Outside, Little Lunatic excitedly gathered his thirty-three friends and started looking for newsstands using the map Editor-in-Chief Lei had given him.
Staking out a spot was nothing difficult, and neither was approaching people to make a sale.
To keep the newsstand operators from refusing to let them stake out their shops, the group came up with several sets of pitches and even more tactics along the way. They worked through every possible situation to make sure they could pull it off.
But when they arrived, they discovered it wasn't actually that hard.
Because the person running the newsstand was one of their own.
Little Bean, who was barely eight, wasn't even as tall as the newsstand window when he stood up. When Little Lunatic arrived, he was sucking on an iron nail. Whenever the flavor faded, he dipped it in some soy sauce and kept sucking.
Seeing Little Lunatic charging over with his whole crew, Little Bean poked his head out and said, "Brother Lunatic, out having fun? Have you eaten? If not, have some."
The expired soy sauce in Little Bean's bowl made Little Lunatic angry.
He slapped the bowl away and said indignantly, "Why are you eating this crap? Does it have any nutrition? Are you trying to starve to death?"
Little Bean looked regretfully at the dark splashes on the ground and said with tears in his eyes, "But... this is all I can afford to eat today."
"No buts! Meat buns!"
A little girl immediately brought over a big, greasy meat bun.
"Soy milk!"
A half-finished cup of soy milk was passed to Little Bean.
"Steamed pork ribs with rice flour!"
"...Brother Lunatic, we don't have any."
"Then go buy some! We only got our settling-in allowance last night. Don't tell me you don't have money!