Restrictive Zone

RA 20 - Neighbour

He took out a spoon from the cabinets and dug a small spoonful of strawberry jam from the jar for a taste. When it entered his mouth, a cloying sweetness exploded in his oral cavity, and only after curling his lips into a thin line was he able to faintly taste the natural acidity of strawberries.

Too. Sweet.

Jiang Chijing frowned, his shoulders shrinking in from the sheer sweetness, gooseflesh rising on his back.

Was Zheng Mingyi trying to murder him by sugar overdose??

Everyone had different taste buds. In any case, to Jiang Chijing, this jar of strawberry jam was way beyond the sweetness level that he could tolerate.

He wavered for a while but still ended up making another trip out to buy a few lemons from the supermarket, further processing this dubious, unbranded, and unlicensed product until it was barely passable by his standards.

×××

Jiang Chijing spent most of this weekend tending to his lawn, incidentally also taking to wash his garage and the pavement in front of his house.

The house across the street was still as dismal as before. The yard was overgrown with weeds and the goose-yellow curtains had turned dark grey. No one had tidied up the ransacked interior. It was quite probable that a thick layer of dust had accumulated in the house.

He wondered how Zheng Mingyi would feel seeing his house in such a state after getting out of prison.

But, then again, this house had already been seized by the court; perhaps it would already be auctioned off before Zheng Mingyi's release from prison.

Even if Zheng Mingyi ultimately managed to exonerate his name, as stipulated by the law, the person who bought the house wasn't mandated to return the property rights. By then, Zheng Mingyi would cease to be his neighbor.

His thoughts seemed to be straying a little too far ahead.

In this period, the house across the street had remained empty, and Jiang Chijing had gradually gotten used to not having anyone to spy on.

His voyeuristic tendencies didn't appear to be as severe as he had imagined. Similar to how he couldn't be bothered to watch inmates smoke and play cards in the recreation room, if there wasn't anyone who roused his interest, then he would be unable to raise any impulse to peek in as well.

On this night, Jiang Chijing wound his watch before sleeping again.

For some reason, this watch seemed to be ticking slower and slower lately, requiring to be wound every day now when he only had to do so every two or three days before. Perhaps this was a common issue of old watches. If it really couldn't cut it, then Jiang Chijing might have to buy a new watch still.

Placing his watch on the nightstand, Jiang Chijing lay in bed.

The advantage of living in the suburbs was that the nights were extremely quiet and were also without the annoying light pollution of the city.

After shutting his eyes, only tranquil darkness was left in the world before his eyes, but before he could fall asleep, the darkness suddenly started to flash with unsettling crimson flares.

Immediately sensing something was wrong, his eyes flicked open and he pulled the curtains open, only to see that the small house across the street was enveloped by a raging fire, tongues of flame wildly licking out of the bedroom window.

"Fire, help!"

Some neighbors had already come out in their pajamas to help put out the fire, whereas Jiang Chijing speedily called the fire brigade, then leaped out of bed to join the fire-fighting army.