Chapter 3

“Go ask your husband to carry it. Quit trying to guilt-trip me,” Ethan said coldly.

“Do you have any common sense? Do you know how hard my husband works every day? As his wife, can’t I feel bad for him?” Tanya grew angrier the more she spoke, as if Ethan had committed some unforgivable crime. “Unbelievable.”

Ethan ignored her.

He had something more important to do.

A few steps later, he reached the courtyard where the seniors were dancing.

There were two wooden speakers, each about two feet tall. The sound was loud, sharp, and powerful enough to make the entire courtyard feel like it had surround sound.

The speakers were connected to a music player, with an external power supply plugged in.

With speakers this powerful, the batteries would probably die in five minutes without an outside power source.

The power came from the community’s public lighting system. Somehow, these old people had managed to tap into the wiring for the streetlights. Whoever had done it must have known what they were doing, because at least they had not electrocuted themselves.

Ethan walked over without a word and yanked out the power cord.

Working with live electricity was dangerous, after all.

The music cut off abruptly.

The seniors, who had been dancing with great enthusiasm, kept going out of habit and awkwardly finished the move they had just started without the beat.

With no music, the dance lost all its energy.

And that made them very unhappy.

“Ethan, what are you doing? Plug it back in!” Several of the seniors knew him. Since Ethan had once brought them soda, they had a decent impression of him. They also knew he was timid.

Ethan smiled at them, lifted the iron hammer, and swung it under everyone’s stare.

“What am I doing? You’ll know in a second.”

With a crack, the hammer came down on the speaker.

The seniors froze.

A moment later, they all started shouting.

“Ethan, are you insane?”

“Stop!”

“You have to pay for that! My speaker! It cost hundreds!”

Ethan did not stop.

He moved fast. In just a few strikes, he smashed the two speakers to pieces. Then he smashed the MP4 player too and stomped on it several times for good measure.

It felt incredible.

So satisfying.

Ethan gave them a sweet smile.

“Now you know what I’m doing, right?”

The seniors were furious.

The angrier they got, the better Ethan felt.

Before, he had always been the one swallowing his anger.

Now it was their turn.

But this was not the time to stand around and enjoy their meltdown. He needed to go back first.

A few seniors rushed toward him as if they wanted to fight him to the death. Some looked ready to cling to his legs and refuse to let go. One old man even dropped to the ground, clutched his chest, and shouted, “Ethan is killing people! Somebody help!”

His cry sounded tragic enough to shake the heavens.

No one cared.

Ethan put away the hammer and left quickly, giving them no chance to grab him.

When he returned downstairs, Tanya was still standing there full of resentment.

Ethan said, “I found a few seniors to help you move your things. They’ll be here any second.”

“Neighbors are better than distant relatives. At least you have some decency.” As soon as Tanya heard that Ethan had found people to help, her resentment vanished. She looked at him with anticipation.

Ethan ignored her and quickly got into the elevator, returning to his own apartment.

Megan had seen everything from the balcony.

She could hardly believe her eyes.

Was that really her timid husband?

He had acted so decisively, and he had not even cared when the old man threw himself on the ground and made a scene.

The way he smashed those speakers had been so cool.

They had been married for two years, and she had never seen Ethan look this attractive before.

Megan suddenly wanted to wrap her arms around him and kiss him.

Ethan came home, changed his shoes, put the hammer away, washed his hands, rinsed his mouth, and then stared at Megan.

Megan understood that look.

She had a gathering to attend tonight, so she did not want to right now.

“Ethan, don’t. How about we wait until I get back from the party?”

She had even forgotten to call him a loser.

Ethan moved toward her and pulled her into his arms.

Megan did not resist very hard.

The two of them gave in to the heat between them, and before long, Megan gradually took the lead, becoming even more intense than Ethan.

Megan was beautiful.

Before she met Ethan, her family had been poor. She had not had money for pretty clothes, let alone skincare products. She also had no chance to meet wealthy men.

After they got married, she took both of their salary cards. With Ethan’s salary coming in every month, she felt happy. No one needed to teach her. She quickly learned how to buy nice clothes and expensive cosmetics.

In less than two years, she became much prettier and far more fashionable.

Her male classmates regretted it deeply. How had they not realized back then that she was this beautiful?

The two of them tangled together, completely ignoring the argument outside.

Half an hour later, Megan snapped in irritation, “Loser, you got what you wanted, and now I have to shower all over again. So annoying.”

“Let’s get a divorce,” Ethan said.

“What do you mean?” Megan stared at him. “You’re asking for a divorce right after getting what you wanted? Since when did you learn to be this heartless, loser?”

“Haven’t you always looked down on me for being useless? I’m giving you your freedom. Go find yourself a more capable husband.”

Ethan did not want to say more.

His body was tired.

So was his heart.

“Oh, so now you think you’re something? If you’ve got the guts, do it again. Loser.”

Megan continued needling him, even though Ethan’s performance just now had actually left her very satisfied.

It was noisy outside the door.

Ethan got dressed and pulled the door open, startling Megan so badly that she hurried back into the bedroom to put on clothes.

A crowd of old men and women stood outside, along with Tanya. Every one of them had flushed faces and red eyes.

