Ch43 Sir, He's the One Who Hurt Me
"He pushed me! I had nothing to do with it!"
The accused man initially claimed it was someone else.
Meng Ci pressed his long blade against the throat of the woman closest to him.
"Dare to play tricks on us?"
"Do you want to die here too?"
As he spoke, Meng Ci's blade shifted slightly.
Meng Ci was no gentleman; he had no rule against killing women.
The woman felt the blade slice through her clothes, its icy coldness pressing against her throat.
"Yes, it was him! Really him! I'm not lying this time!" Tears streamed down her face as she begged for mercy.
"I was wrong! Please, spare me!"
"I don't want to die!"
"What do you say?" Meng Ci turned to the shaven-headed man in the center who had been pointed at.
The man simply gave up, abandoning all resistance. "Fine. I pushed the wall."
"Who told you to give the rubber boat to others instead of us?"
Hearing this justification, both Meng Ci and Shen Que looked utterly perplexed.
"Those people took the rubber boat to find food and refused to share it with us! They just wanted to watch us starve to death!"
"You still have the assault boat! Why didn't you bring it out? Why?!"
Meng Ci simply couldn't grasp the logic behind this. His belongings were his to give to whomever he chose-why blame them?
"So what? So you come bully us?"
"Why don't you go cause trouble for those people?"
"It's cause you think we're easy targets?"
Meng Ci's knife had already slit the woman's throat. It seemed he'd been too gentle in daily life, never hurting anyone, which made them think he was an easy target.
And now, four households in this building had assault boats and rubber dinghies.
Why didn't they go after those people? Wasn't it just because they were outnumbered?
After Zhang Mingtian and the others brought the rubber dinghy back, four men went out and returned with food for the dinghy.
After discussing it, they decided their living arrangements were too scattered, fearing they could be picked off one by one.
So they decided to relocate en masse to the sixteenth floor.
They evicted the original occupants of units 1605 and 1606 and moved in themselves.
With two apartments and six bedrooms, it was spacious enough for over a dozen people
Naturally, the five men dared not cause trouble for them.
As for Si Chen and his group-six tall, burly guys-they were even less likely to provoke them.
Wei Heng, armed with a motorboat and relying on his family's diesel supply, joined forces with six households on the ninth floor. They locked the main stairwell door, making it impossible for the others to enter.
Thus, after much consideration, they could only target Meng Ci's group.
But unexpectedly, last night they witnessed them preparing to build a wall!
If that wall were completed, these two units would become impenetrable fortresses, leaving them utterly without means to obtain food. That's why the group decided to tear down the wall.
"No, no, big brother, hero, spare my life!"
"I'll never dare again!"
The woman's legs buckled, but she dared not kneel outright, fearing the wound on her neck would deepen.
Meng Ci sheathed his blade.
"This is the last time. You'd best tell the others too-anyone who comes looking for trouble will find their final resting place in the flood below."
"Yes, yes, we understand!" The men scrambled downstairs the moment they were released.
After they left, Meng Ci sighed.
"I should've never given them that rubber dinghy. Thought I was solving one problem, but I ended up inviting a bigger one."
Shen Que reassured him, "It's fine. Even if we hadn't given it to them, they'd have come looking for trouble anyway."
"At least now we've got one less group causing trouble."
Seeing Meng Ci still frowning, Shen Que changed the subject.
"Alright, stop overthinking it."
"After this incident, no one will dare push the wall again."
"I'll help you move your things back. Get some rest when you return."
Meng Ci shook his head. "No, what if they're thinking the same thing?"
"I'd better stay here on guard."
Shen Que glanced at the time-it was already 3 a.m.
"It's fine. You go back. I'll keep watch here."
"It just happens to be our agreed shift change time."
Meng Ci checked the time and saw it was true, so he didn't refuse.
"Then I'll let you sleep on my lazy sofa for the night. Remember to treat it well."
"Alright." Shen Que agreed.
Meng Ci handed Shen Que the keys to both security doors before returning home to sleep.
The next morning, it was time for the military to distribute food again.
Meng Ci and Shen Que decided to go down together to collect some provisions, hoping to overhear any news.
Little did they know, the moment they stepped outside, they heard a familiar voice complaining about them.
"Sir, you must help me! Look at this wound on my neck!"
"They were trying to kill me!" The woman whose throat had been slashed the previous night pointed at her neck in protest.
The soldier remained unmoved. "If you have evidence, keep it safe. Wait until the storm passes, then report it to the police."
"There's no electricity! How are we supposed to preserve evidence? Can't you handle this now?"
"Sorry, these matters aren't under our jurisdiction," the soldier replied.
In recent days, many residents had come to the soldiers with complaints.
But they were mostly petty squabbles, and the soldiers had no time to handle them, so they could only advise people to keep their evidence safe.
The people behind him were urging her to hurry up and leave, lest she delay others from getting their food.
Her partner, upon seeing Meng Ci and Shen Que, immediately rushed to complain to the soldier.
"Sir, it was these two who injured her!"
The soldier repeated, "Please preserve the evidence. After the storm passes, contact the police to handle it."
The woman was repeatedly fobbed off by the soldier's response, boiling with rage. Spotting the pistol at his waist, she lunged forward, intent on snatching it.
If he wouldn't help, she'd find her own weapon for revenge.
But misjudging her distance, her lunge threw her off balance. She crashed into the floodwaters and was swiftly swept away.
"Weiwei! Weiwei!"
The man who had been with her leaned out the window, shouting her name, but there was no response.
A motorboat sped out, presumably to rescue the woman.
Behind them, residents queuing for food mechanically pushed the man aside before continuing to collect their rations.
After a month of torrential rain, they had grown accustomed to seeing people swept away by the floodwaters.
The food distribution didn't pause because of the woman falling in; the line continued to move orderly.
When it was Meng Ci and Shen Que's turn, the soldier spoke up.
"Please respect the law. Don't let the temporary chaos caused by the floods lead you to kill or harm others."
Meng Ci took three packets of instant noodles, nodding with a smile. "Don't worry, sir."
"I promise-if no one comes to hurt me, I won't even glance at them."
"But if someone insists on picking a fight, I can't guarantee my reaction!"
"Self-defense is acceptable, but don't overstep." the soldier replied.
"Understood." Meng Ci nod