All of this was made up by Zhang Yang!

Qian Weiguo refused to accept this. "Back in the day, my grandpa and my dad hunted like this all the time, and nothing ever happened to them. I simply don't believe it! How could a weasel be behind this?"

He slapped his forehead, suddenly feeling as though he had figured it out.

"Zhang Haiquan, tell me the truth, did you see this with your own eyes?!"

Zhang Haiquan frowned.

Qian Weiguo flew into a rage. "You didn't see it! You just heard it from someone else!"

Remembering that the people who had been frequenting the mountains lately were none other than Zhang Yang and his crew, he instantly connected all the dots!

"I get it now! It's that punk Zhang Yang who holds a grudge against our Wang family! He deliberately targeted my daughter!"

"It wasn't Ma Jian! It's Zhang Yang! Zhang Yang took my daughter away!"

"All these stories were made up just to trick us!"

The more he spoke, the angrier Qian Weiguo became, to the point of cocking his hunting rifle.

"I'm going to kill him right now!"

Zhang Haiquan used every ounce of his strength to hold him back. "Uncle Weiguo! Calm down! More than one person saw Xiuju acting out of her mind last night!"

Qian Weiguo roared at him, "What's the use of talking about that now? Where is my daughter? I'm asking you, where is my daughter?!"

Convinced that Zhang Yang was entirely responsible, Qian Weiguo's face and heart twisted with malice.

"He must have locked my daughter up somewhere! I'm going to tear the Zhang family apart!"

"Even if I have to dig three feet into the ground, I'll find my Xiuju!"

Sun Hongying shared his exact mindset. Grabbing a firewood chopper, she prepared to storm the Zhang Family Hamlet. "If any harm comes to my Xiuju, I'll sell every single daughter of the Zhang family to the old widowers at the mine! Let those wretched girls be tormented to death by them!"

Zhang Haiquan felt a sharp pain in his liver, infuriated by Sun Hongying's preposterous words.

"Let's see who dares to go!"

He slammed his hand fiercely on the table and let out a low roar:

"What if this has nothing to do with Zhang Yang at all, but is your own daughter's problem? If the two of you rush out there and make a scene for both villages to see, how will she ever show her face in public again?"

"Besides, no matter what, go check your traps first and see if there's a weasel in them!"

"I watched Xiuju grow up too; I don't want to see anything happen to her either!"

After exhausting every kind of persuasion, Zhang Haiquan finally managed to talk Qian Weiguo and his wife down.

The two of them, looking like fierce guardians of doom, marched in high spirits toward the mountain behind their house.

They checked the traps one by one, and when they reached the third trap, they actually found something.

There were bloodstains along the edge of the trap—not a small amount, even though it had already coagulated!

"Injured like this, the beast can't have run far!"

Qian Weiguo pressed on toward the further traps. As he reached out to check one of them, his foot suddenly slipped, and he plunged heavily into the deep pit he had dug himself.

Lingering snow, withered branches, and clods of earth came crashing down on top of him, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.

The lighting inside the dirt pit was dim, but Qian Weiguo thought he saw someone standing right in front of him.

Dressed in white clothes and black trousers, with disheveled hair, she looked like a ghost emerging straight from the underworld!

"Oh mother!"

Qian Weiguo tried to flee, but the moment he turned around, he crashed straight into the earthen wall.

"Found you! I've finally found you! I'm going to choke you to death! Choke you to death!" Qian Xiuju shrieked in a piercing voice, using her frostbitten hands to grab Qian Weiguo by the throat.

"Weiguo!"

"Uncle Weiguo!"

Sun Hongying and Zhang Haiquan shouted from above ground, jolting Qian Weiguo's instinct for survival back to life.

Gathering all his strength, he grabbed the hands locked around the back of his neck, executed a shoulder throw, and instantly turned the tables!

Qian Xiuju was hurled away and passed out cold on the spot.

By the dim light, Qian Weiguo caught sight of the profile of the person lying on the ground, and his heart instantly turned to ashes.

"Xiuju!!!"

...

