By the rules, Qingmu could not casually disclose a client's information to anyone else. But Ma Fuqing had barely said ten sentences from start to finish, and he had run off before Qingmu had even had time to do anything. At this point, Ma Fuqing did not really count as Qingmu's client.
Qingmu had never had any dealings with Ma Fuqing, so naturally he would not meddle in his affairs. But Ma Fuqing had gone and left a red envelope, forcing Qingmu to do something. Since Hu Xing happened to be beside him, Qingmu reminded her to check the case files. Whether she found anything or not, he would have done his duty.
Qingmu tossed the red envelope to the proprietress, who was busy behind the bar. "Put that toward half a month's rent."
Bi Shenghua took the envelope and weighed it in her hand. "Well, well, he really is a sucker!" she scoffed.
Qingmu took out his cigarette pack for a smoke, found it empty, and crumpled it into a ball. With a light flick, he sent it tracing a beautiful arc into the trash can in the corner.
Bi Shenghua took a pack of Paramount cigarettes from the cigarette cabinet and tossed it to Qingmu along with the red envelope. "You'd better keep it for now. I can't take responsibility if you starve to death in my place one day."
Qingmu accepted without fuss and grinned. "I'll land a big job soon. Once I have money, I'll help you buy up all the shops next door and turn Ruhua Bar into the biggest bar around here."
"Fill your own belly first," Bi Shenghua said disdainfully. "Wait for you to make money? My bar would have gone under long before then!"
Qingmu opened the cigarette pack, drew out a cigarette, and deftly flipped open the lid of his S.T. Dupont lighter to light it.
The crisp, pleasing metallic ring echoed through the quiet bar.
The proprietress, who had been wiping bottles with her head lowered, suddenly looked up. She stared at Qingmu for a moment, then snatched the lighter. "Well, now, fancy stuff! Who gave you this? That policewoman?"
She toyed with it, clicking it a few times with her fingers, and sneered. "Who would've thought? She's even spending money on you! If you got her to give you such an expensive lighter, why didn't you get her to pay your rent too?"
"Is it expensive?"
"Over ten thousand, I'd say."
Qingmu jumped, the muscles at the corner of his mouth twitching. "Then... how about I give you this toward the rent?"
Bi Shenghua slammed the lighter down on the bar with a bang. "Who wants your lousy lighter? It reeks of that woman!"
Then she snatched back the red envelope. "I'm taking the money. Let's be clear, though: rent is separate. At most, this covers your meals for the month."
At seven, Ruhua Bar opened its doors for business. The servers carried tables, chairs, and stools outside and arranged them in a row.
There was a small stage in the middle of the main room, directly opposite the entrance. A girl set up a microphone onstage and began tuning the guitar in her hands.
Bi Shenghua stood behind the bar. She was both the proprietress and the bartender.
There were several traditional little bars like this in Liuying Lane.
It was still early, so there were no customers in the bar.
Qingmu leaned against the counter, bored out of his mind, drinking an ice-cold beer.
The girl playing guitar looked unfamiliar, so he asked Bi Shenghua, "New?"
"Yes. A college student working part-time."
Seated on a tall stool, the girl tried a few notes on her guitar, then began to sing. She started with a folk song Qingmu had never heard. He thought her voice was quite good, with an indescribable note of sorrow in it.
"Singing like that probably won't work," Qingmu told Bi Shenghua. "She won't be able to hold the room."
"The guys in the band had something come up and couldn't make it. I found her as a last-minute fill-in. She'll have to do."
Qingmu looked at the girl a few more times, and their eyes happened to meet.
There was an inexplicable emptiness in her eyes, as though she had lost her soul.
"How about you bring Boss Coal downstairs later and put on an act to help us out?" Bi Shenghua asked.
Qingmu immediately raised his hands in surrender. "Forget it. I'd better go for a walk."
He drained the last foamy dregs from his glass, walked into the back room, and shouted upstairs, "We're going out-" Then he left through the bar's back door.
