Chapter 4: Signed Away Without a Lint “GET OUT!!!”
1718 Words
Zhou Yating’s ear-splitting shriek still reverberated in the hallway, her spittle spraying across Zhang Chi’s face—each droplet venomous with malice.
Neighbors gawked from doorways like spectators at a circus. Wang Pengfei leaned against the wall, clutching his chest, his puffy face a grotesque mask of lingering pain and spiteful glee as he awaited Zhang Chi’s crawling retreat.
All eyes pinned Zhang Chi in their glare,
Anticipating his expulsion.
Waiting for the spineless fool to yield.
Craving his swallowed rage.
Yet at the vortex of the storm,
Zhang Chi plunged into an uncanny, absolute stillness.
The tremor in his limbs vanished—not a flicker remained. Rage’s crimson flush receded, flash-frozen by polar ice. In its place, a bloodless pallor, devoid of all feeling.
Even the last vestige of red in his eyes drowned in an abyssal darkness.
No longer a furious beast,
But a machine severed from its power grid—cold, precise.
He bent slowly, agonizingly,
With glacial efficiency,
And retrieved the kicked-over, frayed suitcase at his feet.
Its zipper gaped where Zhou had torn it open, revealing butchered shirt fragments inside—jagged, wound-like.
His hand plunged past the ruined fabric,
Delving deep into the case’s bowels,
Displacing the shredded cloth,
Until his fingers brushed a rigid, chill object—a thin board meticulously wrapped.
A pause. Then his wrist flexed, extracting it: a hardboard frame sealed in clear plastic.
The reverence in his touch, icy and ritualistic, jarred against the surrounding desolation.
Zhou Yating’s tirade hitched. She glared at the frame, then spat, “Take your trash and scram! Who wants your dead—”
Silence.
Zhang Chi ignored her existence. Head bowed, he wiped a mote of dust from the plastic with clinical care, as though polishing a relic.
He turned the frame over.
Behind the film: no photo.
A crisply folded sheet of paper.
Standard A4.
Stark, boldfaced characters lanced into Zhou and Wang’s retinas:
*DIVORCE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT*!
In the vacant Party B signature line—a blood-hued, twisted fingerprint, wet and violent, pressed like a brand.
The very stain he’d imprinted with her Dior 999, thirty minutes prior.
It had waited here all along. Cradled in the frame. Entombed beneath rags.
Zhou Yating’s scream curdled: “You—you carried this?! You planned this?!”
Zhang Chi procedurally anchored the frame atop his suitcase.
The scarlet print stared back at Zhou—a silent indictment.
He straightened. Lifted his gaze.
For the first time, those glacial eyes bypassed the shrieking Zhou and speared the panting Wang Pengfei.
“Lao Wang. Got a pen?”
His voice—a synthethic monotone—sliced through the cacophony like a scalpel.
The air imploded.
Stunned silence. Zhou gaped.
Divorce papers?
Carried on his person?
Concealed in a frame?
Finger-signed?!
Zhou’s mind blanked. Her rehearsed vitriol—crafted to humiliate him into pauper’s exile—choked her throat, a suffocating stone.
Wang Pengfei recoiled, stupefied. “You—what’s this?”
Expressionless, Zhang Chi repeated, frigid syllables clattering like hail: “Pen. For signing.”
Sign? Sign what?
The divorce?!
Was he insane?!
“Madman!” Zhou rasped, trembling with disbelief. “You’d sign this? Pauper’s exit! Sign this—and you crawl out destitute! Not a copper coin! You’d truly—”
“SILENCE!” Wang Pengfei roared. Smarter than Zhou, his eyes drilled into Zhang Chi. “Zhang Chi. You comprehend this?”
“Sign it,” he snarled, scrambling for leverage, “you forfeit everything! Flat, savings, all to Zhou! Regret is eternal—”
SNAP!
Zhang Chi moved—
Not at Wang.
At a mover’s clipboard, forgotten in his grip—pen clipped.
The man flinched as the pen vanished.
“Spare your concern,” Zhang Chi’s voice was arctic poison.
He ignored them both. His hand shot to the suitcase’s zippered pocket, rummaging—
Nothing. The signature line gaped unfilled.
But a full agreement awaited—signed, stamped, prepped for Zhou’s name—buried in his backpack’s lining.
His motions froze. The pack—kicked to a corner in the chaos.
He snapped his head up.
His gaze locked onto that battered bag like a scope.
Before Zhou or Wang could react,
Zhang Chi lunged—scooped the bag—yanked it open—
Plucked a cream file folder from its sheath.
THUD!
The folder slammed beside the blood-inked frame.
He flipped it open: pristine pages, printed in merciless clarity.
Party A: Zhang Chi. Flamboyant signature. Seal stamped.
Party B: BLANK.
Asset Division Clause: gutting and absolute.
i. Property: Address XX, Title Deed XXX → Party B (Zhou Yating).
ii. All accounts, investments, assets → Party B.
iii. Party A voluntarily relinquishes all claims. Clean exit.
No hesitation.
No plea.
Not a wisp of regret.
He surrendered all—voluntarily, irrevocably. Pauper’s exile.
Zhou Yating’s eyes scoured the seal-stamped text—ironclad. Brutal. Soulless.
Wang Pengfei’s face purpled. His script—spare you, show mercy, witness pity—dissolved.
Willing. Sealed. Faster than dumping refuse.
“SIGN!” Zhang Chi snatched the “commandeered” pen.
He bypassed Zhou’s parchment-pale shock.
He stabbed the pen onto the file—
Straight onto Party B’s void.
