SES Chapter 103 Part 2

“Mu Mu-jie, if my aunt isn’t willing… please don’t be upset. I’ll think of something else.”

A seventeen-year-old girl—what “something else” could she really think of? Mu Dai said calmly, “They’ll use me.”

She was certain of it.

At the same time, Zheng Shuiyu made up her mind.

This girl was beautiful—good for attracting customers. Most of the regulars were young men, who didn’t like having a pretty girl to look at?

Besides, Xiao Li’er said she could fight. Even better. Trouble wasn’t rare in the restaurant. The last time some punks got drunk and started a brawl, her husband, He Qiang, had stepped in—and got a brick to the head for his trouble.

Having someone who could handle herself? A relief.

The room they gave Mu Dai was in the attic on the second floor—low ceiling, cramped, damp. Zheng Li insisted on giving up her own bed for her, taking the small spring folding cot for herself.

On the first day Mu Dai wasn’t expected to work. She just said, “I’m going out for a walk.”

She didn’t say where. Alone, she went downstairs. Zheng Li leaned out the window and, after a while, he saw her emerge, hands tucked into her jacket pockets, strolling past one street stall after another until she turned a corner and disappeared.

Zheng Shuiyu came up, water kettle in one hand, a stack of basins in the other. “This Mu Dai—why doesn’t she even have any luggage?”

“Maybe she lost it on the road,” Zheng Li guessed.

Then something occurred to her. “Auntie, do you have any new toothbrushes, towels, or slippers? Mu Mu-jie will need them.”

Zheng Shuiyu’s face hardened. “No.”

She nodded toward across the street. “There’s a mini-mart right downstairs. Can’t she buy them herself?”

Zheng Li frowned. Her aunt was just too stingy sometimes.

She pulled out her little wallet, held it tight, lifted her chin, and stomped off downstairs.

Nantian County was small. Walking straight in one direction for just half an hour, you reached the edge where town met countryside.

Fields stretched across the yellow earth—corn, tomatoes. Walking along a ridge, she came across a big white goose.

Mu Dai turned back the way she came.

The road was dusty, crowded with cars, motorcycles, and bicycles. At the bridge, food stalls had set up. Vendors in grimy aprons fried radish cakes in sizzling oil.

No one chased them off for disturbing the city’s image. That was small-town life: dirty, messy, but oddly warm and free.

Truant kids squatted by the roadside playing cards, schoolbags still on their backs.

Radish cakes were one yuan apiece.

Mu Dai waited by the fryer, watching the dough patties wrapped in sauce bob up and down in the hot oil.

She spoke to the vendor.

“I remember… once, from the bridge, you could see a block of buildings there. Square, dark.”

The vendor followed her pointing finger. Now, a new development stood there, a giant billboard stretched across the roof. On it, the once wildly popular Korean star Kim Soo-hyun beamed with a thumbs-up beside the slogan:

“Learn English at Blue Sky! A brighter tomorrow starts today!”

Kim Soo-hyun probably never knew he’d endorsed something like that.

The vendor frowned, flipped the cakes, muttering, “How long ago was that? Can’t remember.”

“When I was a child,” said Mu Dai.

The vendor gave her a glance. “When you were a child? Fifteen, twenty years ago?”

She squinted again in the direction Mu Dai had pointed, and seemed to recall. “Oh, right. There were buildings. They tore them down.”

“And the people who lived there?”

“Scattered, I guess. Moved wherever they could.” She lifted the cakes from the oil and set them on the rack to drain.

That night, Mu Dai couldn’t sleep.

The little attic room was stuffy, and mosquitoes came out early, buzzing incessantly. On her cot, Zheng Li slapped furiously, the smack smack of her palms never-ending.

Between swats, she talked to Mu Dai.

“Mu Mu-jie, I asked my aunt. She said those buildings were torn down more than ten years ago. They were old, dangerous, with terrible facilities.”

Yes, they had been.

Mu Dai’s mind filled with images: the cramped stairwell, the mossy sink, the way the plastic pipe shuddered and hummed when you turned on the tap, like the groundwater would burst out any second.

“Mu Mu-jie, you only remember that the person you’re looking for loved high heels? Don’t you remember her name?”

No. Childhood memories were strange.

She remembered standing on the bridge and seeing her old building, square and blocky.

She remembered the day she was sent to the orphanage, boarding the long-distance bus at the bridge, the driver hollering: “Nantian! Nantian first stop!”

She remembered the battered sink at home, the cookie tin with only crumbs left inside.

But she couldn’t recall the woman she had called “Mom.”

She couldn’t remember her name, nor her face—only that it was always hazy, caked with coarse, grainy face powder.

What she remembered best were her shoes. Maybe because she had been small then, her line of sight so low?

Her mother had loved high heels—especially red ones. Skinny feet jammed stubbornly into shoes that didn’t fit, the tops rubbed raw, the heels blistered, but she never cared.

Mu Dai said, “She loved high heels. Especially red ones. In that whole building, hardly anyone wore them.”

Smack! Another mosquito down.

Zheng Li said, “That helps. Next time we’ve got free time, we can ask around. This county’s full of old-timers who’ve lived here ten, twenty years. Somebody will remember.”