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The Bai couple tried to guilt-trip Father Gu. Father Gu scoffed. "How ridiculous. You parents can watch your own son go to prison over this little bit of money. Why would I, an outsider, have anything to be reluctant about?"

Father Gu's words left the Bai couple speechless. Bai Yuesheng's mother protested, "Even if we have to pay, you can't just name a price and expect us to give you whatever you ask for, can you? It's only rebuilding a western wing, not restoring the entire Gu Residence. How could it possibly cost more than sixteen million? Don't be so greedy."

Gu Yugui sneered repeatedly at Bai Yanliang and his wife. "I don't want a single cent. If it weren't for your precious son, why would he have come to our home and set it on fire for no reason?"

Before the Bai couple could speak, Gu Yugui continued, "It would be one thing if outsiders didn't know any better, but why are you Bai family pretending to be confused? What do you mean, just rebuilding one western wing? Don't the things inside the room cost money? The beams, the windows, the beds, tables, chairs, jars, and bottles inside—weren't every last one of them painstakingly made by our old man and old lady with their own hands?"

"Forget everything else. That jade incense burner your son smashed with a liquor bottle alone—between the workmanship and the material, it couldn't be replaced for less than seven million."

"My parents' decades of hard work were burned to ashes by your son. The Gu family has already been more than generous by not demanding that the Bai family replace everything exactly as it was! What more do you want?"

"If you have the ability, then don't pay us a cent. Return everything in its original condition instead. You can rebuild the house too, but the construction crew must be properly qualified, and the technical plans have to pass joint approval from us and the Cultural Relics Bureau."

The Bai couple were immediately left speechless with anger. They knew they were in the wrong, yet they refused to compensate the more than sixteen million, stubbornly crying poverty to Gu Yugui.

Gu Yugui waved a hand. "There's no point telling me any of this. I've done my duty by informing you how much you need to pay. If you want to default, take it up with the court."

Mother Gu had even prepared the lawsuit. If the Bai family truly tried to welsh on the payment, the Gu family could only tear off all pretense.

When that happened, they should not blame this neighbor uncle of several decades for not looking after his nephew and insisting on leaving Bai Yuesheng with a criminal record!

Gu Yugui flicked his sleeve and turned to leave the Bai family home.

The Bai couple were so furious their eyes turned red. They immediately rushed to the hospital and began berating Bai Yuesheng. "...Of all things, why did you have to go set that fire at the Gu Residence? Now look what's happened—the Gu family wants to extort more than sixteen million from us. We can't come up with that money, and the Gus are going to send you to prison! What are we supposed to do now?"

"Aren't you on very good terms with that little bastard Gu Jiuque? If it weren't for him, you wouldn't have drowned your sorrows in drink, and you wouldn't have owed so much money. Go find him right away. No matter what you have to do, you must make him waive this money for you. You know perfectly well what our family circumstances are like. Even if we sold everything we own, we couldn't raise more than sixteen million!" Bai Yanliang said furiously.

Bai Yuesheng said nothing as he watched his parents jumping around and cursing.

Though the Bai family was not as wealthy as the Gu family, if they truly sold everything they owned, they could still scrape together several tens of millions. Setting aside everything else, their two-courtyard siheyuan just one street away from the Gu Family Ancestral Residence was worth several tens of millions.

But why should the Bai family spend that money? At the very least, Bai Yanliang was unwilling. "We can't sell the house and leave the three of us sleeping on the streets, can we?"

Bai Yuesheng lay pale-faced on the hospital bed, his face full of disbelief. "Isn't it just one lousy side room? There wasn't even a single valuable antique in there. Why should we have to compensate them so much?"

Bai Yanliang's face wrinkled like a bitter melon. "What do you know? There may not have been many valuable old items inside, but the house itself was an old residence from the Ming dynasty. The Gu family was a prominent household, and the beams, bracket sets, bricks, stones, and tiles used to build it were all top-quality materials. Then there was the matching red rosewood and lobular red sandalwood furniture, which was worth three or four million as well. And that jade incense burner you smashed with a liquor bottle—"

"Enough! Enough!" Tao Li interrupted Bai Yanliang impatiently. "At a time like this, why are you still going on about all that useless crap? The Gu Residence used good materials, and now they want you to compensate them for it! The better the materials, the more you have to pay!"

Bai Yanliang: "..."

Bai Yuesheng took a deep breath, his eyes swimming with tears. "I'll go find Gu Jiuque right now. I'll tell him straight: my parents said the Bai family has no money, only one life. At worst, I'll give him my life as compensation!"

The Bai couple said in unison, "Right, say exactly that. Scare him properly. The Gu family cares about their reputation. Maybe if you make a scene like this, they'll be afraid of the bad publicity and won't make us pay."

"Our family shouldn't have been made to pay in the first place. This wasn't Singsing's fault alone. If their family hadn't been so careless that they failed to notice a living person sneaking into their home, and let Singsing hide alone in the western wing to drink himself into a stupor and sleep, could something so serious have happened?"

"Exactly! It's a good thing our Singsing is all right. If anything had happened to him, I would have made that old Gu family compensate us with a life!"

"The other day, I saw a news story about a thief who died while stealing from someone else's house. The court even ordered the homeowner to compensate the thief's family! We're not such unreasonable people. Singsing is injured this badly, and we haven't even asked the Gu family to pay his medical bills. Yet they still have the nerve to ask us for renovation costs? What matters more, money or a life?"

"We've all been neighbors for so many years. The Gu family is so rich that more than sixteen million probably isn't even enough for one business deal to them, but for ordinary people like us, it's a family fortune we could never save in a lifetime. I've heard of robbing the rich to help the poor, but never robbing the poor to enrich the rich! The Gu family demanding more than sixteen million from us is forcing our family of three onto a dead end. At worst, we'll fight them to the bitter end! Let's see who ends up losing face!"

The more the Bai couple spoke, the more righteously indignant they became, constantly egging Bai Yuesheng on.

Bai Yuesheng watched his increasingly agitated parents with cold eyes, then suddenly climbed out of bed. "I'll go find Gu Jiuque right now. I want to ask him face-to-face—how can his family do this?"