The tip dimpled the paper, pressure threatening to tear.
“SIGN!” Zhang Chi’s gaze snapped up—first direct, annihilating contact with Zhou.
No request.
No plea.
No cringing post-abuse.
It was command.
Sentence.
Guillotine blade.
“SIGN!” Low. Thunder in Zhou’s skull. Irrevocable. Final.
Not spinelessness—he was shattering the cage. Scorning every atom within.
Humiliation crashed over Zhou like a tsunami. She had orchestrated his exile! She held the strings! She trampled him into the filth!
Yet now—
She was the grotesque jester.
This “waste” she’d berated for years—this “coward”—had reframed her as refuse! His utter, contemptuous dismissal shredded her script.
He refused nothing.
He relinquished everything.
Like discarded gum!
Zhou gasped—fish-stranded—skeleton-white, trembling. The scarlet claw-nail poised to shame him hung limp. The scream died in her throttled throat.
Wang Pengfei’s expression curdled—a feast of flies. His “victor’s posture” and “alms” lay pulverized. Face stinging from Zhang Chi’s phantom blow.
“SIGN!!” Zhang Chi roared—pure impatience now. The pen-jab repeated.
It jolted Zhou to life.
Humiliation erupted—magma-hot. She lifted a distorted face, voice shredding into a raw shriek:
“SIGN?! DREAM ON! You think freedom waits?! NEVER!”
She lunged—not to sign—to TEAR the documents—to shred this escape beyond her control!
“Worthless scum! Divorced—you’ll rot! You should’ve groveled at my feet! Forever! In DEBT! Compensation! Mental anguish! Life! OWE ME FOR LIFE!!!” A gambler betting ashes.
Her nails grazed the folder—
“ENOUGH!”
The roar detonated from the elevators.
All heads whipped around.
The elevator stood open.
A steel-postured man in a deep blue jacket stood framed—hair swept back, authority radiating. The chaotic tableau hooked his iron frown.
“Unc—Uncle Liu?!” Wang Pengfei’s face bleached bone-white. Terror.
Liu Zhigang.
Municipal Housing Director.
The pillar of Wang’s career—his father’s hard-won connection.
Liu ignored Wang. His spotlight-eyes swept the hall: over the rabid Zhou, the petrified Wang, landing finally on the divorce papers atop Zhang Chi’s case.
Liu’s gaze snagged on Party A’s signature—the familiar strokes, the blood-print companion document. Zhou’s frenzy. Wang’s cowardice. Comprehension crystallized.
His eyes locked onto Zhang Chi—an unreadable mix.
Wang Pengfei scrambled servilely. “Director! Misund—”
Liu’s hand sliced air—a gesture dismissing vermin.
He studied Zhang Chi again.
Zhang Chi returned the gaze—no appeal, no self-pity. Only glacial closure. That document was his manifesto.
Liu inhaled. Was that... a flicker of respect? Pity? This young man... has spine.
He refocused, not on Zhang Chi—
But on Zhou Yating, shrieking about “compensation.” His voice thundered with tectonic authority:
“SIGN IT!!!”
The words detonated—a crushing, irrefutable verdict.
Zhou’s voice flatlined.
She froze—lightning-struck—trembling like dry leaves. The man’s aura paralyzed her. Terror. Despair.
Liu Zhigang’s glare impaled her.
“NOW! SIGN!”
Absolute command.
She broke.
Under that crushing power, her malice crumbled to dust.
Her hand shook—uncontrollable palsy.
She fumbled the cheap pen Zhang Chi had stabbed down.
Slippery. Cold.
She clutched it—all her strength summoned.
Over Party B’s emptiness. Beside the scarlet fingerprint.
Face twisted with anguish, shame, terror—
She scraped the characters:
Z H O U Y A T I N G
Each stroke carved flesh. The ink clawed the paper.
The final stroke.
Pen clattered to the floor.
Zhou collapsed—marionette strings severed—a heap on cold tiles. Hollow-eyed. Broken. Her triumphant sneer erased.
Signed.
Paupered. Final.
Zhang Chi watched her name fill the void. His eyes—no relief, no sorrow—only terminus.
He bent.
Recoiled documents like discarded instruments. Swift. Unhesitating.
Pocketed the divorce paper.
Cased the blood-sealed frame.
Zipped the suitcase.
Buckled straps.
Shouldered his pack.
Ten seconds. Fluid.
He straightened.
Without a glance at the wreckage of Zhou Yating.
Ignoring the ashen Wang Pengfei seeking the earth’s swallow.
Dismissing even Liu Zhigang’s intervention.
He gripped the worn suitcase handle.
Wheels grated the hallway—hoarse, discordant protest.
A pilgrim stepping onto an empty road.
He neared the elevator.
Passed Zhou’s crumpled form—not brushing her hem.
The doors parted, waiting.
Zhang Chi stepped through.
As the panels slid shut—
A final, low voice cleaved the narrowing gap, Liu Zhigang’s eyes on that rigid, solitary back:
“Zhang. Beiling’s mountain passes are treacherous. Tread carefully.”
Zhang Chi’s step hitched.
Faintest pause.
He did not turn.
The doors sealed.
The display blinked—descending.
The hallway held:
The ruin of Zhou Yating.
Cadaver-faced Wang Pengfei.
Immovable Director Liu.
Neighbors strangling their breath.
Zhang Chi was gone.
Cleansed of all but will.
Exiting cleaner than refuse disposal.
Leaving dignity in tatters.
And hell’s ground zero.
- Writer
