Tokyo: Starting with taking on his wife's debts

She walked up to Xiuming, looked down at him, and spoke threatening words that were tinged with tears:

"You've already taken advantage of me, so don't push your luck any further, or I'll take you down with me."

"That's as if I've slept with you." Xiuming took off his blue plastic slippers and patted the soles of his feet.

"If you can sign a contract, that's fine too."

"Here we go again?" Hideaki spread his hands, holding up a slipper. "Not only are you insincere, but you're also trying to ruin my relationship with Riko."

"If it weren't for Riko, do you think I would even talk to you? You're just a good-for-nothing who lives off women."

This woman must be furious and ready to give up, right? Well, she's completely exposed and her weakness has been thoroughly exploited.

"Aren't you afraid of offending me and what the consequences will be?"

"Aren't you afraid of what will happen to you after I commit suicide?" Ayako put her hands on her hips. "From now on, I will write down everything you do to me and every request you make in my diary. After I die, it will be evidence of your crimes."

"You're amazing!" Xiuming took off his other slipper and patted the sole of his foot. "If I report you for impersonating someone else, how will you respond?"

“You wouldn’t.” Ayako leaned forward with her hands on her hips, staring into Hideaki’s eyes with an intimidating posture, and continued, “You owe so much in loan sharks, and they ruined your job, didn’t they? Your mortgage is overdue, right? Your bank cards are frozen, right? How much food do you have left in the kitchen? I underestimated your greed, but there’s no denying that no one but me can support you. I’m just unlucky that you’ve found my weakness.”

Xiuming's gaze shifted downwards, and he pointed at her collar with his slipper, saying, "You're showing too much skin."

Ayako's gaze followed, her face contorted with a mixture of conflict and gritted teeth. Then she abruptly straightened up, gave a cold snort, and strode towards the stairwell. "I'll come again tomorrow. I want to learn how to stab… Ah~"

She had just stepped through the fire door when she stepped on a pile of oranges scattered on the ground, and tumbled down the stairwell.

"Hey!" Xiuming shouted, craning his neck, "Are you still alive?"

There was no sound.

Could he be dead?

Riko sat up, still wrapped in the blanket, with only her head showing. Her face was still flushed, and she asked softly, "Honey, what happened?"

"Ayako Sugita fell into the stairwell and is now silent." Hideaki put on his slippers and quickly walked towards the stairwell.

Because it was a staircase leading to the rooftop, the steps were steep and numerous. At the corner of the staircase below the twenty-odd steps, Ayako Sugita sat on the ground with her back against the corner of the wall, her legs stretched out, her head down and motionless.

"Hey!"

Xiuming was startled.

If he really died, he would be the first person the police would question when they arrived. His identity information hadn't been updated yet, and even if the scene showed it was an accidental fall, he would definitely be the prime suspect.

Of course, there was also a secondary issue: he really needed to extort some money from Ayako over these three days to make ends meet.

Xiuming rushed down the steps in three quick steps, half-squatted in front of her, and gently tapped her shoulder with his index finger.

"Mrs. Sugita?"

Sugita Ayako tilted her body.

Did he faint from the fall? Or did he die from it?

Xiuming quickly and carefully supported her shoulders, extended his right hand, placed his index and middle fingers side by side on her carotid artery, and breathed a sigh of relief: it was still beating.

He then carefully checked her head to see if she had bumped it, and then shouted towards the rooftop, "Riko-chan, quickly call an ambulance!"

"what!"

Riko had also finished dressing. She had just reached the fire door when her face paled. She hurriedly ran downstairs to the elevator, saying, "Okay..."

After Riko entered the elevator, Hideaki carefully searched for the most serious bumps and bruises on Ayako's body.

In cases of impact-induced unconsciousness, the first place to check is the head, but her head, apart from slightly disheveled hair, showed no signs of impact.

The most obvious injuries on her body were her elbows and the backs of her hands, both of which had scraped skin.

"Something's not right...this shouldn't be happening..."

Xiuming carefully checked the back of her neck, then her spine, and found nothing wrong.

Xiuming's heart sank, and he grabbed the hair bun on the top of her head and pulled it upwards.

She immediately opened her eyes, then frowned and squinted, a cold smile playing on her thin lips:

"You scared me to death, ptooey!"

Xiuming quickly turned his head, but the distance was too close and the incident happened too suddenly, so the spittle still sprayed onto his face.

“Lick it off,” Xiuming said, pointing to his face.

"Are you a pervert?" Ayako laughed smugly. "Dream on..."

"He~tui!"

"...Ugh! Ptooey! Ptooey! Ugh~ Ugh~"

Ayako frantically tried to clear her throat.

Xiuming stood up, crossed his arms, and said with disdain, "You got a great deal, you should be happy about it!"

Ayako got up with a "I'll fight you to the death" attitude, but before she could stand up, her body trembled, her flushed face suddenly turned pale, and she slumped down the next flight of stairs.

Xiuming was dodging to the side when he saw her fall again. He instinctively grabbed her wrist, but her body shape determined her weight, and Xiuming wasn't prepared to maintain his balance.

They slid down together. Xiuming reacted quickly, pulling Lingzi into his arms and turning her around before falling. He protected the back of Lingzi's head with one hand, kept his head as low as possible, and landed on his shoulder and back.

