The old fox shook his head with a look of feigned regret. Having laid his groundwork and unwilling to waste any more time, he directly played his trump card.
It was Wang Daqing, with his haggard face.
He came over, holding his legs together.
After the effects of the drugged bait wore off yesterday, his shrieks had almost pierced the roof. When the station staff found him, seeing his crotch covered in blood, they were terrified and rushed him to the hospital.
Yet Wang Daqing was a vagrant; in an era with such a strict household registration system, moving about was nearly impossible, let alone seeking medical treatment at a hospital.
After turning it over in his mind, he had no choice but to turn to the Sang family father and son.
After all, they were all grasshoppers on the same string, and he held dirt on both of them; they wouldn't dare stand by and let him die.
Sang Jiqing didn't have the medical skills to heal the sick and rescue the dying; he merely dispensed medicine at the pharmacy.
Even a sinking ship had three nails left, however.
Through years of ingratiating himself, he had built up some clout at the Lumber Mill hospital. Bringing someone in for an examination and treatment was still quite simple.
Sang Zhi was vicious enough to crush his testicles.
Yet she wasn't so vicious as to leave him with none, sparing him one.
With a bit of luck and a good doctor, he could still preserve his reproductive capability.
Treatment, however, required money.
And he had no money.
The Sang family father and son wanted to get rid of Sang Zhi, using money and his shattered testicles to lure him in—how could he not take the bait?
Enemies meeting face-to-face saw each other with extra hostility. Seeing that she showed neither remorse nor fear, Wang Daqing wished he could tear her apart with his bare hands.
He pointed a trembling finger at her and screamed hysterically, "Comrade police officers, she is the one who intentionally harmed me. She tried to kill me! Arrest her right now and execute her by firing squad!"
The two police officers had been squared away by the Sang family father and son beforehand.
Instead of pursuing his status as a vagrant, they looked Sang Zhi up and down and asked, "Where were you yesterday at noon, what were you doing, and is there anyone to corroborate your story?"
They put on a show of handling the matter impartially.
Normal people, especially female comrades of this age, would have been scared to shiver at the sight of the stern-faced police.
Like Sang Yun and her mother, they wouldn't even dare look the officers in the eye.
This female comrade, however, was exceptionally calm.
Liu Meili and her daughter were basking in the joy of their impending revenge, their eyes sparkling with glee as they waited for her to fall.
Unfortunately, what they got in return was a poised Sang Zhi posing a calm and unyielding counter-question.
"Comrade police officers, whoever makes a claim must provide the evidence. He says I shattered his testicles—may I ask at what exact time, who saw it, and where is the witness?"
"Hiss..."
Shattering testicles—was that something a young girl could just blurt out?
The two police officers looked at each other in dismay, unable to proceed since what she said made a lot of sense.
Seeing that she refused to admit it, Wang Daqing was driven mad with fury. He had suffered injuries, and now his masculine vulnerability was laid bare for all to see—who would have thought she would play dumb!
He lunged at her with a roar, only to be forced back down by the police.
After waiting for quite a while and watching their small-time tricks, Sang Zhi ran out of patience.
It was time for her to make her move.
"Comrade police officers, factory leaders, since they have shown no justice, don't blame me for showing no loyalty. I am here to report my uncle and my eldest cousin for abusing their power for personal gain, using their official positions to provide medical treatment to a vagrant and coercing him into helping them eliminate rivals. Such behavior is a flagrant undermining of socialism, damaging collective interests and bringing shame upon the broad masses of the people!"
Sang Jianshe's smug smile vanished.
He probably hadn't expected her to bite back with this right in front of the leaders.
Sang Jiqing's facial muscles twitched, and he hastily explained that he had already informed the police of the man's identity.
"Although he is a vagrant, human life comes first. We police comrades practice compassionate law enforcement, intending to repatriate him to his place of origin once his treatment is complete. Besides, we paid the medical expenses in advance, considering that the troublemaker is your relative. There is no way our father and son would ever take advantage of the public for even a single cent!"
By this point, he had lost any trace of underestimating his opponent.
He had thought Sang Zhi was as timid and weak as she used to be, believing he could take her down with a single blow as before.
But it was not so. Through this confrontation—seemingly ordinary in its dialogue—he could see her seasoned, ruthless mind.
Things were spiraling in an uncontrollable direction.
"Not taking a single cent of public money? Well said!"
She had been waiting precisely for these words.
Sang Zhi elegantly tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
Quite a few young men in the crowd blushed.
Oblivious—or seemingly so—to the impact she caused, she pulled out a cassette tape and placed it into a tape recorder borrowed from Aunt Su's house.
Pressing the button, a muffled conversation rang out.
"Fine, you'll use this name later to register and see the doctor. Just say you're my relative and they won't check the details too closely. Once that's done, I'll get you your medicine..."
"A tip of five yuan..."
"You think it's too expensive?"
"When your old mother was hospitalized with a major illness and had surgery last time, if I hadn't faked your records, would you have been able to get eighty percent reimbursed?"
"Alright, alright, I'll pay..."
"That's more like it."
With every single sentence played on the tape, the surrounding environment grew quieter, and Sang Jianshe's smug face crumbled a little more.
Because the recording completely documented his criminal process, leaving no room for sophistry—it was the kind of evidence that completely nailed him to the cross!
Sang Jiqing fared no better. His lips trembled, and as he tried to take off his glasses to wipe away his sweat, he fumbled and dropped them onto the ground.
Liu Meili's teeth chattered against each other, all the color drained from her face as she swayed on her feet, looking utterly consumed by terror.
