The courtyard house, without the script of Sha Zhu.

The moment Cao Wei opened the door, he saw Li Mei, who looked slightly nervous.

However, the tension lasted only a moment, when Li Mei saw Cao Wei.

He subconsciously let out a sigh, then tentatively asked, "Cao Wei, um, can we talk?"

Cao Wei raised an eyebrow, smiled knowingly, and said, "Of course."

Afterwards, as Li Mei entered the room, there were a few ordinary pleasantries.

Cao Wei urged him on with a somewhat impatient tone.

"Just get to the point."

Li Mei had already prepared herself mentally, so after taking a deep breath, she spoke in a pitiful tone.

"Cao Wei, your Uncle Yi meant well; after all, he's an elder..."

Hearing this, Cao Wei couldn't help but frown.

Good heavens, he really couldn't understand why anyone would say that Li Mei was innocent.

If you sleep in the same bed, how can you become two different kinds of people?

This tactic of moral blackmail is exactly the same as Yi Zhonghai's.

So he just stared at Li Mei without saying a word, his coldness and impatience almost palpable.

Li Mei chose to swallow the rest of her words.

At this moment, he finally understood that Cao Wei and the so-called "Silly Zhu" were completely different kinds of people.

This made her sneer inwardly. How could she and Lao Yi have thought that just because they lived here, everyone in the He family was someone they could morally blackmail?

Li Mei immediately stopped beating around the bush and looked directly at Cao Wei, saying, "Cao Wei, we'll still be working together in the future. There's no need to escalate things to that point. I'll give you some compensation, how about we just let this matter go?"

"How many."

Cao Wei finally spoke again, but he seemed too lazy to say another word to the person in front of him.

"Two million?"

In Li Mei's view, this is already a very high number. After all, to be precise, Cao Wei did not suffer any loss from the moment he entered the door until what happened afterward. He even managed to beat Cao Wei so badly. Now, he can still get two million in compensation, which is already very high.

To everyone's surprise, Cao Wei simply scoffed.

Looking at Li Mei with that ambiguous smile, he couldn't help but start plotting his own scheme.

"Yi Zhonghai is now a mid-level worker. His annual salary must be at least seven million. I'm not greedy. Since he wants to take money, he should be prepared for it. I'll take his annual salary, seven million, fine."

Cao Wei wasn't particularly clear about Yi Zhonghai's income, but he could at least guess.

Even for intermediate-level workers, there is no grading system.

In about a month, with all sorts of subsidies and such, it should amount to around sixty.

Earning seven million a year is entirely possible. Of course, earning and saving are two completely different things, but what does that have to do with him?

He had thought that Li Mei might try to bargain, but she agreed immediately.

"Okay, then it's seven million. Go sign a letter of forgiveness."

Li Mei was well aware that her husband, Lao Yi, only earned a little over seven million yuan a year.

But now four families are going to jail. As for the Jia family, Yi Zhonghai's personality won't allow them to pay, but the Liu and Yan families will have to share some of the cost. So, when you calculate it that way...

Each family only has two or three million.

However, Cao Wei seemed to find this a joke. He looked at Li Mei with the same disdainful gaze one would give someone mentally challenged, and slowly said...

"You don't think I'm only planning to accept that much with you guys, do you? I'm talking about your Yi family's money. As for the Jia family, the income will be a bit lower, but since the two of them attacked me, I'll just take out eight million out of sympathy. The Liu family and the Yan family didn't make a move, so I'll take a loss and accept five million from each of them."

As soon as she finished speaking, even the usually composed Li Mei looked at Cao Wei with disbelief and subconsciously couldn't help but ask in a raised tone.

"You...you...aren't you robbing me?"

"Yes, I am robbing you, but you have to be greedy and swallow the elephant first to give me this legitimate excuse to rob you. I will write a letter of forgiveness when you send the money over. Let me remind you, this amount of money may seem like a lot, but you can save it up in less than two years of working. If you really go to jail and lose your job, the losses will be much more than this."

Cao Wei stared at Li Mei with a playful expression and spoke confidently.

This caused Li Mei to clench her fists and lower her head.

After a moment, he looked up at Cao Wei and gritted his teeth.

"Okay, I'll go talk to them."

As Li Mei walked out of the house, she felt as if her heart was bleeding.

To be honest, when it comes to being stingy, this courtyard house is no less than Yi Zhonghai's or Yan Fugui's.

She wanted Jia Jiaxu to help her take care of her in her old age, but she didn't want to spend any money herself. In the original script, she repeatedly made Sha Zhu ask him to pay, and each time she only gave Jia's family a few pounds of cornmeal.

Although they are considered frugal, seven million is still a lot, and it would take them a year and a half to save up.

After taking a deep breath, Li Mei approached Yang Ruihua and Zhou Xiuying.

After Cao Wei finished recounting his offer, the two men, after a brief moment of stunned silence, immediately started arguing.

"Isn't this robbery? I'm reporting this to the military control commission!"

"That's right, that's right."

Yang Ruihua looked as if he felt like his own flesh had been ripped out.

Before the reforms, Yan Fugui's teaching job, though seemingly prestigious, actually had the lowest salary among the three professions.

With five mouths to feed and five million yuan in savings, the Yan family's situation is quite significant.

That would take almost three years to save up.

Zhou Xiuying, although Liu Haizhong's salary is not low, still feels very distressed to have to take out so much money at once.

Li Mei, however, simply looked at them indifferently and said coldly, "The losses from losing your job are far more than that."

These words instantly dispelled their dissatisfaction.

Yes, losing your job would be a much bigger loss than that.

However, they were still somewhat unwilling to come up with such a large sum of money. Yang Ruihua stared intently at Li Mei and spoke slowly and deliberately.

"No, we absolutely cannot pay that much money. In the end, it was your husband, Lao Yi, who said this. Otherwise, we wouldn't have gotten involved in this matter. So you have to pay the lion's share."

Before Zhou Xiuying could even speak, Li Mei couldn't help but look at Yang Ruihua with an expression as if he were mentally challenged, and said sarcastically, "You call yourself the second brother? Don't even mention the eldest brother. If you hadn't been so greedy, do you think your family would have suffered this?"

"I've delivered my message. If you want your man to stay in jail, then keep waiting here."

After saying that, Li Mei left without looking back, heading towards the hospital.

Yang Ruihua and Zhou Xiuying exchanged a glance, both seeing the helplessness and resentment in each other's eyes.

In the end, Zhou Xiuying caught up with him, while Yang Ruihua seemed hesitant to go directly to Cao's door. After knocking on the door and going inside, she prepared to play the victim.

Cao Wei merely sneered, "Then I'll be lenient with you. Now it's gone from five million to six million. If you keep talking, it'll become seven million, just like the Yi family."