Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

The room was deathly silent.

A deathly silence fell over the dugout.

Han Laowai's withered lips trembled violently, and his bloodied old face was twisted into a grimace of extreme resentment.

He gripped the edge of the broken wooden table tightly with his remaining left hand, black blood seeping from under his fingernails: "So, we're just going to let Da Long and Er Kui get their revenge? Is the Han family line going to end with me?"

Scarface Liu sighed, and the fear on his face faded slightly.

He reached out and patted Han Laowai's blood-stained shoulder, his tone softening slightly: "Master Han, it's not that I don't want to help you, it's just that this is a really tough situation. Take my advice, you're only in your early sixties at most. You have so much hard currency in your hands, take advantage of the fact that no one knows your situation, and leave tonight."

Scarface Liu pointed to the gold bars on the table: "Move to a cleaner place, spend a fortune to buy a fake household registration. Spend a lot of money to find a young, fertile woman to be your wife, and have a son. With money, why worry about not having an heir? You can have her serve you for the rest of your life, isn't that better than fighting to the death with a living devil here?"

Han Laowai did not move.

He sat stiffly on the bench like a dried-up corpse, his cloudy eyes flickering with uncertain light.

Suddenly, he looked up and stared intently at the one-eyed man opposite him: "Old Liu, you have to help me."

Scarface Liu paused for a moment, then shook his head and chuckled dryly as if he'd heard some absurd joke: "Master Han, don't joke with me like that. I'm just a middleman, I don't have the connections to mess with Zhao Shanhe. Keep the money and find someone else."

"Should we find someone more capable?"

Han Laowai suddenly leaned forward, a cold laugh like a broken bellows escaping his throat: "Old Liu, that leather dealer surnamed Tian outside Laoyagou more than ten years ago, and that teenage apprentice he brought along. You really think that's all in the past?"

Scarface Liu's hand, which was resting on the edge of the table, suddenly froze.

Han Laowai's ugly, scorched face radiated a venomous resentment that seemed to want to drag someone into hell: "Back then, that stranger surnamed Tian came to Qingshi Town, bypassing your gate to secretly go into the mountains to collect furs, cutting off your main source of income. It was Scarface Liu who was so furious that he begged me to go into the mountains and remove this thorn in your side!"

The temperature inside the dugout seemed to drop to freezing point instantly.

"I treated you like a brother, I even stood in the snow with a cannon to blow his head off for you. And what was the result?"

Han Laowai's withered lips almost touched Scarface Liu's face, each word like a poisoned knife: "When I was trying to kill him, someone caught me in the act, and I almost died on the spot under that old bastard's knife! Then the police searched the whole mountain like mad dogs, and I had to hide in the deep forest like a wild ghost for over ten years just to survive! You haven't forgotten this debt, have you?"

Scarface Liu's eye muscles twitched twice.

His initial fear faded, replaced by the coldness of a seasoned veteran of the underworld.

He flicked the cigarette ash off his cotton trousers, a cold smile playing on his lips. "Mr. Han, why are you bringing up these old grievances now?"

"What do you mean by treating me like a brother? Don't flatter yourself. Back then, I paid you with real money to get you here! With so much cash thrown in, this is just a simple cash-and-delivery transaction."

Scarface Liu leaned forward, a sinister glint in his single eye: "Besides, it's all over the past ten years. If I hadn't been there to mediate for you in town back then, to keep in touch and cover for you, would you have been able to hide so easily in the mountains? You old bones would have been shot long ago!"

"Provide cover?"

Han Laowai let out a strange, owl-like laugh, his whole body trembling. "You think you're protecting me? You're protecting yourself! If I get caught, you'll be eating peanuts too!"

He suddenly gripped Scarface Liu's collar tightly with his left hand, his cloudy eyes flashing with a mad, suicidal rage: "Old Liu, I'll tell you something more reliable today. That guy surnamed Tian you paid me to kill back then wasn't some nobody with no connections. He has a younger sister named Tian Guilan, and you're sure you know her husband's name."

Scarface Liu frowned deeply, a sudden and extremely ominous premonition rising in his heart.

"Zhang Guodong, the guy who relentlessly pursued this case back then and led a team to search the entire mountain for me, is his brother-in-law!"

Han Laowai gritted his teeth and shoved the words into Scarface Liu's ears one by one: "I heard that Zhang Guodong has been promoted and is now the director of the town's public security bureau."

Scarface Liu's pupil in his single eye suddenly contracted to the size of a pinhead. He froze on the spot as if struck by lightning, his breath stopping.

"Old Liu."

Han Laowai's withered lips curled into a cruel smile. "If I'm driven to desperation and killed by Zhao Shanhe, or if I get caught, tomorrow morning, the confession you paid someone to kill his brother-in-law will be laid out verbatim on Director Zhang's desk. Do you think he'll be very interested in this cold case that's been buried for over a decade?"

"You fucking dare threaten me?!"

Scarface Liu's fleshy face trembled violently as he sprang to his feet, grabbing Han Laowai's neck tightly with his other hand, revealing an extremely terrifying murderous intent.

Scarface Liu's fingers tightened more and more like iron clamps, his knuckles turning a deathly pale white from excessive force.

