When the car reached Puyang Road, Jiang Hao got out.

Just as Little Xu was about to drive off, Jiang Hao turned back and said to him flatly, “Don’t follow me.” Then he strode away.

It sounded like a simple sentence, but it made Little Xu’s heart twitch involuntarily. After hesitating for a few seconds, he instinctively drove off.

Not long after he left, his phone rang.

Seeing that it was his boss, Feng Wanming, calling, he quickly answered.

“Little Xu, why couldn’t I get through to either your phone or Jiang Hao’s earlier? Did something happen?”

Feng Wanming’s somewhat worried voice came through the phone.

“President Feng, we were in the mountains before, and the signal was bad, so the calls wouldn’t connect,” Little Xu explained.

“Nothing unexpected happened, right?”

“No. Everything is… normal.”

“Oh.”

Feng Wanming responded thoughtfully, then hung up.

…

After arriving at 38 Puyang Road, Jiang Hao saw the retired old lady sitting under the shade of a tree below the residential building, chatting with another woman her age.

The moment she saw Jiang Hao arrive, she stood up from her chair and hurried over to him. “Young man, what took you so long? Xiao Fang’s boyfriend already came to pick her up. They’ll probably be leaving before long.”

Xiao Fang was that out-of-town girl.

“Thank you,” Jiang Hao said, then pulled two hundred yuan from his pocket and handed it to the old lady.

She had kept watch for him, and he paid her for it. In his view, it was an even exchange, only natural.

“Oh, young man, you’re really too polite. How could I possibly take this?” she said, even as her right hand had already accepted the money Jiang Hao handed over.

“Young man, if you need help again next time, this old lady will definitely do her duty!” she said with a grin. Then she turned and went back to her chair, continuing her chat with the other woman.

Jiang Hao glanced at the beat-up Jetta parked downstairs, then headed upstairs.

When he reached the door of Xiao Fang’s rental apartment, he knocked.

The door opened, and a man with long hair, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, wearing jeans and a tank top, appeared before him.

“Who are you looking for?”

After sizing Jiang Hao up from head to toe, the long-haired man asked impatiently.

“I’m looking for Xiao Fang,” Jiang Hao replied.

“What do you want with Xiao Fang?” The long-haired man’s face showed displeasure, clearly taking Jiang Hao for a romantic rival.

“Something.”

“What something?”

Jiang Hao didn’t respond. The reason was simple—he found the long-haired man unpleasant to look at.

The man grew irritated. “I’m telling you, I’m Xiao Fang’s boyfriend. Whatever it is, you have to tell me.”

Hearing the anger in her boyfriend’s voice, Xiao Fang, who had been packing clothes inside, came out.

The instant he saw Xiao Fang, a trace of surprise appeared on Jiang Hao’s face. He hadn’t expected that this out-of-town girl named Xiao Fang was the sales clerk who had sold him his phone at the mall.

The girl clearly recognized Jiang Hao too and asked in surprise, “So it’s you. Can I ask what you need me for?”

Xiao Fang dealt with many customers buying phones every day, but she remembered Jiang Hao quite clearly. The reason was simple—she had never seen a young man buy an old-fashioned phone for his own use.

“You know Sun Xin, right?” Jiang Hao asked.

Sun Xin was Red Wolf’s younger sister.

Xiao Fang froze slightly, then asked in surprise, “What’s your relationship with Sun Xin?”

“I’m a friend of Sun Xin’s brother,” Jiang Hao replied. “He asked me to come check on them.”

“Sun Xin’s brother has been completely out of contact all these years. Are you really his friend? Then why isn’t he the one coming back? Why does he need to ask you to do it?” Xiao Fang’s face was full of suspicion, and even more full of vigilance.

Her reaction told Jiang Hao that the girl before him not only knew Blood Wolf’s sister, but was even fairly close to her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t know that Red Wolf had been out of touch with his family for years.

Jiang Hao nodded. “Sun Hao really does want to come back, but he’s overseas, and there are some things he can’t help. He said that once he finishes dealing with things over there, he’ll come back.”

“He went abroad?” Xiao Fang still looked doubtful.

“Please tell me where Sun Xin’s family moved to now,” Jiang Hao said.

Xiao Fang hesitated for quite a while, then shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t know where they moved.” With that, she moved to close the door.

Jiang Hao stepped forward and wedged himself between the door and the frame, stopping her from shutting it. “I’m not a bad person. You don’t need to be wary of me. I know you know where Sun Xin’s family lives now.”

“Are you deaf, kid? My girlfriend said she doesn’t know, so she doesn’t know.”

Seeing Jiang Hao trying to force the issue, Xiao Fang’s boyfriend, Zhang Kui, stepped forward and shoved hard at Jiang Hao with both hands, trying to force him out the door.

