This was not Tang Tang's first time here.
When she was three, she had tried calling her mom.
But she did not know whether this life had taken a very different course, or whether the number she remembered was one her mom had only gotten later.
Whether she called her mom or her dad, the numbers were out of service. Neither existed.
Tang Tang tried very hard to remember her mom's earlier number.
But it was no use. This was the only number she remembered.
Once she was a little older, Tang Tang tried looking for her mom at the rental home where they used to live.
That turned up nothing, either.
Her parents and older brother did not live there.
She even pretended to be someone her mom had helped and called the sanitation department, hoping to find a lead on her mom. That, too, came to nothing.
The young woman in customer service told her that no one by that name worked there.
It was the same with her dad.
Not a single lead she remembered about her parents proved useful.
With no other option, Tang Tang could only resort to the most clumsy method: spending more time around the places where her parents used to work, hoping she would get lucky and run into them on the job.
This was not something she could easily ask her pretty mommy for help with, either. So every time, Tang Tang waited until her pretty mommy was away, then used wanting to eat or buy something as an excuse to have Auntie Wang and the driver take her there.
The car pulled up to the entrance of Snack Street on Lovers' Road. The driver dropped Tang Tang and Sister Wang off, then went to find parking nearby.
Holding Tang Tang's