Chapter 1 The Stall Overturned
"Pah! What garbage, so disgusting!"
Zhang Muzhe spat the duck neck he had bitten onto the ground and crushed it under his foot.
"This junk, and it dares to be sold with our Mala Tang?"
I looked speechlessly at my Best Friend Cheng Yanqiu standing to the side, her face pale.
"Cheng Yanqiu, take your man away. Don't block my stall."
Zhang Muzhe yanked down the sign 【Mala Tang + Braised Duck Snacks, Twenty Percent Off】 and smashed it to pieces.
"Your Braised Duck Snacks are dry and fishy. If it weren't for our Mala Tang bringing customers, who would buy this trash of yours?"
"He Qingwei, you've freeloaded off us for three years, still not enough?"
"Sticking to us every day like a fly, do you have any shame left?"
"I freeloaded?"
I almost laughed from anger and pointed at Cheng Yanqiu.
"Cheng Yanqiu, you tell him! Four years ago when online loans drove you to a dead end, penniless, who bought you food and clothes and supported you for half a year?"
"Three years ago, you said you wanted to set up a stall like me to make money. Who taught you hand by hand how to make Mala Tang, paid for your stove, and helped you set up this stall?"
Cheng Yanqiu trembled all over, head lowered like a startled little rabbit.
Zhang Muzhe yanked her behind him.
"Old leftover scraps worth bringing up? Helping her with a few bucks years ago, and you still count it? Good friends, pah, shameless."
"Fine, no more old accounts."
I stared hard at Cheng Yanqiu, whose eyes kept dodging.
"Just talk about last month when you got married."
"I was your bridesmaid and gave a ten-thousand-yuan gift money."
"At the banquet, you arranged for the other bridesmaids to eat, but dragged me along to toast with you. I went hungry the whole time, pouring wine behind you like a servant."
"When the toasts finally ended and I wanted a seat to eat, you said there was no place arranged for me and told me to make do with some biscuits."
"After the wedding, you gave every bridesmaid a gift bag. Only I got nothing."
"You explained that between us, we didn't care about empty formalities."
"On your honeymoon, you played outside for a whole month and had me run the stalls for you. Every bit of the income went straight to your account!"
The more I spoke, the colder my heart grew. My voice shook beyond control.
"All of that, I could let go."
"But you two, the first thing you did after coming back from the honeymoon—what was it?"
"He Qingwei, shut the fuck up!"
Zhang Muzhe flew into a rage and shoved both arms at my stall.
With a crash, my little stall was completely overturned!
The carefully prepared Braised Duck Snacks rolled all over the ground.
"Talk more and I'll make sure you can't stay on this street!"
I looked at the meek Cheng Yanqiu and Zhang Muzhe's face that said "what can you do to me." The last bit of warmth in my heart went completely cold.
Ignoring the mess on the ground, I bent down and picked up the fragments of the 【Mala Tang + Braised Duck Snacks Twenty Percent Off】 sign piece by piece.
Right in front of them, I threw them into the trash can.
"Cheng Yanqiu, from today on, you and I go our separate ways."