There was still half an hour until the New Year’s countdown when I received a message from the pet-sitting family. I opened the chat and saw a cozy photo. The dining table was filled with various dishes, with a steaming hot pot in the center, surrounded by bones of different sizes. I was about to wish them a Happy New Year when they sent another ten-second voice message. The moment I heard its content, I felt as if I’d been plunged into an icy abyss, my whole body trembling. “Your dog is in the pot. Do you want the bones back?” Fluffy was a stray puppy I rescued from near a dumpster during my first year of work. He was less than a month old. I couldn’t bear to leave him, as he was the only Corgi in the litter without a docked tail. For three years, I never left him alone at home for more than a day. This year, my brother was bringing his fiancée home for the first time. The young woman was severely allergic to dog hair, so I had no choice but to entrust Fluffy to someone else. Worried that Fluffy wouldn’t adapt to a strange environment, I carefully selected my downstairs neighbor as the pet-sitting family. Little did I know that my poor judgment would make me an accomplice in Fluffy’s death. To seek justice for Fluffy, I gave up my family reunion and drove nine hours back to my apartment complex. “Mom, don’t worry. I just want to retrieve Fluffy’s remains. I’ll be careful,” I said while going up the stairs, updating my family. “I’m at the building now. I’ll talk to you later.” Fluffy was as important to me as my family. I couldn’t let this go. I had no reason to make them pay with their lives, but I would at least make them face consequences. Planning silently in my mind, I stood in front of my neighbor’s door. “Is anyone home?” I knocked on the door, and soon there was movement inside. “Who is it? It’s New Year’s Eve, for crying out loud!” The door opened, revealing the man’s impatient face. I took a deep breath and managed a smile. “You ate my dog. Don’t you think you should return his remains and compensate me?” The man was surprised to see me back so soon. He paused, then started laughing. While laughing, he turned to speak to someone inside. “She actually came back for a stupid animal on New Year’s Eve, leaving her parents behind?” Shrill laughter from a woman and a child echoed from inside. Soon, the wife and their daughter appeared before me. The girl clapped her hands and sang a song she had made up: “Little fat dog, chopped in pieces, cooked in hot pot for New Year’s feast!” “Give me back my dog,” I frowned, repeating my request. The woman covered her mouth, looking at me with contempt. “You want your dog back?” She kicked a black garbage bag by the entrance, which hit my feet. “Here, take it if you want!” The garbage bag opened, spilling oily hot pot broth and revealing dog bones wrapped in leftover food. I tried hard to control my emotions, but when I touched the furry skull, I couldn’t help but sob. This was my little dog. When he first came home, he wasn’t even as big as my palm. I raised him from scratch, putting in as much love and money as I would for a child. Now, he was in pieces, stuffed into a garbage bag, spending the night with filthy trash. My Fluffy must have been so scared. I wondered if this silly dog was still wagging his tail, trying to please people, even as these monsters were sharpening their knives. “It’s New Year’s Eve. Don’t cry at my doorstep. Get lost!” A foot reeking of sour odor kicked towards my shoulder. I fell on my bottom and finally burst into tears. “Are you even human? If you hated him so much, why did you bring him home?” The woman snickered and kicked the garbage bag. “It’s just a smelly dog. We felt like eating it, so we did. It’s so cold in winter, dog meat warms you up!” I stared intently at the woman’s hands and legs, seeing no red marks, let alone bite wounds! “You all conspired to deceive me. Fluffy never bit anyone!” The little girl said with a grin, “The fat dog was punished by my dad every day. He didn’t even dare to leave the bathroom, let alone bite my mom!” “Lily!” The woman frowned and pulled the girl back inside. “How dare you beat my dog? This is animal abuse!” I scrambled to my feet, my hand shaking as I took out my phone. “I won’t let you get away with this. I’m calling the police!” The call connected quickly. Seeing that I was serious, the man immediately tried to close the door. I was quick to grab the door panel and forced my way in. “Are you crazy?” The man couldn’t act rashly with the door blocked and the police on their way. “Go ahead and call the police. It’s just a dog. I dare you to have them shoot me!”
