28. Saying one more word will make me vomit blood.
The next day was the weekend, and because she had just had a tooth pulled, Mu Jia needed to go home to get mouthwash.
Chu Chiyi suggested that she simply buy a new one.
She refused, saying, "No, the brand I use isn't available in stores. If I buy it online, by the time it arrives, my teeth will be healed."
When they arrived at No. 10 Chaoxi Street, Mu Jia, mindful of the consequences, asked him to wait downstairs while she went upstairs to get it.
She walked through the two gates and arrived at the entrance of the apartment building.
Unexpectedly, just as I reached the door, I heard a sharp argument coming from the hallway.
"Aren't you guys just trying to kill people?!"
"This is absolutely outrageous and heinous!"
"Pay up!"
She paused subconsciously, then continued walking upstairs.
The higher they went, the closer the sound became, and Mu Jia's vague sense of unease gradually intensified.
Although she wasn't entirely unprepared, she couldn't help but widen her eyes when she reached the platform between the first and second floors.
The front door of my house was wide open, the very source of the argument. A number of people had gathered at the door, probably neighbors who had come out to see what was going on since it was the weekend.
It turned out to be her mother, Yuan Mei, and another middle-aged woman whose back view looked somewhat familiar.
The next second, she clearly saw the plump middle-aged woman point at Yuan Mei and say, "If you don't pay, we'll sue you! Or we can go to your and your husband's workplace and ask the higher-ups to judge this!"
Mu Jia panicked and rushed upstairs, pushing aside the people gathered in front of her door. "What are you doing?"
She stood in front of Yuan Mei and finally saw clearly the face of the woman who was pointing at her mother's nose and cursing. It turned out to be Ji Ying, a resident on the third floor above.
This aunt was an old neighbor of her maternal grandmother, Zhong Sufang. Mu Jia remembered her vividly because of her notoriously fiery temper. When Mu Jia was little, during summer vacations, she would stay at her maternal grandmother's house and often hear the couple upstairs arguing and fighting, or the occasional screaming and howling of a child being beaten…
Considering that many of her old neighbors from the same building were present, she composed herself and asked as politely as possible, "Aunt Ji, what are you doing?"
"Wow! Your family is really something." Ji Ying looked at the mother and daughter. "When you're in the wrong, you bring your daughter back as a savior?"
After saying that, she looked at Mu Jia again, "What? Didn't your mother tell you? Go see for yourself!"
Mu Jia entered the room and followed the direction she pointed, walking into the restroom located near the entrance.
There was a layer of water on the floor, not too deep or too shallow, almost enough to overflow the bathroom and affect the rooms outside.
Ji Ying's family is currently in a similar situation to theirs.
Since this backflow must be from bottom to top, Ji Ying concluded that it was because their pipes were blocked and not dealt with in time that it affected their home.
Zhong Sufang doesn't live here now, and Mu Jia only comes to stay when she goes back to China for holidays, so she's connected to Yuan Mei on WeChat in the residents' group. Ji Ying noticed something was wrong this morning, came downstairs to confront her, and finding no one home, she brought her over.
"Stop being unreasonable!" Ji Ying glared at her angrily, pointing at a bespectacled, well-mannered middle-aged man in the crowd by the door. "I've already checked on Section Chief Zhang's house on the first floor. Their bathroom floor is spotless, so it's your problem on the second floor! Don't try to shift the blame onto others!"
Yuan Mei was speechless for a moment.
"Your house has been uninhabited for so long, and you haven't even come to check on it? Don't you have any sense of responsibility? I only went home to take care of my mother for a week, and when I came back, the house was flooded!"
"When Secretary Zhong lived here before, our whole family would come to visit him during holidays. Is this how your family repays kindness with enmity?"
"Yuan Mei, I'll say it again: if you don't agree, we'll take it to court, or we'll ask your workplace to settle this. You and your husband are both leaders in your respective companies, so I want to see who loses face first!"
"That apartment upstairs was renovated for my son's wedding. You've delayed someone else's wedding. Aren't you afraid of being struck by lightning and having your lifespan shortened? Even if you're not afraid, how old is your mother? Don't you know how to do some good for the elderly?"
Seeing that her words were getting increasingly offensive, Mu Jia couldn't listen to it anymore.
"Aunt Ji!" She shielded Yuan Mei behind her, facing the aggressive, threatening middle-aged woman directly. "I'm still calling you 'Auntie' because I hope you won't go too far! Once we've verified the facts, if it is indeed our family's responsibility, we won't shortchange you a single penny!"
Ji Ying looked at the young woman opposite her with some surprise, and heard her continue to say, word by word, "But I hope you will stop making personal attacks on my family, my mother, and my grandmother. If you continue to speak rudely, I can start recording now as evidence to sue you for defamation and insult in the future."
But she didn't show it on her face; instead, her eyes were cold and sharp as she continued to stare at the middle-aged woman opposite her.
