Debts have debtors, and grudges have their targets. No matter how complicated Gan Ling’s family situation is or what hardships she has—none of that is my concern.
Everyone carries their own grudges and debts, settles scores with their own enemies.
Gan Ling earned my grudge because she vented her resentment on the wrong person.
Zheng Ningning’s ghost lingered in my dreams, and I deserved it. But Gan Ling’s resentful spirit trailed behind my electric scooter and even punctured my tire—I couldn’t stomach that.
But Gan Ling was a living ghost, a soul in the body of the living. She wouldn’t listen to reason, and there was nowhere for her resentment to dissipate. I was powerless.
Fixing the electric scooter cost me 132 yuan, and with the remaining three yuan, I bought a couple of buns from the shop next door.
Behind Jiaxing Residential Area was an old street running north-south, leading straight to the Grand Market on the edge of the county seat. At the northern end were bike repair shops, inns, and wholesalers for smokes, booze, and seafood. Further south, it turned into stationery stores, general shops, two-yuan stores, and all sorts of little eateries. Even further, it connected to another main road lined mostly with furniture, building materials, and hardware—who knows what zoning quirk caused that layout.
I stepped out right in front of the snack shops and eateries. Steam billowed from a breakfast stall. Zhu Erting pushed her electric scooter out from the opposite neighborhood. She spotted me from afar, let out an “ai,” and started looking around for a gap in the traffic to cross the street.
Morning traffic heading to the opposite neighborhood was endless, with a few out-of-town plates mixed in. I took a couple bites of my bean sprout and pork bun. Zhu Erting bustled over, all dusty and tired, confiscated my other bun, and stuck it in her mouth. “Fuck,” she cursed, “the pandemic’s still got us with these gatherings. Some old guy in Building 1 kicked the bucket—they’re doing funeral rites, and a bunch of out-of-towners showed up. No idea how they even got in.”
“Not that many—” I craned my neck for a look. “Nothing we can do. These days, seeing relatives is rarer by the day. What’s the point of living out your life all alone?”
Zhu Erting tore viciously into the rest of the bun. “Xiao Huixiang, I didn’t eat enough, and you only bought two?”
I turned back to the crowded breakfast stall. The boss lifted the massive steamer lid, and a burst of white steam swelled up robustly, carrying the scent of wheat.
In the steam’s sway, I didn’t catch a clear look at the woman next to the boss. As I got closer, I saw it was the blank-faced Gan Ling. She scanned her phone to pay—screen cracked like a spiderweb but still went through—took two bean sprout buns wrapped in plastic, and left.
I kind of wanted to duck away, but we bumped into each other on this narrow path. Dodging would’ve looked weird, so I kept my eyes straight ahead, calmly ordered four bean sprout buns.
Gan Ling was looking at me.
Her eyes slanted over, chin still, then slanted back.
I took the buns and looked down. Gan Ling walked away.
Gan Ling crossed the street calmly and entered the opposite neighborhood.
Zhu Erting took the buns. “What’re you looking at?”
“Nothing, there really are quite a few people.”
I pulled my gaze back and focused on breakfast. Zhu Erting muttered something—I didn’t catch it. All my attention was on Gan Ling’s shabby black hoodie, weaving through the crowd, dodging traffic. She made a phone call, then slipped into the building entrance—and then I lost sight of her.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” I avoided Zhu Erting’s gaze, hopped on my electric scooter, and took a deep breath.
Somehow, an extra ingredient had been tossed into my pot of huixiang soup: Gan Ling. Sweet-sounding surname, but a bitter person. I couldn’t share these mixed flavors with anyone.
On one side of Bright Kindergarten’s main gate was a huge rain shelter for teachers and parents picking up kids to park. The other side had spots, where our principal’s car sat gathering dust forever. Gan Ling knew which electric scooter was mine purely because I’d left too late last night—mine was the only one charging in the shelter, exposing my target.
Turned out I’d overthought it. When Zhu Erting and I parked, Li Yongquan was pushing his motorcycle, about to leave, grumbling under his breath about not knowing which dumbass punctured his tire, forcing him to walk home last night.
Zhu Erting was young after all. She glanced up at the surveillance camera in our shelter. Li Yongquan noticed and chimed in, “What? Forget it, that thing’s busted.”
Zhu Erting said, “Must be ’cause your ride’s too flashy.”
Li Yongquan sighed and said nothing, pushing his bike off glumly to get it fixed.
So Gan Ling was doing area attacks? But even if she punctured all the teachers’ tires at once, it wouldn’t be nothing—Zhu Erting’s scooter was fine. Unless Li Yongquan left late too? But I hadn’t seen him in the auditorium.
I was single-mindedly mulling over Gan Ling and didn’t say much, just suggested, “Tell security to get this fixed.”
The surveillance camera dangled limply, its lens all foggy like a gray rat hung on a utility pole.
