"That was impossible. Their whole family was fed by us," Cheung Yin-fa, the first prosecution witness, said when asked whether Choi had meant to give a HK$72 million ($9.2 million) flat to the family of her ex-husband, Alex Kwong Kong-chi, the South China Morning Post reported.

Choi bought the flat at the Kadooria complex in Ho Man Tin in 2019 as a home for the two children she had with Kwong, Cheung said.

She said her daughter spent HK$9 million renovating it, planned to sell it later at a suitable price, and registered it under the name of Kwong's father, Kwong Kau, only to avoid paying double stamp duty.

Alex Kwong, 31, Kwong Kau, 68, and Kwong's elder brother Anthony Kwong Kong-kit, 35, are on trial at the High Court, where all three have pleaded not guilty to murdering the 28-year-old on Feb. 21, 2023.

The two brothers have pleaded guilty to preventing the lawful burial of her body, a charge that Kwong Kau, a retired police sergeant, denies, according to AP.

Parts of Choi's dismembered body were found at a house in a village in northern Hong Kong.

Hong Kong model Abby Choi, who was killed at age 28 in 2023. Photo courtesy of Abby Choi's Instagram

Prosecutors allege that Kwong Kau, the flat's registered owner, resented Choi's attempt to sell it and enlisted his sons to help kill her so he could keep it.

Opening the case on Sept. 30, prosecutor Charlotte Draycott told the jury that money was, as the prosecution understood it, the root of what happened.

Cheung testified that the Kwongs had no money and never contributed to the upkeep of their two grandchildren, The Standard reported.

Her own husband, Choi's stepfather, once ran three Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong and sent the family more than HK$1 million a month after returning to Hainan Province in mainland China, the court heard.

Choi met Alex Kwong at an international school and began dating him at 17. She gave birth to their first son in June 2013 and married Kwong three months later.

Cheung said she never saw Kwong work while he lived next door to her family.

The couple separated in 2015 but the two families stayed on good terms, she said, with the Kwongs often joining trips to Hainan on which they paid for nothing beyond their own air tickets.

According to the SCMP, she told the court that Choi lent Kwong a credit card to cover his living costs in mainland China, where he was staying while wanted in Hong Kong over a HK$6.3 million theft case.

Cheung said he later received more than HK$70 million from Choi, telling her it was for investing in luxury watches, until she stopped funding him because he made no profit.

The families fell out in June 2022, when the Kwongs rejected Choi's proposal to sell the flat and move her two children closer to their school in Tuen Mun, the court heard.

Cheung alleged that Kwong Kau was especially opposed to the idea and threatened to harm her daughter if she insisted.

The trial, before Deputy High Court Judge Brian Keith and a nine-member jury, is expected to last 40 days, according to AP.