"Stop!" Officer Little Yao barked. "Sign the papers before you go!"
Liu Jinbao turned back with a dark expression, signed his name, and looked at her. "Can I go now?"
Officer Little Yao stared at him. "If we find you causing trouble for Lin Lan again, you can wait for us in a detention cell."
Liu Jinbao nodded and walked away.
Wang He handed the money to Lin Lan. After she signed for it, he said, "Comrade Lin Lan, Liu Jinbao is a hooligan. You need to be careful these next few days."
Lin Lan accepted the thick stack of bills and bowed to the two officers. "Thank you! Thank you!"
Officer Little Yao smiled. "Lin Lan, you did the right thing. The more you fear ruffians like him, the more arrogant they get."
Lin Lan gave a wry smile. "I'd taken cold medicine and was sleeping groggily. When I saw them barge in, I was too terrified to think straight."
Little Yao gave her a sympathetic look. "Go on, then. Come find us if anything happens."
"Thank you! Thank you!" Lin Lan bowed again before leaving the police station. Staring at the money in her hand, she gave a bitter, self-mocking smile and stuffed it into her pocket.
She crossed the deserted street. Seeing half a brick at the mouth of a small alley, she picked it up and held it in her hand.
After walking a short distance, she saw a corner up ahead. Lin Lan felt certain that Liu Jinbao was hiding behind it. She slowed her pace, approaching gradually.
Sure enough, Liu Jinbao shot out from the corner, glaring at her menacingly. "You bitch! Just you wait!"
Lin Lan calmly stopped, looked at him with disdain, and raised the brick in her hand with a cold sneer. "Scum. As if I'd be afraid of you!"
Liu Jinbao glanced at the brick in her hand. The memory of the cleaver swinging at him made his heart jump, but he kept up his tough talk. "You bitch, you better watch yourself! And that little whelp of yours, too!"
Lin Lan strode forward to block his path, her eyes filled with cold fury. "You bastard! I'm telling you right now, if a single hair on my son's head is harmed from this day forward, I will burn your entire Liu family to the ground! I'll make sure your family line is wiped out!"
Her voice was very soft, but for some reason, Liu Jinbao shuddered. He backed away in terror. "Who are you?"
He had gone with Yang Guangming to the Yang family home and seen Lin Lan a few times, and had long since coveted the pretty woman. From Yang Guangming's own mouth, he'd learned that Lin Lan was lazy, greedy, and timid.
That's why he had lured Yang Guangming into gambling, setting him up and loaning him money until he signed an IOU to pay his debt with his wife. Who would have thought that short-lived ghost Yang Guangming would fall into a ditch and drown?
Today, he'd brought men to kick down Lin Lan's door, thinking he could just scare her into submission. Who knew he'd suffer such a major loss at her hands!
Lin Lan stared at him grimly. "I'm a thousand-year-old vengeful spirit. Give it a try if you're not afraid!" With that, she stalked away.
Liu Jinbao shivered, frightened by Lin Lan's sinister demeanor. A moment later, he spat in her direction. "Pah! You bitch! Don't think I don't know you're just relying on Yang Dingbang's protection. I refuse to believe he's home every single day!"
He remembered that his uncle was the team captain. He could find any random reason to get a stranglehold on Lin Lan. Once she had nothing to eat or drink, she would sooner or later come crawling to him, begging for mercy.
Thinking smugly, Liu Jinbao walked out of the alley, headed east, and swaggered into a courtyard with an iron gate.
A woman in her fifties walked out of the house. "Third Son, I was just about to look for you. I heard you went to kick down the Yang family's door and got arrested by the police?"
Liu Jinbao's narrow eyes glared. "Bullshit! I went to collect a debt, and that bitch Lin Lan slashed me with a knife. I went to the police station to file a report."
