The Company Executive Who Let His Wife’s Ex-Husband Live

I

Lao Yang crouched on the floor, fitting a wheel.

The wheelchair was high-end company medical equipment: titanium alloy frame, maglev shock absorption, waterproof and antibacterial seat fabric that also breathed. His daughter thought it was ugly. She had spray-painted it fluorescent pink and stuck a row of sequin stickers across the backrest, crookedly spelling out “FUCK OFF.” Lao Yang saw it. He said nothing. He changed the angle of the wrench and kept tightening the screws. He was converting the front wheels into detachable acrobatics wheels. His daughter had recently gotten into wheelchair extreme sports. She wanted to charge down a flight of stairs and do a midair spin. Company high-end goods were not built for that kind of abuse. She wanted it, so he modified it.

His daughter sat on the sofa scrolling videos, speaker on loud, laughter rolling out in waves. Lao Yang told her twice to turn it down. His daughter turned it up one notch. He put down the screwdriver and looked up at her. His daughter looked back, chin raised, eyes saying, Try and stop me. Lao Yang looked at her for three seconds. Then he lowered his head and kept tightening the screws. He tightened them harder than before, knuckles white, but he did not say a word.

That was his way. If he couldn’t control her, he would cover the bottom. If she wanted to go wild, he would make the wheelchair stronger. If she wanted to curse him out, he would pretend not to hear. When she sprayed fluorescent pink paint onto the cuff of his suit jacket, he wiped it twice with a wet wipe and couldn’t get it off. The next day he wore a new suit to work. A colleague asked what happened to his cuff. He said he brushed against something. He didn’t explain. Explaining was too tiring.

II

His wife’s ex-husband had shown up last month.

That day, Lao Yang came home from work and found an extra pair of filthy combat boots at the door, mud on the soles, tracks all over the entryway floor. A man was sitting in the living room. Thin, high cheekbones, an old scar on the back of his neck. He was arm-wrestling Lao Yang’s daughter. The daughter lost, swore, and the man laughed, a laugh like sandpaper on sheet metal. His wife came out of the kitchen with a plate of fruit. She saw Lao Yang standing in the doorway, didn’t change expression, and said, “You’re back.” She set the fruit on the coffee table and sat down next to the ex-husband.

Lao Yang stood in the doorway for about five seconds. He looked at his wife. She was handing the ex-husband a toothpick. He looked at his daughter. She was going over the arm-wrestling technique with the ex-husband. He looked at the coffee table. Beside the fruit plate was a set of car keys. Not his. He put his briefcase on the shoe cabinet, changed into slippers, walked into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, drank it, washed the glass, and put it back where it belonged. Then he said, “You all talk,” went into the study, and closed the door.

He didn’t lock it. But he didn’t come out.

After that, the ex-husband came by every few days. Sometimes he brought two bottles of liquor. Sometimes a bag of street-stall skewers. Sometimes he brought nothing and just sat on the sofa watching TV. When Lao Yang was there, the ex-husband was a little more polite. He called him “Brother Yang.” Lao Yang nodded and went about his business. His wife and the ex-husband talked on the balcony, voices low, but Lao Yang caught a few words: “back then,” “shouldn’t have,” “sorry.” He didn’t listen to the whole thing. His daughter was warmer with the ex-husband. The ex-husband taught her how to shoot a slingshot, how to pick a lock, how to stick chewing gum on the bottom of someone’s shoe. From the study window, Lao Yang watched his daughter crouch in the yard poking a wire into a keyhole while the ex-husband squatted beside her giving instructions. The two of them laughed until they doubled over. He closed the curtains.

One night his wife spoke to him on her own. She stood in the study doorway and didn’t come in. She said the ex-husband wanted to borrow some money to start a small business. Lao Yang was reading a report. He didn’t look up. He asked how much. His wife named a figure. Lao Yang turned a page and said fine, I’ll transfer it to you tomorrow. His wife stood there a moment. She said, “Aren’t you going to ask what kind of business?” Lao Yang said, “No need. You handle it.” His wife didn’t say anything else. She left. Lao Yang finished the page, drew a circle in the margin, drew another circle, and put down the pen.

He cared. He had done the math. The energy it took to have one fight was enough to review three contracts. After the fight, his wife wouldn’t change, his daughter wouldn’t take his side, and the ex-husband wouldn’t disappear. If he saved that breath, he could sign one more deal and buy his daughter one more piece of high-end company equipment. He had done the math very clearly. So clearly that even he found it pathetic.

III

The day it happened was a Thursday.

Lao Yang was in a quarterly meeting. His phone buzzed three times. The first time he declined it. The second time he glanced at it. His wife’s number. The third time, also his wife’s number. He turned the phone face down on the table. Halfway through the meeting, the company security division called his internal line. Someone had used his family access privileges to swipe into the medical asset vault and taken a batch of high-value consumables. The tracking signal last appeared in the old industrial zone east of the city. Lao Yang hung up, finished his coffee, and told the people in the meeting, “Continue.” He got up to leave. Only when he reached the corner of the corridor did he loosen his tie one notch.

He called his wife. No answer. He called his daughter. No answer. He stood in the corridor with his hands in his pockets, gripping his phone. He gripped it for half a minute. Then he called security and asked for a car.