Han Laowai's eyes rolled back as he was being choked, and he could barely breathe.

But his bloodied and mangled face showed no fear. Instead, meeting Scarface Liu's single, bloodshot eye, he forced out a broken, lisping sound:

"Strangle me... Old Liu... strangle me right now."

Old Han was spitting out blood-tinged white foam from the corner of his mouth, his eyes filled with a mad, death-seeking resolve.

"If I don't walk out of this door alive tonight, there will be an envelope at the entrance of the county public security bureau tomorrow morning. Guess what's inside?"

Scarface Liu stared at his nonchalant attitude, then suddenly sneered and threw him aside like a dead dog.

A muffled thud.

Han Laowai was slammed heavily onto the muddy ground, his mouth full of blood.

"Old Han, did you freeze to death in the old forest?"

Scarface Liu looked down at him with disdain. "Do you think the government is your private property? You think Director Zhang would believe a random note you hand out, a wanted fugitive with no family to carry a warrant?"

Scarface Liu spat on the ground: "Investigating a case requires evidence! You think baseless accusations can kill me? Back when that guy surnamed Tian died, Zhang Guodong investigated everyone in town like a mad dog, and he investigated me back then! If I had even the slightest incriminating evidence, would I still be alive and well now?"

Han Laowai clutched his bruised neck and lay on the ground coughing violently.

Coughing and coughing, he suddenly trembled all over, raised his bloodied and mangled old face, and let out an extremely mournful laugh. "Hahahaha..."

Thick blood dripped down his chin as he laughed until tears streamed down his face, looking like a demon crawling out of hell: "He won't believe me with just words, but what if I added what you wrote in your own handwriting back then?"

The air inside the cellar suddenly stopped.

Scarface Liu's arrogant expression froze instantly.

"Back then, to help me find the right person, you personally drew me a map of the route that man surnamed Tian took into the mountains. It even clearly showed him what time he would arrive at which gully. It was your own handwriting!"

Blood foam dripped from Han Laowai's withered lips as he spoke, each word piercingly painful: "And after I shot him in the snow that day, I casually snatched a silver pocket watch from his pocket. The watch cover had the Tian family's name engraved on it!"

"Your handwritten note, along with his brother-in-law's pocket watch, were long ago wrapped tightly in oiled paper and placed in a dead pit that only I know about!"

Han Laowai reached out and grabbed Scarface Liu's stiff clothes: "Guess what, if Zhang Guodong sees his brother-in-law's suicide weapon, and then compares that route map with your handwriting, Scarface Liu... won't he personally come to your door with a gun and rip your skull off?"

Scarface Liu's thin, monkey-like face instantly turned deathly gray.

"Fuck your mother!"

Scarface Liu, like a raging wild beast, pounced and kicked Han Laowai hard in the chest.

With a dull thud as his ribs broke, Han Laowai slid half a meter away like a tattered sack.

Scarface Liu didn't stop at all. With bloodshot eyes, he straddled Han Laowai and swung his fists wildly, smashing Han Laowai's already disfigured face.

The thud of knuckles hitting bone echoed in the cramped room, and blood splattered all over his face.

"Where's the letter?! Where's the thing hidden?! Tell me! Who the hell did you give the note to?!"

"Ha ha ha ha……"

Han Laowai didn't respond at all, but instead threw his head back and let out an extremely shrill, maniacal laugh.

Thick blood dripped from his chin onto the back of Scarface Liu's hand. He laughed until tears streamed down his face, like a demon crawling out of hell. "Old Liu, we're in this together! Nobody's going to get away unscathed!"

Han Laowai stretched out his intact left hand, gripping Scarface Liu's sleeve tightly, and brought his blood-stained face close: "Either you help me kill that little bastard surnamed Zhao, or we two old brothers will join hands and go to the Yellow Springs together!"

Only Han Laowai's heavy breathing could be heard inside the dugout.

"And Lao Liu, this isn't just for me, it's also for your son."

Han Laowai's voice lowered, like a slippery venomous snake slithering into Scarface Liu's ear: "Your precious son Liu Jun just graduated from police academy this year and was assigned back to our town, right? I heard he's the only college graduate police officer in the whole town, with a bright future ahead of him."

"If that kid found out that his father, who always pretends to be an honest man, is actually a death row inmate who hires hitmen..."

Old Han stared intently at Scarface Liu's distorted face, slamming each word into his ears: "If Zhang Guodong knew that the real culprit who killed his brother-in-law was actually the father of one of his new police officers!"

Old Han grinned, his mouth stained with blood, a smile that sent chills down one's spine: "Tell me, how does Director Zhang deal with him? Do you think your son can still hold onto his official position?"

These words were like a boning knife, precisely piercing Scarface Liu's final Achilles' heel.

The rage on Scarface Liu's face vanished instantly, replaced by a deathly gray of utter despair.

He felt as if all his marrow had been drained away; he slumped off Han Laowai and sat down.

He collapsed on the muddy ground, gasping for breath, his whole body trembling like a leaf.

It took a full half-cigarette to smoke.

Scarface Liu, looking like a dead man who had aged ten years in an instant, spoke in an extremely hoarse and trembling voice: "Speak."

"What do you want to do?"