We Sold the Switch and Deleted the Serum to Pay Off the Mortgage Early

In March, Lin Zhao deleted the bottle of serum from her shopping cart.

She did not do it fast. She opened the app, looked at the price, looked at her bank balance, then tapped the early repayment calculator. She entered the remaining principal, the rate, and the amount. The screen gave her a number: 117,000 yuan in interest saved. She stared at it. Then she backed out, returned to the cart, and deleted the serum. Her finger stayed over “Delete” for about five seconds. She locked the phone, stood up, and went to wash the dishes.

Lu Yuanzhou was in the living room, playing a game. He heard the water and called out, “What’s with the sudden diligence?” She did not answer.

Saturday, he listed his Switch on Xianyu. He priced it at 1,200. A buyer pushed it to 1,150. He replied, “Okay.” He pulled the console from under the TV stand, wiped the screen, wiped the dust from the seams of the controllers, put it back in the box, and sealed the box with three layers of tape. Lin Zhao came out for water and saw him sealing it. She did not ask. He did not explain. They looked at each other. She took her cup back to the bedroom.

At dinner she spoke first. “You sold the console?”

“Yeah.”

“For how much?”

“1,150.”

She took a bite of rice, chewed, swallowed. “My salary lands this month. I’ll transfer it to your card.”

“For what?”

“Early repayment. I did the math. If we pool the cash in our checking accounts, we can pay down 100,000. We save 110,000 in interest.”

He put down his chopsticks and looked at her. She kept picking at the dishes. He picked the chopsticks back up. “Okay.”

The apartment got quieter. The living room lost the console. An empty space opened under the TV stand. The robot vacuum made an extra half-turn every time it passed. The dressing table lost its bottles and jars. A bottle of Dabao and a lipstick stayed. Every morning she applied Dabao and muttered, “This is fine too,” low enough that only she could hear it.

The first thaw came on a Wednesday night. She came home late and found a sheet of paper on the dining table. His handwriting covered it: mortgage balance, rate, monthly payment, the new payment after early repayment. A cup of tea had gone cold beside the paper. He sat across from it, punching numbers into his phone. He heard her come in and said, without looking up, “Come check this. Did I get it right?”

She bent over the paper. The numbers were neat. Every column had been ruled with a straightedge. She pointed at one line. “This is wrong. The rate is annual. You have to divide by twelve.”

He froze. He punched it in again. After a few seconds he said, “Then we save more.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll do it again.”

“You’ve done it three times.”

“One more.”

She smiled. He smiled too, then pushed the calculator toward her. “You do it.”

She did it once. The number matched his. She put the calculator down. He leaned in. She did not pull away. Their lips were about to touch when her phone buzzed on the table. The screen lit up. A bank notification: “Your mortgage early repayment application has been accepted. Deduction is expected within three business days.” They both looked down at the screen. They both looked up. He leaned back into his chair. She picked up the phone, unlocked it, and opened the app.

In April, a 30,000-yuan wealth-management product matured. She had lost over 2,000. She did not tell him. She took out a consumer loan to cover the gap and planned to pay it back with her quarterly bonus. He found the loan when he checked the accounts. That night he held his phone out to her. The screen showed the loan: 30,000, twelve installments.

“What is this?”

“My own business.”

“What do you mean, your own business?”

“It means I’ll pay it back myself.”

“With what? Your salary card is set to automatic transfer. You keep two thousand a month. How do you pay three thousand a month?”

Her voice rose. “I said I’ll pay it back myself!”

“How? You’ll take out another loan to pay this one?”

She did not answer. He stood up. His hand swept the table. The cup fell and shattered. Shards jumped into the pothos pot. White porcelain stuck in the soil. The pothos had come with the apartment last year. It had always been half-dead. After that night it drooped lower.

For three days they barely spoke. She slept in the bedroom. He slept on the sofa. On the fourth evening she came home and found a printed spreadsheet on the coffee table. The title read “Household Income and Expenses.” Every column and row was filled. The bottom line read “Amount Available for Early Repayment Each Month,” with a circle around the number. He sat at the other end of the sofa with his laptop open to the budgeting app.

“I imported everything,” he said, eyes on the screen. “Every transaction. From now on, record what you spend too. It’s shared. I can see it.”

She stood there. She put down her bag. She sat down and read the spreadsheet. She stopped at the line that said “Lunch 12.” He had never recorded lunch before.

“You spend twelve on lunch?”

“The bun shop downstairs. Four buns and porridge.”

She said nothing else. The next morning she linked her salary card to automatic transfer and raised the rate from twenty percent to fifty percent. That evening she handed him her phone. He was cooking noodles. He glanced at the screen.

“Will you have enough this month?”

“Enough. I calculated it.”

“Your calculations are off. Last month you spent three hundred forty on milk tea.”

“I quit.”

“Quit?”

“Quit.”

He fished out the noodles, split them into two bowls, and set them on the table. Halfway through, he said, “The app has a goal feature. I set one. Early repayment. It has a progress bar.”

“How much?”

“Zero percent.”

She ate her noodles and did not answer. After a while she said, “Tomorrow I’ll ask the bank if we can shorten the term and keep the payment the same.”

“I checked. You can do it on the phone.”

“Then we do it tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

Saturday, they sat on the sofa. He held the phone. She leaned in. He opened the early repayment page, entered the amount, confirmed, and started facial recognition. She leaned her face into the frame with his. The screen flashed “Application submitted.”

She took the phone, looked at it, locked it, and set it on the coffee table. Then she said, “I want hot pot.”

He looked at her. “Didn’t you quit?”

“I quit milk tea. Not hot pot.”

“Okay.”

They went to the Chongqing place at the compound entrance. They ordered two plates of meat, tripe, duck blood, tofu skin, and greens. The pot came split. She ate the spicy side. He ate the clear broth. Halfway through she said, “I calculated it. This hot pot is one hundred eighty. That’s one six-hundredth of the interest we save.”

“You really work the accounts.”

“Of course.”

“Don’t calculate next time.”

“Why?”

“If you calculate too fine, you can’t eat in peace.”

She smiled and picked up a piece of tripe for him. He took it and swished it in the pot. When they finished, it was dark. One streetlight at the compound entrance was broken and flickering. He walked in front. She walked behind. After a few steps she called out, “Lu Yuanzhou.”

He turned. “Hmm?”

“Tomorrow, pick the porcelain out of the pothos pot.”

“Why don’t you?”

“You broke it.”

He turned and kept walking. After two steps he said, “Got it.”

Back home, he carried the pothos pot to the sink. He picked out the broken pieces one by one, loosened the soil, and watered it. The plant still drooped, but the soil was clean.

She watched from the kitchen door. Then she turned to boil water. When the kettle whistled, she heard him say from the living room, “Your birthday is next month. Don’t buy anything.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“I mean I won’t buy anything either.”

“Then what do we eat?”

“Hot pot.”

“Hot pot again?”

“You tell me.”

“Noodles at home. Yours are better than mine.”

“Okay.”

The water boiled. She turned off the heat and poured two cups. She carried them out. He was on the sofa. His phone showed the early repayment progress bar. Zero percent. He refreshed it. Still zero. She handed him a cup and sat down. They looked at the zero together.

After a while she said, “Three business days.”

He said, “Yeah.”

Three days later the bar moved to eight percent. That evening she sent him a screenshot. He replied with one word: “Okay.”

Then he cooked that bowl of noodles and added two eggs.