The man's face flushed scarlet at his father's words. He swallowed his anger, then, after his father left, crept furtively into the living room and pressed himself against another door to eavesdrop.
Muffled voices drifted out from inside.
The man couldn't hear them clearly, but I went straight through the door and caught every word.
A middle-aged couple sat in the room.
The woman sounded worried. "What do we do now? Ever since he was little, he's never been as steady as his brothers. He's always had crooked ideas, too. If this goes on, he'll drag all of us down with him."
The middle-aged man snapped impatiently, "Who else can we blame? I told you to raise him properly and stop spoiling him, but look what you did! Spoiling a child only ruins him! Look at what he did this time! So malicious! He talked a little girl into killing someone! If the troupe leader doesn't take him away this time, it'll mean he's deliberately keeping him around to deal with him even more harshly later!"
"Then what do we do?" The woman's eyes reddened. "Those people on the residents' committee, too. Why did they have to pick our family? They're just jealous that we've been doing fine all these years... The way they're acting, the troupe leader..."
The middle-aged man fell silent for a moment, then sighed. "If they all came to the same conclusion and reached an understanding... then the troupe leader might not pick them. He never chooses many people at a time. In a situation like this, either he kills them all together or leaves every one of them alone."
The woman took his hand. "Why don't we move? Your great-grandfather moved here from somewhere else, didn't he..."
"Where could we go? The troupe's already one