On the other hand, Ji Ying, who had never lost an argument before, was completely enraged by Mu Jia.
I always saw her looking pretty and smiling, and I thought she was just like her mother, a pushover. How come I never noticed before that she's actually so sharp-tongued?
"Auntie? Do you think I need you to call me that? Let me tell you, even if you call me grandma today, it won't make a difference! Verify? Confirm? Tell me, what else do you need to confirm? Let me tell you, I originally just wanted you to compensate me for the bathroom, but with your attitude now, I demand that the entire floor of the house be re-laid!"
Mu Jia took a deep breath, and a strong smell of blood assaulted her respiratory tract again, making her even doubt for a second. If she opened her mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood, would it scare the other party and make them think she was deliberately trying to scam them?
The neighbors continued to gossip, and Ji Ying remained aggressive. Suddenly, Mu Jia's mind went blank.
But there was nothing she could do; given the current situation, if she didn't speak up, no one would say a word for them.
"Reason?" Ji Ying cut her off directly. "You're Secretary Zhong's granddaughter, right? You work abroad, right? I think you've been abroad for too long. You haven't learned anything else, but you've picked up all that indecent behavior! Every year when you come back for those few months, look at what you wear in the summer! Little girl, do you know what the uncles and grandpas in the building think of you?"
Before he could finish speaking, he was suddenly interrupted by another person, who said, "To be fair, I think your judgment might indeed be quite problematic."
Suddenly, a clear and calm male voice broke in, sounding quite out of place in the heated and explosive atmosphere of the argument.
Ji Ying looked up in surprise and saw that the person who had just spoken was a tall young man.
Who is he? Which floor is he on?
Mu Jia's eyes widened instantly as she looked at Chu Chiyi. She had been facing away from the door and hadn't noticed when he had stood next to her.
His face was unfamiliar, and the neighbors began to whisper among themselves.
But Chu Chiyi seemed not to hear at all, and while everyone in the room was still in a daze, he walked straight into the bathroom.
The water on the ground soaked the cuffs of his trousers, but he didn't care. He glanced up a few times before turning around.
"Hey, young man, who are you?!" Ji Ying finally couldn't hold back and turned her attention to him.
Chu Chiyi ignored her and walked straight to Zhang Jian, who lived on the first floor. "Mr. Zhang, right?"
Zhang Jian looked at the young man in front of him, who was about the same age as his son, and didn't know why he nodded subconsciously.
He pointed to the ceiling of the bathroom in the back room. Zhang Jian was stunned for a moment, and then heard the young man opposite him ask very seriously, "Isn't this the same situation in your home? But you don't even pursue it?"
Zhang Jian's eyes darted away quickly when he was asked a question that hit a nerve.
Chu Chiyi laughed, "Or is it because you're the real instigator of this whole thing, that you feel guilty and dare not pursue the matter?"
"You...I..." The man's face turned pale.
“As everyone knows, no one lives on the second floor for extended periods. Given that, the chances of the drainpipe getting clogged should be very small.” He continued, looking at Zhang Jian, “On the contrary, your house is more likely to have problems, right?”
"If I'm not mistaken, by the time you discovered your pipes were clogged and affecting the upstairs neighbors, it was already too late. But you wanted to evade responsibility, and since the two upstairs neighbors weren't home at the moment, you quietly cleared your own pipes, cleaned up all traces in your house, and then shifted all the blame onto the upstairs neighbors, so you could get away with it, right?"
“Of course,” Chu Chiyi blinked. “If you want, just check the security footage at the entrance of the building for the past week to see if any plumbing or flooring repair workers have entered or left your home.”
Looking at the dumbfounded Zhang Jian, he casually said, "If you live on the first floor, you should be able to take very clear pictures, right?"
A murmur arose from the crowd.
"So the problem was with the family on the first floor?"
"We're all neighbors, there's no way we'd lie like that!"
"Old Zhang usually seems like such an honest and unassuming person..."
Ji Ying stared at him with wide eyes, seemingly trying to process the information in his words.
Before she could fully process what was happening, she suddenly heard Chu Chiyi say, "Furthermore, Ms. Ji, your actions not long ago constituted a public insult to Ms. Yuan and Ms. Mu. This is no longer just a neighborhood dispute; your words and deeds are suspected of being illegal. We reserve the right to pursue your civil liability, demand that you publicly apologize, eliminate the negative impact, and compensate for emotional distress."
“You…you…” Ji Ying’s face turned from white to red.
The young man's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an inexplicable coldness and ruthlessness, forcing her usually fiery temper to subside. "Then, what... what do you want..."
Chu Chiyi's aura suddenly changed.
Ji Ying suddenly took a half step back instinctively. He then said, "Now I need you to apologize to these two ladies on the spot for your remarks."
"I...I...I didn't say anything, did I..."
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