With a single kick, Sang Weiguo dropped to his knees. When dealing with a brat like this, you couldn’t use “ladies’ weapons”—you needed a fire poker. Still, the kid was a decent drop; beating him earned merit points, so it wasn’t a loss at all. Listening to the merit points clatter down again, Sang Zhi was delighted. As for the wailing cries for mommy and daddy… who cared?
Before warming up, she had already exchanged merit points with the system—within half an hour, to outside eyes, the small courtyard was quiet as a chicken coop. Weapon in hand and with her forward-thinking mindset, the three of them didn’t gain a single advantage against her. Sang Zhi firmly remembered the rule: hit people, but not the face. Every strike landed where outsiders couldn’t see.
Suspicion, insults, pleading, flattery—after some merciless “education,” the three of them changed their attitudes completely. Only when she got tired did she finally stop. The three huddled together in a corner, trembling.
Sang Zhi lifted Sang Weiguo’s chin with the stick. “Speak. Where did Sang Bei go?”
Back then, after her parents died and her elder brother went to prison, they said they couldn’t raise two children. The original owner had given up her chance to survive to her younger brother and returned to the countryside herself. Who knew that by the time she heard news of her brother again, he’d already been missing for years. Sang Bei was the same age as Sang Weiguo, yet their fates were worlds apart.
Sang Weiguo bared his teeth in pain, staring at the stick, his body shaking like a sieve. Just as he was about to speak, his mother clamped a hand over his mouth. Liu Meili looked at Sang Zhi as if she were a flood beast. “We really don’t know…”
They couldn’t say it. If they did, they’d truly be beaten to death.
Sang Zhi knew that as long as their last shred of hope wasn’t crushed, they wouldn’t tell the truth, so she didn’t press further. She had other things to do anyway and temporarily spared them.
“You—go cook for me…”
The fire poker pointed at Liu Meili.
She slunk into the kitchen. When the siblings tried to get up as well, Sang Zhi knocked on the wall with a displeased look. “Who told you to get up? Hands on your heads, keep squatting!”
The siblings had always enslaved her before. Now that the roles were reversed, they were unwilling—but when they saw her raise the fire poker, they obeyed in terror.
Early in the morning, Sang Zhi had already hidden the household grain—leaving only enough for her own meal. After eating her fill, she went out.
Liu Meili’s stomach growled as she stared at the empty kitchen, cursing nonstop. It wasn’t time to buy grain yet—had that little bitch squandered it all? Was her whole family supposed to drink the northwest wind?
“Oh no!” She rushed to the hiding place for money.
Five minutes later, anguished wails rang out. Liu Meili was beside herself with grief. Her private stash—her bankbook—everything was gone!
“Quick, go call your brother, get your dad back! Tell him that little bastard has rebelled—she’s逼ing our family to death!”
……
In the original novel, the heroine’s younger brother was sold by the cheap uncle and aunt, and he was the first to die. After his death, the elder brother was executed the following year, and finally the original owner died as well. As for why the cheap elder brother went to prison, the book only briefly mentioned it—during those ten special years, such cases were everywhere.
She had been reborn using the body of that young girl, so naturally she had to save her family too. But without the original owner’s memories, she could only rely on herself. The book said Granny Cai had arranged an escape route for her—the great-uncle seemed to be an old military leader, living alone in a military compound after retirement, his son not by his side. On her own, she definitely couldn’t find Sang Bei. She had to seek outside help.
That meant placing her hopes on the great-uncle.
After finishing her business at the hospital early that morning, Sang Zhi went to browse the department store. Since she was about to pay a visit, she couldn’t go empty-handed—especially with a lot of money in hand and favors to ask. She first bought herself two new outfits.
Moutai was seven yuan a bottle but required a purchase slip. She exchanged two brightly patterned bedsheets from the system and traded them for two slips, finally getting it. But after that, her merit points were down to eighty. If something unexpected happened, that wouldn’t even be enough for a deal.
