Page 165 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

“If you aren’t the shopkeeper, why are you standing here?” he reproached

her. “You have to take the responsibility. Oh, I see the price. It’s pasted on the
bottom of the teapot. It’s twenty-three yuan.”
He counted out twenty-three yuan, placed it on the counter, and headed out.
As he left, he said angrily, “You’re the worst businessperson I’ve ever seen.”
Then a young woman picked up a vase and sought out Zhou Yizhen. Zhou
Yizhen told her the truth and asked her to wait a moment, because the
shopkeeper was in the other room. She looked inside the warehouse, but no one
was there. A door opened from this room onto a small street. The other two must
have gone out for a stroll.
She returned and told the young woman that the shopkeeper was out.
“But you’re here, aren’t you?” the young woman said, staring.
Then the young woman said she had found the price; it was thirty-seven yuan.
She placed forty yuan on the counter, took the vase, and left. Zhou Yizhen put
the money away at once.
Every person who came in bought something. The last customer wanted to
bargain with Zhou Yizhen. He was holding a large soup bowl and said fifteen

yuan was too much. He asked Zhou Yizhen to sell it to him for ten yuan. Zhou
Yizhen said the shopkeeper was out, and it wasn’t up to her to lower the price.
“Why can’t you? Didn’t you sell several things just now?” he said in a fierce
tone.
Zhou Yizhen was afraid. She shouted toward the back room, “Zhu Mei! Zhu
Mei!”
The man immediately said, “Don’t shout! Please! I’ll just put it back, okay?”
When he swept past her, Zhou Yizhen saw that he was her former gang boss.
Back then, they had sat in the same workshop opening lotus seeds. Why had he
threatened her?
Zhou Yizhen was angry with Zhu Mei. She put the money in a drawer under
the counter, closed the shop door, and ran out.
All at once, she relaxed. She thought, I came here just for fun. Why had Zhu

Mei pressured me so much? Whatever happened in the chinaware shop was
really a conspiracy. The surroundings had changed greatly, and there wasn’t
much lamplight. Zhou Yizhen had actually lost her way outside the plant where
she used to work. Just then, she heard someone call her name. She turned around
and saw her former workmate Bai E. Except for her voice, this woman had
changed completely. Even in the dim lamplight, one could see that her face was
dark and that she was very thin, yet she seemed in good spirits.
“Zhou Yizhen, come to my house!” she said eagerly. “I live alone now. You
can live in my home!”
She gripped Zhou Yizhen’s arm, and dragged her to a low house next to the
road. It was dark inside. The two of them almost fell onto a bed with a big