"Boss, give me an order of fried chicken tenders."
"Young man, see if this batch works."
In front of the chicken tender stall, the young vendor pointed at the cutting board, which was piled high with a large mound of raw, batter-coated chicken tenders.
"Weigh it."
After placing the food on the scale, Lu Man glanced at the electronic scale. This type of platform scale had digital green screens on both the front and back to display price and weight, but it had been tampered with—the side facing Lu Man was completely blank and gray.
"You got it, that'll be twenty yuan."
People from Caoxian, reminiscing about the old days, often sighed that "money used to actually be worth something."
Twenty yuan might seem like a small amount over a decade later, but this was 2006. Lu Man remembered that his family's apartment cost 780 yuan per square meter, and his family's clothing store typically paid salesclerks 600 yuan a month, while skilled garment workers made 800.
This was definitely worth haggling over with the vendor.
Lu Man sized up the pile and said, "This pile is way too big. There are only two places—er, only two of us, we can't finish all that. Boss, help us split it in half."
The vendor pulled more than half of the chicken off the scale, leaving only a small portion: "Is this amount okay?"
The vendor quickly darted a glance at Lu Man. Although he was well over six feet tall, his face was fair and relaxed, and his stubble was shaved clean enough to still look slightly bluish—a typical wet-behind-the-ears look. The vendor confirmed he was just an inexperienced teenager not far into his youth.
"Twelve yuan."
Gu Lingyi, standing right behind Lu Man, anxiously tugged at his sleeve. Without even looking at the display, she knew the portion size and price didn't match.
The vendor picked up a wire strainer, ready to scoop the fried food into the wok.
Lu Man raised an eyebrow, smiled, and said, "I didn't say I wanted the stuff on the scale. I want the leftover portion."
The vendor's hand stopped mid-air. He paused for two full seconds before saying, "Let me weigh it again..."
"No need," Lu Man said with a smile. "You just weighed the whole thing, and the total was twenty yuan. This portion is twelve yuan, so the other one definitely has to be eight."
Lu Man continued, "Your family has been selling here for years and has a great reputation. Your scale is definitely accurate, we trust you!"
"Hahaha!" Several nearby vendors, who loved watching the commotion and shooting the breeze, were tilting their heads to watch the fun. Hearing Lu Man's words, they burst out laughing.
The young vendor's expression turned sour, but Lu Man was too quick—he had already dropped the money into the cash box. The vendor had no choice but to pull a long face and fry up the chicken tenders.
This stall was located right near the Second High School. Since taking over the business, every student he encountered always looked half-asleep, as if their brains had been numbed by studying. Whenever they bought anything, they would stutter and act completely submissive.
He was so used to ripping people off that he never expected to run into someone who didn't play by the rules today. Caught off guard, he had ended up trapping himself instead.
"Little nephew," said the older uncle running the nearby vegetable pancake stall, wiping the sweat from his neck with a white towel. He pointed the towel at the chicken tender stall. "When you walk by the river often enough, you're bound to get your shoes wet. It's much safer to stand on dry land."
Standing on dry land was a subtle way of advising him to run an honest business.
"Sigh, kids these days are too full of sly tricks," the young vendor conceded his loss, but still couldn't resist throwing out a sarcastic remark to save face. "Smart when they're little, doesn't mean they'll amount to anything when they grow up."
"You!" Before Lu Man could say anything, Gu Lingyi—who had been hiding behind him the whole time—suddenly flared up and glared straight at the vendor.
Lu Man looked at her in surprise. This girl was usually scared out of her wits—to use a term from after his rebirth, she had maxed-out social anxiety. Yet right now, she had suddenly darted to the front like a little beast protecting its food.
Lu Man gently grabbed her wrist and shook it to signal that she didn't need to worry. Gu Lingyi's courage was a one-time use item; after lasting a few seconds, it fizzled out, and she retreated half a step behind him again.
"We're just evenly matched, six of one and half a dozen of the other." Keeping his smile, Lu Man struck up a conversation with the vegetable pancake uncle nearby. "Uncle, a catty used to be sixteen taels back in the day. Do you know where those sixteen taels came from?"
"I never went to school, how would I know that? Just something passed down from ancient times, I suppose," the pancake uncle replied with a chuckle and a shake of his head. "You're a college student, why don't you explain it to us?"
Lu Man slowly explained, "The old Chinese scale used sixteen taels to a catty, taking the sum of the Big Dipper, the Southern Dipper, and the Three Stars of Fortune, Prosperity, and Longevity. It was meant to warn people not to shortchange others. Falling short by one, two, or three taels costs you fortune, missing four or five costs you official rank, and any further short weight shortens your lifespan. Go any further than that, and you start offending the Southern Dipper itself."
Accustomed to the ebb and flow of crowds, the pancake uncle immediately caught on to who Lu Man's words were really meant for, and smoothly played along: "Hoo, as the old saying goes, the Southern Dipper governs life and death. You really can't afford to come up short on that! Blessings are much better than extra wealth!"
The chicken tender vendor had just finished putting the fried food into a paper bag. Hearing their conversation, his expression shifted drastically.
His father, the older vendor, had suffered an accidental fall and was hospitalized. It would take a hundred days for his bones to heal, and there was no telling when he'd be fully recovered.
