time zones just to make an international call. His affair with He Shiyuan had been kept extremely secretive, and they had never been caught before.

How did Zhou Yi manage to catch them in bed at the hotel right after returning to China?

Who could arrange all of this?

Yuan Han began to suspect the Zhou family’s involvement.

Was this a deliberate scheme to separate him from Zhou Yi?

But He Shiyuan was the daughter of a Hong Kong merchant – why would she cooperate with the Zhou family? To trap him, she had even offered herself, sleeping with him all this time for nothing. This didn’t make sense either.

Who could have recruited He Shiyuan… Zhou Wengang seemed unlikely.

Perhaps Zhou Cheng? Or Xia Xiaolan?

Yuan Han tried to share his suspicions with Zhou Yi. While tearfully confessing his mistakes, he still attempted to draw Zhou Yi into his camp.

Most women, when faced with their husband’s infidelity, would first unite against external threats before dealing with internal conflicts, right?

But was Zhou Yi like most women?

Young Miss Zhou had never been ordinary!

She had once stubbornly turned everything upside down just to marry Yuan Han, entrapped by the fantasy of true love that he had fabricated.

Now, having witnessed Yuan Han naked in bed with another woman, regardless of his flowery words, Zhou Yi was singlemindedly pursuing divorce—she wouldn’t listen to anything else, just as determined as she had been about marrying him. Once she made up her mind, no one could stop her.

Of course, she couldn’t be so absolute in her words yet.

The divorce would only be brought up after Yuan Han gathered the 150,000 Hong Kong dollars.

No matter what Yuan Han said, Zhou Yi had only one response: gather the money, silence He Shiyuan, and retrieve the recorded evidence!

Seeing that Zhou Yi hadn’t told her family about the incident, Yuan Han felt there was still hope.

If the matter became public, there would be no way forward. But while it remained private, there was room for reconciliation.

Yuan Han believed he could still appease Zhou Yi. Despite suspecting He Shiyuan’s connection to the Zhou family, he desperately urged his family to gather money… hopefully, there was no connection to the Zhou family, as that would mean they knew everything and would push for divorce!

Yuan Han was the only son of the Yuan family, their precious golden child, who had married the daughter of a high-ranking official.

Everything Yuan Han had fought for, the Yuan family had to fight desperately to preserve.

If He Shiyuan continued making trouble, Yuan Han wouldn’t just face divorce but imprisonment… he carried the hopes of his mother and two sisters!

Yuan’s mother fell ill from anxiety and anger.

His eldest sister could only curse.

His second sister, though angry, still struggled to help Yuan Han gather money.

She had married an older man and, with her persuasive tongue, had managed to extract some family wealth from her in-laws. Of course, she couldn’t tell them about Yuan Han’s affair being exposed. Instead, she deceived them, saying Yuan Han had a promotion opportunity that required money to facilitate—the money would be returned in a year or two.

The second sister wasn’t entirely lying, as Yuan Han had given her confidence that Zhou Yi could still be pacified.

After a year or two, when the impact of this incident faded and Zhou Yi’s anger subsided, wouldn’t the heavy losses Yuan Han suffered ultimately fall on Zhou Yi?

“Mom, Elder Sister, you can rest assured about this. Zhou Yi is the kind of woman who would elope with Little Han. Her scandals were covered up by sharing Little Han’s bed. Besides Little Han, what good man would want her? Moreover, there’s the child to consider. In families like the Zhous, who would get divorced and become a laughingstock… Zhou Yi is an only daughter, the Zhou family’s money will all be hers, her money is Little Han’s money, which is our Yuan family’s money!”

It would all come back eventually, so they just needed to endure for now.

This was how the second sister persuaded them.

Their mother groaned in her sickbed, while the eldest sister worried, “I’ve only managed to gather 5,000 yuan. Second Sister, how much can you contribute?”

The second sister’s husband was older but well-off. She had emptied her in-laws’ savings and obtained 20,000, but after consideration, she said she only had 15,000.

Their mother emptied her savings, coming up with only 2,000 yuan.

Together, they had 22,000 Chinese yuan.

Converting to Hong Kong dollars at twice the rate, it was only 44,000 HKD!

Yuan Han needed 105,000 HKD.

Where could the Yuan family gather such an amount?

As Yuan Han’s calls kept coming, their mother worried for her son, while the two sisters couldn’t bear to see Yuan Han’s promising career ruined. The three discussed and finally decided to sell their mother’s current house!

The house originally belonged to Ye Xiaoqiong.

The Yuan family had once been desperately poor, without even their own home.

As their mother lay bedridden, she thought of the house she had finally obtained, which still retained some ornately carved beams and painted rafters from its past glory. The Ye family’s ancestors were said to have been officials, making the house quite grand.

They needed at least 30,000 yuan more than what they had, so they priced the house at 40,000 yuan.

40,000 yuan for a house in a small city?

Few people could afford such an amount, so why would they buy this house?

It wasn’t that the house wasn’t worth the money, but that buyers couldn’t afford it!

This was 1987, and small cities didn’t have many wealthy private business owners, let alone returning overseas Chinese looking to settle in such places.

Such a large house, if located in Beijing or Shanghai, could easily sell for 80,000 yuan.

In Yuan Han’s hometown, they couldn’t even sell it for 40,000.

The Yuan family kept lowering the price, but even at 30,000, there were no buyers. Finally, they were forced to lower it to 25,000 yuan… at this point, someone finally agreed to take it.

The second sister couldn’t keep the 5,000 yuan she had held back and ended up contributing a full 20,000, money that came not only from her in-laws but also from loans her husband had secured.

In total, they gathered 52,000 Chinese yuan for Yuan Han.

That should be enough, but the second sister refused to wire the money directly, instead encouraging her elder sister and mother to go to Pengcheng together.

According to the second sister, since the Yuan family had been swindled out of such a large sum, they should see if this money-demanding harlot was something special!

What if they didn’t need so much money?

The second sister wanted to negotiate if possible.

Their mother, too sick to walk, was supported by her two daughters onto the train.

The second sister had another thought: even if they had to give out the money, she wanted Yuan Han to remember this favor. The eldest sister had only contributed 5,000, while she, the second sister, had given 20,000 – how could the sentiment be the same?

When Ye Xiaoqiong heard that all three Yuan family members had arrived in Pengcheng, she just smiled.

This was perfect, saving her a trip back.

With all the Yuan family members gathered, revealing the truth would be even more interesting.

“Miss Ye, the house has been transferred to your name.”

One of her lost ancestral properties had returned, and this house that the Yuan family had lived in – she would need to thoroughly disinfect it!