“Ethan, don’t think a few boxes of fruit will make us let this go,” Graham Marker said.

He was the leader of the dance group. Nearly seventy years old, he was still energetic, rosy-cheeked, and full of righteous confidence as he demanded compensation from Ethan.

“The speakers cost five hundred a pair. The player was five hundred. Emotional distress, one hundred per person. There are twelve of us, so that’s twelve hundred. Altogether, you owe us twenty-two hundred.”

“Fruit? What fruit?” Ethan was a little confused.

“They took all the fruit I left downstairs,” Tanya said, her voice already trembling with tears. “They said you gave it to them as compensation.”

Half an hour earlier, a bunch of seniors from the dance group had come looking for Ethan. Tanya had thought they were the people Ethan had sent to help her carry the fruit.

So she happily handed the fruit over to them.

They really had helped move it.

They had simply moved it into their own homes.

After figuring out what had happened, Ethan did not even know what to say.

This world felt absurd.

He had never imagined one casual sentence could cause such a ridiculous misunderstanding.

Megan came out fully dressed, carrying a delicate little purse. She said to Ethan, who was standing at the door, “Move. I’m going to my gathering. Call me around two. If I’m drunk, come drive me home.”

By two, she meant two in the morning.

They had bought the car when they got married. It was under Ethan’s name, but Megan drove it most of the time. Only when she got drunk at one of her gatherings did he get a chance to drive it.

As her free chauffeur.

Looking at his wife’s pretty face, Ethan was about to ask her to stay so they could talk about the divorce.

Then the elevator doors opened.

Megan walked through the crowd of old men and women, stepped into the elevator, and pressed the button for the first floor. The doors closed soon after.

Clearly, she had not taken his words seriously at all.

She thought he had been joking about the divorce.

“Pay up,” Graham said. “If you don’t pay, I’m calling the police. You seriously disturbed the peace and interfered with residents’ normal entertainment and rest. Do you understand that?”

He pointed at Ethan, spittle flying as he spoke. His finger nearly touched Ethan’s nose.

Ethan said, “I was going to give each of you a thousand dollars as compensation. But since you want to call the police, let them handle it. I’ll wait at home.”

Then he slammed the door shut, opened his phone, and started recording.

The seniors outside were enraged by his attitude. They shouted, cursed, and pounded hard on the door. The loud chaos mixed with Tanya’s sobbing curses.

Ethan poured himself a glass of juice and sat by the entrance, drinking slowly. No matter what, he refused to open the door.

His front door was a solid steel security door, sturdy as anything. The old people could pound on it all they wanted. Aside from making noise, it did not do much.

The hallway outside was as loud as a marketplace.

They did not disturb Ethan much, but they did disturb the neighbors across the hall, next door, and upstairs.

The neighbor across the hall opened the door. When he saw the group of seniors, he immediately shut it again, afraid of getting dragged into trouble.

He silently mourned for Ethan.

Ethan was in big trouble this time. Those old people were not easy to mess with.

The couple on the seventh floor could not take it anymore and stormed downstairs.

“What are you all yelling about? You’re driving people crazy. My son has an online class soon. Can you keep it down?”

Double-pane windows could block the dance music outside, but they were useless against an argument in the hallway.

“Shut up. Is this study time? Is this a school? Your son needs to study, so no one else is allowed to talk? Your son is a person, but we’re not? What right do you have to take away our right to speak? Who do you think you are?” one old woman fired back, each question sharper than the last.

“When a man can’t have kids, he blames the bed. When a kid does badly in school, the parents blame noise. What’s next? If someone cheats, are they going to blame the condoms?” a sleazy old man added immediately.

“With a kid like yours, tutoring is useless if he doesn’t listen in class. Better let him find a job early and stop wasting educational resources,” another senior chimed in, continuing the all-out attack on the couple.

Ethan almost laughed when he heard that.

The couple upstairs was rude and unreasonable, but now they had met people even more rude and unreasonable.

It felt good.

There really was always someone worse to deal with bad people.

But before Ethan could laugh, he suddenly remembered his illness.

The smile slowly faded from his face.

This world was too bitter.

Too exhausting.

Maybe leaving early was not such a bad thing.

So be it.

It was time to start preparing for the end.

Ethan suddenly lost interest in recording. He put his phone away, went back to the bedroom, and collapsed onto the bed without even taking off his clothes.

He did not want to do anything.

In his daze, he actually fell asleep.

He had been working so much overtime on the project that he had not slept well in more than two months.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

A steady pounding came from the ceiling.

The kid upstairs was jumping rope again.

Ethan had told them countless times that if the kid wanted to jump rope, he should do it downstairs. That family had never listened.

Ethan checked his phone.

It was already ten at night.

Looks like he would have to use the iron hammer again.

Ethan picked up the hammer and went up to the seventh floor. He knocked lightly on the door.

The one who opened it was the child’s mother. She looked to be in her thirties. When she saw Ethan, her face immediately darkened.

“Are you here to interfere with my son’s jump rope practice again? Do you know jump rope is part of his physical education test? What’s with that face? Aren’t you embarrassed to pick on a child?”

Ethan brushed past her and walked into the living room.

In the living room, the boy was jumping rope.

His father sat on the couch watching TV while counting his jumps.