Cousin Smashed My Load-Bearing Wall for Mahjong, I Reported Him

Five years ago, my uncle's family was cornered, running from loan sharks with nowhere left to go, so I lent them my two storefronts on the downtown shopping street, free of charge, to open a fast-food diner.

For five straight years, rents in that prime location have shot through the roof, and I never asked them for a single dime.

My one condition was that the tiny corner stockroom stayed mine, for my goods, and no one was to touch it.

But today I pushed the door open, and through a sky full of dust, the stockroom's load-bearing wall was gone.

My few hundred pieces of stock were piled outside like trash, and inside sat two mahjong tables.

I took photos and posted them to the family group chat, demanding they stop the work immediately and put everything back.

Karl Matthews replied in a heartbeat: Is it that serious? That rundown room was just sitting there collecting dust anyway. So what if I borrowed it to make a little money?

Fine, from now on I'll cover the tea money for the mahjong tables, put it on my tab.

The aunt jumped in to smooth things over too:

All right, all right, why are family drawing lines this sharp?

You'll marry off sooner or later, and the title to this place will naturally pass to your cousin anyway. Knocking through early is just for the good of the shop's business. Stop nitpicking everything.

Staring at that glaring naturally pass to on the screen, I let out a cold laugh.

Then I turned around and sent the photos straight to the property management and the city building and safety department:

Reporting the malicious demolition of a load-bearing wall. The storefronts involved are shut down for rectification, effective today, indefinitely.

Less than ten minutes after I sent the photos, property management called, their tone more serious than I'd ever heard from them.

Half an hour later, the people from the building and safety department showed up too.

They surveyed the scene and, without a word, strung up warning tape right at the diner's door and slapped a seal on it.

Major safety hazard present. Ordered to cease operations for rectification, restore the original structure, and submit to further investigation.

The family group chat exploded on the spot.

The aunt's voice messages came firing off one after another, shrill enough to stab straight through the screen.

Marian Matthews! You black-hearted ingrate! What have we ever done to wrong you?

You actually reported us? You're cutting off my whole family's livelihood!

Have you got any conscience at all? If we hadn't watched the place for you, it would've gone to ruin ages ago!

Now that you've grown your wings, you're kicking the mule the second it's done grinding, is that it?

I looked at my phone and typed back with no expression on my face.

The ones who cut off the livelihood are you. When you smashed a load-bearing wall, you should've thought about the consequences.

Also, those are my storefronts. Not yours.

After those two lines, I switched the chat to do-not-disturb.

I'd rushed to the scene not to fight with them, but to save my goods.

Those few hundred pieces of high-end clothing were each worth a small fortune, the headline styles I was launching this month.

But by the time I got there, I was still a step too late.

The open ground outside the storefronts was a wreck.

The clothes that had been neatly covered under a dust sheet were now torn off and thrown everywhere.

Dumped in a puddle of rainwater, some of the expensive silk blouses still had grimy black footprints stamped across them.

Karl was sitting on the front steps, one leg crossed over the other.

He was smoking and chatting with a few thuggish-looking young guys, and through the swirl of smoke his face was all smugness and contempt.

Well, look who it is. Our big boss has arrived?

He saw me, stood up with that sneering drawl, and blew a smoke ring my way.

What, does it hurt? They're just a few crummy clothes. All this drama for that?

I held down my anger and pointed at the filthy pile of clothes: Karl, this stock. You're paying for it.

Paying? He acted like he'd heard the joke of the century and burst out laughing.

Marian, are you even awake? I cleared this garbage out for you, and instead of thanking me you want me to pay?

One of the little punks behind him chimed in:

Right, Karl even glancing at your junk is doing you a favor!

I ignored them, took out my phone, aimed it at the ruined heap of clothes, and started recording.

Karl's face darkened.

What are you filming? Pull that report now, or I'll make sure you can't sell a single piece anywhere in this city again!

I didn't stop. The lens moved slowly over every trashed piece, then held on that arrogant face of his.

Go ahead and try.

My calm seemed to set him off completely.

Karl lunged over and stamped his foot down on a white silk dress right in front of me.

He ground it in twice, hard, and in an instant the pure white fabric had a filthy shoe print and a wad of yellow phlegm on it.

I fucking tried it! So what!

He stared at me, taunting, expecting me to scream, to fall apart.

I just quietly turned the lens on his foot.

And the dress he'd destroyed under it, holding a clean close-up.

That was when the aunt came charging around the street corner, wailing at the top of her lungs.

Her target was clear. Not her son. Me.

You little slut! Still filming? I'll tear you apart!

She came at me like a rabid lioness, claws out, going for the phone in my hand.

I'd been ready and stepped back, but I didn't guard against Grandma darting out from behind her.

A sharp crack. My face was knocked to one side, burning and raw with pain.

The slap landed loud and hard.

The whole crowd went quiet in an instant, every gawking pair of eyes fixed on my face.

I turned my head slowly and looked at Grandma, the one who'd hit me.

Her wrinkled face was twisted with rage, her chest heaving, and she jabbed a finger at me and spat,

"You have no manners! Is this how you treat your elders?"

