Chapter Fifty

At two in the afternoon, Liu Mumu headed home smelling of hot pot.

She had eaten something far too spicy at lunch. Her lips were swollen in a ring and still felt numb.

I'm never eating hot pot with Blind Liu again. It was practically brainwashing and fraud—claiming medium spice wasn't flavorful enough and that extra-spicy was for real men...

Why had she insisted on being a real man?

After entering the residential compound and walking a short distance, she suddenly saw a woman dragging a huge suitcase out.

It was Lü Yao.

She had only heard that morning that Lü Yao and Zhang Shijing had divorced. Judging by this, was she planning to move away?

There was some distance between Lü Yao and her. Lü Yao wore a loose white cotton coat, and she looked quite well—better, in fact, than she had before the divorce.

A thought suddenly flashed through Liu Mumu's mind, but she failed to catch it. It seemed she had overlooked something.

Lü Yao also saw Liu Mumu. She stopped and smiled at her. "You're back."

Liu Mumu hesitated, then walked over. "Are you moving away?"

Lü Yao smiled. "You know already? I'm divorced, so I won't be living here anymore."

Liu Mumu glanced at the flats on her feet, but still said, "I'll walk you out."

As she spoke, she took the suitcase from Lü Yao.

After all, Lü Yao was pregnant. Since they had run into each other, she might as well lend a hand. She couldn't say much about anything else, but pushing a suitcase was no trouble.

Lü Yao froze for a moment, seemingly realizing why Liu Mumu wanted to see her out. She gave a self-mocking smile. "Before I left home, Shijing was still apologizing to me. But after I came out, he didn't even think to see me off."

She stroked her slightly protruding belly.

The baby was still small. As long as she wore loose clothes, it was difficult to tell. Besides, this child was very considerate—she had experienced none of the usual pregnancy symptoms, so hardly anyone treated her as a pregnant woman.

After Zhang Shijing's son brought Old Mrs. Zhang back from the police station today, the mother and son had started arguing.

On top of that, Lü Yao had come home to pack her things. The moment Old Mrs. Zhang saw her, she inevitably remembered how she had been deceived before.

The mother and son had started quarreling as they talked. Zhang Shijing had been busy dealing with his son Zhang Yang's troubles these days, divorcing Lü Yao, and enduring accusations from his own mother. Even the best-tempered person would have snapped.

They were still arguing when Lü Yao left. Neither of them had any attention to spare for her.

However, she would not tell Liu Mumu any of this.

Liu Mumu could only listen quietly, unsure how to comfort her. She and Lü Yao were merely ordinary neighbors, and these private affairs were not hers to interfere in.

She pushed the suitcase to the entrance of the residential compound. Once outside, it would be easier to hail a taxi. Lü Yao stopped, and Liu Mumu released the suitcase.

"Thank you for seeing me out. I'm afraid we won't have many chances to meet in the future. Goodbye." Lü Yao extended her hand, seemingly wanting to shake hands.

Liu Mumu also reached out and shook it. When their fingers touched, it seemed static electricity sparked between them, accompanied by a crackle.

Only after letting go did Liu Mumu say, "Goodbye."

She turned and walked back into the compound. Lü Yao had already waited for the car coming to pick her up. The driver got out, put her suitcase in the trunk, and then she climbed into the car.

Through the window, Lü Yao watched the red figure entering the compound. Suddenly, she gave a soft laugh, her expression utterly different from usual.

She turned over the right hand she had shaken with Liu Mumu. A patch of charred flesh covered her palm.

At that moment, the driver spoke from the front. "Miss Lü, the boss is very displeased that you suddenly decided to leave the Zhang family."

Lü Yao raised her eyes and coldly looked at the driver. "My surname is Qi, not Lü."

She should have been called Qi Yao, not Lü Yao.

Her biological father was a collateral member of the Qi family. During one of his trips outside, he met her mother, and the two of them slept together. She became pregnant afterward.

Her mother had looked forward to giving birth to her, waiting for that wealthy man to come find her.

Then her maternal grandparents learned that their daughter was pregnant and forced her to marry a man more than ten years older than her. He was infertile but fairly wealthy, and he treated both his wife and the daughter she had borne to another man reasonably well.

Aside from her mother occasionally losing her mind and babbling that the man would return for her, everything in the family was normal.

When she was eighteen, her mother died, and her adoptive father intended to transform their father-daughter relationship into something else—something nauseating.

That was when the biological father who had vanished for eighteen years appeared.

Lü Yao gained a new surname. Although it was not legally recognized, she also learned some special methods that could protect her and even let her harm others at will.

The driver's words interrupted Lü Yao's recollections. His voice was flat and emotionless. "The boss wants more information about Liu Mumu, and your actions have disrupted his plans."

"I already told you that Liu Mumu is very wary. I pretended to be weak and begged her for help, but she still refused to tell my fortune. The boss's method of testing her won't work. Besides, someone has been investigating me recently. They even traced me to my former boyfriend. That's not a good sign."

The driver frowned. "We haven't received any news."

Lü Yao let out a cold laugh. "I told you long ago that the police in Qingcheng are no ordinary bunch. Even Xu Yongshuang fell here, and the boss still hasn't learned his lesson? Liu Mumu has a very close relationship with those police officers. The moment she came into contact with Xu Yonglin, he turned himself in. That can't be a coincidence. There's a seventy percent chance the people investigating me are police officers. I don't dare gamble."

