Originally there was also an old man who did night watch rounds at the construction site, but he had gone home for New Year’s Eve.

I threw on my coat and went downstairs, shouting at the top of my lungs, “Who is it!”

A hunched figure stood before the gate. It seemed to be an old man. His face couldn’t be seen clearly through the wind and snow, but I heard him shouting indistinctly, “Open the door! Pay me back!”

My first reaction was that a worker had returned, but I had already paid out New Year’s bonuses early. So I walked a few steps closer and asked, “Who are you? Was the money calculated wrong?”

The old man suddenly lunged forward, a strange, twisted face pressed tightly against the iron railing, his eyeballs like red-hot glass beads. “Zhao Jianqiang! Pay me back!”

I was startled and retreated two steps. If it weren’t for the iron gate blocking him, he would have already pounced on me.

The old man frantically slapped at the gate like a madman. At the same time, I smelled a strong odor of alcohol.

“Where did this drunk come from! How dare you come here making trouble! Keep yelling and I’ll cut off your tongue!” I grabbed an iron rod at random and smashed it heavily against the gate. The old man was shocked by the impact, exaggeratedly clutching his head and muttering something filthy under his breath.

I stared at him for a while, then quickly turned and went upstairs.

A vagrant causing trouble wasn’t really a big deal. Our perimeter walls and iron gates, under normal circumstances, were absolutely impenetrable.

But on New Year’s Eve, being alone in such a remote place, it was somewhat creepy.

I called local workers on the phone, wanting to get someone to come back, but probably because it was New Year’s, everyone was playing cards—no one answered their phones.

From inside the house, I looked out. It was still pitch black; I couldn’t see anything clearly.

Probably just a passing vagrant. I listened carefully for a while. There were no suspicious movements outside, and the dogs had stopped barking too.

Slowly letting down my guard, I continued working for a bit, then got up to use the bathroom.

My room was equipped with a toilet, but the window leaked air—it was cold and gloomy.

I had just squatted down when my phone started buzzing.

It was Yu Shixuan.

Probably sending New Year’s greetings. She sent several voice messages in succession, along with a photo that was all dark—I couldn’t see it clearly.

While waiting for the voice-to-text conversion, I opened the photo.

The photo actually showed our construction site. There was something on the ground… dogs.

Those several construction site dogs had their heads smashed in, lying in the snow with black-red blood flowing all over the ground.

I squatted there, feeling as if a basin of icy slush water had been poured from my head into my internal organs.

At the same time, the voice-to-text appeared: “Are you at the construction site? Get out of there quickly!”

“Chi Na’s phone received this photo, sent by someone called Old Hei. Does it have anything to do with you?”

“Get out! Get out! Get out!”

Trembling, I raised my head and looked toward the doorway.

That photo was taken from inside the construction site, which meant that person had already gotten in.

What did he want to do?

Even the nearest police station would take over an hour to get here, not to mention that today was New Year’s Eve.

Ha Rina’s home was closest… but how could I run there? Her family only had old people and her—what if I brought harm to them?

I sent distress messages to everyone I could think of, then stared at the room’s doorway and slowly stood up.

The snow made all sounds clear. Fine noises came from the doorway, like someone picking the lock.

My first reaction was to move things to block the door… right now my only advantage was that the other party didn’t know I was already on guard.

If he heard movement, he would become even more unrestrained.

I slowly walked out and sat at my desk as if nothing had happened, using my computer to open the Spring Festival Gala. Happy clamor filled the entire room.

Meanwhile I stood at the door, listening to the movements at the lock—soft turning, click.

In that split second, I splashed scalding boiling water over him.

The other party let out a scream. I didn’t stop for even one second, grabbing a chair and smashing it over his head—once, twice!

He screamed and fell to the ground. I turned and ran.

My heart was pounding wildly. I had never run this fast in my entire life.

I rushed to my car in the parking lot, frantically opened the car door, and floored the gas pedal.

Sure enough, just as I thought, the back gate had already been broken into.

But at least… I had escaped.

I breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to look at the emergency messages on my phone when I inadvertently glanced at the rearview mirror.

My entire being was frozen in place.

That old man was sitting in the back seat, eyes bloodshot, flashing me a sinister smile.

“Run, you can really run—”

He wrapped a wire around my neck and said, “Stop the car!”

I was strangled until my eyes rolled back. Using my peripheral vision, I swept past the car mirror—in the snow stood a dark mass of many people.

This had already exceeded the scope of “intimidation” or “warning.”

It was more like plotting a murder.

Too long a period of peace had made me let down my guard. Chi Na was just a madman!

“Stop the car!” the man behind me continued to roar.

My neck couldn’t get blood through, I was already suffocating—I could only stop.

“Heh, you stinking bitch, I’ll teach you to run!”

The man behind me loosened his grip. He was preparing to open the door and get out, while that group of people also walked over with savage smiles on their faces.

At that moment, I suddenly threw the car in reverse and charged directly at them.

