Reborn a day later, I emptied my enemy's possessions beforehand.

When An Baojun arrived, Li Su'e was sitting in the living room drinking a bowl of porridge.

The moment she saw An Baojun appear at the door, the bowl in her hand fell to the ground and shattered into pieces, spilling porridge all over the floor.

She turned to look at Li Zhigang, but he turned his face away, not daring to look at her.

An Baojun rushed over and dragged her out by her hair.

Li Su'e desperately cried out, "Brother, save me! Brother!" Her voice was so shrill it could shatter glass.

Li Zhigang sat on the sofa, motionless, his eyes fixed on the TV, his fingers pressing the remote control, changing channels one after another, as if he heard nothing at all.

Xia Guilan stood at the kitchen doorway, holding a dishcloth in her hand. Her expression wasn't one of reluctance, but rather of impatience.

She muttered something:

"It's so noisy. It's good that they're gone. It's clean now."

An Baojun dragged Li Su'e away.

When I got home, I was beaten again, more severely than ever before.

After that, Li Su'e never contacted Li Zhigang again.

Zhou Haibing also remembers another thing that made him hate Li Zhigang to the core.

That was after Zhou Haibing's company had grown significantly and become quite well-known in the provincial capital.

Li Zhigang learned about Zhou Haibing and Li Su'e's past relationship from An Baojun, then approached Zhou Haibing and said he had a project to discuss.

Li Su'e saw something she liked and wanted to invest, but she didn't have the money and was too embarrassed to ask. So, her older brother asked around for her.

Zhou Haibing asked what kind of project it was, and Li Zhigang gave a vague answer, saying something about "high technology" and "a particularly good prospect".

At that moment, Zhou Haibing wasn't thinking about the project; he was thinking about Li Su'e.

He remembered Li Su'e crying in his arms, how thin she was, and her desperate eyes.

He said, "I'll pay."

He transferred 50 million to Li Zhigang.

He later learned that the 50 million yuan was not for any project at all, but was a scam orchestrated by Li Zhigang and An Baojun.

Li Zhigang and An Baojun had agreed to use Li Su'e's name to ask Zhou Haibing for money, and they split the money 50/50.

Li Zhigang took 25 million yuan and opened several more chain supermarkets in the provincial capital.

An Baojun took 25 million yuan and bought several shops in the city center to expand the scale of his gold shop.

Zhou Haibing learned the truth six months later.

He was so angry he almost had a stroke on the spot, and he grabbed the phone to call the police. But he stopped halfway through pressing the button.

He remembered Li Su'e's face.

If he calls the police and Li Zhigang and An Baojun are arrested, what will happen to Li Su'e?

Li Su'e has already suffered enough. Her elder brother and husband were both imprisoned. How can she live in this world?

She would feel that she had harmed her older brother, and she would feel even more guilty and in more pain. Perhaps she would not even have the last bit of courage to live.

Zhou Haibing did not call the police.

He didn't ask Li Zhigang for money, didn't question An Baojun, and didn't even mention the matter again.

He simply kept a mental record of each of these two people's grievances, and then buried those grievances deep in his heart for many years.

Today, he's going to settle this score, interest and all.

The car drove into the residential area where Li Zhigang lived.

This community is more low-key than the previous ones. It's not a top-tier villa area, just an ordinary townhouse community. But in this city, a townhouse can cost several million.

Li Zhigang lives in the innermost building of the community. It's an end unit with gardens in the front and back, and the area is quite large.

Zhou Haibing parked his car in front of the villa, where the wrought iron gate was tightly closed.

He honked the horn twice, and after a moment, the villa's front door opened, and a woman came out.

Xia Guilan, Li Zhigang's wife.

She was wearing a maroon knitted cardigan over a black undershirt, dark trousers, and slippers.

The woman, in her fifties, had the marks of time on her face; her hair was dyed, and a patch of gray hair was visible at the roots.

She looked like an ordinary middle-aged woman, no different from any other auntie you might meet on the street.

But Zhou Haibing knew how cold-blooded this woman was.

Xia Guilan was stunned when she saw the black Mercedes.

The car window rolled down, and Zhou Haibing leaned out and waved to her.

She recognized him, and the expression on her face changed from stunned to confused, with a hint of wariness in her confusion—the kind of wariness that asks, "What is he doing here?"

Instead of opening the door immediately, she walked to the wrought iron gate and asked through the bars, "Hai Bing? What brings you here?"

Zhou Haibing smiled and said, "Sister-in-law, I need to talk to Zhigang about something. I have an appointment with him."

Xia Guilan's eyes lingered on his face for two seconds, as if judging whether he was telling the truth or not. Then she took out a remote control from her pocket, pressed it, and the wrought iron gate creaked open.

Zhou Haibing drove the car in and parked it in the garage.

A black Audi A8 was parked in Li Zhigang's parking space, while the space next to it was empty, presumably because Li Zhigang had driven it away.

The garage was small, only able to hold two cars, with a few cardboard boxes and a dusty folding ladder piled in the corner.

Zhou Haibing got out of the car, and Xia Guilan was already standing at the doorway from the garage to the living room, waiting for him.

She stepped aside to let him go in first, and then followed him in.

The living room wasn't large, and the decor was a conventional European style, with a beige sofa, a dark solid wood coffee table, and several oil paintings hanging on the wall—fakes, obviously not genuine.

There were several potted succulents on the TV cabinet, with plump leaves and beautiful colors.

On the coffee table was a pot of Haworthia cooperi, with transparent windows and emerald green veins, it was very well grown.

Xia Guilan gestured for Zhou Haibing to sit down, and then sat down on the single sofa opposite him.

She poured Zhou Haibing a glass of water, pushed the glass towards him, then crossed her hands on her knees, looking at him with a subtle, appraising gaze.

"Haibing, what do you want with Zhigang? He didn't explain it clearly to me on the phone, just that you were coming, but when I asked him, he said it was nothing."

Xia Guilan's tone sounded casual, but every word she said carried a probing tone.

Zhou Haibing picked up his water glass, took a sip, and said slowly:

"I recently got my hands on a white-skinned Moonflower. I heard Zhigang has been looking for it, so I brought it over to give to him."

Xia Guilan's eyes lit up.

Although she didn't know much about succulents, she had been exposed to them for so many years that she had certainly heard of the reputation of the white-skinned moon succulent world.

She knew that thing was ridiculously expensive and that you couldn't buy it even if you had the money.

"White-skinned Moon Realm?" She leaned forward, her voice filled with curiosity.

"Isn't that extremely rare? I think I heard Zhigang say that a good quality one can sell for hundreds of thousands."

"Pretty much, the key is that there's a price but no market for it," Zhou Haibing said.

"Where did you get this plant?" Xia Guilan's eyes gleamed with a shrewdness characteristic of a woman who was adept at finding out information.

"I heard from Zhigang that you can't buy the real thing for free in China. A lot of them are just other varieties being passed off as real ones. Is yours a fake?"

Zhou Haibing smiled and said noncommittally:

"You'll see for yourself in a bit."

Xia Guilan was about to ask something else when she heard the sound of a car coming from the doorway.

The engine was turned off, the car door opened and closed, footsteps approached from afar, the key made a crisp sound as it turned in the lock, and the door was pushed open.