"You'd push your uncle's whole family to their death over a little money!"

"How did our family ever raise a cold-blooded animal like you!"

The aunt jumped right in, dropping onto the ground, slapping her own thighs and wailing,

"Ma! You have to stand up for us!"

"Five years of hard work. Even if we've got nothing to show for it, we put in the sweat!"

"Now one word from her and we're packing up and getting kicked out. There's no living like this!"

The two of them traded lines back and forth, turning black into white.

I held my burning cheek, and all I felt was how absurd it was.

"Grandma, they smashed the load-bearing wall of my building first. That's against the law."

"And they deliberately destroyed my goods. Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth."

"Yours, yours, what's yours!" Grandma's cane came down hard against the ground. "You're a girl. Sooner or later you'll marry out. You're water thrown out the door!"

"This house, the family property, who's it being kept for if not your brother? So he uses it a little early. So what? That's how it should be!"

"How it should be?" I repeated the words, and inch by inch my heart went cold.

"That's right! That's exactly how it should be! Karl is the eldest grandson of this family!"

"You won't help him out, fine, but stabbing him in the back too? What are you playing at!"

I held my ground. "They compensate me for my losses and restore the wall to how it was. Otherwise there's nothing to talk about."

"You still dare to make demands!" Grandma shook all over with fury and raised her hand to strike again.

"Stop!"

At that low shout, my parents finally arrived.

My mother saw my swollen, red face, her eyes rimming with tears, and moved to pull me toward her, but my father yanked her back.

He walked straight up to Grandma. Not to stand up for me. He wore a wide placating smile and soothed her.

"Ma, calm down, please. We're all family. We can talk this out."

Then he turned to me, his tone almost an order.

"Marian, what are you standing there for? Apologize to your grandmother, now!"

I stared at him, not believing it.

"Apologize? Why should I apologize?"

"You talked back to your elders and got your uncle's shop shut down. You don't think you're in the wrong?"

His voice turned severe.

"Get down on your knees, now! Kowtow to your grandmother and your aunt, and we'll put this behind us!"

My mother stood there crying too, coaxing me.

"Nono, be good. It's just one storefront. Don't tear the whole family apart over it."

"Just think of it as... as an early wedding gift for your brother, all right?"

Just one storefront.

An early wedding gift for your brother.

I looked at them, at my spineless, useless father, at my mother who only ever smoothed things over.

Then I looked at Karl, smug beside them, and at the aunt wearing that "smart of you to know your place" look on her face.

In that moment I felt like a complete joke.

The family bond they kept talking about was, in their eyes, nothing but a reason for me to keep backing down.

I shook off my father's hand as it reached for me, said nothing, and turned to leave.

Behind me came my father's furious roar. "Marian! You dare walk away! You ungrateful daughter!"

I didn't look back.

From today on, I had no family anymore.

I got back to my apartment, the one I lived in alone, shut the door, and closed everything outside out with it.

I didn't cry. I wasn't even angry. Inside, I was calm in a way that frightened me.

I opened my laptop and started tallying up every hidden cost I'd carried over these five years for my uncle's fast-food diner.

That included, but wasn't limited to, the tens of thousands they'd borrowed in the name of an emergency and never paid back.

The utility bills I'd covered for them more than once, and the money I'd had to spend renting a temporary storage unit at a steep rate because they'd taken over my stockroom.

Every last item. I remembered it all, down to the dollar.

I was still going through the records when an unknown number called.

I picked up. A gruff man's voice came through.

"Hey, is this Marian Matthews? That storefront of yours on the shopping street, we've taken it over."

"Do yourself a favor and bring the property deed over so we can settle the paperwork."

I frowned. "Who is this?"

"Who am I? Your brother Karl owes us a million, and he put your storefront up against it. He signed for it. It's in black and white."

My stomach dropped.

"That's impossible. He has no right to do that."

"Ha, whether he's got the right isn't up to you." The voice turned impatient.

"My guys are standing outside your storefront right now. You don't come, we pry the door open ourselves."

I grabbed my car keys and ran downstairs.

I drove there as fast as I could, and by the time I arrived a crowd had already gathered at the door.

A few men with tattoo sleeves were working a crowbar against the roll-down door, the one that had been sealed off with an official notice.

"Stop!" I ran over. "What you're doing is illegal!"

The one in front, a man with a scar across his face, stopped and looked me up and down.

He reached into his jacket, pulled out a crumpled contract, and flung it in front of me.

"Take a good look. Long-Term Commercial Lease Mortgage Agreement. Your brother Karl signed it, thumbprint and all."

"He put the next twenty years of the lease on this place up as collateral for a one-million loan."

"He said this storefront's going to be his sooner or later, so he had every right to deal with it."

On the contract, my name had been copied out in shaky, crooked strokes, and under the signature sat a bright red thumbprint.

I was shaking with anger. I called Karl right away.

The phone rang a long time before he picked up, and Karl's voice came through slurred with drink and pleased with itself.

"Hey, my dear little sister. What can I do for you?"

