Don't underestimate the poor and elderly; I was thrilled to refuse the class beauty's adva

Liu Xiuzhi got up from the ground, her movements clumsy and hurried. The hem of her floral shirt slipped out from her waistband, revealing the gray thermal underwear underneath.

She hurriedly stuffed her shirt back in and reached down to brush the dust off her bottom, but after a couple of pats, she realized no one cared about her disheveled state.

Fang Zhiyuan was too ashamed to stay any longer.

He grabbed Liu Xiuzhi's arm and used his other hand to scoop up Fang Jiahao, who was still crying, and tuck him under his arm.

Fang Jiahao was uncomfortable being squeezed like that, and his legs were kicking wildly in the air. He kept shouting, "I'm going to tell Grandma," but no one paid any attention to him.

Fang Zhiyuan, carrying his child and dragging his mother along, squeezed through the crowd with his head down, his steps so fast it was as if he were fleeing.

His mind was a complete mess, with two thoughts swirling in his head.

How did Zhang Yifan know about the demolition? What channels did he use to find out?

No one but people within the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau could possibly know about this.

But it's too late to think about all this now. After tonight's events, the whole neighborhood knows that the area is going to be demolished, and no one will sell their houses anymore.

He originally wanted to get a bargain, but he ended up losing both his reputation and his money.

When Liu Xiuzhi was dragged to the door, she finally came to her senses, turned her head and glared fiercely at Liu Guilan, uttering a high-pitched, hoarse sentence:

"You just wait!"

Before he could finish speaking, Fang Zhiyuan dragged him out the door.

The chaotic footsteps of three generations of the family leaving in a disheveled state echoed in the stairwell for a while before being silenced by Fang Jiahao's sharp wail.

Zhang Rongshan walked to the door, greeted his neighbors one by one, and apologized, saying that he was sorry to have disturbed everyone today.

The neighbors all said it was alright. Some said, "Old Zhang, you did the right thing. You should have cut ties with this kind of relative long ago." Others held his hand and said, "Let's go sign the demolition notice together when it comes out."

After the crowd dispersed, he closed and locked the door, turned around, leaned against the door panel, and let out a long breath.

Liu Guilan sat on the sofa, picked up the handwritten IOU on the coffee table that was splattered with several stains, glanced at it, tore it in half, and threw it into the trash can.

"Yifan, how did you know about the demolition?"

"Just a guess."

Zhang Yifan sat down on the sofa, picked up the glass of water his mother had poured for him, which had already gone cold, and took a sip.

"Fang Zhiyuan has never paid any attention to our family. Why is he suddenly being so attentive, lending us money, buying us a house, and lending us a quota? What's he after?"

The only explanation is that he saw internal documents at the Housing and Construction Bureau and knew that the community was going to be demolished. He wanted to get the house at a low price before the announcement was posted.

He even printed out the contract in advance; this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Zhang Rongshan stood by the coffee table, silent for a long while, then sat down and rubbed his hands on his knees.

"So, does that mean our house is really worth a lot of money?"

Whether it's valuable or not, it's all ours.

Liu Guilan pushed the trash can further inside, stood up, and dusted off her apron.

"No matter who comes from now on, no matter what tricks they use, we will ignore them all and wait until the demolition notice is posted before making any decisions."

Zhang Yifan nodded, picked up his water glass, stood up, and walked towards his room.

Before he closed the door, he heard his parents still whispering something in the living room.

His father's voice held a sense of relief and a hint of excitement, as if a dark cloud that had been hanging over his head for more than twenty years had finally been blown away.

His mother's tone was unusually light, and she occasionally chuckled softly before quickly stopping, probably because she didn't want to disturb his studying.

On the side of the road outside the residential area, in a gray sedan, Fang Zhiyuan slammed his fist on the steering wheel.

The horn blared briefly, startling Fang Jiahao, who was asleep in the back seat. The child whimpered twice before falling back into a deep sleep.

Liu Xiuzhi sat in the passenger seat and stopped pretending to be sick.

She crossed her arms, her face was long, and her voice was shrill and piercing:

"Say something! Didn't you say this house was a piece of cake? What are we doing now? We've embarrassed ourselves in their neighborhood!"

Fang Zhiyuan did not respond.

He gritted his teeth, took out his phone, scrolled to a number, stared at the screen for several seconds, hovered his finger over the dial button for a moment, and then pressed it.

When the call connected, a muffled voice came from the other end, accompanied by the background noise of a television.

"I need to use that thing you got for me last time in the next couple of days."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone, then a slightly hoarse male voice lowered its voice:

"Brother Fang, are you sure? It's not hard to make that thing, but what if someone finds out..."

"Stop talking nonsense."

Fang Zhiyuan interrupted him, his voice low and deep, as if squeezed out from between his teeth.

"Give it to me tomorrow, the sooner the better."

He hung up the phone and tossed it aside.

Outside the car window, several windows of the old residential building where Zhang's family lived were still lit, one of which was his cousin's living room.

He stared at the window for a long time, his anxiety and calculation flickering in the dim light of the dial.

Then he started the car, the tires rolled over the broken cement road in the neighborhood, and disappeared into the depths of the alley where the streetlights couldn't reach.

Fang Zhiyuan came again the following evening.

This time he didn't bring Liu Xiuzhi or Fang Jiahao.

Zhang Rongshan almost didn't recognize him when he opened the door.

A white shirt, buttoned up to the top, hair styled meticulously with hairspray, and shoes polished to a shine.

With a brown paper file folder tucked under his arm, he stood at the door, nodded to him, and looked calm and restrained, like a clerk delivering official documents.

"Brother-in-law, excuse me, I have a document I'd like you to take a look at."

Zhang Rongshan stood in the doorway, not moving aside, and sized him up.

Liu Guilan poked her head out of the kitchen. Seeing that it was Fang Zhiyuan, she put her spoon down on the stove, wiped her hands, and walked over, her annoyance undisguised.

"Why are you here again? Didn't we make things clear last time? You're not welcome in our home."

"Cousin, I didn't come here to argue today."

Fang Zhiyuan's tone was very calm, even carrying a hint of businesslike detachment, completely different from the pitiful man who had cried and begged with red eyes earlier.

He patted the file folder in his hand. "There's a document from the bureau about the demolition plan for your neighborhood. You'll understand once you see it."

Zhang Rongshan and Liu Guilan exchanged a glance.

The word "demolition" has been like a stone hanging over our heads lately, making us both hope it will come down and fear it will hit us on the foot.

Fang Zhiyuan was, after all, a member of the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau. He wouldn't feel at ease if he didn't look at the documents Fang brought him.

Zhang Rongshan stepped aside to open the door.

Fang Zhiyuan changed his shoes and came in, sitting down opposite the sofa. Without exchanging pleasantries or formalities, he took out a document from the file folder and laid it out neatly on the coffee table.

The paper was crisp, the ink was clear, and the full name of the Housing and Construction Bureau was printed in red at the top, with a bright red official seal stamped at the bottom.

The bottom right corner features a satellite image with a red dotted line outlining an area several blocks away, two blocks from their neighborhood.