Chapter 4 - 3: Vicious Dog
Just as he stepped onto the third-floor concrete landing, a fierce argument suddenly erupted from the stairwell above, shattering the stairwell’s dull silence.
Lin Yi climbed another half-flight of stairs and looked up toward the sound.
An iron cage, about waist-high, took up nearly two-thirds of the space on the landing.
A black Tibetan Mastiff with a burly frame lay inside the cage. Its shoulder height appeared to be over sixty centimeters.
When it saw someone passing by, it would bolt upright, propping its front paws on the cage bars and letting out a low growl.
Scattered on the concrete floor around the cage were several dark yellow urine stains and a few clumps of dried, hard feces with dog hairs stuck to them. The area gave off a foul stench.
So it was Granny Li from the fourth floor, keeping a dog in the stairwell. Since the stairs were the only way up and down, it was blocking the way for the upstairs residents, which was what sparked the conflict.
"Sister Li! You have to get this dog out of here today! If not, take it into your own apartment to keep!" Aunt Wang from the sixth floor insisted.
"What’s all the shouting? You’re scaring my baby," Granny Li snapped, then soothed the somewhat agitated Tibetan Mastiff.
"Sister Li, this stairwell is a public space, not your backyard!" Aunt Wang pointed at the Tibetan Mastiff and the filth on the ground, her voice trembling with agitation. "You’re keeping such a big dog here, how inconvenient is that for everyone going up and down? What if it bites someone? And this piss and shit, just look at it! What has this place become? When the weather gets hot, the smell will be unbearable! It’ll attract flies and mosquitoes. Have you no sense of public decency?"
Granny Li leisurely took a bite of an apple, chewed a few times, and then let out a snort of laughter.
"Public decency? Xiaowang, you’re hilarious." She rolled her eyes and casually tossed the apple core into the dog cage. "The stairwell is public, that’s right. But I live here, I paid the property management fees, I paid for my share of the common area, so part of this stairwell belongs to me. You can walk up and down the stairs, so why can’t I put some things in the stairwell? I’m just putting down a cage and keeping a dog. Who am I bothering?"
"’Putting some things’? Is that what you call this? You’re permanently occupying public space and creating pollution!" Aunt Wang was so angry her hands were shaking. "Everyone needs to use the stairs to get by. You’re treating this public area like your personal warehouse—or a barn! Your dog is huge, and it lunges at people on sight. What if it scares a child? Wasn’t it just the other day that the kid from Xiaoliu’s family on the fifth floor got so scared they fell down?"
"Oh, whose child is so precious? They don’t watch where they’re going and then blame my dog?" Granny Li’s voice suddenly shot up, becoming shrill. "The dog is locked up securely in its cage; it’s not like it jumped out and bit him! He’s as timid as a mouse and he blames others? If you’ve got the guts, don’t use the stairs!"
Aunt Wang grew dizzy with anger at her completely shameless logic. "Not use the stairs? This old building doesn’t have an elevator. Are we supposed to fly up?"
Granny Li folded her arms across her chest, a deeply scornful smile playing on her lips. Her narrow eyes scanned Aunt Wang up and down, as if she were looking at something utterly ridiculous.
"No elevator? Why don’t you just climb out the window?" she said, dragging out her words, her tone practically dripping with ridicule. "Oh, right, I forgot. You’re too old to be climbing out of windows, Xiaowang. Well then, you’d better figure something out. Like, have your son and daughter-in-law get rich quick and buy you a big villa with its own elevator and a private courtyard. I guarantee you won’t smell a single whiff of dog shit there. Why stay here and suffer, crammed in with us common dog-owning folk?"
"You... you’re completely unreasonable!" Aunt Wang’s face was flushed red. "The public stairwell is for people to walk, not for keeping dogs! This is already affecting all the neighbors!"
"Affected who? Name them, let’s hear it." Granny Li took half a step forward, the smell of her perfume mixing with the stench of dog shit to create an even more indescribable odor. "Besides you, who else is here yapping every day? Huh? Zhang from the third floor? Xiaozhao from the fourth floor? How come I haven’t heard them say anything? You’re the only one who’s so nosy! Always staring at my little spot here. What, you think I’m an easy target?"
"You’re the one occupying public space, and you think you’re in the right?" Aunt Wang pointed at the ground. "Look at this filth! Once summer gets here, imagine how bad it’ll smell! Think of all the germs it’ll breed!"
"Hygiene? I paid the sanitation fee!" Granny Li waved her hand dismissively. "Property management hires people to clean; that’s their job. If they didn’t clean it properly, go talk to them! Why are you yelling at me? If you’ve got what it takes, go make them post a guard here to clean up every time the dog poops! Oh, right, you paid the management fee too. Why don’t you go supervise them? Or is it just easier to pick on honest folks like us?"
She paused, her sneer deepening and taking on a provocative edge.
"Besides, if you think I’m taking up too much space and that it stinks, then call the cops!" she shrieked, wanting the whole building to hear her. "Go ahead, call the police! Let them come and see what law I’m breaking by putting a dog cage in the common area that I paid for! Let’s see if the cops give a damn about your petty little problems! Go on, do it! Call them right now! I’ll wait!"
The Tibetan Mastiff in the cage seemed to sense its owner’s rising aggression and joined in, barking wildly. WOOF! WOOF! It slammed hard against the cage, which let out a loud CLANG.
"You... You’re a tyrant!" Aunt Wang pointed at her, finger trembling and chest heaving. For a moment, she was too choked with rage to say anything else.
Neighbors seemed to have heard the commotion. A few doors opened a crack, then quickly closed again. No one came out to get involved.