Qian Xiuju was found and promptly sent to the local clinic.

However, thanks to Zhang Haiquan's strict containment, the matter did not spread.

Zhang Yang only heard about it by the afternoon.

The person who came to tip him off was none other than Lin Qiushui.

"Zhang Yang! Did you and the others see a woman on the mountain last night? Her mental state didn't look too good, and she was crying and making a fuss?"

Lin Qiushui ran over to the Zhang family's woodshed, throwing aside all conventional boundaries between men and women in her urgency to inform him.

"They found her!"

"She's currently being treated at the clinic!"

"Her body is covered in scratches from tree branches on the mountain, and her hands and feet are covered in severe frostbite..."

"The doctor said she must have wandered through the mountains for the entire night."

"Her throat is ruined too; she can't even cry out a sound."

"Her life is out of danger for now."

"But her parents are completely unreasonable, and they keep claiming that the Zhang Family Hamlet is what drove their daughter to this state! They've mentioned your name several times!"

At this, a look of indignation washed over Lin Qiushui's face. "As parents, they don't care about their daughter's life or death, yet they keep clamoring to come here and demand medical compensation from you!"

Zhang Yang could not help but sneer.

The Wang and Qian families truly proved the old saying:

Birds of a feather flock together!

Their unsightly greed for money was cut from the exact same cloth!

"Zhang Yang, I can vouch for you! You're not that kind of person. There's no way you would retaliate against that girl just because of a conflict between the two militia squads!" Lin Qiushui said with absolute conviction.

Zhang Yang raised a hand to gently pat her shoulder. "Thank you, Qiushui. But this isn't something you need to step forward for. Just make sure you protect your—"

Before he could finish his sentence, he heard Wang Jie pounding furiously on the outer door.

"Zhang Yan! My sister is sick! We need money right now!"

"Didn't you want a divorce? I'll go through with the divorce with you today!"

"The moment we're divorced, you're handing those eighty-eight yuan right over to me!"

The news of Zhang Yan and Wang Jie's impending divorce was no longer a secret in the surrounding villages.

Lin Qiushui had also heard a rumor or two about it.

However, as far as she knew, the Wang family had given Zhang Yang a one-month deadline.

It had only been half a month since that commotion, so why were they already showing up at the door demanding money?

Lin Qiushui's parents both worked in factories in Zhenhai City and held cadre-level positions, yet their combined monthly salary still fell short of a hundred yuan.

With just a flick of his lips, Wang Jie was demanding eighty-eight yuan. Wasn't that practically driving people to their deaths?

Lin Qiushui thought of the small cloth pouch her mother had secretly slipped into her possession.

It contained around fifty yuan—her mother's personal savings.

It was meant to be her emergency fund, and she hadn't touched a single cent of it since coming down to the countryside.

"Don't worry, Zhang Yang, I have money!" Lin Qiushui pressed down on Zhang Yang's arm, comforting him. "I'll give him my fifty yuan first. Doesn't he just want money? Give him two hundred first, make him write a receipt, and we can slowly figure out what to do about the rest!"

Zhang Yang was stunned into silence.

Lin Qiushui had fifty yuan?

He hadn't expected this young woman to be a little heiress!

"Qiushui, I have money." Zhang Yang smiled and pulled back Lin Qiushui, who was already eager to dash off. "You're right about one thing, though: we can't give him that much all at once. I'll take your advice and just give him twenty yuan first."

With that, he led Lin Qiushui into the neighboring room and spoke quite frankly to Zhang Yan without hiding anything:

"Sis, fetch me two of those older, crisp ten-yuan notes."

The money Zhang Yang had brought back earlier had all been left in Zhang Yan's keeping.

For one, Zhang Yan had a steady temperament and acted with caution, making her the safest person to hold the money.

For another, Zhang Yang wanted to give his sister peace of mind so she knew the family had the financial capability to support her through her divorce, allowing her to rest easy.

Now that Zhang Yang asked for the money, Zhang Yan immediately pulled out a small iron box, revealing several neat stacks of ten-yuan bills bound tightly with fine hemp rope.