Chapter 50: Don't You Want to Come In?
Afternoon sunlight, a slope in the setting sun, and leaves occasionally stripped away by the chilly early-spring wind, spiraling down, rolling twice across the ground, then sliding past their feet with a trailing rustle.
Mountains lay in the distance, and the pale blue sky looked wide and vast. Sunlight streamed between the mountains, shifting as they walked. Its warm yellow glow covered much of the wall of the military subdistrict's Armed Forces Department beside them and fell across their youthful cheeks. Occasionally, a bus or car passed along the street before turning the corner ahead and heading downhill.
The old man who always wore an overcoat still sat in the little shop beside the road. A steamed bun shop opened here at five or six in the morning, earning endless praise from nearby students, while the barbecue stall that appeared after ten at night, though not necessarily the best in the city, at least had an excellent reputation in this neighborhood.
Su Can and Tang Wu ordered two clay pots of rice noodles in a small restaurant. The steaming warmth inside coated the windowpanes with condensation.
The waitress seemed to know Tang Wu and greeted her warmly when she saw her. This gave Su Can the intuitive sense that Tang Wu probably lived nearby.
This street belonged to the northwestern part of the city, which had also been its earliest center. Later, as Xiahai began to develop, its main economic center shifted southeast, where development was particularly rapid around the railway and highway transport hub guarding the city's southeastern gateway. Many hospitals and administrative offices had subsequently relocated as the city shifted, but even now, the northwest still retained traces of its role as Xiahai City's political center.
The clay-pot rice noodles