Chapter 13

Wang Xuejiao explained, “I saw you coming out from here. Your clothes looked so nice, I remembered right away.”

But at that time, there were so many people around Wang Xuejiao; how could she possibly have seen who came out of which door?

She actually guessed it from the traces on Xiao Jinhua’s clothes. On the hem were two long strips of paper scraps—leftover from an unsteady cut during paper cutting. There was also ink on her fingers and shoulder, marks from carrying freshly printed paper placed on her shoulder.

However, Wang Xuejiao couldn’t say this out loud. No one likes being analyzed so closely; it creates an uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

A woman complimenting another woman’s outfit is perfectly natural.

That outfit was given to Xiao Jinhua by Li Juan, who also thought it was very pretty. Without any suspicion, she happily took the plastic bag Wang Xuejiao handed her and peeked inside:

“Oh? Two boxes?”

“Yes, originally you were supposed to have lunch with this, but it got delayed until now. Consider it compensation for the mental distress.”

As they spoke, Li Juan passed by, heading out to find some late-night snacks, and noticed Xiao Jinhua talking with Wang Xuejiao.

Seeing the two lunch boxes in Xiao Jinhua’s hands, Li Juan’s eyes widened. “Wow, Xiao Jinhua, are you rich now? Two boxes?!”

She herself had to grit her teeth just to buy one box.

Was this girl crazy?

Wang Xuejiao smiled, “I gave her one box. Something came up at noon, so I couldn’t get the food to her on time, hence the delay.”

“Ohhh,” Li Juan’s expression turned to one of understanding, “No wonder you seemed distracted all afternoon—because you didn’t get to eat meat.”

Xiao Jinhua’s face flushed bright red. “I’ll give Sister Lili’s portion to her.”

With that, she turned and ran off.

Just as Wang Xuejiao was about to leave, she suddenly heard someone call out, “Are you the one selling the braised meat?”

“Yes.”

“What time do you start setting up?”

“Around ten in the morning.”

“Oh, I work the evening shift tomorrow and will only come at night. Can you save me a portion?”

“Well…”

“I’ll pay you now! Please save one for me!”

“But I have things to do at night, so I might not be around to wait for you. Besides, I heard the Red Armbands also come around at night, so I’m not sure where I’ll be.”

“Hmph, they’re just here for show. They come and go quickly.”

Wang Xuejiao shook her head repeatedly. “I heard that recently, Green Vine is pushing the sanitary city campaign and cracking down even harder. The street vendors are all really nervous.”

Not being able to buy delicious braised meat made her anxious.

After handing over the money, the boss owed her thirty yuan and ran off with the small braised meat, making things even more worrying.

Her coworkers couldn’t think of a good solution. Another suggested, “I work the afternoon shift tomorrow. I can buy it for you, as long as you give me a 20% cut.”

He rummaged in his pocket, cursing, “Twenty percent?! Are you a loan shark?”

While the two joked and laughed, Wang Xuejiao had already noticed a landline phone fixed to the wall near the workshop.

She spoke loudly, “If you like eating this, you can send me a message, and I’ll deliver it to you.”

“How do you deliver?” the coworkers asked curiously.

Wang Xuejiao fetched paper and pen and wrote down a number, “This is my pager number. Whatever you want to eat, just page me before mealtime.”

Li Juan was surprised, “You have a pager?!”

Nowadays, a digital pager costs two thousand yuan!

“Yes, my dad gave it to me. It’s in Chinese and can receive direct messages,” Wang Xuejiao said proudly. “My family runs a breeding farm. Back in the eighties, we were already making ten thousand a year. The meat you’re eating—chicken, pork—is all from our farm. We even eat it ourselves during the New Year!”

Her coworkers fell silent, staring at her in disbelief. “Your family is well-off, and yet you’re vending on the street?”

Wang Xuejiao smiled, “Yeah. My dad says we don’t raise people who live off others. Either I marry a rich man and bring more money home, or I become wealthy myself.”

A female coworker was puzzled, “Isn’t marrying a rich man better? Isn’t that more comfortable than vending in the wind and rain?”

Wang Xuejiao nodded, “When you run a business, thousands of people are your bread and butter. If a few get tired and don’t come for days, you can still survive. But if you have only one breadwinner and they get annoyed or bored with you, then you’d starve.”

Her eyes sparkled with hope. “I want to open a big restaurant someday. So even though I’m vending on the street now, the ingredients and skills I use meet big restaurant standards. I don’t cut corners!”

This persona was a spur-of-the-moment invention. She felt that just observing the printing factory’s exterior limited what she could learn. If she had chances to interact with people inside and even deliver meals occasionally, she could see much more.

Still, since she wasn’t a real vendor, some of her speech and mannerisms weren’t quite authentic.

Criminals would be especially wary of strangers in their midst, scrutinizing every detail.

If they sensed anything off, she could always explain it away as “a wealthy person dabbling in street vending for fun.”

