Nanya Secondary School
This once bustling old neighborhood now resembles the remains of a giant beast. Everywhere you look, you see a horrifying array of broken walls and ruins. The blue-brick courtyards that once held joy and laughter have mostly been reduced to rubble, their red bricks exposed, and steel bars piercing the gray sky like bones unwilling to break.
The massive steel arms of bulldozers and excavators stood silently atop the rubble, like cold tombstones, announcing a certain end. A giant "demolition" character, crudely painted in glaring red, was etched onto the remaining walls. The lack of water and electricity made the area seem even more deadly at dusk. Only a few stray cats darted swiftly among the rubble, their shrill cries adding to the desolation.
A group of people, dressed in various clothes but bearing a similar expression of fatigue and anger, huddled tightly in front of the "half-sided building." Most of them were elderly, with a few middle-aged men with stubborn eyes. They were facing off against a group of uniformed demolition workers holding cordons and several stoic-looking men from the construction team.
Leading the group was a stooped, gray-haired woman. She clutched a rusty shovel tightly, veins bulging on the back of her age-spotted hand. Her red, swollen eyes stared intently at the demolition team leader across from her, who was wiping sweat from his face.
"Why?!" The old woman's voice was hoarse but penetrating, like sandpaper rubbing against the silent air, "This is the home I've lived in for fifty years! My husband built it brick by brick! My son was born and raised in this house! You just want to tear it down? What can you buy with the compensation money? It can't buy back my home! It can't buy back the dream of my half life!" She excitedly stomped the ground under her feet with a shovel, stirring up a cloud of dust.
The crowd behind her burst into suppressed agreement:
"Yes! We're not leaving!"
"The agreement is unfair! We won't sign it!"
"If you want to tear it down, bury us here too!"
The leader of the demolition team had a dark face and waved the documents in his hand impatiently: "How many times have I told you! This is the city's plan! It is the need for urban development! The agreement is legal! The compensation is based on the standards! You are making trouble unreasonably! You are obstructing public affairs! If you don't get out of the way, you will bear the consequences!" The strong men behind him took a step forward, forming a silent oppression.
By the time Wu Shi and Xiao Qingqiu arrived, the situation was already tense. In reality, Wu Shi only needed to quietly add fuel to the fire for Xia Ziran to successfully complete the task she had been assigned. The Xu family's demolition was bound to be met with widespread opposition, but fortunately, Xiao Qingqiu had prepared a plan, and all procedures were legal and compliant, with notice of the demolition having been given a month in advance.
These troublemakers will gain nothing by continuing their commotion. The excavator was still moving closer to the center of the urban village, and closer to the people standing in its way. Seeing this, Wu Shi immediately stepped forward and knocked on the excavator's cab. "Master, please get off first. I'll try to persuade them."
"Neighbors, uncles and aunts, please be quiet for a moment and listen to me!" Wu Shi's voice was clear and reassuring. She stood firmly before the massive, eagerly awaiting excavator, facing the residents whose emotions had just calmed down. "This land will be demolished. No one can change this situation." She swept her eyes across the weary yet hopeful faces. "However, the compensation is not completely non-negotiable! There's no need to resort to such a drastic action. It will only hurt you and not solve the fundamental problem."
She paused, raised her voice, and clearly laid out the bait: "Today, on behalf of the Xia Group, I, Wu Shi, solemnly promise! On top of the existing government compensation, the Xia Group will provide each household with an additional 10,000 yuan in cash!" She emphasized the word "cash." Any problem that could be solved with money was, in her eyes, not a problem. Xiao Qingqiu had long since ascertained the details. While the compensation amount was nominally reasonable, after all the layers of processing and plucking, it was likely that less than half would actually reach the pockets of these honest indigenous people. This 10,000 yuan was a drop in the bucket for the Xia Group, but for these people facing the prospect of losing their homes, it was a life-saving relief.
