Chapter 11 : Where Is My Money
Chapter 11: Where Is My Money
Old Zhong had only one thought left in his mind at this moment—he prayed that Shen Qingzhou would discover as soon as possible that he had deleted his contact information.
Just as no one could ever owe Old Zhong money, likewise, no one could ever owe Shen Qingzhou money.
If someone owed Old Zhong, at worst they could risk death and be done with it. But if they owed Shen Qingzhou, that would be true living hell—unable to live, unable to die.
So the reason Shen Qingzhou had not collected a deposit in advance was not only because of his trust in him, but also because of his confidence in his own strength.
Old Zhong knew Shen Qingzhou’s methods, so he never dared to default. If faced with a situation like this, even if it meant losing everything, he would first pay out of pocket—he would never dare to delay repayment.
Just as Old Zhong’s thoughts were in chaos, the iron door of the basement was kicked open once more. The dull, heavy bang echoed again and again through the cold, damp space.
Huang Dayuan strode in, with Tang Xiaolan following behind him. The woman kept her head lowered extremely low, her shoulders trembling slightly, appearing timid and shrinking, not even daring to lift her eyes.
Old Zhong’s heart skipped violently—his worst premonition had finally come true.
Without a word, Huang Dayuan stepped forward, grabbed the back of Old Zhong’s collar, and dragged him toward the door like a rag doll.
“Don’t… don’t do this! We can talk this out. I can definitely help you get the money back. This is my livelihood—no one in this world can default on me…”
Old Zhong struggled desperately, his voice filled with frantic pleading, piercingly loud in the deathly silent basement.
Huang Dayuan, upon hearing this, suddenly slammed him hard onto the cold concrete floor. The dull impact made Old Zhong’s organs feel like they were rattling in pain.
He crouched down, his rough hand braced on his knee, leaning close to Old Zhong’s face. A sinister chill surged in his eyes. “I know what you’re thinking—looking for your brother Ding Youguang, right? You two have a life-and-death friendship. He runs a debt collection company. All those bad debts you had over the years were chased down by him, weren’t they?”
Old Zhong’s face instantly turned pale. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Tang Xiaolan standing nearby. He had never expected that she would even tell Huang Dayuan about this.
“Yes… yes, I’ll go find him right away. I promise I’ll get the money back for you.”
Old Zhong seemed to have grabbed onto his last straw of hope, hurriedly responding, his urgency almost overflowing.
But what answered him was a heavy slap.
The force made his head buzz, stars exploded in his vision, and half his face went numb. A burning pain shot up along his nerves to his scalp.
“You think I’m an idiot? Go find your brother? If I really let you go, whether the money comes back or not is unclear—but my life would probably be gone.”
He was no fool. Someone like Ding Youguang, who could run a debt collection company so successfully, must have ruthless methods. Going head-to-head with that kind of person—he wasn’t stupid enough for that.
Huang Dayuan reached out, his rough fingers pinching Old Zhong’s cheeks, forcefully turning his face toward him. He let out a low, eerie laugh. “I’ve gambled for more than ten years and learned one principle—quit while you’re ahead.”
Kidnapping Old Zhong this time hadn’t left him empty-handed.
Although he hadn’t gotten the thirty million, the several million in Old Zhong’s bank account had already been completely transferred away by him.
If Old Zhong’s villa hadn’t been registered under his daughter’s name—and with his daughter overseas, untouchable—he would have taken even more.
He knew clearly that Old Zhong still had hidden money that he hadn’t handed over, but he had no intention of digging deeper. He understood the principle of quitting while ahead—the longer this dragged on, the greater the risk.
Huang Dayuan might have been a scumbag, but he wasn’t stupid. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to mold Tang Xiaolan into what she was now.
Too lazy to waste more words, he grabbed Old Zhong’s collar again and dragged him out of the basement.
Old Zhong was completely panicked. With his limbs restrained, he shouted desperately, “I still have money! I really still have money! Let me go—I’ll give you everything, all of it…”
“Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me. Even if you lock me up here and let me starve or die of thirst, just don’t kill me…”
“Tang Xiaolan, you wretched woman! I treated you so well before—how could you do this to me? You won’t die a good death…”
…
Filthy curses mixed with pleas, sounding especially grating.
Huang Dayuan frowned deeply, his face full of impatience. “So noisy. Xiaolan, shut his mouth.”
Tang Xiaolan’s body trembled slightly. Then she hurriedly picked up a roll of tape from the ground—it had been used earlier to seal Old Zhong’s mouth and then discarded there.
As she taped his mouth shut, tears streamed down her face. She kept murmuring softly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry… don’t blame me, please don’t blame me…”
Old Zhong’s eyes were bloodshot, almost splitting at the corners. He stared at Tang Xiaolan with deadly intensity. But with his mouth sealed, he could only make muffled “mmph” sounds, all his words swallowed back inside.
At this point, it was already too late to say anything.
He let out a heavy sigh in his heart and completely gave up struggling—he accepted his fate.
Huang Dayuan watched all this coldly, a twisted and perverse smile curling at his lips.
Killing the heart before killing the person—this was nothing less.
He enjoyed this sight—the look of someone being betrayed by the person they trusted and loved most, that despair and pain seeping out from the very bones.
He had always treated Tang Xiaolan as his personal possession. Even something he didn’t want, he would never allow others to touch.
What he wanted wasn’t just money—he wanted to completely destroy Tang Xiaolan’s happiness, and also destroy the man who had given her that happiness.
Watching someone suffer from being betrayed by the one they loved gave him a kind of psychological pleasure.
Old Zhong was dragged all the way out of the basement. This was the first time he had seen the outside world since being kidnapped.
When he was brought here before, his eyes had been covered. He only remembered the bumpy journey. Now he could finally see clearly—this was actually a village on the outskirts of Huinan City, and it was Tang Xiaolan’s hometown.
But there were barely any people left in the village—it was basically abandoned.
The reason he recognized it was because a few years ago, he had accompanied Tang Xiaolan here once. Back then, she had smiled and told him that when they grew old, she wanted to return here to retire.
Now, thinking about it, the gentleness in that smile had all been a lie.
Huang Dayuan was extremely strong. Old Zhong was already thin and small, and being dragged along, he stumbled and crashed into things, bruised and bleeding. Yet he seemed not to feel the pain at all, his eyes vacant.
They dragged him all the way into the courtyard. The courtyard had once been an abandoned vegetable patch. In the corner on the right, at some unknown time, a deep pit had been dug—fairly neat, just large enough to fit a person. It was pitch-black, like a mouth waiting to devour someone.
Everything was crystal clear—Huang Dayuan had never intended to let him live from the very beginning.
Without another word, Huang Dayuan grabbed Old Zhong’s collar and shoved him hard.
Old Zhong stumbled and fell into the pit. He did not struggle anymore. He only raised his head, looking at the two people standing at the edge, his heart filled with boundless despair.
Compared to Huang Dayuan’s cruelty, what he hated more was Tang Xiaolan—her deception from beginning to end.
Lying at the bottom of the pit, Old Zhong stared fixedly at Tang Xiaolan standing above.
The woman was still crying, her whole body trembling violently, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes were full of guilt and reluctance.
But this only made Old Zhong hate her even more—so much that he wished he could climb out of the pit and tear her apart alive.
When a layer of thin soil came raining down from above, covering him head to toe, Old Zhong closed his eyes and completely sank into despair.
But at that moment, a familiar voice sounded by his ear. Though it was scolding him, to him it was like heavenly music.
“You TMD—where is my money?”