CH 3.1

Chapter 3 (part 1)

From the looks of him, Fu Zheng was obviously in an awkward, embarrassed place, but in the end he held his tongue and poured tea for the two ladies who had been scuffling and Ning Wan. Ning Wan observed him as he poured the tea and lamented in her heart; was this Fu Zheng born with a golden spoon in his mouth? Had he never poured tea in his life? How could someone pour in such a stiff and clumsy manner? Was there something wrong with his cerebellum that affected his coordination?

But she soon gave up thinking about Fu Zheng and put her energy into the two parties before here. "Aunties, what happened? The New Year just passed, shouldn't everyone be celebrating? We're all neighbours together in a community, and it's said that faraway relatives aren't as good as neighbors. What can't be sat down and talked out? "

Now that the fighting had ended, though hate was still flashing in the eyes of the two middle-aged women, they had at least calmed down. One of them took the lead. "Lawyer Ning, tell me what you think of this. My name is Shi Xiaofang. I live in Room 1201, Building 10. Her name is Liu Guizhen. She lives next door to me, in 1202. We're indeed neighbors."

"Auntie Shi, having fate with each other isn't something you see every day.1 So if one has problems, let's all work together to communicate well. Why quarrel?"

Unlike how she had spoken to Fu Zheng previously when playing around, Ning Wan's voice was gentle, her expression focused, and her manner made others feel like opening their hearts to her.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to soothe Shi Xiaofang. Pointing angrily at Liu Guizhen, she hissed, "Lawyer Ning, my daughter just gave birth. I've been running around after her and the baby all day, every day. If it wasn't for this woman instigating, do you think I'd waste my time on her?"

The more she talked, the more furious Shi Xiaofang got. "Lawyer Ning, you're our community lawyer, so you're here to help us little people solve these legal problems, aren't you? I want to sue her! She's been disturbing everyone by raising chickens! Wasn't raising chickens in the neighbourhood recently banned? Isn't she affecting other folk by doing this? What if there's a chicken plague, or some other weird disease on this chicken that affects other people? Anyway, even if there isn't, there shouldn't be a chicken being raised in an apartment! Its shit stinks up..."

Not to be outdone, Liu Guizhen raised her own voice. "Don't slander my chicken! He's very well taken care of! He was vaccinated against the bird flu, and I have all the legal records! He's a perfectly safe chicken! There is absolutely no such chicken plague virus, and what really stinks is this bitch's empty talk! My chicken hardly smells at all, but her mouth sprays shit! I'm raising this chicken on the balcony, I ventilate and clean every day and shovel out the cage." Her eyes on Ning Wan, Liu Guizhen asked, "Lawyer Ning, my own family lives with this chicken. If I wasn't careful about hygiene, wouldn't we be the first to suffer?"

"Oh come on, even if this is a first-rate chicken with a pedigree and a full set of certificates, the fact that it starts crowing before dawn every morning isn't fucking fake!" As Shi Xiaofang was talking, she pulled her phone from her pocket. "Lawyer Ning, listen to this."

A loud crow rang out from the mobile phone. Shi Xiaofang turned it around to show a video. "I was afraid she'd say I found that recording online, so I took a video. Look, this is my balcony, and over there is Liu Guizhen's. That's where the crowing is coming from."

With some resentment, Shi Xiaofang said, "Lawyer Ning, tell me, am I supposed to put up with this? Look at the time! It's four o'clock in the morning! Four o'clock! This plagued chicken crows like that every day! My daughter can't even rest because of this goddamn chicken, and the little baby, who's just a month old, gets woken up at the ass crack of dawn. I'm here today to ask you to solve this matter. Liu Guizhen's chicken crowing disturbs others in the apartment. Can I sue her? How can one raise chickens in an apartment? "

"It's just a bit of crowing! It's not like it's a subway being constructed or something. Why are you saying it's disturbing? Shi Xiaofang, you're just poor and crazy and thinking about extorting money from me. Suing, seriously? Do you think you can scare people with that? "

"In addition to noise from construction, noise disturbances apply to anything that does not follow rules of normal life, such as chicken crowing at 4am. As long as there is a noise that affects someone else's regular sleep schedule, it is indeed possible that one might be held liable for such a disturbance and compensation could be pursued."

Thus far, Ning Wan had been speaking in a calming, placating manner, and so when Fu Zheng's words dropped into the conversation, Shi Xiaofang perked up as if she had found a backer. Her calming anger was once again ignited, and she glared at Liu Guizhen. "Hear that?! Did you hear that, you illiterate, uneducated woman? Regardless of the quality of the chicken, it is an illegal noise disturbance for your chicken to be crowing in the middle of the night! Don't bother apologizing to me, you can just talk to my lawyer here and pay up! “

"Shi Xiaofang, you shameless bitch! Just because my chicken is a little noisy, you're trying to cheat money out of me?!"

Seeing that the two were about to hurl themselves at each other once again, Ning Wan immediately separated the two. "Aunties, here is a situation statement and a dispute acceptance booklet. Please calm down and fill them both in, so that we can go through the due process."

She pulled out two documents from her desk, one each for Shi Xiaofang and Liu Guizhen, and then pulled Fu Zheng out of the office.

"I say, can you not help me?" Ning Wan was boiling over. "Didn't you see how difficult it was for me to calm those two down? If you hadn't interjected there, the conversation might have continued calmly and I could have mediated and ended the matter. "

The person at fault was not ashamed of himself at all, and even replied in a confident manner. "Community lawyers may get relatively small cases, but at the very least you should remember that you are a lawyer, and you should be using legal means to deal with problems, instead of always thinking about mediation, like a neighborhood committee auntie. Raising poultry in the community is illegal and it interferes with the normal life of others. That naturally makes it infringement upon the law. How am I wrong?"

As soon as he had been separated from the chicken, Fu Zheng had shifted back into his aloof, elite mannerisms. He had obviously neatened up his clothes. The chicken feathers on his trousers were gone, and the wrinkles in his suit jacket had been smoothed out. The expression of "I want to die" that had been on his face seemed to have passed like an mirage.

He was obviously a newbie in the matter of chickens, and probably a few years older than herself. When she looked into his eyes, they brimmed with superiority and cool arrogance, and he had no self-awareness whatsoever. If Ning Wan hadn't known better, she wouldn't have thought he was coming here to the country to pad out his resume, but was some leader traveling incognito to the grass-roots units! Just listen to that tone of his, like a superior training his subordinate!

Sure, he was handsome, but every pore oozed the aura of someone who considered everyone else indebted to himself.