"Isn't that eldest cousin's voice?"
The pot-bellied Sang Weiguo didn't understand why everyone had suddenly gone quiet, and foolishly voiced the doubt in his heart.
"Shut up!"
Abandoning his facade of a good man, Sang Jiqing kicked his idiotic son away.
The Lumber Mill had high efficiency and great benefits, featuring a special cooperative medical fund that practically achieved fully public-funded medical care for all factory employees.
For major illnesses requiring hospitalization, eighty percent of the medical expenses were reimbursed upon presenting the pharmacy receipts, provided there was a supervisor's signature.
Although there were certain limits on pharmacy expenditures and prescription quantities, it was essentially full public reimbursement.
However, this was on the condition that the patients were Lumber Mill employees and their dependents; members of the four black categories were excluded.
Yet where there were policies above, there were countermeasures below. Some individuals, or workers from outside the factory who were ineligible for public medical care, would resort to special methods.
If they pulled off a deception under everyone's noses, who would ever notice?
Unfortunately, such crude tactics could not fool Sang Zhi.
She had hurried to the pharmacy early on precisely to record evidence of this father-and-son duo's crimes. Fortunately, her cheap cousin proved useful and handed her the leverage she needed.
She also had to thank her cheap uncle for cooperating by inviting the police and factory leaders over; otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to put on such a grand show.
Earlier, he had appeared as righteous as could be; now, he was utterly disgraced.
His solemn vows still lingered in the air, only for him to be slapped across the face in the blink of an eye.
Sang Yun's dazed gaze swept across the crowd.
She caught the looks of disgust and contempt from everyone, and then noticed the stern expressions of the factory leaders and the eager, ready-for-action posture of the police.
In this day and age, although everyone might harbor petty thoughts of their own, they held collective interests in high regard.
No matter how much evidence they produced to frame Sang Zhi—claiming her character was flawed or her private morals ruined—none of it could compare to the thorough devastation of this single blow.
At that moment, a continuous stream of onlookers kept pouring in to watch the excitement.
Some busybody—it was impossible to tell who—gave Sang Yun a shove, knocking her hat off.
Her scorched scalp, resembling a marinated tea egg, was thus exposed to the public.
Sang Yun's mind had already been thrown into turmoil by her eldest cousin's affair; she didn't realize her hat had fallen off until quite a while later.
Although she had already lost face once last night, only a handful of people had witnessed it.
Today, however, the factory leaders were all here!
Feeling her bare head and listening to the uproarious laughter around her, she finally snapped back to reality.
With a shriek, she picked up her hat and fled in a crazed panic.
Wang Daqing had not only witnessed the terrifying prowess of Sang Zhi's combat skills, but also her mastery in manipulating human hearts.
The testicles between his legs began to ache once more.
In the past, he had only heard literate people use the idiom about the chicken flying away and the eggs breaking.
He hadn't understood it.
Now, with the chicken flown and the eggs broken, he understood completely.
And the ancestor opposite him hadn't even had her fill of fun yet.
"I just wonder how many other doctors have treated similar patients for the sake of my uncle. If they were all members of the four black categories and external factory workers, just how many of his colleagues is he going to drag down with him..."
At this, the onlookers could no longer laugh.
Quite a few people here had family members working in the hospital who were colleagues of the Sang family father and son. Just as the girl had said, in a society driven by personal connections, who hadn't opened a backdoor for a colleague or relative?
If the leaders launched a strict investigation, who could guarantee they hadn't been tricked by him?
A knife only hurts when it cuts into one's own flesh.
Those with close ties to their family had already started picking up stones to hurl at them.
Sang Zhi was clever; she had wielded this tactic of shifting the blame onto others with practiced ease.
Who cared about her kicking testicles anymore?
The security guards, never expecting such a dramatic reversal, received instructions from the leaders and said to the dumbfounded father and son, "Trouble you two to come with us."
Sang Jianshe was truly terrified now, repeatedly shouting that he had nothing to do with it.
Pinned down by the police, he wailed like a pig about to be slaughtered for the New Year, wetting his pants in terror.
"Mom, save me! I'm wronged, I don't want to go to jail, I don't want to be executed by a firing squad!"
The man who usually threw his weight around possessed not a shred of his former arrogance now.
His entire body had gone as limp as a pile of mud.
Seeing this, Wang Daqing—whose testicles were shattered—panicked and tried to flee, but the moment he turned around, he was promptly rewarded with a pair of silver bracelets.
The two police officers flashed bright white teeth. "You come with us too."
To draw a clear line between themselves and that father-and-son pair, they had to show some initiative as well.
Sang Zhi smiled, cloaking her deeds in anonymity.
She was certain that once those three dogs started biting each other, they would spit out even more interesting things.
With the spectacle over, Sang Zhi felt hungry.
Ignoring the doting, foolish mother and son in the courtyard—knowing they had no mood to cook for her anyway—she planned to go outside to forage for food.
Liu Meili finally realized the extent of her formidable capability.
Terrified that her husband and son would meet a bad end, she burst into tearful wails and dropped to her knees before her.
"Sang Zhi, it was Auntie's fault before. Don't hold it against us. Look, you don't have anyone else left in your family. If your uncle and your cousin both end up inside, outsiders are going to say you bring bad luck to your kin."
Sang Zhi cleared her ear with her pinky finger.
"None of your damn business."
Liu Meili choked up, realizing that wasn't enough, and began kowtowing loudly. "Your younger brother is still young, our family can't do without a pillar..."
"None of your damn business!"