"Xiao Ai, please."

"I’m here."

"Start the timer, get ready."

"The timer has been started for you."

A crisp female voice sounded from Wang Baoqiang’s phone.

Grandpa Hua looked at the screen that lit up in his hand, sighed deeply, and then said nothing.

There is a saying often heard in the village: You must pay for your own misdeeds.

Indeed so.

"No, no, I won’t..."

Zhang Qiang tugged his hair with both hands, his face twisted in pain, his whole body in resistance.

"Xiao Ai, three-minute countdown, start."

"The three-minute countdown has been started for you."

The crisp ticking sound from the phone, Wang Baoqiang calmly looked at him: "I only have three minutes in a good mood."

Zhang Qiang angrily waved his hand, pointed straight at Wang Baoqiang, and shouted: "You owe me money, and now you want me to kowtow to you, don’t you have any shame!"

"You say I owe you money?" Wang Baoqiang acted as if he’d heard the biggest joke of all, reached out his hand, feigning innocence: "You say I owe you money, show me some proof."

"How the hell can I show you proof!"

Zhang Qiang roared with anger, feeling as if his recent days were falling apart!

Ever since he got injured and couldn’t do heavy work anymore, he just did odd jobs in the village.

But that was barely enough to keep him from starving, let alone changing his fate; even just occasionally improving his meals was hard.

As the saying goes, when poor, one seeks change! When change occurs, it leads to transformation!

Zhang Qiang was no exception, but his transformation differed from others; he fell in love with gambling!

Whether it was the official sports lottery, welfare lottery, or the unofficial online black lottery, or underground gambling, he liked them all!

Initially, he bought a grand lottery ticket at his childhood friend’s shop, indeed out of gratitude.

But people, emotions are complicated, who can take a moment as eternity!

To verify feelings, there’s no need for vows until the seas run dry; a small piece of paper can do the trick.

Zhang Qiang’s story was mostly true, only in some parts, the subject-verb was inverted.

For instance, the winning lottery ticket wasn’t his, but his childhood friend’s.

Moreover, the room’s paintings weren’t drawn by his childhood friend but by him after missing out on over six million, painting all night in the room.

The only thing that matched the subject-verb-object was that the 150,000 yuan was indeed left by his childhood friend out of conscience.

But he demanded half and failed, couldn’t find the lottery ticket through violence, and charged out of the shop with red eyes, planning to return the next day to force it.

That night, his childhood friend silently withdrew all the family’s savings from the bank, left it for him, and then turned away, never to return.

And from that day on, he felt the taste of betrayal and believed even more that brothers can’t be relied upon!

He returned home disheartened, indeed encountering Wang Baoqiang humbly asking to borrow money.

This moment brought back his dark thoughts!

One must know, Wang Baoqiang has been a nightmare for peers from nearby villages since childhood, and Zhang Qiang was no exception!

Facing such an almost giant-like Wang Baoqiang in his mind, Zhang Qiang instantly felt a strong sense of conquest!

Borrow money?

No problem, he has money now!

What he wanted now was not only to make this giant kowtow and worship him but also to conquer his woman, that usually unattainable woman!

That night, he indeed didn’t go in, just found the right phone angle, and made this woman dance naked all night.

That woman was smart too, willing to do anything, waiting for him to let his guard down, then somehow took the IOU away.

Day after day of underground black mahjong directly drained his already not wealthy family, even used up the bride price his dying mother left him, even racking up a lot of black-market high-interest loans.

He tried more than once to take the 150,000 back, but every time Wang Baoqiang kicked him out mercilessly, not letting him say a word.

Today, he heard Ning An was back, so he gathered a bunch of people, wanting to settle this quickly.

But unexpectedly, things went wrong.

Before he could think more, Wang Baoqiang calmly reminded: "Sixty seconds left."

"Baoqiang, I was wrong, I really was wrong, I shouldn’t have treated you like that back then."

On Zhang Qiang’s face, pain, struggle, and regret intermingled: "I don’t want the 300,000, nor the 150,000, I’ll just take 100,000, no, 50,000, just 50,000! The remaining 100,000, consider it my apology, okay?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Wang Baoqiang glanced at the timer, smiled and shook his head: "Thirty seconds left."

Zhang Qiang was about to collapse, his roar hoarse: "Do you really want to push me to a dead end! Don’t you give anyone a way out!"

"Must I die for you to be satisfied!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

"Wait..."

Just as Wang Baoqiang was about to count to one, Zhang Qiang collapsed to the ground, kneeling.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"..."

The kowtowing sound was loud, echoing even in the hall, but Wang Baoqiang was clearly not satisfied.

"Put some strength into it, didn’t you eat breakfast before going out today?"

"Didn’t you make me kowtow with this strength back then, show some masculine spirit!"

"Can’t you do it, show some spirit, don’t disgrace our Nanwang Town!"

Each word and phrase was like a sharp knife, stabbing directly into one’s heart.

The villagers who were about to say a few words silently withdrew their legs, looked up at the sky as if nothing had happened.

Only the style in the livestream was somewhat unusual.