Chapter 3
By the time I opened the door, the husband was red-eyed and trying to shove past the officers to get at me. His wife’s cheek was still flushed from where I’d slapped her, and she was already crying to the police that she felt dizzy, that maybe she had a concussion, that rich people in the news had paid millions for less and I should hand over my apartment.
I almost laughed in her face.
The husband kept shouting, “You hit my wife! I’ll kill you!”
I said, “You touch me once and do you know how much that’ll cost you?”
The cops asked me directly whether I had hit her.
I said no.
The couple nearly exploded.
But there were no cameras in the hallway. No witnesses willing to speak. Nothing they could use.
The wife insisted on DNA testing, ranting that if my palm had hit her face then my DNA had to be on her skin.
I asked the police if that made any sense.
One of them sighed and said, “In theory.”
I grinned and said, “Ma’am, you really watch too much TV.”
That set them off again.
But the police clearly understood by then that this was lowlife versus lowlife, and they weren’t getting a clean answer from anybody. Neighbors started peeking out, whispering, and some of them quietly told the officers what kind of people the family across from me had always been.
Eventually the cops settled for mediation and ordered us all back inside.
Before he left, the husband pointed at me and said, “From today on, you won’t have a good day in your life.”
I smiled and sent the police on their way.
Back inside, petting my dog, I did realize one thing.
By slapping the wife, I had escalated things.
If this couple had any pride at all, the next move wouldn’t be small.
I waited.
Three days passed with nothing.
Then, on Saturday night, while I was walking my dog downstairs, he kept spotting pieces of sausage along the road and trying to eat them. I dragged him away each time, thinking maybe they were spoiled.
When I got back to the building, there was a crowd gathered around one of the owners from the third floor.
He was kneeling on the ground, clutching his dead dog and sobbing.
I asked what happened.
He said the dog had eaten sausage from outside.
The police came. They tested the pieces.
Pesticide.
Someone had deliberately laced them.
Security footage showed who had thrown them out.
The little brat from across the hall.
And suddenly everything made sense.
That family hadn’t just wanted to annoy me.
They had wanted to poison my dog.
They just didn’t care if somebody else’s dog died first.
The police went upstairs, but there wasn’t much they could do. The parents insisted their son had just been “playing around.” They didn’t seem all that upset that a dog was dead. The owner from the third floor was heartbroken, but he didn’t dare pick a fight with that family. He buried his dog and swallowed it.
I couldn’t.
This had been aimed at me.
And if they thought hiding behind their son would protect them, then they had badly misunderstood the kind of person they were dealing with.
I spent that night asking around about the kid’s school.
By midnight, I had his elementary school, his class, and half a dozen stories about what a little tyrant he was. Stealing snacks. Taking money from classmates. Bullying girls. Pinching a top student hard enough to leave marks because she wouldn’t let him copy homework. His parents had once stormed into the school and bullied another family into backing down.
Perfect.
A snake raised by snakes.
So I called a few old friends—men who were no more respectable than I was—and through them I found several troublemaking boys from the middle school division.
I paid each of them five hundred yuan.
I had one instruction.
Make that kid too scared to go to school.
They understood immediately.
The next day, I walked my dog downstairs and waited.
Sure enough, the kid came home crying, one side of his face swollen from a slap so hard it looked painted on.
He saw me staring at him and ran for the stairs.
I followed him up just slowly enough to hear the screaming start once he got inside.
His mother was already calling the school, shrieking about bullying and justice.
I leaned against the wall outside my own door and smiled.
For the next week, those middle school boys took turns.
Tuesday his nose was bloodied.
Wednesday one eye had turned black.
Thursday his ear was swollen.
By the end of the week, the little king of the classroom was flinching every time someone looked at him.
His parents raised hell at the school.
Nothing changed.
Finally, with half a month still left before winter break, they pulled him out and kept him home.
That was satisfying in a way very few things are.
They had tried to poison my dog.
Now their precious son was too afraid to go to school.
Fair was fair.