Only then did Sun Xiuhua see the scab on Liu Jinbao's hand. She rushed forward and grabbed it. "Oh dear! How did this happen? What were you doing provoking that little widow for? Quick, come with me to the team's clinic and have Little Fang bandage it up."
"Ma, are you going to stop nagging?!" Liu Jinbao shouted impatiently, shaking off Sun Xiuhua's hand and plopping down on a bamboo chair. "I've taken a liking to that little widow, so what?"
"Pah!" Sun Xiuhua spat at him. "There are plenty of good, unmarried girls everywhere, and you go and fall for a husband-killing widow? Tell me, did that little widow seduce you?"
Liu Jinbao held up his injured hand. "Look at this! That bitch nearly hacked me to death!"
Sun Xiuhua quickly pulled his hand over to inspect it closely, discovering that a piece of flesh had been sliced off his index finger.
Her mouth twitched with heartache. Her triangular eyes instantly turned fierce, her mourner's eyebrows knotted together, and she began to curse up a storm. "That rotten trash! That slut! How dare she take a knife to my son! Just see if I don't scratch her face to ribbons!"
Before the words had even left her mouth, she was already storming towards the main gate.
Liu Jinbao hurriedly grabbed her. "Ma! Yang Dingbang is home, and he and that bitch are on great terms! He even had the police side with her and made me pay for her door. If you go stir up trouble now, you'll be happy when they lock me in a detention cell for a few days, is that it?"
Damn that Yang Dingbang, I refuse to believe I can't ruin you!
When Sun Xiuhua heard he'd even paid compensation, she slapped him in anger. "How much did you pay?"
"All you care about is money." Liu Jinbao rolled his eyes. "I paid ten yuan. My hand hurts. I'm going to my uncle's place to get some mercurochrome for it."
"Ten yuan?! Why doesn't she just rob someone!" Sun Xiuhua shouted, clapping her hands. Seeing Liu Jinbao run off, she quickly chased after him. "Go to the clinic and have Little Fang bandage it for you!"
"I know!" Liu Jinbao yelled back without turning his head, and kept running.
Watching him run off, the thought of the ten yuan made Sun Xiuhua's heart ache. She walked back, muttering curses. "Rotten whore! An ill-bred thing with no one to teach her better! The soul of Yang the youngest has barely left, and she's already found another man?"
As she said this, her eyes darted, and with a twist of her body, she headed back outside.
Liu Jinbao went to his uncle's house, a dozen or so meters from his own. The courtyard gate was wide open. He swaggered into the yard and walked toward the main hall.
Seated at the eight-immortals table in the center of the hall was a man in his fifties with a square face and small eyes, just like Liu Jinbao's, that glinted shrewdly. This was the Lexing Team Captain, Liu Guozhi.
"Jinbao, you never do any proper work. What have you been up to?"
"Nothing!" Liu Jinbao plopped down on the wooden chair opposite him. "Uncle, I need you to arrange a job for that bitch Lin Lan—carrying night soil!"
Liu Guozhi looked at him with a faint smile. "She got on your bad side?"
Liu Guozhi's wife, Xu Chunyan, came in carrying a dustpan. "Jinbao, it's not my place to say, but your uncle is the team captain. Plenty of people want to see him taken down. You can't go around kicking in a widow's door anymore!"
Smack! Liu Guozhi's face turned stern as he slapped Liu Jinbao on the forehead. "There are plenty of pretty unmarried girls around. Why go and bother a widow? That woman is lazy and greedy and never puts in a full day's work.
Remember this: you are not to kick in her door again. Yang Dingbang is a Criminal Police Captain at such a young age, and his grandmother is related to Mayor Xu. We can't afford to offend his family."
Xu Chunyan turned her head and pursed her lips, thinking to herself: *Even a widow wouldn't want a ruffian like you.*
"Oh," Liu Jinbao responded distractedly. He held up his injured finger. "She cut my hand. The money in my pocket went to pay for the door bolt. I came to put some mercurochrome on it."