Dai Xinyue did not make a big fuss over his smashed shop, but simply went about repairing it without complaint.

That winter, Yihua stood up to her boss. Because the temperature suddenly dropped, the boss gave her old sweaters and cotton jackets to the seven nymphs but announced that she was going to collect rent money from them, deducting thirty yuan for each piece of clothing, straight from the wages of each worker. Yihua leapt up onto the table, scolding her boss, ‘You were a product of the Japanese, so no wonder you want to bully the Chinese people.’

The boss really had been the child of a rape by Japanese soldiers, but it was a matter no one ever mentioned, especially not in public. The woman could not take it. White foam formed at her mouth as her eyes rolled up, and she collapsed, falling under her desk. Her son-of-a-bitch son and grandson took her to the hospital, then came back and settled the score with Yihua, the son-of-a-bitch grandson slapping her until she bled from the mouth and nose. Yihua wiped the blood stains off her face and went in search of Liuzi. He only brought three people with him and laid out three conditions: one, the seven nymphs’ pay would not be short a single cent; two, the son-of-a-bitch grandson would apologise to Liu Yihua; three, Liu Yihua would be given 5000 yuan for medical fees.

The son-of-a-bitch son promised to meet the first two conditions, but wanted to negotiate on the third. Liuzi laughed and said, ‘I never give discounts. You better figure out how to settle it.’

The son-of-a-bitch son and grandson huddled together. They knew Liuzi was ruthless, untouchable, and that losing a little money here would be the best approach. They apologised, restored the full salary, paid damages, and finally dismissed the seven nymphs. When the other six went back to the village, Yihua became a legend. There were all manner of rumours, all of them describing her as a loose girl.

The 5000 in damages was split fifty-fifty between Yihua and Liuzi, ending up in their pockets. They formed bonds of complicity and common profit through this incident. Money is a lubricant for everything. Yihua did not have to be grateful to Liuzi, nor was she in any way committed to him. Liuzi had only had to talk, whereas she – to her great credit – had borne physical pain.

After this, without giving any thought to her future, Yihua spent several abstinent nights in a cheap hotel with Liuzi. When they were having mifen for breakfast one morning, she saw in the social commentary section of the newspaper that many people from Hunan were looting and vandalising in Guangzhou, giving people from Hunan a bad name.

Yihua told Liuzi, ‘Let’s go to Guangzhou and further the bad name of the Hunan people.’

Liuzi rolled his eyes and said, ‘Desperate love birds. That sounds good. I’m your bodyguard. I’ll go where you go.’

Yihua did not go home. She went to the post office and remitted 500 yuan to my sister. She attached a message, saying, I’ve gone to Guangzhou.

*

The hard train seat was still bearable at the beginning of their journey, but halfway through the night their backsides began to ache, their bodies were sore, and they wanted to lie down. Yihua had never missed a night’s sleep before. It was so unbearable she kept cursing, turning this way and that, but could not get comfortable, so Liuzi generously offered his thigh. Yihua lay on his lap, and he leaned across her back, then they swapped, going back and forth this way several times until they finally slept all the way to Guangzhou.

When they arrived, day had just broken. They followed the crowd out of the train station and looked around, petrified. Of all the places, they had travelled all the way to Guangzhou, and now they didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. Liuzi smoked to keep himself awake, while Yihua plopped down on her luggage, as if in a stupor. All around were people yelling loudly and dragging big checkered plastic bags. A security officer came and hustled them along, saying the square was only for passing through, not for staying. Liuzi resented the officer’s rudeness. The hot-headedness of a mob boss rushed to his brain, and after only a few words with the other party, they started fighting. The officer was there just for show and was easily knocked down. He quickly spoke into his walkie-talkie and five or six others appeared as if from nowhere, dragging Liuzi to the police station without another word.

Yihua waited outside the police station. An hour later, Liuzi walked out, face bruised and swollen. He said, ‘Fuck it. This is their turf.’

Yihua said, ‘We haven’t broken out the guns yet, and you’ve already taken a beating, so we’ll just have to follow the rules for now . . . My uncle was put in jail for fighting. By the time he got out, he had wasted away.’

Liuzi argued, ‘He should have been even more imposing when he got out. It would be intimidating, like a scar on his face.’

Yihua retorted, ‘No job, poor health, and a fear of seeing the light and other people. . . my uncle is very modest.’

Liuzi said, ‘You mean I’m not modest?’

She replied, ‘If you had lived at that time, you would’ve been the first to be shot.’

He said, ‘I’d show those bullies a thing or two before I was shot.’

‘Where are we going?’ Yihua asked.

A middle-aged woman handed Yihua a paper, printed in black and white. It was a list of recruitment advertisements for Dongguan City.

‘Dongguan? Where’s Dongguan?’ Yihua asked.

