Just as the father and daughter had barely managed to establish themselves on the outskirts of the Capital City, the local tyrant Wu Ergou came knocking with a gang of thugs, forcibly demanding so-called "protection fees." He declared that if they failed to pay on time, he would drive them out of the outskirts of the Capital City—or do something even worse.
In an unfamiliar place, the father and daughter dared to be angry but not speak out. They could only swallow their resentment and hand over thirty, sometimes even fifty, percent of their hard-earned income every day.
Yet fate seemed to have played a cruel joke...
Not long afterward, Li Li's elder brother, Li Da, whom they had believed to have died in the "Night Erosion," miraculously found his way to the Capital City. After enduring countless hardships, he finally reunited with his father and younger sister.
The family of three had reunited after surviving a calamity. They had thought their bitter days were finally over and that they could support one another and live peacefully for a while.
But that brief hope was soon shattered completely.
Wu Ergou and the others saw that the Li family had suddenly gained another person, and immediately demanded that the daily protection fee be doubled on the grounds of "increased population and land-and-grain expenses"!
This undoubtedly cut off the Li family's last path to survival.
Even more despicable, they actually turned around and denied everything, slandering the Li family by claiming that the amount they had previously paid was insufficient. They threatened to seize Li Li immediately and sell her into a brothel to settle the so-called "debt" unless they made up the difference!
Li Li's honest, simple father could no longer endure such bullying. He got into an argument with Wu