Chapter 54

Zhou Yi remembers reading magazines like *Yi Lin* when he was a child, which often contained many classic sayings, such as how Chinese people love to watch a spectacle, or how Chinese people are this or that.

In the end, it was all attributed to the inherent flaws of the Chinese people.

At that time, Zhou Yi thought foreign countries were heaven, where everything radiated the scent of freedom.

But after he grew up and came into contact with more sources of information, such as using a VPN to access certain websites, he learned that foreign countries are not heaven at all, and even the very concept of "foreign countries" is problematic...

Because the United States is a foreign country, and those nations in the midst of war are also foreign countries...

Moreover, the saying that Chinese people love to watch a spectacle should be changed; people all over the world love to watch a spectacle...

For example, right now, the entrance to that shop is already crowded with people.

Zhou Yi's cousin, Li Xuecheng, is a bit panicked now; he doesn't know what's going on either, as he and his wife were just looking at pianos with the staff here.

Then, suddenly, the shop staff said that his son had poured cola into someone's piano.

And that piano was a collection-grade piano in their shop, with a market price of over one million!

The staff wouldn't let them leave and demanded they pay.

Li Xuecheng naturally didn't accept this; not to mention where his son got the cola, just looking at that piano, would a million-plus item really be left out in the open?

The two sides started arguing directly.

With this argument, the brat naturally started crying again and kept shouting that he wanted to leave, so Li Xuecheng's wife hurriedly started to coax the child.

"Xuanxuan, it's okay. You want to leave, right? Let's go, Mommy will take you home. Don't be afraid, it's okay."

After saying this, she intended to pick up the child and leave, but was stopped by the staff.

"Ma'am, please don't be in such a hurry to leave. We have called the police regarding this matter."

"As for the evidence this gentleman mentioned, our shop has Monitoring, and we can just watch the Monitoring together when the police officers arrive."

Since it had reached this point and they had already called the police, Zhou Yi's cousin couldn't say anything; fortunately, he checked his son's body and there didn't seem to be a cola bottle.

There are police stations on these large streets, so police arrived quickly, and after asking about the cause, they went inside to start checking the Monitoring.

Li Xuecheng also brought his wife and son to watch from the side, but as he watched, his expression turned sour.

Because the Monitoring clearly showed that while his son was playing nearby, a customer had finished half a bottle of cola and thrown it into the trash can, then his son picked it out, snuck inside, and poured it into the piano.

Not only that, he also pressed the piano keys randomly, and it was this sound that alerted the staff, leading to the discovery.

The matter had been investigated clearly, and the group walked out of the monitoring room.

The arriving police officer looked at Li Xuecheng, then at the staff, and said: "Alright, it's clear now. How should this matter be handled?"

The staff stepped aside, and the owner of the piano shop walked over; he was a slightly chubby middle-aged man who now spoke up: "Officer, this piano of mine is collection-grade, and the current price is 1.25 million."

"I won't say much; there are two ways: either they buy the piano, and I can give a discount, or they pay for it to be cleaned and compensate for the Depreciation Fee!"

After all, the piano has a wooden structure, and cola seeping in will ultimately cause damage; this kind of damage is irreversible and cannot be solved just by cleaning.

After all, for this kind of top-tier piano, even the slightest flaw will affect its sound quality, and the Depreciation Fee will not be small.

Upon hearing the cost mentioned by the other party, Li Xuecheng's wife exploded.

"What do you mean? You want us to either buy it or pay for it? No, my Xuanxuan is still just a child, he just... he just did it by accident!"

Zhou Yi doesn't know how the Monitoring turned out, but just by looking, it was obvious that it was definitely that brat.

In fact, whether it was him forcing the brat to apologize in the morning or this incident in the afternoon, the target wasn't this child, but his parents!

Which is to say, his own cousin and cousin-in-law.

This brat already has some bad tendencies; judging by how he poured milk into a piano in the morning and then made faces after pretending to cry, this is clearly being emboldened, thinking that nothing will happen to him for doing such things.

Zhou Yi can believe that if such a thing happened in his generation, like when he caused trouble as a child, the first thing his parents would do is treat him to a "bamboo shoot stir-fried with meat," though it could also be "belt stir-fried with meat"...

That feeling, in short, was very intense, so intense that he wouldn't dare forget it for a long time.

As a result, he turned around and changed to a piano that was expensive to the heavens, and even Zhou Yi had to admit... well done, kid, that's exactly what you should do!

The key is that he didn't say anything this time...

And upon hearing that sentence from his cousin-in-law, Zhou Yi was left speechless; this flavor was just right!