Lu Man took the bag of chicken tenders and two bamboo skewers from him, and called for Gu Lingyi to follow as they walked away.
Gu Lingyi lowered her head, deep in thought. Taking advantage of her inattention, Lu Man put one hand behind his back and snapped one of the two bamboo skewers into three or four pieces.
"Here, eat them while they're hot." Lu Man poked the sole remaining skewer into the bag of chicken tenders and handed it to her.
Gu Lingyi held it in her hand, weighed it a few times, and looked surprised: "This portion is worth nearly fifteen yuan."
She poked a piece of fried chicken with the skewer and popped it into her mouth with a soft "Ah-um."
After taking a few more bites, Gu Lingyi looked up at Lu Man and said, "Big Brother, ever since the college entrance exams, you seem to have become much more cheerful and confident."
"Oh? Is that so?"
She figured Lu Man's change stemmed from the end of the exams, now that the pressure of his studies had vanished.
"Before the exams, you probably wouldn't have dared to actively go looking for trouble or talk back to an adult. You would have just listened to me and we would have slunk off to find another place."
Gu Lingyi cast a light, teasing glance at his way. "There's no way you'd be like this now, and you even tricked me with that line about 'if our opinions match, we'll do it your way.' Hmph, you really only know how to fool me."
Her older brother had learned to be mischievous, but she didn't hate it at all. Instead, she found interacting with him this way much more interesting.
"You're just too slow to react, you can't blame me," Lu Man shrugged.
Gu Lingyi smiled. "Well, this is better. All through senior year, Big Brother, you had so much on your mind. I was... well, Jia-ri and I were both really worried about you."
Lu Man thought to himself: At least I've lived an extra dozen or so years now, I've got to grow up at least a tiny bit.
Introversion wasn't a bad thing, but life ahead wouldn't allow ordinary people to remain introverted.
As Gu Lingyi snacked away, she happened to look back and suddenly brightened up, nudging Lu Man's arm with her elbow: "Big Brother, that vendor's platform scale lit up. He adjusted the scale back!"
Lu Man nodded. It looked like a bit of harsh truth had done the trick: "That's probably the only good thing about feudal superstition—it leaves people who do bad things with a shred of awe."
...
Chating and snacking all the way back, Gu Lingyi kept glancing sideways at Lu Man. But she felt that today it was entirely too easy to lock eyes with him, to the point where she eventually didn't even dare to lift her gaze.
Her older brother used to be so wooden, always looking straight ahead when he walked—how was it that he kept looking over at her too? Gu Lingyi shook her head; it had to be her imagination.
As they neared their front doors, Gu Lingyi couldn't eat anymore, swinging the paper bag of chicken tenders back and forth between them as they walked.
Seeing that she was in a good mood, Lu Man decided he could tease her one last time before parting ways.
"Lingyi, I haven't even had a single bite yet."
"Ah—" Gu Lingyi finally realized. "Big Brother, there's a place right near my house too, I'll buy you a fresh portion."
"But I want to eat right now."
She opened the paper bag of chicken tenders and muttered in confusion, "That's strange, for a double portion, why did he only give one skewer?"
"Ah—" Lu Man opened his mouth, signaling that he needed to be fed.
Gu Lingyi panicked and took a small step back: "Eat it yourself."
"I'm holding the medicine," Lu Man feigned struggle, acting as though the medicinal tangerine peel in his arms was terribly heavy. "It's too heavy, I can't even lift my hands."
Gu Lingyi wasn't used to his shamelessness at all. A package of medicinal herbs measured out in mere qian and liang—even when she carried it, it felt weightless. How heavy could it possibly be?
No wonder he was being so kind today, volunteering to carry everything.
A trick, it was all a trick!
"No... no way," Gu Lingyi's pretty face flushed slightly. "Besides, there's only one skewer, and I've already used it, Big Brother."
"Just use the other end of this skewer."
"No!"
She tried hard to remember, recalling that Lu Man had been the one to take the snacks from the vendor. The skewers were quite long, and since they were kept in a holder tied to the stall's pillar, they stood out—she clearly saw the vendor hand over two.
Gu Lingyi's eyes widened slightly in shock at how thick-skinned a boy could be!
"Big Brother, you're doing this on purpose..."
Lu Man interrupted her, "This skewer has one sharp end and one blunt end. Can't you just use the side that hasn't been used?"
"Mmm..." Gu Lingyi thought about it, and it did make sense. Besides, she had already refused several times; refusing any longer might hurt Lu Man's feelings.
She flipped the skewer around, speared a piece, and extended it toward Lu Man's mouth: "Here."
Lu Man chewed the snack a few times, thinking that Lu Xun's famous quote was truly brilliant: The Chinese character has always loved compromise and mediation.
For instance, if you asked Gu Lingyi to feed you directly using the exact same end of the bamboo skewer, she would never allow it; but if you suggested flipping it to the other end, she felt it was a fair compromise and became willing to feed you.
The silly girl was so focused on the feeding that she completely forgot that this "feeding play" was far too intimate for the two of them. She actually could have just refused entirely.
Watching the reluctant expression on her pretty little face, Lu Man found that the more she acted like this, the more he wanted to tease her.
"Huh? There's hardly any taste. Did that vendor intentionally forget to put salt in?" Lu Man remarked purposely.