Old Mrs. Song is reborn; get out of here, you scumbag husband and illegitimate child!

He paused.

The second half of the sentence got stuck in my throat.

He originally intended to give the remaining half to Sheng Ruzhi.

But when Sheng Ruzhi left, she actually left behind all the money she hadn't spent over the years.

Liu Yukun clutched his chest.

This area has been a dull, stabbing pain.

He even suspected that he was too tired and had developed a heart condition.

Zhou Fang then added, "Godmother, Xiang Dong said the location has been chosen. The school's design is being handled voluntarily, and a construction supervisor will be sent over. However, the construction team must be found locally, and sometimes we have to give the locals some money."

When I got back, I discussed with my senior colleagues that our company in Haishi would allocate a fixed portion of its profits each year directly to the Women's Foundation's account.

"You guys are all contributing the lion's share, I'll chip in too," said the young man with the buzz cut who was driving.

He held the steering wheel with one hand and took out a few bills from his pocket with the other and handed them to the back seat.

Including the hundred yuan I had just received, I also added some of my own money.

"Auntie, that's all I can do. Two hundred yuan, I'll use it all to buy a schoolbag for the kid." The crew-cut young man grinned.

Song Xianglan took the money and patted him on the shoulder.

"Good lad. I thank you on behalf of those dolls."

Chen Zui, unable to sit still any longer, covered his bruised cheek and shouted:

"Godmother, my father-in-law said he will donate as well."

Song Xianglan rolled her eyes at him. "Can you please stop writing 'I'm stupid, rich, and a quick swindler' on your face?"

The atmosphere in the carriage immediately became more relaxed.

The bread truck came to a smooth stop at the hotel entrance.

Zhou Fang got out of the car.

Liu Yukun followed behind, carrying the briefcase filled with a 500,000 yuan deposit.

Song Xianglan carried an old bamboo basket.

Chen Zui hunched over and slowly moved down like a plucked quail.

The two young men honked their horns to say hello, then turned their car around and drove away.

The four people entered the hotel lobby.

I went straight to the elevator.

I got off the elevator and walked to the middle of the corridor.

A door next to it just happened to open.

Shi Changrong, wearing reading glasses and holding a copy of the Shanghai Evening News, walked out.

He looked up and his gaze met that of Chen Zui, who was walking at the front.

Chen Zui looked absolutely terrible. His hair was a mess, his mouth was swollen, and there was a handprint on half of his face. His eyes were bruised and swollen, and he walked with a limp.

Shi Changrong was so startled that he took half a step back, and his reading glasses almost slipped off his nose.

"Chen Zui".

Shi Changrong looked him up and down, his brows furrowed deeply. "Did you get into a fight? How did you end up like this?"

Just as Chen Zui was about to open his mouth to complain, he caught a glimpse of Song Xianglan's cold gaze out of the corner of his eye.

He swallowed back the words that were about to come out.

He forced a smile that looked worse than crying.

"Uncle Shi, it's nothing. I just fell by accident." Chen Zui forced a smile, then gasped in pain.

"You fell?" Shi Changrong pointed to the handprint on Chen Zui's face. "Do you think I'm blind? Five finger marks are on your cheek. What kind of floor tile is shaped like a hand?"

Shi Changrong turned to look at Zhou Fang and Liu Yukun.

"What exactly happened?" Shi Changrong's face darkened. "Did my son-in-law run into some thugs in this unfamiliar place?"

If we really encounter difficulties, we must quickly seek help from the local police to resolve the issue; we cannot allow ourselves to be bullied.

"Uncle Shi, it's really nothing serious," Zhou Fang quickly smoothed things over.

"You call this nothing?"

"Not reporting such incidents to the police is tantamount to condoning criminals. It will embolden them to harm more innocent people."

Song Xianglan rolled her eyes as she listened.

I knew this bookworm would react this way.

Full of rules and regulations.

If he waits until he reports it to the police, it will be too late. At most, Old Man Li will apologize and Chen Zui will have to pay for the broken bowl.

Nothing beats the thrill of shady dealings.