He didn't know if his cousin-in-law was pretending or really didn't know; were they targeting the child? They were targeting the two of you adults!

What are guardians for? If a child causes trouble, it means you guardians failed your duty of guardianship, so of course they are targeting you.

The police officer shook his head and said: "Regardless of whether it was an accident, your child has already caused the fact of damage, so you indeed should compensate."

"But how could that piano be so expensive? Who knows if they are just marking up the price randomly!" Zhou Yi's cousin-in-law was still struggling there.

The piano shop owner shook his head and said: "I don't want to argue with you two. I have the purchase invoices here, as well as the previous selling prices of the same model; there is no such thing as random price marking."

"If the two of you don't compensate, then I can only choose to file a Lawsuit!"

The piano shop owner spoke very naturally, but everyone could hear the underlying meaning; with such an expensive piano, it's impossible for him to just let it go.

Zhou Yi's cousin and cousin-in-law looked at each other; buying it was naturally impossible, and even with a discount, it was impossible to buy it. Assets and cash are two different things, and it was impossible for them to come up with so much money at once.

But the cost of cleaning plus compensation later was also an astronomical figure...

Everything was fine when they arrived, a happy and complete family, but just like that, the whole family was about to be burdened with debt.

Looking back at his son, the child was still pretending to rub his eyes, while actually secretly watching his parents.

This kind of prank... one could probably describe it as a prank; Xuanxuan just knew that doing this seemed bad, but he just liked doing it.

And because his parents would shield him no matter what he did, the brat didn't have the feeling of "fear" in his heart.

This time, he also felt it would be the same as before.

However, the cousin-in-law walked straight over, grabbed the brat, and slapped him right on the butt!

While slapping him, she roared: "Why on earth did you pour that into someone's piano? Why? What kind of sin have I committed..."

Waa... the brat was truly crying now.

The intense pain coming from his butt made the brat wail loudly; he didn't understand why Mommy would hit him.

Because in the past, no matter what he did, Mommy would tell him it was okay.

He cried while calling for Mommy, but calling for Mommy was useless this time; his mother was constantly making the brat feel the power of that slap.

The little brat's eyes were blurred with tears, and the whole world became a blur to him.

The piano shop owner and the police comrade hurried forward to persuade them not to hit the child.

"Hey, hey, comrade, don't hit the child, you need to educate him properly!"

"That's right, the way you're hitting him, you at least need to educate him so he knows he's wrong!" the piano shop owner also said from the side.

Of course, what the owner meant was for them to go back and hit him, just don't hit him in his shop; doing it in front of so many people made it look like he was forcing them to hit the child...

In this situation, the cousin Li Xuecheng saw Zhou Yi standing in the back and hurriedly lowered his head.

That morning, his younger cousin had told him to discipline the child more and not spoil him, but he had said it was fine, that he was just a little kid and what could happen.

As it turned out, this happened that very afternoon.

Zhou Yi shook his head and turned directly to head home; everyone was an adult, and the phrase "speaking deeply to a shallow acquaintance" applied everywhere—even if they were relatives, they were just relatives.

Everything that needed to be said had already been said that morning.

Returning home, he told his father and mother about what he had encountered that afternoon, and Mother Zhou let out a sigh of lament.

Father Zhou said smugly from the side: "See? I told you that when a child is young, you have to beat them often; if you don't beat them, they'll want to climb all over you. Let me tell you, Xiao Yi..."

Zhou Yi racked his brains but still couldn't understand how "not spoiling" became synonymous with "beating often."

Staying at home for three days, the task progress kept growing slowly; it was clear that his neighbor aunt had received a "somewhat profound" education over these past few days.

Using violence to curb violence is not actually encouraged, but according to what Fang Dazhuang said, the law has its lag; when the law truly cannot protect one's own rights and interests in such trivial matters of reality, then the most primitive concept of Natural Law can be employed.

Then, on the fourth day, Zhou Yi received a call from Liu Nainai, saying that the daughter of Xu Yufeng upstairs wanted to talk to him.

The first update is here, a big chapter of nearly three thousand words, and there is another chapter coming very soon. Thanks to dsk, Free Panda, Book Friend 2020, Information Observer, Mu Yuyu, Smiling Softly, Quan Longtian, Silver Pupil, Looking Forward to Tomorrow's Life, Opening a Coke Bottle, Don't Be Crooked Qiqi, Tang Xun, Chen Ziluo01, thanks to everyone for the tips, and to the friends on QQ Reading who tipped.

(End of this chapter)