I went to Jintian Road again the next day, almost as a last-ditch effort, and went straight to the prepared-food shop.
The door opened. A young man in his early twenties answered it. He had dyed his hair blond, was short and stocky, and looked thoroughly unruly.
"What do you want?" He was a little shorter than me, and stared up at me with narrowed eyes, a cigarette still between his lips.
I glanced at him, then looked past him, straight into the room.
In the middle of the room stood a large round table, covered with meat, vegetables, a chopping board, and kitchen knives. It looked like their worktable. On the right was a wall with an LCD television mounted on it; on the left was an open space piled high with the huge bags of vegetables and meat they bought every day.
My gaze fell on the freezer.
It was waist-high and completely sealed, with a bag of cauliflower sitting on top. An old woman stood eerily among the cauliflower, staring at me without blinking.
"Hey, what are you looking at?" the blond-haired young man barked. He shoved me in the chest, making me stumble back two steps.
"Ali, don't get physical. Don't." The old man sitting at the round table, watching TV as he chopped vegetables, hurriedly put down his knife. With the air of a good-natured, honest man, he apologized to me. "My son's got a short temper. Sorry about that. What can I do for you?"
I leaned in to look again. The old woman had vanished from among the cauliflower.
"I'm talking to you. Didn't you hear me?" the blond-haired young man shouted again, rolling up his sleeves. "What's your problem, punk? You here to start trouble?"
"Ali, enough. Go back inside." The old