Chapter 107: Chapter 107: Combating Rumors with Rumors
Translator: 549690339
Chapter 107 – Rumors versus Rumors
“THOMAS, hurry, THOMAS, get in the elevator!” said Miss Yang, leading her new pet, a Corgi, into the elevator.
THOMAS… Zi Cheng’s English name is Thomas Liu…
Xiang Kun swept a wordless glance over the little Corgi, but he didn’t try to intimidate Miss Yang’s new pet any further.
It seems that after gaining the experience of raising a Siberian Husky, she understood that she could only “manage” smaller breeds. However, from the looks of the Corgi, it didn’t seem particularly obedient to her.
They exchanged casual nods as greetings. Xiang Kun lifted his head to watch as the elevator doors slowly closed, clearly having no intention of engaging in conversation.
Surprisingly, Miss Yang took the initiative: “Hey? That Miss Lin on the 7th floor, the one with the slightly overweight daughter who is attending kindergarten, do you know what happened to her?”
Xiang Kun kept staring at the elevator doors without responding, looking as if he was lost in thought.
Miss Yang, meanwhile, went on, pressing the button for her floor and going on about her own business, said: “Can you believe it, she turned out to be someone’s mistress! I really didn’t see it coming, I didn’t see it at all, it’s unimaginable! I guess appearances can be deceiving. You live on the same floor, haven’t you heard? Last Friday, the wife’s relatives came to confront her and it got really violent. Apparently, the whole building could hear her screams. I was in Japan that day, not in the neighborhood… What about you, didn’t you see anything? Anyway, I heard that she moved out, sold the house for a price much lower than the market average. Well, figures. After all this, she couldn’t possibly stay…”
Last Friday? Wasn’t that the day that the skinny tall man who ran the bar made a scene? The day those harrowing screams echoed throughout the entire building, must have been the tall skinny guy’s doing.
Given Xiang Kun’s extraordinary sense of hearing, even without deliberately eavesdropping, he often picked up bits and pieces about Shiling’s mom from idle chit-chat between housewives who lounged about the neighborhood and the older folks out for a stroll.
To these people, they may have no real ill intentions towards Shiling’s mom, just innocently gossiping. But unconsciously, rumors can twist and warp, especially topics like “mistress,” which are particularly susceptible to one-sided criticism.
So, it was perhaps a wise and decisive choice for Shiling’s mom to move out and sell the house so quickly.
As for Miss Yang, she probably derived a certain schadenfreude pleasure from the whole thing. Xiang Kun knew about the previous few disputes between Shiling’s mom and Miss Yang, over minor matters like taking out the trash, cleaning up pet waste, and walking the dog.
Sensing that she was about to speak again, Xiang Kun suddenly interrupted,
“Miss Yang, is your boyfriend’s surname Chen?”
“Boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend… Eh? How do you…”
“Does Mr. Chen know that you frequently bring different men over to stay the night?”
“What… what a load of crap! You…l… I haven’t…l don’t bring…” Miss Yang
became a bit flustered, but something seemed to dawn on her as she looked at Xiang Kun with a startled and anxious expression, “You…”
They reached the 7th floor. As the elevator doors slowly opened, Xiang Kun ignored her and stepped out, saying quietly, “While you eagerly spread rumors about others, others are equally eager to spread rumors about you.”
Miss Yang seemed to want to retort, but she ultimately didn’t dare step out of the elevator.
Xiang Kun expressionlessly pulled out his keys, unlocked the door, and went into his apartment, sighing internally. Normally, he wouldn’t have said those things.
Regarding the issues between Shiling’s mom, her husband, and his other wife back in their hometown, Xiang Kun had no desire to judge, and he didn’t want to know about their relationship, whether there were any tough circumstances involved – this simply had nothing to do with him and he had no interest.
However, ever since he moved here, Shiling and her mom always treated him kindly and actively offered help within their capacity – he might not really need the help but it certainly reminded him of the neighborhood relations when he lived in a small town with his parents back in the days.
From the bottom of his heart, he definitely didn’t want Shiling and her mom to get hurt, and he didn’t want to hear bad talk about them, especially since much of it was inaccurate rumors.
Of course, since Shiling and her mom have moved out of the neighborhood, he wouldn’t be bothered by what other people say, or talk about, or gossip about. Even if his superb hearing could pick up on all of it, he wouldn’t care. With time, things naturally fade from memory.
However, having those rumors shoved in his face and someone seeking his approval for them was something he couldn’t tolerate.
Probably no one knows more community gossip about the residents in the building than Xiang Kun.
When he was home not going out, he occasionally practiced his hearing and olfactory senses to “refresh his mind” during breaks from reading or other training activities.
During these times, he would often overhear private chatter and neighborhood gossip in households.
Occasionally, these gossips would involve other residents in the building, and he would even hear different versions of the same story from different people, revealing that people form different impressions and judgments about the same person.
Xiang Kun wasn’t interested in all these rumors. Hearing tedious, endless matters concerning personal interests was annoying. He just listened to control and practice his hearing, using it as a ‘sound’ exercise.
Regardless of whether he was interested or not, Xiang Kun ended up knowing a lot of gossip, and even some secrets, about the building’s residents, other households in the neighborhood, and even members of the property management.
Not that he’s ever planned or intended to use these revelations in any way, tell anyone about them, or interfere with others’ lives.
But just now, he was genuinely irked by Miss Yang. He couldn’t hit her, couldn’t scold her, so he just decided to hit back with the same weapon rumors against rumors, an eye for an eye if you will.
The rumors he mentioned weren’t heard from the residents’ gossip, nor did he deliberately eavesdrop on Miss Yang’s corner, but overheard conversations between the security guards.
Miss Yang lives alone, but there’s a certain “Mr. Chen” who often drives a luxury car to see her and occasionally stays overnight. And besides “Mr. Chen,” there have been a few other men who came to her place and stayed overnight. A man and a woman alone in the same room, you can imagine what might happen, and the security guards’ speculations are quite vivid indeed.
Miss Yang probably thought that since she never appeared with those men in the neighborhood and they only came over at night, no one would know.
As for how Miss Yang conducts her private life, Xiang Kun doesn’t want to pass any judgment. That’s her personal life. As long as she understands that in the system of spreading rumors, everyone who spreads rumors can become the subject of a rumor. Just as long as she doesn’t come to him with bad things to say about Shiling’s mom, it’s all good.
When Xiang Kun returned home, the first thing he noticed was the smell of bird droppings.
Since he keeps a canary in the apartment, it was only natural, with his sense of smell, that he could detect the smell of bird droppings.
But the problem was, the smell wasn’t coming from where the birdcage was, but instead from the sink in the bathroom.
Xiang Kun went over to check and sure enough, he found traces of bird droppings on the sink, indicating that the canary had been there.
He wasn’t particularly surprised, as he had been leaving the birdcage door open, allowing the bird to go in and out freely, although it didn’t seem to have left the cage before.
Returning to the living room, he saw that the canary was back in its opened cage, looking as though it had never left..
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