After understanding the situation, the two responding officers took us to the station for mediation. The female officer, seeing the gruesome contents of the garbage bag, gently patted my back and comforted me, “I have a little dog too. I understand how you feel.” Because we had to sort out Fluffy’s remains, the female officer and I arrived at the station a bit later. As soon as we entered, we heard the man shouting loudly. “It’s all her fault for not being a responsible dog owner! If her dog hadn’t been bothering us every day, I wouldn’t have done this!” His wife chimed in. “These days, who really needs to eat dog meat? Don’t you agree, officer?” The sound of the couple defending themselves in the mediation room was like oil poured on my anger. I rushed into the room, “You’re lying through your teeth!” “What lies? If you keep making a fuss…” The woman stood up abruptly. The female officer quickly stepped between us. “Alright, this is a police station, not a grocery store. Shouting doesn’t make you right!” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and turned away from them, finding a chair to sit down. “Fine, you say I’m not a responsible dog owner. Where’s your evidence?” I rummaged through my bag and tossed out a pet hospital vaccination booklet. “This contains all the payment receipts and consent forms for Fluffy’s care, from microchipping to his first vaccine, rabies shots, and even neutering.” Next came a small booklet. “Dog license and vaccination records.” I gripped my bag tightly, hiding my trembling, pale fingertips, maintaining a calm appearance. “Or do you want to say I don’t clean up after him on walks? You can check the neighborhood security cameras. If there’s even one instance where I didn’t pick up his poop or clean his pee, arrest me right away.” The woman was about to speak but sat down instead. The man, however, took out his phone and played a video pointing at the ceiling. The video occasionally captured the “thud” of a ball hitting the ground and the “slap” of slippers as someone walked. These were ordinary sounds, but quite disturbing in the dead of night. “Officer, her dog always plays with a ball at midnight, for hours on end. You can also hear the dog’s claws scratching the floor and her footsteps.” “She and her dog make noise every day. Adults can tolerate it, but my daughter’s grades have dropped because of this.” “My job is stressful enough, and now I have to worry about my daughter’s grades. I can’t even sleep well at night.” “If I have some mental issues and killed a dog, isn’t that understandable?”
“Killing a dog is understandable? Now that the dog is gone, I still live above you. If I accidentally make some noise next time, are you going to say killing a person is understandable too?” I looked helplessly at the two officers and took out my phone. “Officers, this video is from last September. It might have indeed caused them some disturbance.” “They came up to talk to me about it then. I apologized and even bought silent slippers. I carpeted almost the entire apartment and put away all of the dog’s toys.” I showed the officers photos of the carpeted apartment and the purchase record of the new slippers. “At that time, they seemed fine with it. They even accepted my gifts. I thought the matter was resolved.” “I never imagined they were harboring such resentment and plotting to kill my dog.” I deliberately emphasized the word “plotting.” As expected, under the officers’ sharp gaze, the family’s confidence visibly deflated. The woman quickly defended herself, “We never said we forgave you!” The male officer sternly rebuked, “If you didn’t forgive her, why did you accept her gifts?!” The woman flinched, shrinking her neck, and stammered, “Why refuse something offered for free?” The female officer looked exasperated. She turned to me and said gently, “We deeply sympathize with your situation. Please tell us what you want for a settlement.” I knew that no matter how important Fluffy was to me, he was still just a dog in the eyes of the law. I could only treat him as cold property. “Fluffy was my personal property. I spent $1,500 to buy him initially, and I’ve invested no less than $5,000 in his care.” The couple’s faces immediately turned sour. “Considering we’re neighbors, if you compensate me for the initial purchase price of $1,000 and cover all the costs for Fluffy’s cremation, that would be acceptable.” The man quickly looked up pet funeral costs on his phone and jumped up. “Cremation for a dog? Can’t you just throw it in the trash? Are you trying to scam us?” I slammed the table and stood up to confront him. “I’m scamming you? What about the $500 you swindled from me last night?” The two officers were stunned, not expecting there to be fraud involved. “You dare to commit fraud?” the male officer spoke first. “Yes, officer. He messaged me last night saying my dog bit someone. I paid $500 in compensation, but today his daughter said my dog was beaten daily and couldn’t possibly have bitten anyone!” The man glared at me, his eyes wide with anger, pointing at me, “What dog doesn’t bite?” I sat back down in my chair, “Fine, then let’s check your home security footage.” The man shot a fierce glare at his daughter in the corner before sitting down again. “I can compensate you. $1,000, plus the $500 you gave last night.” “$1,500, take it or leave it!” I looked at the three smug faces across from me, seemingly unfazed by the situation, and nodded. “I refuse to settle, and I won’t let you off the hook!”
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