Chapter 158: She Has No Way Out

Chapter 158: Chapter 158: She Has No Way Out

His eyes were black and blue, dried blood caked the corner of his mouth, and the little finger on his right hand was bent unnaturally to the side.

"This is illegal, don’t you understand? I’m filing a complaint right now!"

Her voice suddenly shot up, her shouts echoing throughout the hallway.

Officer Peng shook his head.

"During the arrest, he slammed his head into the wall and threw himself on the floor. He did this to himself. It has nothing to do with us."

"Don’t believe me? Ask him yourself."

Officer Peng jutted his chin toward Ruan Yongxing.

Ruan Yongxing looked up at Officer Peng, took a resentful breath, and swallowed his grievances.

He reached out, grabbing the iron bars, and yelled urgently to Yao Yuzhen.

"Yu Zhen! Hurry, tell them! That thing back then, you told me to do all of it! I was just following your orders! From start to finish, I never made a single decision on my own!"

Listening from the side, Officer Peng couldn’t help but frown.

’This guy is really something, shifting all the blame onto the woman. Not a shred of integrity.’

But Yao Yuzhen, as if she didn’t hear anything wrong, nodded vigorously.

"That’s right! I said it! He sent the person away on my orders!"

Hearing this, Ruan Yongxing’s shoulders immediately relaxed. He whispered, "So... when can I get out?"

Yao Yuzhen glanced at Officer Peng standing nearby and said in a hushed voice, "We have to wait until the investigation is over. Just hang in there for a few more days."

Ruan Yongxing didn’t believe a word about waiting for an investigation and suddenly grabbed Yao Yuzhen.

"Yu Zhen, I’ll be honest with you. Shen Zhenwu did this to my face, and he’s the one who gave me all these bruises!"

"He... he’s after me! He’s not going to let me off easy!"

Officer Peng’s expression darkened. He slammed his hand on the iron bars three times and turned to Yao Yuzhen.

"Miss Yao, time’s up. The visit is over."

"He’s coming for me! I can’t be locked up in here! He’s going to kill me! Help me! Hurry, Yu Zhen!"

Ruan Yongxing screamed until his voice was hoarse and trembling.

It was unclear whether it was because of his desperate cries or if Yao Yuzhen was genuinely frightened.

That afternoon, unable to sit still, she went straight to Shen Zhenwu.

"You can have all the money, and the house too. I just ask one thing of you: leave Ruan Yongxing alone. Let him go."

Shen Zhenwu stared at the face he had known for thirty years, a face so familiar he could trace its contours with his eyes closed. Yet now, it was as if he were seeing it for the first time.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Shen Rongjing gave a slight shake of his head.

Then, Shen Rongjing pulled out a stack of papers and pushed them in front of Yao Yuzhen.

"Please look these over. If there are no issues, sign here."

Yao Yuzhen glanced at them, her face turning deathly pale. "What is this?"

Shen Rongjing’s voice was perfectly calm.

"I told you before. If you want Ruan Yongxing to get out safely, everything this family owns must go to my father."

"Then what about these? What is all this?"

Yao Yuzhen’s hands trembled as she held the papers, her lips quivering.

Shen Rongjing adjusted his glasses.

"I looked into it. Every year, you secretly transferred anywhere from three to five hundred to Ruan Yongxing. And that’s not even counting the cash you gave him in person."

"That was for my own daughter’s expenses!"

Yao Yuzhen craned her neck and shouted, her voice suddenly rising in pitch.

"Can you prove that money was actually spent on my sister? And even if you could, so what?"

"If my sister hadn’t been lost, would you have even needed to pay that money?"

"Besides, don’t you spend more than just a few hundred a year on clothes alone for Shen Shuangshuang?"

"And what about my own sister?"

Shen Rongjing rarely showed his emotions, but as the words left his mouth, his face flushed red with anger.

"Every transfer you made to him, and every cent you took from the account after you moved out, has to be paid back."

"Otherwise, Ruan Yongxing can stay right here. For the rest of his life."

"You..." Yao Yuzhen snapped her head up to glare at Shen Rongjing.

