That Day at the Village Entrance, the Bodyguard Kicked Open the Ancestral Hall Door - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

By the time we left Jiahe Village, the sky was nearly dark.

I had originally intended to take my Bentley, but Liang Xubai crouched by the car, swept a flashlight under the chassis, and pulled out a severed brake line.

He tossed it carelessly at my feet.

“You want to take this car? Are you in a hurry for your own funeral?”

I stared at the oil line, a chill creeping down my spine like ice.

In the end, I had no choice but to follow him into a rickety old pickup truck that looked like it was falling apart.

The windows were cracked, the seatbelt buckles were temperamental, and the seats smelled faintly of engine oil. This was a piece of junk I wouldn’t have spared a second glance at under normal circumstances, yet now it was the only place that made me feel safe.

Not long after we drove out of the village entrance, I asked him, “Who exactly are you?”

Liang Xubai kept his hands on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

“Your bodyguard.”

“Does a bodyguard know how to strip a gun, spot an ambush, and flip over the wall into an Ancestral Hall ahead of time?”

I stared at him. “Liang Xubai, stop treating me like an idiot.”

The mountain road was narrow. As the headlights cut through the dark, both sides were nothing but muddy slopes freshly battered by the rain.

He remained silent for a long time-so long that I thought he wouldn’t answer-before he finally spoke.

“How did your mother die?”

I froze.

That was a topic no one in the Zhou Family dared to mention.

Three years ago, my mother, Tang Qinghe, died in a car accident on a mountain road. She had said she was returning to Jiahe Village to pay respects to our ancestors, but her car plunged into a ravine just as it was coming off the winding mountain pass. By the time they pulled her out, she had long since stopped breathing.

Zhou Yuming gave her the most dignified funeral possible. From that day on, he completely took over all the shares and connections under her name.

Anyone who brought up Jiahe Village again would be shut down by his cold, stern gaze.

Back then, I had fought with him most fiercely, suspecting more than once that the accident wasn’t clean.

But I couldn’t find any evidence.

I looked at Liang Xubai’s profile, my breath hitching. “What do you mean?”

He tossed a photo from the glove compartment to me.

The man in the photo was standing in front of a construction site prefab house. He was tall, thin, deeply tanned, and had a somewhat simple, honest smile. It took me a moment of recognition before I remembered who he was.

Lu Xubai.

He was the engineer my mother had trusted most, and the general manager in charge of the early construction of Jiahe Medicine Valley.

Two years ago, the group announced that he had fled after embezzling public funds.

But on the back of the photo, a line was written:

“November 17, 2025. Died in the foundation pit of Reservoir No. 1, Jiahe Medicine Valley.”

My head throbbed with a sudden buzz.

“He’s dead?”

“He’s been dead for a long time,” Liang Xubai said. “It wasn’t an accident. It was a silencing.”

My fingertips tightened, nearly crumpling the edges of the photo.

Just then, two blinding high beams suddenly flared in the rearview mirror.

A black SUV closed in from behind, its front bumper almost touching our tailgate. It was clearly trying to ram us off the road.

My heart constricted. “They’re back?”

“Yeah.”

Liang Xubai’s response was flat, but his foot pressed deep into the accelerator. “Hold on.”

The pickup lunged forward, slamming me back into my seat.

The car behind us was like a rabid dog, refusing to let go. It repeatedly tried to force its way past the line on the left, attempting to ram us into the guardrail. The mountain path was narrow, with a rocky ravine right below. I took one look outside, and my palms were instantly drenched in sweat.

“Liang Xubai!”

“What are you shouting for?”

He didn’t even turn his head. “I’m not dead yet.”

His words choked the breath right out of me.

But strangely enough, hearing him respond like that made me feel less panicked than before.

The SUV surged forward again, on the verge of scraping against our door.

Liang Xubai suddenly downshifted and jerked the steering wheel. The battered pickup practically scraped against the mountain wall, the body of the truck emitting a piercing screech of metal on stone.

The car behind didn’t have time to correct its course, and its front end slammed into the guardrail with a deafening bang.

The entire mountain path seemed to shudder.

My chest heaved violently, and it took me a while to find my voice. “What did you used to do?”

Liang Xubai looked ahead, answering calmly after a few seconds.

“I was a soldier.”

“Just a soldier?”

“Enough of one to save you.”

I wanted to press further, but he spoke first.

“Zhou Ruoqi, your father and He Shaoqian have already teamed up to pin all the failures of the Jiahe Project on you.”

“If you had really died at the village entrance today, the public narrative would have been that the eldest miss of the Zhou Family was accidentally injured by a mob while visiting the countryside to offer comfort. The wage arrears, the pollution, the deaths-someone would have naturally cleaned all that up for the Zhou Family.”

My throat felt tight.

He Shaoqian.

My fiancé in name, the eldest son of the He Family. He always had a gentle and polite smile, appearing with me at countless events. He was the “most dignified” marriage partner in everyone’s eyes.

It turned out that beneath his dignified exterior, a knife was hidden.

The car was silent for a long time.

I stared at the dark shadows flashing past the window and suddenly asked in a low voice, “Did you approach me just to investigate these things?”

Liang Xubai’s fingers tightened slightly on the steering wheel.

“At first, yes.”

The answer wasn’t gentle; it was almost cruel.

But then he added another sentence.

“Later, it wasn’t.”

I turned my head to look at him.

He didn’t look back, but the faint old scar behind his ear was exceptionally clear in the dim light.

“Later, I really did want to get you out of there.”