Chapter 2

2: 2

2

Early the next morning, Leo sent me the wall-cutting video.

In the footage, the worker sawed into the concrete, and when he saw the rebar inside, he clearly hesitated.

But Jeffrey was right there beside him, pushing him on.

“Keep cutting. Cut through the rebar too, or the living room won't open up.”

Rosemary held up her phone for a close-up.

“See that clearly, everyone? This is the stuff the renovation company uses to scare you. Just a few metal bars.”

Once the rebar was cut, that load-bearing wall was gone for good.

I saved the video fast, and just as I was about to contact the building safety authority, Bryce Perry called.

“Engineer Fox, what you said in the group chat yesterday was way too extreme. Now a bunch of the residents are asking whether the building's going to collapse. You get on there right now and tell everyone you were talking nonsense yesterday!”

“Manager Perry, I really wasn't talking nonsense. If you don't believe me, stop the work right now and run an inspection.”

His tone turned impatient in an instant.

“Inspection, inspection, what inspection? Ms. Hughes's video is already trending, and the whole comment section is cursing out the property company for letting you scare the residents! You just get on the group chat and say it. Say there's no obvious danger for now.”

I refused outright.

“The rebar has already been cut. A danger that obvious, and you expect me to vouch for you?”

Bryce was quiet for a few seconds, then his voice went cold.

“Jacqueline Fox, don't make this hard on yourself. Did you forget your mother still lives in this complex? Neighbors run into each other all the time. Don't push things too far.”

I hung up and saved the recording along with everything else.

It was time to move my mother to a different complex.

By noon, Rosemary's new video had shot up the local trending charts. The title read:

“600K-Follower Renovation Star Takes On the Repair Lady!”

The video only kept the part where I threw the breaker and demanded an inspection. The section where the worker sawed through the rebar had all been cut out.

She sat in the gutted living room, pointing at the plans I'd drawn, crying.

“I paid her to design this for me, and just because I didn't use the crew she recommended, she came here to stop my renovation, opening with a demand for over a hundred thousand in inspection fees. Do you think it's easy for a regular person to buy a home?”

People who had no idea what really happened cursed uglier and uglier in the comments.

Someone even dug up where I worked and called my company to report me for using my job to take side gigs.

Others turned my photo into a meme, stamped with two words: Renovation Assassin.

Jennifer Lawrence forwarded the video into the residents' group chat.

“Rosemary really stuck up for us this time. From now on, we do our renovations the way she says.”

Cliff Whitney jumped in right after.

“Rosemary's got the looks and the heart. She even agreed to look at everyone's floor plans for free tonight. Everybody should come.”

At dusk, I went back to the complex to pick up my mother's medication. The elevator lobby on the sixteenth floor was already packed.

Rosemary sat in the middle of the living room, drawing on a tablet for the neighbors.

“This wall can come down. The bay window on the balcony can be knocked out too.”

“If the kitchen's small, the gas line's exposed, just box it in and it's fine.”

Every line she said, someone around her praised how professional she was.

Off to the side, Jeffrey was collecting construction deposits. Two thousand dollars got you a slot on next month's makeover list.

I glanced at the wall they'd torn out.

The spot where temporary supports should have gone stood empty, and in the middle of the living room now sat a six-meter slab-stone island.

Rosemary spotted me and deliberately raised her voice.

“Some people, just to make money, will make you spend a hundred grand on a few steel beams you'll never even see. But I'm different. I'd rather everyone put their money into the things they use every day.”

She pointed at the rendering again.

“A pillar-free living room with a three-hundred-pound crystal chandelier. Instantly gives you several extra square meters, and your property value goes up right along with it.”

I asked Jeffrey, and it was hard not to doubt he knew what he was doing.

“The wall's already torn out like this, and you still want to hang a three-hundred-pound light?”

He couldn't have cared less.

“It's fixed to the floor slab. What's that got to do with the wall?”

I couldn't be bothered to argue anymore and turned to find Leo.

He was crouched at the stairwell landing on the fifteenth floor, marking both sides of a crack with a pencil.

When he saw me coming, he lowered his voice.

“Yesterday this crack was just one line. Today it's already crept up more than ten centimeters.”

The elevator stopped on the fifteenth floor.

The doors opened halfway, then suddenly jammed and slammed shut again.

Leo looked up at the number display, certain of it.

“Engineer Fox, I'm afraid this building really is going to have something happen.”