But the memory of the bloody gash on Ruan Yongxing’s face made her throat go dry, and her breath caught.

’I have no way out.’

But Shen Rongjing was never one to be intimidated by a glare.

He stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, his gaze calm.

’He’d long grown accustomed to her favoritism and had stopped expecting she would ever give him a second glance.’

’No expectations, no attachments.’

He remained indifferent, merely tilting his head slightly to gaze at the snowy street outside.

Seeing that Shen Rongjing wasn’t falling for it, Yao Yuzhen turned to look at Shen Zhenwu.

Her lips parted twice, as if to speak.

Shen Zhenwu didn’t even look at her, saying only, "Once the paperwork is done, I’ll have someone send the divorce certificate to your home."

There was no emotion in his voice.

Yao Yuzhen had been high and mighty her whole life, always assuming he would be the one to back down, to compromise.

And the result?

Not a single soft word.

She couldn’t bring herself to beg. With a stomp of her foot, she turned and left.

Just as she was about to step out the door, Shen Rongjing suddenly spoke.

"Don’t wait too long. If you don’t pay up, our family really won’t be dropping the case."

Yao Yuzhen stopped dead in her tracks.

She slowly turned around, locked eyes with Shen Rongjing, and said through clenched teeth, "You’ll get what’s coming to you someday."

Hearing this, Shen Zhenwu shot up from the sofa, his face red with anger.

But Shen Rongjing quickly held him back.

A corner of his mouth lifted into a relaxed smile. "Fine. I’ll be waiting for it."

Back in her room, Yao Yuzhen rummaged through her bag, emptied her pockets, and yanked open drawers.

But there was nothing left.

The money she had withdrawn two days ago had already been stuffed into Ruan Yongxing’s hands, down to the last cent.

With Ruan Yongxing locked up in the detention center, she couldn’t ask him for it directly. Swallowing her pride, she had no choice but to ask Shen Shuangshuang.

"Shuangshuang, are you short on cash right now? Do you have any on hand?"

"Huh? Money?"

Shen Shuangshuang froze, then immediately shook her head like a rattle. "I don’t have any money, I really don’t!"

She instinctively took half a step back, her voice turning shrill.

’She thought her mom was accusing her of stealing money again.’ Fearing trouble, she quickly added,

"That little bit you gave me before, I still have it! I haven’t touched it!"

Her tone was urgent, laced with a hint of grievance.

She then ran into her room and came back with an old wallet. "Look, it’s all here!"

She flipped open the wallet. Inside were only three ten-dollar bills and a fifty-cent coin.

Yao Yuzhen waved her hand dismissively, sighed, and turned to leave the house again.

She snatched a scarf from a hook, wrapped it tightly around her neck, and ran out into the wind and snow to cancel her lease.

She went to the old building at the end of the street and knocked on the elderly landlord’s door.

When the old man heard she wanted to break the lease, his face immediately fell. "On a cold day like this, you want to just up and leave? No, no way!"

Yao Yuzhen took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling slightly, before speaking in a low, controlled voice.

"The way you’re holding me to this, you’re no different from one of those feudal landlords from the old society, the kind who’d force their tenants to sell their own children."

The old landlord’s shoulders flinched, and his face went pale.

’That was no idle threat!’

He didn’t dare respond, just tremblingly pulled out a wad of cash and stuffed it all into Yao Yuzhen’s hands.

But he was still muttering to himself inwardly.

’What kind of high-ranking official’s wife would be out here herself, wrapped in a scarf and trudging through the snow just to break a lease? But then again, looking at the quality of Yao Yuzhen’s clothes, the way she spoke, the way she carried herself...’

The old man thought quietly, ’Even if she isn’t one herself, she must be related to someone in power.’

’Best not to provoke people like that. I can’t afford to!’

’Besides, she’d paid her rent in full, so he wasn’t really losing out.’

He glanced up at Yao Yuzhen one more time, then quickly retreated into his apartment and shut the door tight.

Yao Yuzhen hurried back with the crumpled wad of cash. By then, the sky was completely dark.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, her foot slipped, and she fell hard onto the steps.

The snow had long since been trampled into slush, a wet, grayish-black sludge.