When they stopped, Xiuming leaned against the wall, his left hand covering the back of Ayako's head and pressing it against his left chest, his head pressed against the left side of her neck, and his right hand tightly wrapped around her waist to maintain the protective posture.

Ayako wrapped her arms around his upper body and her legs around his waist.

"Are you alright?" Ayako asked, her eyes filled with fear, as she propped herself up.

“It’s nothing,” Xiuming slapped his forehead, “I forgot to pretend to be unconscious…”

"You still have the mood to joke! Hiss—!" Ayako punched him on the shoulder, a ripple spreading across her chest. As she was about to get up, she gasped again.

She took off her white cotton sock, which was stained with a piece of yellow orange juice, revealing a purplish-red lump the size of an orange swollen on her left ankle.

"I'm ruined..." Ayako's face turned pale with pain, and she said with trembling lips, "It's all your fault. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been so badly injured. I was pressed down on again just now, which made it even worse. Don't you feel guilty? Sign the contract, and I'll forgive you."

“This kind of opportunity is once in a lifetime,” Xiuming said, supporting her waist with one hand and her arm with the other, lifting her up. “You can forget about it in your entire life.”

"What do you mean?" Ayako tilted her head, her eyes flickering.

The intense feeling of weightlessness as I fell down the stairs had indeed bred immense fear. My instinct was to grab Xiuming, but he dodged me, and I missed. Despair seemed to wash over me in an instant.

When I came to my senses, he grabbed my wrist again, and my heart fluttered for no reason, just like a melodramatic scene from an idol drama.

"I'll eat you for the rest of my life!" Xiuming said with a perverted expression.

"Is that so..." It doesn't seem that perverted...

"What's with your blushing? Shouldn't you be furious and yell 'Shameless!' at this point?"

"You really are shameless...and vulgar...where are you looking?"

"I'm looking at a lewd body."

"Your figure is also lewd."

"It's not a problem with your figure, it's a problem with your mindset. There's something wrong with your mindset."

"So that's what you were thinking..."

"You sit here for a bit, I'll go put on my shirt..."

Hideaki, still shirtless, left Ayako at the elevator entrance, then quickly ran up to the rooftop and put on his shirt and shoes.

To avoid rain at night, we rolled all our belongings into the broken tent, then hid them in the pump room, and then ran down the stairs.

The 22nd floor is empty.

While packing up the tent just now, I heard voices coming from here. I guess it was the paramedics. They took Ayako away.

Hideaki was slightly annoyed because he had forgotten to mention the tent during the emergency, and now he had only managed to extort a clubhouse prepaid card from Ayako that couldn't be used to withdraw cash.

It's only 9 p.m., but the tent is broken and I can't stay on the rooftop anymore. I hope the debt collectors won't bang on the door and harass me tonight!

Back on the fourth floor, I knocked on the door of room 403.

Riko opened the door, looking embarrassed and pleading for help. While helping Hideaki change into slippers, she gestured towards the living room sofa.

"Honey... what should I do..."

On the living room sofa, Ayako Sugita was reclining against the backrest, her smooth left leg stretched out diagonally upwards, her ankle wrapped in thick white gauze and hanging from a steel frame next to her.

She was holding a cup of tea in her hand, glancing sideways towards the door.

Riko took the opportunity to hide in the master bedroom, although this accident somewhat dispelled the embarrassment of the "cry for help" that had broken out on the rooftop.

But after returning to his room, Ayako kept asking him about the embroidery techniques.

She simply didn't know how to answer, because she didn't know how Xiuming would deal with her next, and she didn't dare to be honest. She was about to explode from all the questioning.

"Shouldn't you have been taken away by the ambulance?" Xiuming walked up to her and gently tapped the thick gauze on her left ankle with his knuckle. "An injury of this severity would take at least three months to fully recover on its own, right? If you don't go to work, how am I supposed to ask you for money?"

"I want to watch TV." Ayako ignored him completely and pointed to the remote control under the TV cabinet opposite her. "Give it to me."

Hideaki took a step forward, bent down and got closer to Ayako, staring into her eyes.

"Did you break your brain?"

"I haven't eaten yet, I'm hungry." Ayako tilted her head and called out to the master bedroom, "Riko-chan, can you make me a meal?"

"Riko-chan, go about your business, you don't need to come out," Hideaki quickly turned around and called out, "Are you planning to stay here all night? If you don't come home, won't your family and your husband look for you?"

"Since you know I'm married, don't you feel ashamed for looking at me with such rude and disrespectful eyes? You scumbag!"

“Your shamelessness is about half as good as mine,” Xiuming chuckled, then continued, “But this is not the time to discuss this. Hurry up and go home, don’t disturb our married life.”

"I'm not leaving. I'll starve to death if I'm all alone at home." Ayako tilted her head and sneered. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have twisted my ankle. You have to take responsibility."

Xiuming's eyes widened: "Your husband is dead too?"

"What do you mean 'also' dead? Do you have another woman outside? You betrayed Riko, you betrayed love, you cheated on me, you really are a scumbag! If you sign the contract, I will keep it a secret and won't tell Riko."

"I can't be bothered with you." Xiuming snatched the teacup from her hand, turned and walked away. "If you're not going to leave, then stay here!"

"Hey!" Ayako was stunned for a moment, then quickly called out, "I'll pay your rent!"

“100,000 yen per month!” Hideaki immediately turned around.

“It’s a deal!” Ayako blurted out.

"150,000 yen," Hideaki quickly corrected himself.