As he spoke, Song Tianyao took out his wallet, opened it, and pulled out the three thousand Hong Kong dollars in cash, waving it in front of his mother. "Three thousand dollars, not a cent short. You don't have to worry anymore. Since your son told you yesterday he could get the money, he was sure to get it."
"You didn't draw it yourself, did you? Taking advantage of the fact that your mother has never seen what a thousand-dollar Hong Kong note looks like?" The sight of the cash brought Zhao Meizhen even further back to life. She swung her arm with a fierce flourish, sending Song Chunliang, who had been pounding her back, to one side. She snatched the three thousand dollars from Song Tianyao's hand and examined it from every angle as she spoke.
People in the Squatter Area rarely saw even a five-hundred-dollar Hong Kong note, let alone a thousand-dollar one. Poor families there saved their money a little loose change at a time, and they didn't know to deposit it in a bank or exchange it there for larger bills. It was perfectly normal for them never to have seen a thousand-dollar Hong Kong note.
"Where did it come from?" Zhao Meizhen clutched the money tightly in her palm and looked at her son. "You didn't come home all night, and now you're wearing new clothes? You didn't go robbing people with someone, did you?"
"No. Robbery has no future, and your son wouldn't stoop to it. I'm a secretary now, earning two hundred and thirty dollars a month. This money is an advance on my salary." Without the slightest impatience, Song Tianyao told his mother how he had become Chu Xiaoxin's secretary, including the matter of the original three thousand dollars, which he also related truthfully.
"You mean you took the three thousand you borrowed and spent every last bit in one night?" Song Chunliang's eyelids twitched when he heard Song Tianyao say he had taken the money to Lu Yu Teahouse and asked Wu Jinliang to use it to entertain Chu Xiaoxin, treated him at Taibai Seafood Restaurant, and gone drinking at Lichi Garden.
Lu Yu Teahouse, Taibai Seafood Restaurant, and Lichi Garden were names people often spoke of, but those in the Squatter Area didn't have the courage to take so much as a single step into them. Even when passing by, they were afraid they would be charged for taking an extra look.
"Shut up! Go cook, hurry! I'm hungry!" Zhao Meizhen had fully recovered by now. She sat up straight in bed, full of energy, and glared impatiently at Song Chunliang. "I was holding Black-Hearted Wah back outside the door just now, and you didn't even think to help me give him a shove? Go cook! So what if he spent it? Three thousand dollars for a job as a Chu Family secretary was worth it!"
Song Chunliang obediently got off the bed and ran to wash rice for congee, though he kept his ears pricked for the conversation between Song Tianyao and Zhao Meizhen as he worked.
Zhao Meizhen's eyes shone as she spoke to Song Tianyao. "So you treated Young Master Chu to a meal, and he hired you as his secretary? A secretary for the Chu Family—it doesn't matter if you spent all three thousand! That's even more impressive than being a cop!"
"Brother, you never went to school. At most, you learned to write from Grandpa when you were little. How can you be someone's secretary?" Song Wenwen had been standing beside them the whole time. On hearing that her brother had actually become the secretary to the son of the Chao Feng Chamber of Commerce's president, she couldn't help interjecting.
She had seen the secretaries of wealthy people at the teahouse. They were all young men who had come out of prestigious academies, dressed in sharp suits and gold-rimmed glasses. They could speak English fluently the moment they opened their mouths, and when they walked, they practically held their chins up to the sky. Had her brother, a young man from the Squatter Area, really become one of them?
"Get up to the attic! Your brother knows more characters than anyone in the whole Squatter Area. How is he not qualified to be a secretary? You crow mouth!"
Before Song Tianyao could react to his daughter's doubts, Zhao Meizhen had already widened her eyes and shouted at Song Wenwen.
After shouting Song Wenwen up to the attic, Zhao Meizhen got out of bed and rummaged through trunks and cupboards until she found a silk-faced jacket she wore only for the Spring Festival. Ignoring the heat, she pulled it straight on over her undershirt and headed for the door with the three thousand dollars in hand.
Song Tianyao looked at his mother in puzzlement. "Hey, Mom, what are you doing?"
"Paying back the money!" Zhao Meizhen said, brimming with confidence. "Those bastard sons of bitches! They all lined up yesterday to throw stones at us while we were down a well. Today I'm going to their doors one by one to trample them back! Those gossipy bitches' men all work at the docks, and most of them unload ships for the Chao Feng Chamber of Commerce. I'm going to let them know our A-Yao is now secretary to the second son of the Chao Feng Chamber of Commerce's president! If they dare throw stones at us while we're down again, I'll have them starved to death!"
Song Tianyao lowered his head, speechless. He found his mother's behavior embarrassing and wanted to stop her, but then he thought again. His mother was only a woman from a poor family in the Squatter Area, with little experience of the world. If he didn't let her show off, she might even think he was lying to her. Forget it, he would let her have her way. It was only the Squatter Area, anyway.
When Zhao Meizhen stepped out of her home, twenty or thirty burly men carrying shoulder poles were outside, cleaning up the blood under Zhao Wenye's direction. The injured had long since been carried away, and the men were now throwing bucket after bucket of water over the blood on the stone-paved street.
"Auntie Zhen." Zhao Wenye had just emptied a bucket of water when he looked up and saw his aunt Zhao Meizhen coming out of her home. He hurriedly greeted her.
At the sight of Zhao Wenye, the slightly alarmed expression Zhao Meizhen had still been wearing relaxed. She knew he belonged to a dockside gang, so these men were probably his gang brothers. She sniffed, looked over the twenty or thirty men, and spoke to Zhao Wenye as he came over:
"A-Yip, these are all your dockside brothers, right?"
"That's right, Auntie Zhen," Zhao Wenye said.
Then, under Zhao Wenye's astonished gaze, his famously stingy aunt Zhao Meizhen straightened her back and, in a rare display of generosity, said to the laborers helping clean up, "Thanks for your hard work, everyone. Stay and have dinner with us later!"
The laborers already knew who Song Tianyao was, and they had just heard Zhao Wenye call her Auntie Zhen, so they immediately realized she was Song Tianyao's mother. When she invited them to stay for dinner, they erupted in cheers; not one of them declined. As they saw it, the cost of feeding them was a single hair from nine oxen to someone of Song Tianyao's standing. She was giving them face, and they couldn't refuse.
"Fuck your mother... Don't these people know how to be polite?" Zhao Meizhen sucked in a breath of cold air and cursed under her breath when she heard that none of the men before her knew how to be polite. But she immediately lowered her voice and said to Zhao Wenye, "Go inside now and tell your uncle to cook all the rice we have. Also, there's still thirty-odd dollars left at home. Have A-Yao go buy some meat. We can't let A-Yao lose face."