The distance was too close—several people were knocked down directly.

The man behind me cursed in shock and came at me again.

I sharply turned the wheel and floored the gas pedal, crashing straight ahead.

With a boom, the car smashed into the perimeter wall and the airbag suddenly deployed.

I felt everything spinning, something flowing down from my scalp.

Before I could react, the car door was opened. A scarred-face man cursed as he grabbed my hair and dragged me out, punching me in the face.

“You stinking bitch, you’re itching for a beating! Courting death!” My hair was grabbed by someone—it was that old man. He pulled my hair and punched me in the face again and again.

I fell to the ground, my mouth seeming to taste of cold iron.

I was feeling for my pocket… I found the lighter!

“Don’t come closer!” Using my last strength to prop up my body, I held that lighter and retreated to the car. “If we’re dying, we die together!”

The intense smell of gasoline made them hesitate for a few seconds.

Just then, the scarred-face leader suddenly fell to the ground.

Under a crescent moon, a young woman rode a white horse, like a scene from an animated film.

Ha Rina raised her riding whip high, shouting something I couldn’t understand in Mongolian, then lashed down again.

Scarred-face was whipped until his face was covered in blood, baring his teeth and yelling.

Then came a group of old people. They held different weapons yet showed no fear.

Yes, although they were already aged and frail, in their youth they had all been warriors who could kill wolves.

I watched Ha Rina’s grandmother running at the very front, in her hand a sharp knife for skinning sheep, her eyes full of tears that glimmered like diamonds in the moonlight.

“Gao Le Mi Ni! (My child)” She used those hands covered in calluses to lift me up.

And in the distance, police sirens approached from far to near.

When I woke up, it was already two days later.

Ba Te sat by my bedside, nearly six and a half feet tall—for a moment I thought I was seeing a bear.

“Dongxue, how are you?” he asked.

Ha Rina rushed over, her beautiful little face incomparably pale. Crying, she said, “Sister, I thought you had become like Blue Dragon. I was scared to death.”

I was dizzy and disoriented. I tried to make a joke but it came out all jumbled. “I won’t die. I still have to take you to Beijing… to eat Häagen-Dazs.”

I said again, “Little sister… you did well. You saved my life.”

Ha Rina had been playing games at the time. By the time she saw my message asking her to call the police, half an hour had already passed.

She told all the villagers and took the lead riding her horse to rush over.

Those people were fugitive wanted criminals. Who knows how they ended up passing by our construction site—they saw the steel materials and got wicked ideas, not expecting there to be someone inside.

I stared directly at Ba Te and said, “It wasn’t like that. You know it.”

He had also received my distress message. The police were brought by him.

Ba Te didn’t avoid my gaze. He said very firmly, “Don’t worry, I… we will definitely investigate this matter thoroughly and give you justice.”

This incident caused a huge uproar in our company.

So many problems had occurred on one project that the company leadership finally couldn’t sit still. They canceled their New Year vacation and came in waves to comfort me.

Add to that wave after wave of police questioning, and my hospital room was livelier than a theater.

Only one person never came.

Until the evening of the third day, I was eating porridge when I suddenly felt nauseous and vomited violently. A large hand reached over to pat my back.

I looked up and saw Old Feng.

He looked quite haggard, his face covered in dark stubble, his clothes disheveled.

I straightforwardly vomited all over him.

What about the plan to destroy Chi Na! How did I nearly get destroyed instead! You big leaders plot and scheme, but it’s us little shrimp at the bottom who suffer the consequences.

He silently wiped away the vomit.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Feng…” I apologized half-heartedly.

“I have no face to see you,” he said.

My belly full of sarcastic remarks got stuck there. When leaders made mistakes, it was always something everyone understood in their hearts and glossed over vaguely. Such a straightforward apology—in the six years I’d worked with him, this was the first time.

“To destroy someone like Chi Na, you have to make him lose his reason and commit a catastrophic blunder,” Old Feng said in a low voice. “So I suppressed his father, constantly provoked him, found a group of gambling runners to instigate him into doing illegal business…”

I was shocked.

“But I didn’t expect he would go crazy targeting you,” Old Feng said. “When I received the news, I really wanted to jump off the plane.”

He sat there, his back slightly hunched, those severe lines on his face all drooping downward.

I had never seen him like this—like a child who had done something wrong.

“Dongxue, you definitely won’t believe me, but I would rather die than have you suffer such a thing,” he said, looking at me with eyes I’d never seen before.

I pulled at the corner of my mouth and said unnaturally, “Hey, forget it. When you didn’t come these past two days, I thought you were still on vacation!”

He said something even more earth-shattering. He said, “I got divorced.”

Huh?

Maybe I was having hallucinations from a concussion?

Just as I showed an innocently idiotic expression, the nurse’s voice came through. “Ren Dongxue, your family members have arrived.”

I turned my head to look toward the doorway.

More hallucinatory than a hallucination was this:

Cheng Xia and Grandma were standing there.