Chapter 7 The Grill Stall
After that, I never set foot in that business district again.
The days went back to that numb quiet from right after I got out.
Every day I hauled water, pedaled, and traded dirty jokes with a few old bachelors in the warehouse.
At night I scraped together enough for cheap liquor and could talk big all evening over peanuts.
I made myself louder on purpose. I let the swearing pile up, like that could cut the past and Ji Yanli clean out of my life.
After a little more than a month, I thought I had pulled it off.
That mess of panic and humiliation I could not name had finally been pressed down.
At least I did not jerk awake at night anymore, with that cold face behind Gold-Rimmed Glasses flashing in front of me.
Payday came. A few of the old coworkers started a racket and insisted on bleeding me for a meal.
"Qin Ye, you're treating today. That grill we always go to. The flavor's right!"
"Fine. If I'm paying, I'm paying."
The grill stall was thick with smoke and noise.
Five or six of us squeezed around a greasy little table. Beer bottles clinked.
I pulled off the dusty jacket and kept a washed-out tank on.
It showed the old tattoos on my arms, already faded and blurry, and a few ugly scars.
I stretched the ruined leg into the aisle like it was nothing, taking the short numbness alcohol gave me.
"Drink. Finish the damn bottles. You raising fish in there?"
Everyone was drunk and yelling whatever.
Around us the other eaters were just as loud. Finger-guessing games and laughing curses mixed into one mess.
That familiar chaos, the kind with cheap smoke and street heat, gave me a fake sense of safety.
Right. Just like that. I was only a cripple scraping by at the bottom. Qin Ye had already died.