The families who had claimed the bodies that morning did not dare make a public scene, but behind closed doors, they cried their hearts out.
When their men first started doing this sort of thing, they had known this day would come sooner or later. But everything had gone smoothly for so long that they had gotten carried away too.
Retribution had come so quickly.
With a main breadwinner dead, the widows and their children still had to be strong and keep living.
Before, their men had shouldered things, and all they had needed to do was stay hidden at home.
Now they were forced to learn how to find food and water themselves.
The women who could endure hardship had already decided to join the others in their buildings in searching the office buildings and shopping streets outside for supplies.
A small number decided to take their sons and daughters out of the complex and return to their rural hometowns to scrape out a living.
Some of those left, unable to endure hardship and now without a man, were already tearfully considering crooked schemes.
Hu Cuihua personally sent her husband, Zhou Dafu, into the cremation furnace. She had been working at the crematorium that night, so she had no idea whom her husband had provoked.
She had been the first to discover the bodies downstairs when she returned from work that morning.
A pile of masked corpses lay on the ground. If she had not recognized her husband's clothes and build, she would never have believed that one of them was Zhou Dafu.
The dead could not come back to life. She was only a woman, and she did not have the ability to seek revenge against someone with a gun.
However much she hated the person who had killed her husband, she still had to look ahead.
She still had a son. She could not lose her own life too.
Ever since Zhou Junming and Wang Xiaohui got engaged, their relationship had been steady. She could not bear to see her son suffer either, and only hoped the two would make it official soon and give the Zhou family a descendant.
Wang Xiaohui's father, Wang Quan, had died too. Sharing the same grief, Wang Xiaohui and Zhou Junming held each other and cried.
Wang Xiaohui's mother was a weak woman with no mind of her own. Once her husband died, all she knew how to do was cry.
Hu Cuihua looked down on women like that, but for Wang Xiaohui's sake, she still pulled strings to get her mother a job at the crematorium, working alongside her to earn grain.
Both women received three meals a day at the crematorium, and sometimes they could even pack up leftovers to take home. That meant all twenty jin of grain they earned each month could go home to feed the two youngsters.
By that reckoning, although they had lost their men, both families could still get by. They would not even have to worry about food and drink, and would live better than most people.
After the men of both families died, Zhou Junming became the only grown man in the two households, the pillar supporting all three women.
More than once, Wang Xiaohui congratulated herself on her choice. She thought she had an excellent eye for men, and that finding someone like Zhou Junming was her good fortune.
Although her father was dead, it was all thanks to Zhou Junming that she and her mother had no shortage of food or drink under these conditions.
Terrified that someone else might steal Zhou Junming away, she quickly picked a night when both their mothers were at work, invited him over, and made their relationship a done deal.
With this sort of thing, the first time was unfamiliar, but the second came easily. What one could not have was always the best, while what came easily lacked a certain flavor.
After a few times, the passion Zhou Junming had felt when he first got together with Wang Xiaohui gradually faded.
What he had liked about Wang Xiaohui at first was her innocence and boldness. But once he had her, he could not help comparing her to Zhao Yunqiu.
The more he compared them and mulled it over, the more he felt that Wang Xiaohui was as bland and tasteless as a glass of plain boiled water.
Zhao Yunqiu, on the other hand, was like a rose without thorns. In bed, she was seductive, sexy, and full of tricks, yet in everyday life she was so delicate and gentle that she made people want to cherish her.
Zhao Yunqiu had probably caught wind of things and learned that Zhou Junming was doing well now. On top of that, his annoying mother went to work every night and was not home.
She had also run into his fiancée downstairs twice. Both times, the girl had given her nothing but dirty looks, which she found revolting.
Look at that petty, smug face. Did she really think that just because she stole my man, there was nothing I could do about her?
So Zhao Yunqiu began arranging chance encounters with Zhou Junming downstairs or in the stairwell from time to time.
Occasionally, she would approach him and offer a few sweetly voiced blessings or say something to invite his pity, stirring up memories of their time together.
And so, after leaving Wang Xiaohui's second-floor home following some unmentionable activities with her, Zhou Junming often ran into Zhao Yunqiu coming downstairs.
At first, they merely nodded when they met, neither speaking to the other.
Later, Zhao Yunqiu would pretend to be awkward and offer Zhou Junming a few words of congratulations.
After that, they would naturally exchange a few caring words of greeting.
Most recently, Zhou Junming had taken the initiative to walk Zhao Yunqiu to her door.
Zhao Yunqiu had not invited him inside, but she knew things were almost ripe.
Of course, Wang Xiaohui knew nothing about any of this. She had now completely succumbed to Zhou Junming's romantic advances and become the happiest woman in the world.
After Zhang Qiang and Zhang Shuai died, it was Zhang Qiang's wife, Peng Lianlian, who collected the brothers' bodies.
Seeing that no one had claimed Li Weiwei's body, and knowing she was Zhang Shuai's girlfriend, she kindly placed Li Weiwei's body with his and sent them to the crematorium together.
She had always known that neither her husband, Zhang Qiang, nor his younger brother, Zhang Shuai, was a good person.
Before the extreme heat, they had done nothing worthwhile, and afterward, they were up to even less good.
But she was an orphan. Before the extreme heat, when an old lecher had pinned her down in an alley and assaulted her, Zhang Qiang had saved her.
So she had married Zhang Qiang, giving herself to him to repay his kindness.
Although Zhang Qiang did not do honest work, he truly treated her so well that she could find no fault with him.
Afraid she would wear herself out, he had never let her go out to work. After marrying her, he had gradually begun to improve and had held down a proper job for a while. Unfortunately, just as he was developing some ambition, the extreme heat arrived.
She could only blame her bad luck. Now Zhang Qiang was dead too, and she had no ties left. There was not much point in living. Once she had taken care of Zhang Qiang and Zhang Shuai's funeral arrangements, she no longer wanted to live either.
Peng Lianlian dug out the rat poison left over from dealing with rats at home, poured a glass of water, and set both on the coffee table, preparing to kill herself with the poison.
She had just picked up the glass when a sudden bang, bang! came from the door.
She had no choice but to put down the glass and answer it first.
A fierce-looking older woman she did not recognize stood outside.
"Ma'am, you've got the wrong door."
With that, Peng Lianlian moved to close the door.
But a pair of thick, coarse hands blocked it and pushed it open again.
The fierce-looking woman was none other than Auntie Wei, the dead Wei Tao's mother.
"You little bitch, you're exactly who I'm looking for! I've got the right person!"
After Wei Tao died, Auntie Wei hated the eleventh floor so much that she gnashed her teeth, but her fear of them forced her to swallow all that hatred.
Her son, Wei Tao, had told her that the people on the eleventh floor were gangsters and must not be provoked. It was all this little bitch's husband's fault for insisting on egging her son and the others on to rob the eleventh floor.
Before he died, her son had even complained to her that he had never wanted to rob the eleventh floor at all.
Now they were all dead, including her son. She could not take revenge on this little bitch's short-lived husband, nor did she dare seek revenge against the eleventh floor.
With nowhere to vent all her fury, she could only take it all out on this little bitch.
She was suffering, and this little bitch could forget about having an easy time too!