By the time the car reached the old industrial zone, the scene had already been cleaned up. The trauma team had gotten there before him. All that was left on the ground was a pool of blood, a few crushed plastic medicine bottles, and one shoe. Lao Yang recognized the shoe. The ex-husband’s combat boot, the sole still carrying the same mud from his entryway floor. He crouched and looked at the blood. Not a small amount, but not arterial. The person should still be breathing. The trauma team said they had already taken her away. The woman, severely injured, still conscious when she was loaded. Lao Yang asked where the man was. The trauma team pointed.

The ex-husband was squatting about thirty meters away beside a concrete pipe. No cuffs on him. Two security men stood one on each side and did not touch him. He was squatting there, elbows on his knees, hands clasped behind his head. A small pistol was still holstered at his waist. The strap was not even unfastened. Lao Yang walked over. The security men stepped back two paces. The ex-husband looked up. His lips trembled. He said, “Brother Yang, we got the medicine, but she wouldn’t let me inject it. She said if I did, we wouldn’t be able to explain it. She said run first, run first and then find a place to deal with it. But halfway through the run she couldn’t go anymore. I carried her. I couldn’t outrun the trauma team…”

Lao Yang listened without interrupting. By the end, the ex-husband was repeating himself. Over and over, she said run first. Lao Yang asked one question: “When you took the medicine, why didn’t you bring a hemostatic needle?” The ex-husband froze. He said he forgot. Lao Yang asked, “Why didn’t you draw your gun?” The ex-husband said even if he drew it, he couldn’t win. Lao Yang looked at the small pistol at his waist. Then he looked at his hands. Blood under the fingernails, but not a single scratch on the backs of them. These hands had never held a blade, never pulled a wire, never mounted a cybernetic.

Lao Yang laughed. A short sound, out through his nose. He crouched, grabbed the ex-husband by the collar, and hauled him up from the ground. The ex-husband didn’t resist. His legs had gone soft. Lao Yang punched him in the face. The ex-husband tipped sideways. Lao Yang pulled him back and punched him again, same spot, split his lip. On the third punch, Lao Yang stopped. He saw the ex-husband crying. Snot and tears mixed with blood from the corner of his mouth. Crying like a child, still saying, she said run first.

Lao Yang let go. The ex-husband collapsed back beside the concrete pipe. Lao Yang stood up, brushed the dust off his knees, and looked at his hand. The knuckles were scraped a little. Tomorrow in the meeting, holding a pen might hurt a bit. He told security to take the ex-husband to the hospital, no beatings, wait for company procedure. Then he turned and walked back. After a few steps he stopped, didn’t turn around, and said: “You fucking idiot. You didn’t even bring a hemostatic needle.”

IV

His wife didn’t make it. The trauma team said she was gone on the way. Too much blood loss. By the time Lao Yang reached the hospital, she had already been taken to the morgue. His daughter was crouching in the corridor crying. When she saw him, she stood up and pounded her fists against his chest. Seven or eight times. Cursing. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Lao Yang let her hit him. When she had worn herself out, he pressed her head against his shoulder and said one sentence: “Daddy came late.”

The company’s accountability process took two weeks. Lao Yang was a senior executive. Family members had stolen access privileges. He received a penalty for inadequate supervision and lost one quarter’s bonus. He signed the disciplinary notice, scanned it to HR, then opened another document and went back to writing the annual budget report. He wrote two pages, stopped, went to the break room, made a cup of instant coffee, stood by the window and drank it, washed the cup, and put it back on the drying rack. Came back and kept writing.

His daughter was down for a few days, then started causing trouble again. She changed the wheelchair’s fluorescent pink to electroplated purple. Then she wrapped a copper tube around the armrests and said she wanted to make it discharge electricity. Lao Yang looked at the circuit diagram and said the current was too high, the battery would explode. His daughter said let it explode, living is meaningless anyway. Lao Yang didn’t take the bait. He went to the tool room, got a roll of insulating tape and two resistors, crouched down, and helped her redo the wiring. When they tested it, the copper tube discharged properly and the battery temperature was normal. His daughter pushed the wheelchair around the yard for a lap. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t mention “living is meaningless” again either.

The ex-husband lay in the hospital for three days. The day he was discharged, he called Lao Yang. Lao Yang answered. The ex-husband stammered out apologies for a long time. Then he finally said, “I’ll pay back the medicine money, slowly.” Lao Yang said, “No need. Don’t come looking for my daughter again.” The ex-husband was silent for a moment. Then he said okay. Lao Yang hung up and dragged the number into his blacklist.

V

The quarterly meeting was moved to Monday.

Lao Yang got into the elevator and pressed the top floor. In the elevator he ran into Old Zhou from the neighboring department. Old Zhou asked if things at home had been handled. Lao Yang said they had. Old Zhou said his condolences. Lao Yang said thanks. The elevator reached the fifteenth floor. Old Zhou got out. The doors closed. Lao Yang watched the floor numbers climb. He watched for a long time.

There was still a bit of fluorescent powder on his suit cuff. It wouldn’t wash off. It wasn’t obvious either. Under the elevator light it looked like a speck of dust. He didn’t change into a new suit again.

The top floor arrived. The doors opened. Lao Yang walked out, threw the unfinished coffee into the corridor trash, and tightened his tie before entering the meeting room.