By now, Building No. 1 was roaring like a concrete beehive. The staccato rhythm of shouted conversations, crying babies, and scuffling feet reverberated through the narrow hallways, a symphony of overcrowded survival. Drawn by the commotion, Shi Jiuyou had slipped through the throng, her phone held aloft.
"Hi everyone, I'm Shi Jiuyou. I just shared a look at the living conditions in Banana Community and stirred up a lot of envy online. Wild, right?" she whispered theatrically into her phone's camera, her face a practiced mask of wry amusement.
"Honestly, Building No. 1 is the most crowded in the whole community. Our unit has fifteen people crammed in. I'm lucky, I staked out a corner of the kitchenette. Yesterday, the government finally ran temporary lines, every unit got a bare bulb and one outlet. The Ai Jia supermarket set up a ration counter downstairs too, so at least eating is straightforward now.
Using the bathroom in a rough-finished unit? A total pain. They announced that in a few days, we'll be organized into teams to go into the flooded city center and salvage toilets. Can you imagine?
But right now, something big is happening on the fourth floor. Let me show you…" She nudged her way forward, the camera lens bobbing. "Oh my god," her whisper sharpened into genuine shock. "It's my goddess. Why is she here?"
Seeing Jing Shu, calm and imposing amidst the chaos, sent a jolt through Shi Jiuyou. Her viewer count was spiking. "Let's see what's going on," she murmured, her reporter's instinct overriding her fangirl excitement.
She pieced together the story from the crowd's murmurs. "So the real owner of this unit isn't dead, but the allocation director still assigned it to these people. Such a big unit, and he gave it to only six? That smells… organically fertilized, if you catch my drift.
And his claim that my goddess is trying to black-market the deed? Unlikely. She lives in the fortified villa area. If you own a personal submarine in times like these, your situation isn't exactly desperate. Would she take such a stupid risk?"
While Shi Jiuyou narrated, Jing Shu had taken out her satellite phone, its screen cracked but functional. She had plenty of other, messier ways to handle this, but a call to Li Yuetian would be the fastest and most surgical. Since Director Zhang had "transferred" the title with such brazen speed, she wouldn't waste time on courtesy.
The phone rang, then connected. "Hello, Jing Shu? What do you need?" A young, unfamiliar male voice answered, tense and formal. "This is Li Yuetian's nephew, Li Bailong."
Jing Shu's brow furrowed. "Hello, Li Bailong. Where is Captain Li? I need to speak with him urgently."
There was a heavy pause, filled with the distant sound of bureaucratic clamor. "He has been suspended. Pending review. He's giving statements to the Central Auditors right now." Li Bailong's voice dropped. "Because of the flood response… the Oil Community, which my uncle oversaw, had the highest number of 'unaccounted for' individuals in the Wu City area.
The management of Banana Community has passed to the second-in-command," he continued, his tone flattening into officialese. "If you have urgent business, you can tell me, and I will see if I can relay it or assist."
The news was a bucket of ice water. "Alright," Jing Shu said, her voice steady despite the setback. "Nothing that can't wait. I hope your uncle gets through this safely."
She ended the call. Of course. When the crisis first hit, it was all hands on deck, no time for scorekeeping. Now, with people shoved into boxes and the immediate panic subsiding, the reckoning had begun. This was when the knives came out, when connections were armor and rivals looked for scapegoats to replace with their own people. Li Yuetian, it seemed, was a clay Bodhisattva trying to cross a river, barely able to save himself.
And of all times, it had to be now.
Just then, the crowd at the door parted with a grumble. Four community officers in faded blue uniforms shoved their way through, electric batons hanging ominously from their belts. Their leader, a man with a weary, permanently irritated expression, scanned the room.
"Make way! Who reported a forced entry? Who placed the call?"
"Comrades! Over here!" Director Zhang practically tripped over himself in his hurry to greet them, his voice oozing wounded authority. "I am the allocation director for Banana Community. I called. It's them, those two women." He jabbed a finger at Jing Shu and Wu You'ai. "Look what they did! Assault! Look at these men, they can't even stand!"
He exchanged a fleeting, meaningful glance with the lead officer, a flicker of recognition, a subtle nod. It was a language of complicity spoken in silence.
Jing Shu's eyes narrowed to slits. "So. They're in on it." The director had more pull than she'd estimated. He knew he couldn't win on the legal merits, so he was attacking from the flank, using procedure as a blunt weapon. Even if she had a thousand legitimate ways to force him to disgorge the unit, she now had a more immediate problem, surviving the next ten minutes without being dragged to a detention hole. She'd counted on Li Yuetian's badge for cover, and that cover was gone.
"What to do."
Her gaze swept the room, cold and assessing. Perhaps a year of drinking from the Spirit Spring had honed more than her body, it had deepened a glacial calm at her core. The panic that should have been there was absent, replaced by a hyper-focused clarity.
Her eyes landed on Shi Jiuyou, phone still held high in the doorway, and a spark ignited in their gray depths.
All roads lead to Rome. Any method that reaches the goal is a good method. Time to play a different card.
"Hello." Wu You'ai stepped forward smoothly, her voice clear and professional, cutting through the tension. She was the picture of calm competence. "I am the Banana Community's original resident and appointed Consolation and Counseling Specialist, Wu You'ai. Here is my verified Big Data profile and work credential." She held up her wrist, the government-issued data bracelet glowing with a soft green authentication light.
