Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Their family has started fighting back.

My delivery was stolen.

It wasn’t anything valuable-just over a hundred cat treats, the ‘interest’ I owed my cat for borrowing his urine.

I said, “It’s not like it’s duck feed. Why would you steal my cat treats?”

Mrs. Duck swayed her head, mimicking me: “Where’s the evidence? Got any evidence, quack?”

Fine. You want to play it this way, do you?

After getting home, I bought a peephole camera and then started looking for a vendor that sells cockroaches.

I searched for a long time but wasn’t satisfied.

The cockroaches they were selling were just too small.

Back when I was at university in Guangzhou, I once saw what looked like a strand of hair in a crack in my wardrobe.

I tried to pinch it out.

It turned out to be a cockroach.

It was the size of half a palm.

With two long antennae waving and two pitch-black eyes staring wide at me, a big guy from the North.

My entire body froze.

First thought: *Is this even a cockroach?*

Second thought: *Goodbye, Mother, I’m setting sail tonight.*

Third thought: *If I die without paying off my Huabei credit, will it affect my credit report?*

In the end, the cockroach shed its antenna to escape.

I developed ‘hair-strand phobia’ and didn’t dare step into a barbershop for an entire semester.

When the professor took attendance, he referred to me as the ‘long-haired savage.’

I kept searching until evening when I finally found a shop in Foshan.

I asked the owner, “Are these Southern cockroaches authentic?”

The owner replied, “Don’t you worry, handsome. These are ‘Roach Kings.’ If you’re not satisfied, you can hang me!”

The accent was right. I placed the order immediately.

Before checking out, I asked the owner to increase the unit price to a hundred yuan per roach, paying a total of ten thousand yuan, and requested the packaging be as ordinary as possible.

The owner said, “You’re the boss! Whatever you say.”

The delivery arrived two days later.

The owner sent it via SF Express to ensure they stayed fresh.

A couple of days prior, I deliberately made a phone call on the balcony, saying, “This delivery is very important to me. Please make sure it’s delivered to my door.”

Then, on the day of delivery, I told the courier to leave it at the door.

Sure enough, the moment the courier left.

The neighbor came ‘duck-walking’ over to steal it, her face grinning like a blooming chrysanthemum.

I checked the time.

The package was stolen at 11:51 AM.

After thirty seconds of silence…

A massive, resonant, high-pitched scream erupted:

“QUACK!!!!!!!!”

If this were a movie, to show the power of the sound wave, they would have had water glasses shatter.

But in reality, the security guard downstairs roared, “Air raid! Take cover!”

Then he dove headfirst into the bushes and refused to come out for anything.

The group chat exploded. Everyone was tagging me, asking what happened.

I said maybe she just became the Pavilion Master of Langya and got a bit too excited.

Even if I exhausted my brainpower, I couldn’t fully imagine the scene of a hundred giant black cockroaches scrambling to fly out.

But judging by the wailing, the sound of pots being smashed, and the banging on the door from next door, it wasn’t hard to guess.

It must have been quite a spectacle.

Mr. Duck rushed home, carrying a stack of insecticide, and sprayed every inch of the place inside and out.

Then he stayed outside for three days before daring to go back in.

alright, now it was my turn to take the stage.

I copied the video footage, called the police, and while waiting, I put some eye drops in my eyes.

“Officer, you have to help me!”

“My Little Qiangs! My Little Qiangs, whom I depended on for survival, through thick and thin! I never expected to be the white-haired one burying the black-haired ones today!”

“Officer, look at my Little Qiangs. Every one of them was plump, sturdy, and jet-black-roaches in the prime of their youth!”

“A hundred of them! A full hundred! The entire family wiped out! What kind of unspeakable crime is this? Even Thanos knew to leave half behind!”

“…”

“Looking at the order, you and your ‘roach-children’ have only known each other for three days,” the officer said. “Why don’t you just tell me your demands? And wipe away those eye drops; they’re getting in your mouth.”

I said, “Fine. I want them to pay. For the delivery plus mental distress, a total of ten thousand and one yuan-symbolizing that they are ‘one in ten thousand.’ And they have to apologize to my roach-children!”

“Ten thousand yuan!” Mr. Duck practically jumped. “In your dreams! You’re trying to fleece me like a fat sheep!”

I slammed the order screenshot and the video in front of them. “Open your duck eyes and look closely at how much I spent. You don’t want to pay? Fine, I’ll sue you for theft. This amount is enough to put you away for a few years!”

“No, you spent ten thousand on cockroaches? Are you insane?”

I threw his own logic back at him: “Since when do you get to decide how I spend my money? One word: are you paying or not?”

The officer said to Mr. Duck, “Regardless, you did steal his delivery, and this really isn’t a small amount… plus, his request isn’t that unreasonable.”

Mr. Duck’s face turned beet red. After a long struggle, my Alipay received ten thousand yuan.

“Now, go find a bedsheet, cover the children, and see them off on their final journey.”

“You motherf-”

I turned my head. “Officer, I want to report a case! A mass murder!”

“Fine, fine, fine! I’m scared of you, alright?”

Over eighty corpses lay neatly on the white bedsheet. Thinking about how they were happily eating slop in a Guangdong sewer three days ago, only to die in a strange land, I couldn’t help but have tears well up in my eyes.

“First bow!”

“What is this for?” Mr. Duck asked, bewildered.

I grabbed his head and pushed it down. “Have you never been to a funeral?”

“You want me to kowtow to cockroaches?”

“If you don’t kowtow here, you can go kowtow in prison.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it!”

“Second bow!”

“…”

After thirty-three kowtows, the sound of a suona horn echoed in the hallway.

The neighbors appeared, dressed formally, to give the roach-children a grand funeral.

“I didn’t even get a chance to meet my nephews before we were separated by life and death.” The guy whose parking space had been taken before held my hands, tears falling on the spot. “All the residents of Xingfu Community will never forget them!”

A few high school boys carried wreaths and placed them by the bedsheet.

The band received the signal and began singing a funeral dirge:

“It’s the temptation the roaches gave, I sing a love song.
In the sky of longing, there is a beautiful moonlight.
It’s the happiness the roaches gave, I’ve dried my loneliness.
In the sky of bliss, you are my everything…”

“You’re setting up a funeral hall for cockroaches?” Mr. Duck’s expression was one of near-terror.

I said, “What’s it to you? Kowtow!”

And so, under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Mr. Duck bit the bullet and knelt before the corpses of the roach-children. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, quack-“