In a classroom at school.
During the break, I was brimming with ambition as I worked out my grand business plan when Du Le came over with Li Xuan.
"Sanhe, could you help Li Xuan out?" Du Le asked.
"Hm?" I looked at Li Xuan. "What's wrong?"
"Well..." Li Xuan hesitated for ages, struggling to get the words out. Then she gritted her teeth, as though she had made some momentous decision, and said, "Sanhe, could you walk me home after class every day?"
"Huh?" Completely baffled, I looked from Li Xuan to Du Le. "What are you two up to?"
Du Le was impatient too. Seeing that Li Xuan still hadn't explained herself after all that hemming and hawing, he spoke up. "Our school's in the red-light district, right? Li Xuan keeps getting harassed on her way home. It's not safe for a girl to walk alone, and you two go the same way, so why don't you walk with her?"
Li Xuan lowered her head in embarrassment and said nothing.
Singapore had a legal red-light district in Geylang.
Geylang's streets were numbered from Lane 1 to Lane 40, and our school happened to be right in the middle, on Lane 20.
The licensed sex workers in the red-light district worked out of fixed premises and had regular medical checkups. It was all properly regulated.
There were also some unlicensed women who stood by the roadside soliciting customers, known as streetwalkers.
Besides sex workers, Geylang also had businesses operating in ordinary trades.
Singapore's laws were relatively strict, so people generally wouldn't harass women who weren't in the trade. Unless...
"They mistook you for a sex worker?" I asked Li Xuan.
"Yes." Her voice was barely louder than a mosquito's whine.
"That's weird. Don't those girls usually wear see-through clothes?" I looked Li Xuan over. She was wearing a long, dark gray top and full-length trousers. Apart from her hands and face, even her neck was barely exposed. Why would anyone harass her?
"Before, men would follow me, asking how much I charged. I wouldn't turn around or answer, and they'd give up after a street or two," Li Xuan said indignantly. "But yesterday, this guy followed me all the way to my front door and still wouldn't leave. I had to explain that I wasn't standing around there to make money.
"Who knew he'd get angry? He asked what I was wandering around Geylang for if I wasn't there to make money. Said I'd wasted his time!
"In this heat, I'm already dressed like this! I practically covered my face too, and he still blamed me. What's wrong with his eyes?" Angry and helpless, Li Xuan felt so wronged she was on the verge of tears.
"Maybe some men just like your style," I said with a grin.
"What style?" She looked up at me.
"The playing-hard-to-get style." I held back a laugh.
Li Xuan made an angry show of trying to pinch me.
Du Le burst out laughing too.
Still laughing, he chided me. "Sanhe, you're getting naughty!"
"No, but look at the way you two went about this. All that hemming and hawing, just to ask me to walk a pretty girl home every day." I grinned at Du Le. "For a second there, I thought you were trying to set us up!"
Du Le seemed to catch on too, and laughed. "It really is out of my way. Otherwise, you wouldn't get the chance to walk her home."
Li Xuan was too angry and embarrassed to speak.
"Sure. I'd walk her home whether it was on my way or not." I curled my lips into a smile and raised an eyebrow at Du Le.
"Hm? Why does that sound a little off?" Du Le scratched his head, thought for a moment, then said, "I feel like you're taking a roundabout dig at me."
"Oh my God! Du Le, when did you get so smart? You can even pick up on a roundabout dig now?" I exclaimed theatrically.
Du Le rolled his big, double-lidded eyes and gave me a sidelong look.
After we'd fooled around for a while, I told them both about my grand business plan.
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