Zhang Laifu wanted to ask a few more questions, but the puller had already trundled his rickshaw away.
They were strangers, after all. A word of warning in exchange for five copper cash was more than generous. The puller dragged his cart back to the entrance of the theater and settled in to wait for fares.
The first performance had not yet let out. After waiting quite a while without a single customer, the puller began dozing off, only to be startled awake by someone speaking at the ticket window.
"Did an outsider from another prefecture come here to buy a ticket today?"
The ticket seller sounded thoroughly annoyed. "Are you here to see the show or not? If you want to see the show, buy a ticket. If not, take a walk somewhere else."
The man took no offense and merely chuckled. "You must be new here. Don't you recognize me?"
With just that single sentence, the puller fancied he caught the cadence of an operatic aria.
And not just singing—there seemed to be the strumming of a pipa woven into it as well.
The ticket seller's tone softened at once. "Well... uh, someone covered from head to toe in mud came and bought a ticket about an hour ago. No idea if he was an outsider or not."
***
Walking along the road, Zhang Laifu was pondering a question.
Did he have a legitimate origin?
*I was kidnapped by bandits—a completely innocent bystander. That counts as legitimate, right?*
The thought vanished from his mind in less than ten seconds.
Song Yongchang's crew were bandits, and under ordinary circumstances, bandits were outlaws in any land.
Since the bandits themselves lacked legitimate origins, how could Zhang Laifu have one?
The police station only cared about cracking down on illegal outsiders. As for whether someone was innocent, that was not even remotely within their scope of consideration.
At that thought, Zhang Laifu quickened his pace.
He had arrived by train, so he had to leave by train, which meant returning to the theater.
*If I can figure that out, Old Song surely can too. He'll come looking for me at the theater before long.*
He had to get off this street, and ideally leave Heishakou as soon as possible.
After walking for a while, a wave of weakness washed over him—his stomach was growling.
Patting his pockets, he found eight copper yuan and some twenty copper cash remaining.
Would this be enough for travel expenses?
He had to fill his belly first. Otherwise, he would not even have the strength to run.
Shops lined the street, selling shoes, cloth, bean paste, and vinegar. Yet after searching for half a day, Zhang Laifu failed to find a single eatery.
Weaving through streets and alleys, he emerged onto a wide avenue. A street sign told him this place was called Zhuzi Street.
The street was bustling, dotted with stalls peddling food. Just as Zhang Laifu was wondering what to buy, a man in his early thirties, carrying what amounted to an entire kitchen on a shoulder pole, stopped right before him.
Calling it a kitchen was hardly an exaggeration. A single carrying pole held a stove suspended on the left and a cabinet rack on the right.
The rack had three tiers of drawers: wrappers and filling on top, a pastry board in the middle, and bowls and chopsticks on the bottom.
Beside the stove hung several water buckets and a basket of firewood.
The man lowered his carrying pole to the ground and belted out a hawker's cry: "Wontons! Broth is at the boil!"
A wonton vendor?
One glance at the gear made it clear this man was a consummate professional.
The vendor lifted the pot lid, and a cloud of piping-hot, savory aroma rushed straight into Zhang Laifu's nostrils.
The scent was irresistible. Zhang Laifu stepped closer and asked, "How much for a bowl?"
Tending to his rig, the vendor chanted in rhythmic verse:
"Stoke the wood, stir the coals, bring the broth to rolling heat,
A whole household's living carried down the street!
Five dazi a bowl is truly no dear price,
Thin skins, heaping fillings, flavor twice as nice!"
Five dazi a bowl?
Zhang Laifu found it rather steep, yet the mouthwatering fragrance rooted his feet to the spot.
"Give me a bowl!"
Zhang Laifu handed over five dazi, and the vendor ladled out a piping bowl of wontons.
Chewing a single wonton, Zhang Laifu felt his cheeks shudder.
The wonton skin had an elastic bite. When bitten, it did not tear open—it burst.
The wrapper encased rich broth, which wrapped around the filling, and the filling had its own springy firmness, concealing broth within broth, with a flavor distinctly different from the liquid in the skin.
The broth from the wrapper clung to his cheeks, while the broth from the filling washed over his tongue. The filling and skin shuttled back and forth between his teeth until the two juices blended together and slid down into his stomach along with the meat and wrapper. Zhang Laifu felt the very root of his tongue melt in pure bliss.
"This is unbelievably delicious!"
Zhang Laifu murmured in praise, though the vendor was too busy to hear him.
The stall was mobbed, customers arriving in an unbroken stream while the vendor boiled and sold without pause.
Zhang Laifu stood beside the stall, finishing his bowl of wontons. In those few minutes, the vendor had already sold over ten bowls.
Folding wrappers, stoking the fire, adding broth, tossing in wood... The vendor's hands never stopped moving. Zhang Laifu could scarcely tell how many hands he had; they blurred into afterimages.
Zhang Laifu drank the bowl dry and wiped his lips. He was still hungry. From yesterday evening until now, this single bowl of wontons was all he had eaten.
He wanted another, but only three copper yuan remained in his pocket. With his copper cash, he could scrape together five dazi, but if he spent everything now, his next meal would be entirely out of reach.
Perhaps he could negotiate with the vendor?
"If I buy another bowl, could you give me a discount?"
The wonton vendor froze for a moment, then asked in a low voice, "Are the skins thin, or are they thick?"
Zhang Laifu recalled the taste. "They seemed just right to me."
The vendor frowned. The cant did not match.
Thinking Zhang Laifu might simply have failed to catch on in the moment, the vendor paused briefly before asking again, "Do they tumble in the water, or do they sink in the pot?"
Zhang Laifu considered the boiling process. "Probably both, I'd say."
"No haggling here. If you think it's too dear, there's another wonton stall over there. His are cheaper." The vendor pointed across the street and turned back to greeting other customers, paying Zhang Laifu no further mind.
Beneath a large tree across the street stood another wonton pole setup, considerably smaller than the previous vendor's, operated by an old man in his early sixties.
Business was dead quiet there; not a single person was waiting.
"How much for a bowl of wontons?"
The old man answered promptly, "Two dazi."
It was indeed cheap. Zhang Laifu paid two dazi, and the old man dished out a brimful bowl.
"Honored patron, please have a seat to eat."
Not only was the portion generous, but there was also seating: a table and benches under the tree, complete with sauces and vinegar condiments.
Zhang Laifu sat on the bench, picked up a wonton with his chopsticks, and popped it into his mouth—only to find he could hardly get it down.
There was dough, there was filling, and there was broth. Yet for some inexplicable reason, Zhang Laifu simply could not force it down his throat.
His stomach was not full, so spitting it out was out of the question.
The vendor was right beside him, too, making it far too rude to spit it out.
Zhang Laifu exerted tremendous effort just to swallow the wonton, when a middle-aged man around forty sat down beside him.
"Hard to swallow, isn't it? Don't go blaming the man's wontons. It's your own fault for eating them wrong."
The newcomer had a fair complexion, his hair slicked back into a glossy sheen beneath a small skullcap. A medicinal plaster was pasted over his left brow arch, neatly obscuring half of his eye.
He wore a moon-white long gown under a sleeveless riding jacket, a tobacco pipe dangling from his waist, a folding fan tucked into the back of his collar, and a purple bamboo birdcage held in his left hand. Glancing at the bowl of wontons on Zhang Laifu's table, he asked, "Do you know where you went wrong?"
Zhang Laifu was baffled. How could someone possibly eat a wonton wrong?
Chapter 10