After crafting this persona, Wang Xuejiao returned home.

Though she wanted to storm into the workshop and search every corner, she couldn’t.

She had to proceed gradually, first earning trust, so she wouldn’t lose further opportunities.

Back home, Zheng Yuezhen looked at her daughter’s red, frostbitten face with deep concern. “It’s so cold outside, and you didn’t even wear a mask.”

“I did, but then no one could hear me talk,” Wang Xuejiao said, unbuttoning her coat to reveal a walkie-talkie inside.

“Oh, a big brother phone?” Zheng Yuezhen peered curiously.

“Walkie-talkie. The bureau is so broke, even the walkie-talkies are scavenged. No big brother phones here.”

“What exactly were you doing that you needed a walkie-talkie?” In Zheng Yuezhen’s mind, her daughter’s job was supposed to be indoors, protected from wind and rain, warmed in winter, cooled in summer. Yet her face was freezing red, and now she had a walkie-talkie, which made her wonder if her daughter was assigned some particularly dangerous task.

Wang Xuejiao rubbed her nose. “They’re creating a sanitary city right now, and the comprehensive management folks are short-handed. They sent us to help watch for anyone running red lights or spitting on the street… basically just sitting around doing nothing. If caught, the fine is five yuan a ticket… Oh, and you all better be careful too—I don’t want to have to ask my coworkers for favors over such things.”

Zheng Yuezhen was half convinced. She wasn’t sure if the comprehensive management and police station really collaborated this way, but she knew about the sanitary city campaign.

Last year, when the inspection team came, some careless people happened to get caught, and Green Vine City failed the evaluation. The entire municipal government was severely reprimanded.

It’s common nationwide to mobilize all forces to focus on key projects.

Zheng Yuezhen reluctantly believed it; after all, she could ask Du Zhigang to confirm later.

She looked at the walkie-talkie. “Won’t it fall if you just tuck it in your clothes?”

“It will, it’s quite a hassle. Could you make me a small pouch to sling across my body? Make the pocket big enough—I need to carry the pager too.” Wang Xuejiao said casually and then went into her room to dig out the pager from a drawer.

It had been pawned to Wang Jianguo a few months ago. Since he stayed in the shop all day and rarely went out, the pager was useless to him, so he gave it to Wang Xuejiao.

Her father’s little thought was that if she ever dated and came home late, he could at least contact her.

Unexpectedly, she was using it for work instead.

Wang Xuejiao tested the pager—it worked. She then opened her work diary and began writing today’s summary.

She was almost a professional at stakeouts.

She once took on a job for a financial firm specializing in short selling, staking out all day outside a coffee chain, counting how many customers came in and watching through the glass how many cups and snacks they bought.

This data later helped the short-selling firm expose the coffee company’s financial fraud.

Wang Xuejiao wrote down the terrain, foot traffic, personnel composition, the printing factory’s three shift changeover times, and how many people came and went, planning to verify these details further tomorrow.

These records might prove useful when arrests were made.

By the time she finished writing, it was almost midnight. Usually, Zheng Yuezhen and Wang Jianguo were already asleep by now.

Wang Xuejiao stretched and stepped out of her room, intending to wash up and sleep.

She found the living room light on. On the table lay a pale green piece of fabric, and Zheng Yuezhen was cutting it with clumsy snips, the walkie-talkie resting on the cloth.

“What are you doing?” Wang Xuejiao asked.

Zheng Yuezhen bent over, cutting the fabric with a clack-clack sound. “You wanted a sling bag, right? I’m making the fabric now.”

“Oh… you should get some sleep. You have work tomorrow.”

“You go to sleep first.”

The next morning, Wang Xuejiao stepped out to find a small snake-shaped cloth pouch on the table. It had two large black plastic buttons for eyes, and a red tongue that served as a clasp, which fastened to the tail end. It could be slung diagonally across the shoulder.

There was a zipper along the snake’s back, where the walkie-talkie fit snugly inside its belly.

The snake shape was likely because the original owner was born in the Year of the Snake. The novel mentioned that the original owner’s downfall began when the villainous boss secretly remembered her birthday and gifted her a Bulgari snake diamond brooch.

Wang Xuejiao was also a snake by zodiac sign. Though she didn’t have a strong fondness for snake-shaped items, she didn’t dislike them either.

“Fancy, an Ouroboros,” she said with interest, picking up the pouch and hanging it over her shoulder.

Wang Jianguo was shoveling food into his mouth. “Your mom didn’t finish until four in the morning.”

“Ah, that’s so hard on her.” Wang Xuejiao looked around for Zheng Yuezhen to thank her.

“I told her to sleep, but she said you wanted the bag and insisted on finishing it… Don’t bother looking for her. She’s gone to work. Today’s their factory’s year-end summary meeting.”

Wang Xuejiao slung the little snake bag over her shoulder. The warmth emanating from the velvet fabric reached deep into her heart.