The senior officer glanced at it, his impatience barely held in check. If she hadn't been official staff, he likely would have cuffed her already. "What happened?" he snapped, wanting a simple, actionable answer.
In that moment, Jing Shu moved. But not with violence. She darted forward, not at the officer, but to him, seizing his forearm with both hands. Her formidable strength was entirely absent, her grip was that of a frightened young woman. Her face, a moment ago a mask of icy resolve, crumpled into wide-eyed distress.
"Officer, please," she pleaded, her voice trembling with a vulnerability that was utterly, brilliantly convincing. "Here's what happened. The owner of this unit… he's our lifesaver. He's a SWAT officer, away on a long-term, secret mission. We just got word he's finally coming home."
She pointed a shaking finger at Director Zhang. "But he still gave the unit away! To these people who gave him gifts! My sister and I, we just came to explain, to ask him to move them out… and he laughed at us! He said the title is already under their names, and even if the owner himself walked through that door right now, it wouldn't matter!"
The officer tried to shake her off, his irritation growing. "Property disputes without physical evidence are civil matters, not our immediate jurisdiction," he said mechanically. "I am asking who assaulted these men." His eyes were back on the groaning figures on the floor.
Director Zhang's smirk returned, wider now. He had them.
Jing Shu let go of the officer's arm and took a half-step back, making herself look small, harmless. "Officer," she said, her voice a pitiful whisper now, carrying in the dead quiet of the rapt crowd. "Look at us. Do you really think the two of us could beat five or six grown men like that?"
She let the question hang, then pressed on, her words tumbling out in a frightened rush. "I heard them arguing before it all started. One said he paid five hundred virtual coins. Another boasted he gave five whole bags of rice to get in here. They bribed their way in! And that younger one, he said Director Zhang is his uncle, that he pulled strings!"
She wrapped her arms around herself, a picture of righteous fear. "I said I would expose them. I said it was wrong. And then… they looked at each other, and they just started fighting each other! They colluded! They beat themselves up so they could blame me and have you take me away!"
"Lies!" one of the men on the floor spat through bloodied lips.
"Why would we beat ourselves?" another groaned.
Ignoring them, Jing Shu's eyes swept the room and landed on the cluster of wide-eyed children who had been chasing nematodes. An idea, sharp and clear, crystallized. She reached into a pocket of her raincoat and pulled out a small, crumpled packet of hard candies, real sugar, a rare treasure.
She beckoned the kids over, her expression softening into a gentle smile. "Come here, little ones. Tell your big sister, was it like that?" She held up a gleaming piece of candy. "Anyone who tells the truth gets a candy. If you tell it clearly, you get two."
The children blinked, tempted but wary, shrinking back toward their parents.
One boy, bolder than the rest, piped up, "That's not right. You're wrong." He pointed a grubby finger at Jing Shu. "You were the one who hit them. I saw you punch, and Uncle Liu fell down like wham!"
A chorus of adult murmurs and a few scattered boos rippled through the crowd. Even the children see the truth, they seemed to say.
Director Zhang looked like he had won the lottery. "Hear that, Officer? She tried to bribe children with candy, but even kids know what's right. Children don't lie! What they say is the truth! Now take those two troublemakers away!"
Jing Shu, utterly unruffled, simply handed the candy to the boy who had spoken. "Thank you for being brave," she said kindly. Then she looked at the other children, her gaze encouraging.
Another child, a girl with keen, observant eyes, saw the candy and the praise. Eager to prove her version was even more accurate, she tugged on Jing Shu's raincoat.
"And," the girl announced loudly, her voice shrill with the importance of her correction, "Uncle Liu only paid three hundred virtual coins to get in, not five hundred! And our family didn't give five bags of rice! The rice and the baijiu came from another community last year! We never dare eat it. My brother Xiaobao drools over it every day!" She scrunched up her face in remembered resentment. "That Uncle Zhang is bad. He took so much stuff! And he said even if the unit had an owner it didn't matter. He said he had a way to take it, and he said the owner… the owner is a nobody."
The silence that followed was absolute and profound.
Jing Shu slowly turned back to face the lead officer and Director Zhang. All pretense of fear was gone from her face, replaced by a look of cold, triumphant finality.
"See?" she said, her voice slicing through the quiet. "Even a child knows this place was seized from someone. Officer," she tilted her head, "anything else you want to ask about the 'assault'?"
She locked eyes with Director Zhang, whose face had drained of all color, his smugness replaced by dawning horror. "And Director Zhang… those words came from a child." She paused, letting the memory of his own statement hang in the air. "According to you… children only tell the truth."
The lead officer's jaw worked. He had walked into a public relations nightmare, live-streamed to a hungry online audience and witnessed by a packed hallway. The neat, corrupt script had been shredded by a packet of candy and a child's garrulous honesty. He looked from Jing Shu's unreadable face to Director Zhang's panicked one, to the watching eyes of Shi Jiuyou's camera.
He made a decision, one of bureaucratic self-preservation. The property dispute was a swamp. The assault allegation was now tainted. But he had to do something to reassert control.
He waved a dismissive hand, not at the complex truth, but at the simplest, most convenient target he still had.
"Enough," he barked, his voice rough with frustration. "The specifics of the housing issue will be reviewed by the allocation committee. But you," he pointed at Jing Shu, "admitted you were present at a disturbance. And there are multiple injuries. You will come with us for questioning regarding the breach of peace."