Even now, Lü Yao still could not figure out what Liu Mumu had said to Xu Yonglin that day.

She did not know the Xu brothers, but they worked for the same boss. And since she was a member of the Qi family, she inevitably knew more than most, including what the Xu brothers looked like.

At the time, although she saw Liu Mumu make contact with Xu Yonglin, she did not think much of it.

It was only after she saw Liu Mumu leave with a man and then return in a police car that she realized something was wrong.

Unfortunately, she had notified them too late. Xu Yongshuang had not even had time to escape. And to this day, no one knew why the Xu brothers had turned against each other.

Lü Yao knew very well that the boss did not believe her previous reports. He thought coincidence was more likely than Liu Mumu having done anything. Whether he believed her or not did not matter. Lü Yao simply did not want to meet an inexplicable end here.

The driver thought for a moment, then softened his tone. "What do we do next? The boss was already unhappy about what happened to the Xu brothers. The trail of the Longevity Gu has been cut off, and several capable men were lost. Are we giving up on Liu Mumu too?"

"Who said we're giving up? We just won't stay by her side. As long as we keep watching her, we'll eventually uncover some unknown secrets." She finished and raised her palm for the driver to see. "At the very least, I can prove that she isn't an ordinary person. I wanted to give her a parting gift, but it seems I failed to deliver it."

Beneath the charred skin on her palm, something seemed to be moving. A small lump rose from time to time.

Lü Yao did not care. She smiled at her palm, then seemed to remember something and said, "Take me to the police station first."

"What are you going to do?" the driver asked in surprise.

"Of course, I'm delivering one last gift to my husband's family." She smiled.

"...Didn't that man give you a sum of money?" The driver was clearly well aware of Lü Yao's family affairs.

Lü Yao gently rubbed her fingers against her lips. "That money was to buy his son's life, not his mother's. It's his own fault for giving me too little."

Although she had been quite satisfied with her husband, they were divorced now. Once divorced, they were no longer family. She no longer needed to hesitate before doing anything.

The driver said nothing. He turned the car around and headed for the nearest police station.

"By the way, there's one more thing."

"What is it?"

"Make an appointment for me at Renyuan and reserve a bed. This child needs to be removed intact." Lü Yao stroked her slightly protruding belly and spoke softly.

The driver shot her a quick glance through the rearview mirror. His hands tightened slightly around the steering wheel.

Although the woman looked perfectly normal, she could also be terrifyingly insane at times. No one knew what she really intended to do.

When Liu Mumu returned home, she felt somewhat sleepy, so she went to take a nap.

After waking, she had just walked downstairs when she heard that the police had once again gone to the neighboring home.

"What happened this time? Weren't they already divorced? I even saw Uncle Zhang's wife carrying her things away today." Liu Mumu walked toward the sofa while yawning.

Her afternoon nap had lasted a little too long, and she was even sleepier after waking up.

If she had not been worried about being unable to sleep that night, she would not have wanted to get up at all.

Seeing her approach, Dong Qi, who was sprawled across the sofa, sat up and gave up most of his space.

Liu Mumu collapsed onto the sofa and did not want to move.

Dong Yue leaned over and speared a grape for her, then a slice of cantaloupe, then a strawberry...

In the end, she carried the entire fruit platter away.

Dong Zhenghao, who had just been preparing to take a piece of cantaloupe, watched with a twitching eye. When he came home, his son had not even made room for him!

Yet his daughter was constantly feeding Liu Mumu fruit. Who, exactly, was the Head of the family?

Jiang Li seemed rather excited. The gossip from next door was simply too juicy. Hearing Liu Mumu's question, she hurriedly said, "This time, their old lady was taken away."

Liu Mumu opened her eyes. "What did she do this time?"

Jiang Li lowered her voice mysteriously. "The Zhang family is in serious trouble this time. I heard Zhang Shijing's ex-wife's death may have something to do with their old lady. And it seems the child his ex-wife never got to give birth to was deformed too. The police now suspect that she was also given a fertility pill before she died."

"How do you know?" Liu Mumu asked curiously.

The police would not spread the news everywhere when arresting someone.

"Zhang Shijing's ex-wife's family came knocking. They brought people over just now and smashed up the Zhang family. I heard they even had an audio recording of Old Mrs. Zhang harming her former daughter-in-law—one where she admitted it herself."

Jiang Li was a little regretful. The family had only said they had evidence; they had not played it so she could hear it with her own ears.

Liu Mumu hesitated. "Could this have been done by Lü Yao too?"

She had wondered earlier why Lü Yao had not dealt with Old Mrs. Zhang. So she had been waiting for this moment.

"Who knows? But she divorced him, and the Zhang family was visited by the police right afterward. Eighty percent of it has to be connected to her." Jiang Li sounded puzzled as she continued, "Lü Yao is strange too. How did she become so capable after the divorce when she had been bullied so badly before? It's like she became a different person."

Liu Mumu nodded in agreement.

"You women just haven't seen enough of the world. If she had no ability, how could she have married Zhang Shijing back then? Did she really rely only on that soft, easy-to-bully personality?" Dong Zhenghao finally found a chance to speak up.

"But that woman is vicious enough. If the news gets out, the Zhang family is finished."

Once a death was involved, even if Zhang Shijing had not done it, the Zhang family would probably be doomed.