"Next stop, Black Water Street. Please exit through the rear doors."
The public bus set out from the suburbs of B City, circled around, and slowly turned into the business district. Streets stretched in all directions and pedestrians bustled about.
The announcer spoke crisply. Unlike the usual Putonghua,¹ the announcer's words sounded mechanical, and even the lilt on his last word seemed deliberate.
Xie Yu, who sat in the corner seat of the last row, turned his head to glance in the direction of the burning sunlight outside the window.
He felt that the temperature in the bus was turned down too low, but he also felt hot.
The bus had already been moving slowly. Now that it was surrounded on all sides by a flow of people, its speed directly plummeted to that of an old grandpa of a vehicle. It met a red light and its long body shuddered violently before slowing to a stop.
Xie Yu had his phone in hand. He looked out the window as he waited for the other person to pick up the phone.
The dial tone sounded for a while before the call finally connected. Familiar background noise emerged from the speaker, followed closely by a woman's voice. Her voice was loud and overpowered the chaos; it was forceful and a little hoarse. She was quarrelling with someone.
"Who knows when those six shipments of goods will arrive. None of them are reliable. That lot just makes excuses all day."
"One moment they say tomorrow, the next, the day after tomorrow. They keep changing it and in the end they told me even they didn't know... Fuck it."
Xie Yu calmly listened to the woman rant.
"Rush, my ass! Now they don't even take my calls and pull a disappearing act on me. They must have been pulled out of a dog's ass. Don't they know anything? In all of Black Water Street, who dares annoy me, Xu Yanmei?"
She could yell an entire 800-word mini-essay without pausing to take a breath. Hearing her cursing get worse and worse, Xie Yu finally said something. "Aunt Mei."
Instantly, all the cursing stopped.
Xu Yanmei waved her hand at the other people and shut her mouth. She even snuffed out the cigarette clasped between her fingers without hesitation, pressing its burning end casually against the corner of the table. She then pointed at the phone on the table that had unexpectedly connected the call, indicating that the 'Meeting To Discuss The Six Shipments That Were Not Delivered On Time' was adjourned.
After putting out her cigarette, she took down her long legs which she had propped up and crossed on the cheap office desk. When she spoke next her voice was gentle to a degree the other people present had never heard before, as if she was a completely different person from the madwoman whose cursing was as heavy as two tons.
"During lunch we get together to shoot the breeze, nothing much, just for fun. Life's so boring. Occasionally cursing is good for the spirit..."
Xie Yu didn't expose her. He only asked, "What about smoking? Smoking is also good for you?"
Xu Yanmei, reeking of nicotine, lied through her teeth as she figured he wouldn't be able to squeeze himself out through her phone to confirm anyway. "I'm not smoking. After you told me to stop smoking, I quit. Ah, don't talk to me about this. If you talk about it I'm worried I'll relapse. Don't provoke me."
To her credit, she acted well. Who was provoking who?
Xie Yu heard her hoarse smoker's voice which was getting worse by the day. Only when cursing people out did her voice suddenly become clear. Even if he had toes for brains, he'd know whether her words were true or not.