Liuzi said, ‘It’s near Guangzhou.’ One of his friends from primary school had worked in the Hsu Fu Chi biscuit factory, but he had been fired for stealing.

Leaning against a sign at the bus stop, they studied the advertisements in their hands. Electronics factory worker, toy factory labourer, nanny, sales assistant, retail, cashier, hotel hostess, bartender. . . the pair read until they were dizzy with the prospects. Thinking of how many jobs were waiting, their hearts were lifted. They started to feel hungry.

They found a small food stall and ate bowls of fried rice noodles. It cost five or six times as much as noodles in Yiyang. Even Liuzi pouted over this, ‘If we don’t watch our pockets, we’ll go broke in Guangzhou.’

Because he got beaten up in Guangzhou, Liuzi did not have a good feeling about the place. But, the advertisement had fallen from the sky, and he had long ago heard of Dongguan, so it seemed to be fate. Liuzi advocated going to Dongguan, so he asked the food stall keeper for directions. There was a bus to Dongguan at the stop outside the stall. It would take less than an hour to get there. By the time they had inquired thoroughly, it was only a little after nine in the morning.

Liuzi leaned back and tried to look through the densely packed buildings to the sky, but he could only see grey everywhere. The wind brought a deep chill, sometimes stirring the fallen leaves on the ground, crawling over the backs of cold, rushing feet.

Liuzi said, ‘I never imagined Guangzhou would be so worn that it would look like a rag.’

‘I’ve never seen such a good rag. It’s just that the sun hasn’t come out yet,’ declared Yihua.

Liuzi added, ‘No matter how good the weather is, it’s still just a worn-out rag.’

He touched the wounds on his face, as if he would not be able to find anything good to say about Guangzhou in this lifetime.

Yihua said, ‘The noodles were good. I like the big city. I like how you can be sucked right in all at once, then you have to try desperately to swim your way to the surface for breath. I’m sure Guangzhou is more interesting than Dongguan. Since we’re already here, there’s no need to fiddle around and go to a smaller city.’

When Liuzi tried to persuade her, Yihua retorted, ‘If you want to go to Dongguan, go.’

Liuzi hung his head. He had said he was her bodyguard, so he should play the part, but he was depressed. Yet, Yihua could afford to act this way, relying on the fact that he liked her to get her way.

Liuzi was six or seven years older than Yihua. There was a question he had turned over in his mind more than a hundred times, but could still not figure out. He could not understand her. If she did not like him, why would she stay in the hotel with him, or take the train with him, or come to Guangzhou with him, or lay her head on his lap as she slept? But if she liked him, why did she build this wall between them, not allowing him to touch her. He often felt like he was ready explode and was left to suffer with blue balls.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Yihua gave Liuzi a push. ‘Look at this.’ She pointed to a wall plastered with colourful flyers.

Liuzi looked it over for a while, then said, ‘Factory life is hard, and the pay is low. You’ve got more to offer than that. You should go to a hotel and be a hostess.’

Yihua asked, ‘What’s a hostess?’

‘It means you wear a qipao and stand at the hotel’s entrance. When customers come, you take them to their table to eat. The hostess wears pretty clothes, and doesn’t need to wash dishes or serve food, but she gets higher pay.’

‘You think a hotel would want me?’ Yihua asked, stirred.

Liuzi looked her over. He said, ‘You won’t have any problem, even at a five star hotel.’

Yihua laughed. ‘Liuzi, you finally tell the truth. Of course, someone looking half-Indian like I do is pretty rare, so I must be in demand.’

Liuzi looked at the advertisement again. ‘North Tianhe Bingsheng Restaurant. Serving congee . . . recruiting hostesses . . . requirements: at least 1.65 metres tall, good-looking . . . Aiyoh, Huahua, can you speak Mandarin?’

‘I told you to stop calling me Huahua. It sounds awful. Like you’re calling a dog.’

‘It says you need to speak Cantonese and Mandarin . . . If you’re really pretty, you can receive preferential consideration.’

Yihua said a few words in Mandarin. The pair nearly died laughing.

‘It feels awkward to speak Mandarin in front of you. Back when I was studying, my Mandarin pronunciation was very accurate. I won’t have any problem speaking. But what about you? You don’t mean you plan not to work and just let me support you?’

‘This isn’t my territory. I’ll wait until you get settled into a job, then when I run out of money, I’ll go back.’

‘Actually, my youngest aunt is in Guangzhou, but I don’t want to look her up now.’

‘Since when did you have relatives in Guangzhou?’

‘It’s true. She’s a news reporter.’

‘Then it would be good to look her up.’

‘My aunt looks down on the uneducated . . . If you haven’t studied and you go out into the world, is that really as good as death?’

‘So you don’t want to rely on your relatives. With as strong a backbone as you have, I don’t think you’ll die.’