He had just reached the street when a fluttering sounded overhead, and Boss Coal flew over, flapping his wings.
Qingmu extended his arm and whistled like one of those rich second-generation wastrels who kept hawks, intending to let the crow land on it.
Several girls on the street saw him and exclaimed, "Wow, so cool! Is that a hawk?"
Boss Coal completely ignored Qingmu's arm and brazenly landed on his bird's-nest hair, even scratching his head a few times with his claws.
"Can't you let me save a little face?"
Qingmu helplessly lowered his arm and shrugged at the girls beside him, as if to say, now you know why my hair is such a mess.
The moment Boss Coal landed, he cried, "Going out! Going out!"
"Wow, it can talk!" The girls excitedly gathered around, trying to coax Boss Coal into speaking.
But Boss Coal raised his proud head and ignored them.
Disappointed, one girl held the grilled sausage in her hand in front of the crow's beak. "Say something, and I'll give you food."
With lightning speed, Boss Coal stretched out his jet-black neck, pecked a bite from the sausage, then cocked his head and called, "Pretty girl! Pretty girl!"
The girl squealed with excitement. The others followed suit, pulling snacks from their pockets to feed Boss Coal.
With a crow perched on his head and its claws digging painfully into his scalp, Qingmu stood surrounded by girls reaching every which way to thrust food right in front of his eyes-none of it for him. He felt as though he had not raised a pet, but was being kept as one himself.
The first girl to feed the crow sausage asked timidly, "How much is your bird? Could you sell it to me?"
Another girl chimed in, "Yes, yes, I want to buy it too! It's so cute! I can't take it!"
An old man who happened to be passing warned them, "You young lasses don't know any better. That's a crow. It's bad luck."
"That's all superstition. I don't believe it!" a girl said.
The old man shook his head and walked away.
The girls crowded around Qingmu, chattering away and asking to buy Boss Coal.
Just then, Qingmu heard an unfamiliar woman's haughty voice behind him:
"Do you know how much that crow is worth? Can you afford it?"
Qingmu turned and saw a woman in a blue camisole and a short purple skirt, carrying a small handbag covered in LV logos. As far as beauty went, neither her face nor her figure left anything to criticize. But she could not hide the air of the flesh trade about her, and one glance reminded Qingmu of the salon girls standing under the neon lights in the nearby alleys.
The girls froze for a moment, then protested, "How do you know we can't afford it?"
The woman did not even glance at them. She stared only at Boss Coal on Qingmu's shoulder, like a jade gambler who had spotted imperial green.
"Plateau ravens are rare enough as it is. Even a fledgling costs over ten thousand, let alone one this big, so well trained, and able to talk."
The girls stuck out their tongues. Though indignant at the woman's arrogance, they could do nothing but walk away in disappointment.
Qingmu turned to look at Boss Coal on his shoulder. "Ha! So you're worth that much! All that effort picking you up and raising you wasn't wasted!"
"So you found it!" The woman laughed contemptuously. "I was wondering how just anyone could keep a raven these days! Still, training it this well can't have been easy."
As she spoke, she unzipped her LV bag and took out two bundles of cash. "Twenty thousand. I'll take the bird."
Qingmu neither reached for the money nor paid the woman any attention. Instead, he lifted the bird off his head, held him by the neck, and warned him, "We agreed you wouldn't squawk when we came out. Now you've made trouble, haven't you? If you keep running your beak, I'll tell Ruhua you stole fish from the tank."
"Oh, oh-" Boss Coal fluttered his cheeks very reluctantly, but he settled down obediently and perched quietly on Qingmu's shoulder without another word.
The woman snorted and took another bundle of money from her bag. "Thirty thousand."
Qingmu looked at the sky and said to the crow on his shoulder, "It's getting late. Ruhua must be getting busy. Let's head back and have a look."
With that, he stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and shuffled off in his slippers, clopping along.
The woman stood awkwardly in the street with the money in her hand, her pretty, powder-caked face livid with anger.
The evening breeze blew past, setting the banknotes rustling...