"Little Northeast, what do you think of this room? It faces south, not damp at all, and it's spacious too. As for cooking, you do it in the outer hall; everyone cooks out there. Fifty yuan a month. You look like an honest sort, so monthly payment is fine—no deposit needed. Ah, it's hard on you, being thirty with your parents gone early, no wife or children, leaving your hometown and coming all this way... it really is..."
The old wooden floor creaked and clattered beneath their feet. Teacher Ge, slightly stooped, wearing glasses, and doing his best to speak Mandarin, opened the door to the south-facing room.
It was close to noon. Dust gave the sunlight visible shape as it spilled across the dark red, rotten floorboards. The light reached the doorway as well, illuminating Teacher Ge in the hallway—and, of course, Little Northeast, whom he was addressing.
He wore the fashionable middle-parted long hair of the era, though it looked rather messy, clearly not carefully tended. He had on a loose white short-sleeved shirt beneath a gray jacket, faded green military trousers, and slightly dirty handmade cloth shoes. In one hand, he carried a medium-sized bag that looked heavy at a glance; his entire worldly fortune was inside it.
His hair hung over his eyes, making him uncomfortable. Wang Yan swept it back with one hand, stepped into the room, and smiled. "Teacher Ge, you know I'm thirty, yet you still call me Little Northeast?"
"What's wrong with that? Let me tell you, I'm fifty-five this year. I could be your father. You don't like being called Little Northeast?" Teacher Ge followed him inside, muttering away. "It's only because I feel you're someone I get along with, and you're all alone like me. Otherwise, I wouldn't rent you