By his reckoning, with the strength of that shove, he should at least have been able to push Jiang Hao out the doorway, maybe even knock him to the ground. He had confidence in his own strength.

But to his shock, Jiang Hao’s body didn’t budge in the slightest. He stood there like an old tree with roots sunk deep into the earth. Instead, Zhang Kui himself staggered backward a step or two.

Zhang Kui understood at once—Jiang Hao was no easy target. There was no way he could overpower him with brute force.

“Big brother, my apologies. Sorry about that.” Staring at Jiang Hao’s icy face fixed on him, Zhang Kui hurriedly smiled obsequiously and apologized.

“Xiao Fang, if you know where that Sun Xin lives, then tell this big brother. We should be willing to help others, right?” Zhang Kui put on a show of anger and scolded his girlfriend.

Xiao Fang remained silent.

Seeing this, Jiang Hao took out a somewhat darkened jade pendant from his pocket and handed it to her.

The pendant was obviously fake jade.

But this fake jade pendant had been entrusted to him by Red Wolf before his death.

Red Wolf had said that apart from the one he had himself, his younger brother and younger sister each had an identical pendant. Their father had bought them for the siblings before he died when they were children. Though cheap, the siblings treasured them like precious heirlooms and had worn them on their bodies ever since childhood.

Jiang Hao had no idea whether Xiao Fang understood the significance of the pendant, but there was no harm in trying.

The moment Xiao Fang took the pendant, a faint look of surprise appeared on her face. “This pendant is exactly the same as the one Little Xin wears around her neck. I’ve seen it on both brother and sister.”

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“I believe you. I’ll take you to Little Xin.”

The vigilance on Xiao Fang’s face completely vanished, replaced by delight. “Little Xin has always thought her brother was already dead. Now that she’ll learn not only that he’s still alive, but that he even sent you to check on them, she’ll definitely be overjoyed.”

Jiang Hao got into Xiao Fang’s boyfriend’s Jetta.

As the car drove on, Xiao Fang chattered nonstop, telling Jiang Hao about Sun Xin’s family situation.

The more he listened, the darker Jiang Hao’s face became, and a cold light crept into his eyes.

It turned out that a year and a half ago, Red Wolf’s mother had fallen gravely ill. To pay for her treatment, the siblings had no choice but to mortgage their house, and the younger brother had even gone so far as to borrow usury from the black market.

Who would have thought the loan contract had been tampered with? The interest had ended up nearly ten times higher than what had originally been agreed on. The result was that no matter how much the siblings earned, they couldn’t even keep up with the interest on the usury.

Knowing they had no money to repay it, and no way to fight the loan sharks, they could only move out of the city and go live in a rural town.

“Brother Jiang, the reason I refused to take you to Little Xin just now was because I was afraid you were one of those lenders’ people. Things like that have happened more than once before. I rarely come back now because I’m scared those lenders will come harass and threaten me.” Xiao Fang looked apologetic.

“I understand.” Jiang Hao nodded.

After more than half an hour on the road, the car arrived at a small town under the jurisdiction of Wuling City.

The car jolted along the old street, bumping over potholes the whole way.

“Zhang Kui, stop in front of that house up ahead,” Xiao Fang said, pointing at a small one-story house not far ahead.

After the car stopped, the three of them got out.

The front door of the house was tightly shut, and Xiao Fang went up and knocked.

The door opened, and a slender young woman with fair skin, delicate features, and an age of about twenty-four or twenty-five appeared before them.

At just one glance, Jiang Hao was certain that this girl was Red Wolf’s younger sister. There was a faint resemblance to Red Wolf between her brows.

“Xiao Fang, you should’ve sent me a message before coming.”

The moment Sun Xin saw Xiao Fang, a smile instantly bloomed across her previously gloomy face. Clearly, the two were very close.

But when she noticed the unfamiliar face of Jiang Hao behind Xiao Fang, a look of wariness appeared instinctively on her face. “Xiao Fang, who is this?”

“This is Jiang Hao. He’s your brother’s friend. Your brother asked him to come see you,” Xiao Fang said with a smile as she looked at Sun Xin. “Happy now?”

Seeing the suspicion on Sun Xin’s face, Jiang Hao handed her the jade pendant in his hand. “This is your brother’s pendant, isn’t it?”

Sun Xin took the pendant from Jiang Hao with trembling excitement and examined it carefully in her hand. After a long moment, her body began to shake uncontrollably. “This is my brother’s pendant. This really is my brother’s pendant!”

“Where is my brother now?” Sun Xin stepped forward and grabbed Jiang Hao by both arms, staring at him with blazing eyes, her face full of hope.