A Tree Grows in Daicheng by Nei Lu

Author:Nei, Lu
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503953086
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2017-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

Mianzi had brought this upon himself. He was far too overconfident to think he had enough bargaining power to stand up to those gangsters. He’d seen Kang Cheng standing on his own by the cold-drinks stand, bare chested, a tiger with bat wings tattooed along his spine. This guy’s most distinguishing feature was his height, six foot two, a former basketball player. Mianzi used to hang out with his group, and while the two of them didn’t know each other, they were on nodding terms. Mianzi walked over and greeted him, giving him a smoke, before bringing up the matter of the four-speaker stereo.

Kang Cheng wasn’t as excitable as Kang Le. He smiled, his mouth half-crooked. Not everyone could master such a smile. “Kang Le told me about this. I didn’t expect you to have the guts to actually come looking for me.”

“Hey, Kang Cheng, my old mate,” Mianzi said, “we’re all in the same gang. I’d like to treat you to a meal.”

“Fine, treat me to a meal, then,” Kang Cheng said. With a wave of his hand, seven or eight guys walked over from the other side of the street, among them Kang Le and Kang Jian and some other tattooed guys. Mianzi felt as if his head were expanding, and before he had time to run away, he was punched in the face, then grabbed by the collar.

Before they took him off, he remembered saying to the person manning the cold-drink stand, “If someone comes looking for me, tell them I’ve gone off with Kang Cheng.” The person at the drinks stand naturally knew who Kang Cheng was. He’d given Mianzi a very sympathetic look and said, “Remember to protect your face. If your face gets damaged, you won’t be able to serve coffee anymore.”

He’d been beaten black and blue by the time Xiaoyan found him. He sat trembling among the seven or eight gangsters in the Spring Light Restaurant. All the other customers had fled, and it was only the boss left doing his best to serve them food and beer. Empty beer bottles littered the floor, twenty or thirty of them at least. The guys had horrifically large appetites, and they’d cleaned out the place. They were saying very cruel things, how they’d punched so-and-so unconscious, how a cigarette smuggler had had a dispute over dividing the profits and cut off someone’s ear. Mianzi was holding his head, a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen laid out in front of him, when Xiaoyan walked in.

Kang Jian was surprised to see her. My sister was pretty recognizable, just as she would never forget Kang Jian. For a moment their eyes locked. Xiaoyan pointed at Mianzi and said, “Chen Mian, come with me.” Mianzi didn’t move.

“Who are you?” one of the gangsters said.

“She’s the daughter of the photography studio’s owner,” Kang Jian explained. The crowds burst out laughing.

“Yeah, that’s me,” said Xiaoyan. “All the identity photos in the police stations were taken by my father.”

Kang Cheng looked at Kang Jian.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.