TBW - 6

Chapter 6: Not Only Do They Want Your Money, They Also Want Your Soul

In Huanghe Garden, Building 6, 12th floor, the hallway was bustling with activity. Two workers in blue uniforms had just dragged Cheng Simin’s infested sofa out of her apartment when a swarm of cockroaches began fleeing through cracks in the furniture and scattering across the corridor. 

The elevator doors opened, and an elderly woman with gray hair slowly emerged, dragging a shopping cart. Several oblivious cockroaches scurried toward her feet. 

The old woman was stooped, her face wrinkled, her eyelids drooping so low they nearly obscured her pupils. Yet her legs moved with surprising agility. Keeping her head down and hands behind her back, she sidestepped the workers and leaned against the wall, turning right. With just a few quick steps, she crushed every cockroach that crossed her path. 

After eliminating about ten of them, she paused at Apartment 1202, pulling a key tied to her pants pocket to unlock the door while shouting inside with a voice like a bell: “Jingang! There are cockroaches! Bring out the pesticide!” 

The sofa was loaded into the elevator, and most of the previously lively cockroaches now lay dead or dying on the floor, their bodies brittle and oozing fluids. 

Standing at her doorway, Cheng Simin watched this insect apocalypse unfold, her eyes darting wildly. Across the hall, the security door of Apartment 1202 opened again. This time, it wasn’t Grandma Qi returning from the morning market—it was her grandson, Qi Jingang. 

By Banshan’s generational hierarchy, Qi Jingang was six years younger than Cheng Simin and had been her junior in elementary school. However, at nineteen, Jingang hadn’t pursued further education or employment. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy before his first birthday due to developmental delays, he faced lifelong mobility issues and limited intellectual development, with no possibility of a cure. 

His parents couldn’t accept the devastating diagnosis. Within six months of Jingang’s confirmation, they divorced, remarried, and started new families. 

Before turning twelve, Jingang was passed between his parents’ homes like a ball. After finishing elementary school, his cognitive abilities made attending middle school impossible. Both parents had since had healthy children, leaving Jingang entirely abandoned. 

Only his grandparents reluctantly took him in. After his grandfather passed away, Jingang lived with his grandmother, who relied on welfare and public housing assistance. Unlike Cheng Simin, who paid rent, Apartment 1202’s rent was fully waived by the local housing authority and disability association. 

Now, Jingang’s face and one side of his body twitched involuntarily, but that didn’t stop him from gripping a can of insecticide with his functional hand and spraying indiscriminately into every corner of the hallway. 

Cheng Simin, recovering from her shock, noticed the boy’s physical disabilities but didn’t let that deter her from warmly greeting her new neighbor. After all, she planned to live here for a long time, and maintaining good relations with neighbors was essential. Besides, the cockroach infestation was her fault, and she hadn’t yet thanked the elderly woman from earlier. 

With an upward curl of her lips and a bright smile, Cheng Simin greeted him cheerfully: “Hi! I just moved in today. We’re neighbors now!” 

Hearing her voice, Jingang raised his head. But upon seeing her radiant smile, his eyelids twitched noticeably. 

Trembling all over, he awkwardly shuffled closer to Cheng Simin using one leg that didn’t work well. Even after crossing the safe distance threshold, he kept advancing. Just as Cheng Simin began nervously retreating into her apartment, Qi Jingang grabbed the handle of her security door and slammed it shut with a loud bang. 

Ignoring Cheng Simin’s startled reaction inside, Jingang continued spraying insecticide toward her door, muttering incoherently: “Poison... yes, poison... medicine... yes, yes... bad... uh, bad for health...” 

Seeing that he wasn’t acting aggressively and was merely continuing to spray the hallway, Cheng Simin swallowed hard, her heart still racing. She moved her gaze away from the peephole. 

Her phone buzzed with a payment notification for the removal of the infested sofa. To dispose of the bug-ridden piece of furniture, Cheng Simin hadn’t saved any money—in fact, she’d paid 92 yuan to the service company. 

Letting out a sigh, Cheng Simin sat dejectedly on the toilet lid, opened the second-hand trading app, and resumed chatting with “Sparrow.” She desperately needed clean furniture now—a sofa, a single bed, or even two chairs would do. Otherwise, she’d have to sleep sitting on the hard toilet tonight, which would be worse than even an internet café. 

The bug-infested sofa, the eccentric neighbor, and the wasted money—all within a single morning. One unexpected event after another had stripped away Cheng Simin’s initial joy over her new public rental unit, swept away by a gust of wind blowing through the window. 

“Since you don’t need it anyway, right? Hiring old furniture recyclers would cost you money. I’ll pick it up myself—you won’t even need to deliver it.” 

Cheng Simin cautiously pressed send, anxiously awaiting the seller’s response. Her psychological price for the used solid wood sofa was 700 yuan, plus another 200 yuan for moving costs. She’d already endured enough misery that morning; she absolutely refused to be ripped off in a transaction she knew well. 