The crowd instantly quieted, whispers spreading like ripples on water after a stone was dropped. "Ten thousand yuan?" "Really?" "Xia Group?" "Extra money?" Doubt, surprise, and a glimmer of hope intertwined on every face. The ranks, so heated just moments ago, inevitably wavered in the face of tangible interests. Some began to quietly calculate, while others gazed toward their crumbling "islands." Soon, groups of three or four began to turn, heads lowered, silently walking toward their "homes," whether they hadn't collapsed or were already in ruins. A fierce conflict was about to break out, but it was temporarily suppressed by Wu Shiyi using stacks of uncollected cash. The open space in front of the rubble quickly became empty and deserted.
Wu Shi secretly breathed a sigh of relief, finally calming down the storm temporarily. She was about to ask Xiao Qingqiu to leave this place filled with dust and sadness, but her steps suddenly stopped.
Several pitch-black cars approached silently, ghostlike, blocking the only exit from the ruins. The car doors banged open, and a group of burly men in matching black suits and expressionless faces filed out. They quickly and orderly dispersed, forming an impenetrable human wall that trapped Wu Shi and Xiao Qingqiu in the center. The air instantly froze again, carrying a chilling chill.
As the crowd dispersed, a tall figure in stiletto heels calmly emerged from the passageway formed by the men in black. It was Xu Man! She was uncharacteristically dressed today, in a perfectly tailored black suit and skirt, her figure defined by sharp lines. Her long hair was meticulously tied back, revealing a smooth yet cold forehead. A pair of large sunglasses obscured most of her face, making it impossible to glimpse her emotions. Only her tightly pursed, sharply defined red lips revealed a chilling chill.
"Heh," a short, sarcastic sneer escaped her lips, breaking the dead silence. Xu Man raised her chin slightly, her gaze from behind her sunglasses seemingly piercing through the lenses, firmly fixed on Wu Shi. Her voice was low, but every word was like an icicle, piercing everyone's eardrums. "I didn't even know when it would be the Xia Group's turn to take charge of this key municipal demolition project?" She took a step forward, her powerful aura suffocating. "Or, Wu Shi, are you... speaking nonsense here, using the Xia Group's name as a deception?!"
Wu Shi's heart trembled. The moment he saw Xu Man's figure clearly, he understood: This wasn't a chance encounter; this was a carefully planned hunt! Xu Man had no intention of letting go of her previous "battle" at the hospital and the boxing club. She was simply waiting for the perfect opportunity, a chance to completely humiliate him, or even eliminate him! This ruined place was the stage she had chosen!
Xiao Qingqiu was so frightened that her face turned pale. The little pride she had in "calming down the storm" was gone. She felt her calves trembling. She subconsciously grabbed Wu Shi's hand tightly, her nails almost digging into her flesh. She cried, "Sister...what should I do..."
Wu Shi forced herself to remain calm, scanning the encirclement for a flaw. Just then, her gaze fell on a sturdy man in a baseball cap standing beside Xu Man—Yu Huan! The Xu family thug who had tried to intercept her at the hospital and whom she had met at the boxing club! He truly was an old acquaintance.
Yu Huan clearly recognized Wu Shi, his brow furrowing slightly. He leaned slightly closer to Xu Man, his voice low and subtle, a reminder: "Miss, be careful with your words. This Miss Wu Shi... is somewhat of a family connection. As for the old man... we still have to maintain some semblance of family harmony."
"A harmonious family?" Xu Man turned her head sharply, as if she had heard the most ridiculous joke in the world. Her sunglasses were almost touching Yu Huan's face. Her voice suddenly rose, piercingly sharp, filled with undisguised contempt and malice: "The daughter of the mistress is related to the child of the original wife? Yu Huan, I think you are at least related to the stray dog on the street! Otherwise, why do you keep saying such nonsense?!"
This deeply insulting remark was like a poisoned arrow, piercing Yu Huan fiercely and completely igniting Xu Man's rage. Without hesitation, she raised her hand and swiftly flung off her sunglasses!
"Snap!" The sunglasses fell to the gravel ground, and the sound of the lenses breaking was crisp and harsh.
This is like a silent but extremely clear attack signal!