Song Xianglan interrupted him, "Chen Zui lost his mind and wandered around the south of the city, causing a little trouble. The money's been paid, and the matter's settled. If you keep yelling, the whole floor will come out to listen to your sermons."

"How can you so easily give in to extortion?" Shi Changrong said anxiously. "Giving money to them only encourages this bad practice. If these local thugs get a taste of success, they'll dare to do evil again next time. I'm going downstairs right now to borrow a phone and call..."

He turned and started to walk towards the elevator.

"Stop right there."

Shi Changrong stopped and turned to look at her.

"Your logic and legal approach only works on reasonable people. But with those scoundrels, you try to reason with them, and they just act like thugs." Song Xianglan took a step forward, carrying her bamboo basket. "This is a society governed by law, that's true. But some messes have to be cleaned up with dirty methods. Chen Zui, go back to your room and get some ice to put on your face."

Chen Zui slipped along the wall and plunged into his room.

Shi Changrong sighed heavily, rolled the newspaper into a tube, and tapped it against his palm.

"This is outrageous. They're a bunch of law-illiterate people."

Song Xianglan countered, "Can you solve problems using the law in Manila too?"

Shi Changrong was stunned by the question.

"They are corrupt."

……

At the same time.

"Fu Qingnian. The small Western-style building on Jianguo Road." Gu Qingping rubbed his fingers together, his beady eyes narrowing and revealing a sinister light.

He stood up and brushed the dust off his trousers.

They plunged headlong into the alleyways near Jianguo Road.

His two beady eyes darted around, yet he was dressed very respectably.

I strolled around for a couple of hours.

I stopped at a grocery store at the entrance of the alley.

The elderly woman running the shop was eating sunflower seeds, spitting the shells all over the ground.

"Auntie, I'm asking about someone." Gu Qingping leaned forward. "Do you know Fu Qingnian, who lives in the Western-style building in front?"

The woman lifted her eyelids and spat out the sunflower seed shell from her mouth.

"I know them. They're the Westernized type, always riding motorcycles. They wouldn't even give you a second glance, just a family of cargo drivers."

Gu Qingping's face crumpled up, and his voice trembled with tears:

"I'll fight him to the death. That heartless bastard got my sister pregnant. He tricked and swindled her, and now he's just disappeared."

The woman looked him up and down, then burst out laughing.

"Give me a break." The old woman said with a mocking smile. "With your ugly appearance, how good-looking can your younger sister be?"

"The second son of the Fu family is so arrogant, with all those beautiful women around him, why would he be interested in your sister?"

Gu Qingping explained with a mournful face:

"Auntie, that's unfair to me. There are five brothers and sisters in my family. I'm the only one who can't do the splits."

Back then, my family was poor, and all my older siblings were given away, but I was stuck with them and couldn't be given away.

I finally managed to give some money, even at my own expense, to a family on the next street. They got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, glanced at me, and trembled with fear. They returned me before dawn.

The woman stared at his face for a few seconds.

He nodded in agreement.

"It really is horribly ugly, but it's not your fault. You should at least wait until dawn to return it." The woman's attitude softened, and she handed him a handful of sunflower seeds. "But it's no use going after the clown melon. This family is rotten to the core. They've done plenty of despicable things."

Gu Qingping took the melon seeds and pulled over a stool to sit down.

"How so?"

The older woman glanced outside.

"His elderly father used to do despicable things at his workplace. In the 1960s, he got promoted and received raises by reporting others, but behind their backs, he preyed on elderly people who had no children. He embezzled a lot of their gold and silver jewelry, and several people died young because of his bullying."

Gu Qingping cooperated by widening his eyes.

"Won't this incur divine retribution?"

"The divine retribution hasn't come yet, but his children are all worse than the last. Only his daughter is a little better." The old woman curled her lip. "There are three siblings in his family. Fu Qingnian has an older brother named Fu Huanian and a younger sister named Fu Xiangnian."

That younger sister used to have a grand marriage; her husband was the son of the director of the Second Machine Tool Plant. Now things are bad; the plant is about to go bankrupt, and she goes back to her parents' home every day to beg for money.