Less than a minute later, a sound akin to a kicked puppy echoed from the bathroom.

Her last hope was shattered. “Sparrow” didn’t follow the usual script—he didn’t haggle. Instead, he simply blocked her account. 

---

At 7:30 p.m., Shi Ying parked his car in front of his grandfather’s old apartment building just as the sun was setting. 

Before heading to the winery, Shi Ying had been mentally rehearsing the legal clauses he planned to use. His biggest concern was what to do if the other party refused to acknowledge the debt. How should he negotiate to appear authoritative and ensure they didn’t underestimate him, so that his father’s ten tons of wine would be handed over intact? 

In the worst-case scenario, even if they didn’t give him the wine, they’d at least refund part of the cost price. 

However, when he arrived at the winery, the situation wasn’t nearly as confrontational as he had imagined. 

After seeing the deposit receipts, Boss Zhao of the winery warmly invited him to his office. They exchanged pleasantries over tea for half an hour, chatting amiably. Then, with great enthusiasm, Boss Zhao suggested taking the young man—”the son of an old friend”—on a tour of his vineyard at the foot of the mountain. 

The vineyard spanned 500 mu (about 82 acres), with tens of thousands of grapevines and dazzling varieties of grapes. The tour lasted all afternoon. By the time it was past six o’clock and the vineyard visit ended, Boss Zhao insisted on taking Shi Ying back to the winery to show him the production lines for brewing and bottling. 

As the saying goes, one doesn’t strike a smiling face. Boss Zhao was older—older than Shi Ying’s father by a full zodiac cycle. Out of respect for his elder, Shi Ying hesitated to bring up the matter of retrieving the wine directly. But Boss Zhao skillfully avoided the topic, rambling endlessly about his wine business instead. Eventually, Shi Ying had no choice but to interrupt seriously and state his request to collect the wine. 

To his surprise, Boss Zhao didn’t get angry. On the contrary, he readily agreed, explaining that showing him the production line was precisely for this reason. 

Back at the winery, Boss Zhao led Shi Ying down a long spiral staircase to the empty bottling line, the unused fermentation room that had been abandoned for months, and finally, to the underground storage area. Shining a flashlight on the massive oak barrels of wine, Boss Zhao said: 

“Xiao Shi, look here. I wouldn’t dare deny your family’s wine. Not ten tons—hundreds of tons are still here. The problem is, these past few years of the pandemic have left the winery in continuous losses. We thought things would improve after restrictions were lifted, but this year’s business has been even worse. I’m completely broke—don’t have a single penny left. My house is mortgaged. The trademark registration has expired, quality certification hasn’t been renewed, and earlier this spring, just to pay the grape harvesters, I leased out the entire production line. You want to take the wine? Bottling costs money too!” 

Shi Ying lowered his eyelashes and studied Boss Zhao’s exaggerated expression of hardship. His own face gradually turned cold. This was the true nature of business dealings—when all pretenses fell away, the dagger was revealed. He had been naive. Despite his precautions, Boss Zhao’s plan to renege on the debt was far more sophisticated than he had anticipated. 

Boss Zhao not only wanted to avoid paying a cent but also seemed intent on squeezing whatever little money Shi Ying had left. 

Pressing his lips together, Shi Ying adopted a similarly sorrowful demeanor. “Uncle Zhao, you saw my situation earlier. My father is in jail, and the company owes tens of millions. I haven’t inherited a single penny from my family, and now I don’t even have a place to live. Are you suggesting that to take this wine, I’d need to pay you instead? That’s really putting me in a tough spot.” 

Two foxes pretending to cry poverty—their lower faces filled with anguish—but their eyes shone like searchlights, scrutinizing each other’s microexpressions. 

Seeing that the young man wasn’t falling for his act, Boss Zhao raised his sparse eyebrows and quickly denied Shi Ying’s assumption. “How could I do that, Xiao Shi? I understand your struggles. Young people carry heavy burdens—it’s not easy. Uncle isn’t deliberately making things difficult for you. On the contrary, I see potential in you, which is why I’m giving you an opportunity.” 

“You saw those grapes earlier—what fine produce! If we don’t harvest them next month, they’ll rot in the fields. Many people have offered to buy the winery, but I refused because I can’t bear to part with this wine. Over the years, I’ve sacrificed everything to build a decent brand. When I was younger, I even gave up having children, and later, my wife left me. Now I’m old, outdated, and there’s no capable young person around to manage things.” 

A sly smile spread across Boss Zhao’s face as he pivoted smoothly. 

“I remember your father mentioning that you studied business abroad. How about this—you contribute some funds to cover the grape harvesters’ wages, and consider it a technical investment. Add that to the ten tons of wine owed to you, and I won’t shortchange you. I’ll give you shares! Let’s work together to revive this business.”