In an instant, the eyes of the men in black who were originally just blocking the way suddenly became fierce and fierce! Like sharks smelling blood, or like a black tide bursting through a dam, with a suffocating sense of oppression, they rushed towards Wu Shi and Xiao Qingqiu, who were isolated and helpless in the center, from all directions!
Wu Shi's mind raced. This sea of professional thugs before her, a head-on fight? That would be courting death! The only way to survive was—escape! Luckily, this shattered area was a perfect obstacle course for escape! The only downside was… tomorrow, her heroic "takeoff" would likely make for shocking headlines on the local evening news and social media! The thought of it being made into memes made Wu Shi's mouth twitch.
"Xiao Qingqiu! Hold my waist tight! Don't let go even if you die!" Wu Shi made a prompt decision and shouted in a low voice, his tone leaving no room for doubt.
Xiao Qingqiu was so frightened that her soul was about to be blown away. Hearing this, it was almost an instinctive reaction. Her arms instantly clamped Wu Shi's waist tightly like an octopus, and her head was buried tightly in her back. She closed her eyes and screamed: "Sister! I'm holding you tight! I'm dying! I'm dying!"
Just as the tail end of Xiao Qingqiu's scream had not yet faded away, Wu Shi bent his knees slightly and kicked his toes hard on the ground covered with rubble!
"Bang!" There was a dull sound and gravel flew everywhere!
Then, in the astonished eyes of Xu Man, Yu Huan and all the ferocious men in black who pounced on them, which were filled with "you can't escape even if you have wings", and in the incredulous gazes of several demolition households who were not far away, Wu Shi's figure... violated all physical common sense, without a running start or a foothold, he just stood straight up... on the spot!
Like a rocket suddenly ignited and launched into the sky, or as if she were suddenly lifted from the ground by an invisible giant hand! With Xiao Qingqiu clinging to her, she instantly rushed into the air several meters above the ground in an extremely unscientific but extremely swift manner!
A gust of dusty wind suddenly blew over the heads of the people below.
The few black-clad men at the forefront felt a flash of light before their eyes as their target, now looking straight ahead, suddenly had to be looked up at! Their momentum was halted, their bodies stumbling forward a few steps due to inertia, nearly colliding with each other. It was as if everyone had collectively pressed the pause button, their movements frozen in place, their necks tilted upward at a perfectly uniform angle, their eyes wide, their mouths unconsciously open, their faces filled with a look of utter bewilderment and shock: "Who am I? Where am I? What am I seeing?" The entire scene resembled a comical and eerie stop-motion animation.
The scene fell into a dead silence. There was only the whimpering sound of the wind blowing through the ruins, and Xiao Qingqiu's continuous, distorted screams in mid-air: "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! It's too high!!!"
The harshness and cruelty on Xu Man's face hadn't completely faded away before she was completely frozen by the scene before her that was beyond her cognitive limit. She was like being struck by an invisible lightning bolt, and she froze on the spot, forgetting even to breathe. The sunglasses that she had just picked up, still with cracks, slipped to the ground again with a "click". She even forgot to pick them up. She just asked Yu Huan beside her in a trance-like state, with a trembling voice and a floating voice: "Yu... Yu Huan? Did you... did you see it? She... she just... took off from the spot?" She tried to put on the sunglasses again to hide the huge waves in her heart, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she couldn't keep them on.
Yu Huan's reaction was much calmer. After witnessing Wu Shi's ghostly skills in the hospital, he had become quite immune to any inhuman operations displayed by this "relative" lady. He quickly supported Xu Man, who was shaking a little due to shock. His face was still calm, as if he had just watched an ordinary acrobatic performance, and even had a bit of helplessness of "here it comes again". His tone was calm, even a little perfunctory, to comfort the lady whose worldview might be collapsing: "I see, I see. It's nothing, nothing, a routine operation. Miss, please stand firm."
All that was left were a confused man in black, a distraught Xu Man, a calm Yu Huan who was shaking off the dust, and the messy ruins of the demolition in the wind.
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