"What have you been up to these past few days?" Suizi cleaned the clothes that Yu Jingting had changed out of and checks his pockets, but they were empty.
He had been living here for several days, but except for when they went out as a family, he was always out cycling, and she had no idea what for.
"I’ve been out refining my feelings," he replied.
"You didn’t get in a fight, did you?" Suizi inspected him thoroughly, trying to confirm if he had any injuries.
He held her tiny hand and pulled her towards him with a sly smile.
"Are you seducing me, hmm?"
"You and your seduction!" Suizi pushed him away, pointed at his pocket, and asked, "Where did all the money go?"
Yu Jingting clucked his tongue. A regular penny pincher!
"Tsking won’t help, honesty is the best policy during tough times. It hasn’t even been that long since we moved in and you’re already out and about with no money left. Have you made some bad friends? Did you get in a fight? Did... you damage something and had to pay for it?"
By the time Suizi finished questioning him, she was trembling.
School would start soon and she didn’t want additional complications. She had worked hard to get into university and didn’t want to wake up from nightmares about getting expelled for engaging in fights.
"You’re being ridiculous. Do you take me for a reckless person?" Yu Jingting saw that she was about to cry, so he hugged her and was about to say something when Wang Cuihua hurried into the yard. Seeing them entwined in a hug, she coughed a couple of times.
Suizi quickly extracted herself from his arms, her face red, and tried to act like nothing had happened.
"Mom, what’s the rush? Is there something wrong?"
"Someone’s coming to exterminate the pests in our neighbourhood soon, I came back to see if there’s anything at home we haven’t tidied up. I don’t want anyone making fun of us once they arrive."
Wang Cuihua was concerned about appearances, she always needed the house to be tidy when guests were coming.
The pest extermination company has its own department, responsible for getting rid of rats, cockroaches, mosquitoes, and flies.
They would set up pesticide bait where these pests were particularly abundant, mainly getting rid of rats and cockroaches.
Suizi was a bit confused.
"We’ve been living here for several days, but we haven’t seen any particularly troubling numbers of rats, or any cockroaches."
"Apparently, in our block, there’s a family, both of whom are teachers, whose house was invaded by snakes, rats, the works. The man in the house got so frightened that he ended up in hospital. It was a big deal, so the officials are giving it a lot of attention. They’ve started a pest extermination drive in our block. That’s city life, prompt actions and all."
"I understand the rats, but snakes? Snakes in the urban area? And what’s odd is that, how is it possible for snakes and rats to infest a house at the same time?" Suizi was all questions.
"Our neighbour’s, Auntie Er’s child, works with someone from the house where the whole incident took place, that’s how I know."
"....Mom, you’ve been here just a few days and you’re already so well acquainted with everyone?!"
She even knew the incident through someone several relationships removed? Suizi felt that her mother-in-law was wasted in anything but intelligence work.
"Oh, you know, a close neighbor is better than a distant relative. Your father and I have gotten to know the people from around here quite well. They are all good people who teach nearby. Although, the people from the house in front are a bit difficult to get along with—wait, what was I saying?"
"Infestations of snakes and rats that led to a man being hospitalized."
"Right, let me continue. Our neighbor Auntie Er told us that the husband in that family is a professor at the Art School, the wife is the Dean of Academics, and their daughter is a teacher at a local kindergarten. They even have a black jeep, and people say the whole family have an air of arrogance...."
While Suizi was amazed at the information gathering ability of these middle-aged and elderly housewives, she also felt that this family’s configuration sounded familiar.
A couple who were both university professors and a daughter who was a kindergarten teacher, where had she heard of them before?
"This family lives on the third floor. Fortunately, the nanny wasn’t home that day. Their windows were broken, and when they returned home, they found their house full of dead rats. When the man went to grab a broom to clean the mess, he found it oddly soft; it turned out there was a snake coiled around it!"
Wang Cuihua was remarkably animated in her retelling of the account, as if she had borne witness to the entire event.
"How could windows get broken on the third floor? Were they targeted by someone seeking revenge?"
As soon as Suizi heard about the broken glass, her immediate reaction was to look at Yu Jingting. Yu Jingting started whistling, deliberately avoiding Suizi’s gaze.
"Hang on, a pair of university professors and a kindergarten teacher daughter..." Suddenly, it hit Suizi. She looked at Yu Jingting. Could it be him—
"Jingting, where did your pocket money go?"
"Uh, I bought some small animals and released them. Sometimes, I can be quite compassionate as well."
It was indeed him!
Suizi couldn’t help but laugh and shake her head. No wonder he was so busy these past few days.
He was taking revenge on Fan Hui!
Meanwhile, Wang Cuihua was blabbering on, unaware of what was happening.
"Everyone now wonders how it’s possible that snakes and rats appeared at the same time. Could it be that the snake was chasing the rat and ended up in their house?"
"Isn’t it obvious? Someone bought the snake and threw in some rats for free...." Yu Jingting answered the mystery.
"What are you mumbling?" Wang Cuihua didn’t hear, but Suizi heard it all too well.
"Nothing, I just need to discuss something with Jingting."
Suizi pulled Yu Jingting into the house, her hands around his arm.
"Spill it. What else have you done?"
There’s no way he only bought rats and snakes in these past few days, right?
"Well, I just helped them... conserve energy?"
Conserving energy was a new term that Yu Jingting learned from the news, and he thought it was quite appropriate to use it here.
"If you don’t give me a proper explanation, you’re sleeping with the kids tonight!"
"From Dongbei to Beijing, is this the only trick you have—refusing to let me into the bed? Don’t you have anything new?" Yu Jingting sneered, "As if I’m afraid of this move. If I don’t sleep in our room, you’ll be the one crying for me."
"....." How shameless!
"Fine, in order to prevent you from crying over me, I’ll just tell you. First, I punctured their car tires so they had to commute by foot, saving the country some gasoline."
".....And?"
"I also cut off their water supply."
"??? How did you manage that?!"
"That was easy, no one lives in the apartment below theirs, so I just installed a water cut-off valve on the pipes below their apartment, and they lose their water supply."
"How did you get into the vacant apartment below theirs?"
"You don’t need to know the specifics." The answer would simply be that his good brother-in-law Chen Ziyao had helped him.
Chen Ziyao and Yu Jingting hit it off right away. The partnership they formed in the past few days had made their bond stronger.
"What else?"
"Since they didn’t have water, they obviously called for a repairman. So, I then connected their electrical wiring to the public electrical grid in the hallway..."
Suizi looked at him thinking that the math classes he took really paid off. Besides getting accepted to Tsinghua University, he had also learned how to tap into electricity and cut off water supply, and has now applied all these to Fan Hui.
When Fan Hui called a plumber, Yu Jingting, who was listening in, immediately opened the water valve. There was nothing wrong with the water.
But the neighborhood officials found out that Fan Hui’s family was siphoning electricity...
This swift punch combo left Fan Hui’s family in a daze.
Suizi was left speechless by his tricks. It’s not scary when a rogue knows how to fight, but when he’s educated, that can be alarming.
"Of course, all of these are just trivial matters, just appetizers, if you will."
"Are you— are you saying there’s more?!"