Better go back first—maybe beat up the little brat again and see if she could squeeze out some more points.
After she left, Jiang Yan, who had just entered the department store, suddenly felt something and turned his head. He was also there to buy gifts to visit his old leader.
“What is it?” Feng Xiangdong asked in confusion.
The person was already gone. Jiang Yan withdrew his gaze. “Let’s go.”
……
Here, just as Sang Zhi returned to the residential compound, someone grabbed the hem of her clothes. A little girl with twin braids she didn’t recognize spoke softly.
“Sister Sang, your uncle and aunt called the police and the factory leaders to your house. They said they want to arrest you.”
Sang Zhi glanced around. A woman lowered her head—probably afraid to show her face and get into trouble, so she had deliberately sent the child to warn her. Sang Zhi patted the girl’s cheek and handed her a few White Rabbit milk candies. “Thank you…”
The woman’s intention was for her to avoid trouble. But who would end up dead was still uncertain.
The Sang family’s front door stood open. Even though the security office had dispersed the crowd several times, people gathered again soon after. When Sang Zhi rushed back, she saw the mother and daughter with slap marks on their faces, crying to the leaders.
“She stole the money from our house and went crazy, beating us up. Leaders, you have to stand up for us!”
Sang Zhi always hit people without hitting the face. They were pulling this stunt because they didn’t dare show their bodies, yet still wanted to bring her down. Thinking this, she used all her strength to slap Sang Weiguo across the face.
Amid the family’s stunned looks, she shoved him in front of the crowd.
“Everyone look—this slap mark is from me. You can compare it with the slap marks on my aunt and cousin’s faces.”
The force of that last slap was so strong that Sang Weiguo’s chubby little face immediately swelled. The three of them stood there, slap marks clearly visible. The marks on the mother and daughter’s faces were noticeably bigger than Sang Weiguo’s, and each mark looked different—probably because they didn’t want to hit each other too hard, so they kept slapping one another. The neighbors looked on, finally understanding.
Sang Zhi’s second uncle, who had seen everything, veins bulging on his forehead, quickly restrained his furious eldest son. In a calm tone he said, “Even if you want to prove something, you can’t beat your brother in front of so many people. Look at his face—it’s all swollen.”
Well, trying to twist it back on her. But Sang Zhi was a better actress; tears welled up and streamed down her face, making her look pitiful.
“If I don’t explain, the blame will stick for sure. Second Uncle, you said that living under someone else’s roof comes with the responsibility of being considerate, that I should give way to my older sister and younger brother. But… I’ve given enough already.”
With these carefully chosen words, everyone’s sympathy completely tilted in her favor.
“Living under someone else’s roof, being a burden—how could Second Brother say that!”
“Yeah, it’s obviously their family we’re staying with. They’ve occupied it for so long, thinking it’s theirs?”
“Ugh, shameless!”
“Sang Zhi, don’t worry. Whatever grievance you have, we’ll stand up for you!”
“Right, evil can’t crush justice—we’ve got your back!”
Sang Jiqing, square-faced and of medium build, wore glasses that gave him a scholarly, gentle air despite his anger. His face was flushed a dark red, furious enough to burst, yet he still tried to maintain the composure expected of an elder, soothing the situation like coaxing a child:
“Xiao Zhi, an elder won’t fuss over a younger one. Your aunt’s matter is a misunderstanding—we can talk about it behind closed doors.”
Hypocritically.
“I’m not hiding anything; I’ll say it right here,” she replied. Her cheap uncle, who was clever and calculating, seemed to have anticipated her response, and he didn’t argue—resignedly, he muttered to the police.
Sang Yun, covering her face, peeked out from behind her brother’s reassurance with a smug expression. “Let her enjoy it for now; her tears will come soon enough!”
Sang Zhi covered her face as if sobbing, but her palms were dry, and her full red lips curled slightly.
The show was finally about to begin.