On the night of August 24, a waiter at a hot pot restaurant in Wenzhou, East China’s Zhejiang province, poured a half lunch box of boiling water on a female customer. The surveillance video of it quickly went viral online.

The waiter, 18 years old and surnamed Zhu, left the restaurant after the incident but did not get far before police controlled him.

What happened between them?

According to an insider, Zhu relates the incident as follows: When the customer surnamed Lin asked him to add water to the pot, he told her that there was still water in it. Her demand was left ignored for a while by Zhu when she insisted on adding water.

When Zhu returned to add water to the pot, Lin said she would complain to the manager about Zhu’s serving attitude.

Exactly how the conversation went and what provocative language was employed in the brawl is for the time unknown.

According to Zhu, he was later scolded by the manager, who received the complaint and told him that Lin had posted the complaint on weibo, a popular microblogging platform in China.

Zhu went to demand the immediate deletion of the post, and was refused. He then went to the kitchen, fetched a half lunch box of boiling water and went back to the table he waited.

“I didn’t say a word. I directly poured the boiling water from her head down.” said Zhu.

The hospital says that 42% of Lin’s skin has been scalded, and she is expected to suffer from shock.

The restaurant has posted an apology online, saying “it won’t be enough no matter how many times we say sorry”.