The auntie from security and her husband stood side by side under the gray rat, squinting up at it. I handed back the keys. The auntie asked, “What time’d you leave last night? Don’t stay too late. There’s been some crazy lady wandering around outside these past couple days. I’ve chased her off a few times.”
Zhu Erting perked up. “What crazy lady?”
I said maybe some poor woman getting beaten at home—just don’t make up stories here, let’s head in.
I’d already pinned the label on Gan Ling. In Neng County, domestic beatings were par for the course. Plenty of women went mad from it, wandering the streets—a not-so-glorious sight. Zhu Erting was local, so she bought my smear instantly and got led away. She rattled off a few crazy women she’d seen, and just like that, her attention shifted.
I could talk Neng County matters fluently without a hint of outsider awkwardness. Most times, Zhu Erting didn’t even realize I was from Peng County. We’d go back and forth sharing county lore.
“Speaking of crazy ladies, you know what? I had this hilarious and super scary thing happen in elementary school.”
I said hilarious and scary together was a weird combo. Zhu Erting rolled her eyes, counted on her fingers, and launched into the story.
Back then, Zhu Erting was still in preschool class, but she’d developed early—big and sturdy, tall for her age, looked like second or third grade. Her family let her walk home after school. On a whim, she dug two mao out of her sock to buy one mao of spicy strips and one mao of pagoda sugar.
There were two paths past that familiar general store: one a main road with traffic, the other a twisty detour overgrown with weeds. Everyone warned her to take the big road, not the small path, but Zhu Erting couldn’t resist the mysterious alley’s pull and took the long way.
The path was rough, full of mud pits. Zhu Erting hopped one, all excited, when suddenly she heard footsteps behind her. A crazy woman in red, with green accessories, disheveled hair, was tailing her close.
“Guess what!”
Zhu Erting slapped her stack of files down on the desk with a thud, startling the air.
“What?” I played along dutifully.
“That woman following me—I freaked out, about to run—then I saw a guy tailing her. Oh man, that guy was filthy! Hair greasy as hell… tsk tsk.”
A creepy dude in liberation shoes, ragged army pants, and an ill-fitting shirt, following a crazy woman.
Zhu Erting was paralyzed by the double whammy, convinced she was getting jointly abducted, legs frozen.
It happened fast—the guy was quicker. Before the woman could grab Zhu Erting, he nabbed the woman and suddenly yanked down his pants.
“You know? He was facing away, so I saw this huge black ass. Holy shit… scared me senseless.” Zhu Erting scrunched her face, licked her fingers, and counted her files with wet snaps, head down as she kept going. “The woman didn’t scream or anything, ignored it. The guy chuckled a bit, pulled up his pants, and left… lunatic bumps into lunatic, tsk.”
I kind of wanted to take back what I’d said about Gan Ling getting beaten at home and swallow it, but no use crying over spilled milk. It was probably already filed away in Zhu Erting’s brain. I didn’t bring it up again.
Quitting time was 7:30. I didn’t linger, scared of another street showdown with Gan Ling.
The electric scooter had no new damage today. The old busted plastic panel was a mangled mess—I didn’t patch it, looked like I’d crashed riding it. The cracked seam gaped like a toothy grin mocking me. I yanked a windproof cloth from under the seat, hung it up to cover it. Out of sight, out of mind.
Back home, I grabbed some old plastic folders, trimmed them with scissors, and headed downstairs with 502 glue and tape to fix the panel.
The neighborhood still simmered in twilight heat. Kids ran around. I was snipping away excess plastic—snip snip.
A window slammed open upstairs, spilling out an argument.
“You’re so badass, why don’t you go work then? Badass my ass, still freeloading off me?”
“You heartless bastard—dog must’ve eaten yours! Huh? I slave away serving your mom every day, lazy glutton. I go work, you cook for me? Wash my clothes? Come home, shoes still on, flop on the sofa. ‘Hey, here’s some noodles—no? Rice—no. Here’s fruit, but you bitch it’s cheap. If you’re so able, earn some dough and I’ll feed you cherries every day…'”
The window slammed shut. Inside, they went at it hammer and tongs.
I looked up, always worried something’d drop from on high and bean me. Pushed the bike to a new spot, kept my head down patching.
After a moment, a disheveled woman hurriedly ran down, still wearing flip-flops. She flung the apron in her hand viciously toward the trash can, but the strap got caught on her nail. Furious, she bit her finger and stomped her feet before finally tossing the apron into the trash can, then rushed out of the neighborhood.
I poked my head out and saw her glancing around before plopping down on the tattered sofa opposite, crossing her arms as she pulled out her phone to send a voice message to someone, while messily smearing tears across her face with one hand, making her already red and swollen face even redder.
A few kids curiously poked their heads out to watch, and the security guard dutifully shooed them away: “Don’t look, what are you looking at? Look at that one—what’s Xiao Jiang doing? Fixing a car?”
“Uh, I’m sticking this panel…” I inexplicably chimed in. The kids turned to look at me—I was as boring as that crying woman outside—and they went back to playing on their own.