"Karl! You forged my signature and used my storefront as collateral for a loan? Have you lost your mind?"

"Lost my mind? I'm perfectly clear-headed." He laughed, wild, on the other end.

"You can't beat us anyway. That place is going to be mine sooner or later."

"I just cashed it in early. What's the problem? Think of that million as a little something you're giving your big brother."

"This is fraud!"

"You got the guts, go ahead and sue me. See whether the cops believe you or believe the rest of the family."

He hung up, gloating.

Right after that, the aunt started performing in the family group chat.

"Oh, come on, Karl was only doing it for the sake of this family."

"Marian's got money. A little slips through her fingers, so what's the harm in helping her brother pay off a million? We're all one family."

Then my parents' call came chasing after, coaxing me with all their soft-hearted pleading.

"Marian, why don't you just... put up a little money and get those people off our backs?"

"Take the loss and be done with the trouble. We can't afford to cross people like that..."

I drew in a deep breath and hung up on my parents.

I walked over to the man with the scar and forced myself calm.

"This contract is forged. The storefront is in my name. Karl has no right to deal with it."

"If you take it by force, that's illegal too."

Scarface let out a cold laugh. "We only recognize the contract and the note."

"Either you pay his debt right now, or we take this place to settle it. Your choice."

"Fine," I said with a nod, calm in a way he wasn't expecting.

"I won't pay. But this contract, can you make me a copy? I need one for my records."

Scarface blinked, like he'd never run into anyone who'd do this.

A tall, skinny one beside him muttered, "Boss, she isn't trying to pull something, is she?"

Scarface thought it over, and apparently decided one copy couldn't stir up any trouble, so he waved a hand, impatient.

"Make her a copy. I'd like to see what tricks she thinks she can pull."

I took that copy of the fake contract, the one that was enough to put Karl behind bars, turned, and left.

Behind me came their brazen, jeering laughter.

They had no idea. They'd just handed me the deadliest weapon of all.

The next day, I was famous all over town.

My phone started ringing at dawn and never stopped, wave after wave of curses from strange numbers, hate texts stacking up.

A friend sent me a link to a short video on WeChat. The headline read:

"Cold-blooded! Millionaire heiress drives poor relatives to ruineven her own grandmother on her knees couldn't bring her conscience back!"

I opened it. It was me, yesterday, outside the storefront.

Someone had edited it with real care and real malice. All that was left was my face, blank and unflinching, while Grandma beat me.

The aunt sitting on the ground, wailing like her heart was being torn out.

And Karl's friends, delivering their righteous little speeches about what a heartless animal I was.

My rebuttals, the footage of them smashing my propertyall cut.

At the end, they'd tacked on my name, my employer, even the address of the complex where I lived.

The comments were already a slaughterhouse.

"A woman like this deserves to die! Treating her own grandmother that way!"

"Oh, she's rich, so what? Poor relatives aren't people?"

"Dox her! Socially bury her!"

The venom came in like a tide.

When I went downstairs for my car, a basin of dirty water full of rotting cabbage leaves came down from above and drenched my head.

A stranger's face flickered at an upstairs window, gloating.

At the office, every coworker looked at me like I was something foreign.

It didn't take long before my manager called me in, his face pinched with discomfort.

"Marian, you see how it is with all this attention right now it's really bad for the company."

"Maybe you should take a leave and rest at home for a while. We'll talk again once it blows over."

It was a firing dressed up as a favor.

I walked out the front doors. The sky was gray.

My parents called again. This time it wasn't persuasion. It was one accusation after another, straight to the face.

"Marian! Look at the mess you've made! You've even lost your job now!"

"Happy now? I'm telling you, go apologize to your uncle and the rest of them, beg them to forgive you! Otherwise you've ruined your whole life!"

I hung up and sat alone in the car.

Watching the insults keep popping up on my screen, it felt like the whole world had lined up against me.

Right then, Karl's message came through.

A photo of him in a karaoke club, a girl on each arm, with one arrogant line underneath.

"How's it taste, little sister? Now. Right now. Sign the storefront over to me."

"Make me happy and I'll post a video clearing your name, let you off the hook."

"Otherwise, I promise you, this is only the beginning."

I looked at that smug face, and that phrase, "let you off the hook."

Everything I'd swallowedthe grievance, the angerturned in that moment into one cold, clear intent to end this.

I didn't reply.

I went home and shut myself in my room.

I pulled up every transfer record from the past five years, the lease contract for the separate warehouse I'd rented.

The video I'd taken yesterday of Karl deliberately destroying the goods, and the copy of that forged, million-dollar loan-shark mortgage contract.

All of it, one line, one document at a time, laid out clearly on the desk.

I opened the phone, went to the dial pad, and calmly pressed three numbers.

"Hello, is this the police? This is Marian Matthews."

"I want to file a formal report under my own name. Someone is suspected of forging an official government seal."

"Contract fraud, and deliberate destruction of property. The amount involved runs into the millions."

On the other end, the dispatcher's voice was steady. "Please tell me exactly what happened."

My own voice was calmer and clearer than it had ever been.

"The suspect is my cousin. Karl Matthews."