The massive iron gates of the Chengnan Wholesale Market stood wide open. A few crooked metal characters had been welded onto the frame, the red paint peeling off in patches, barely enough to make out the words “Chengnan Agricultural Products Wholesale Center.”
The world inside the gate was a completely different species from the one outside.
The ground was soaked everywhere. A huge puddle of fishy wastewater had collected in front of the seafood stalls, the filthy water running through the cracks between the tiles, mixing with rotten vegetable leaves, plastic twine, and crushed foam boxes into a sticky layer of sludge.
Shen Qingqing’s flip-flops landed in it with a wet splat, dirty water splashing onto her calves.
She did not even glance down. Her eyes were fixed straight on the row of stalls deepest inside the market, nostrils twitching twice as she muttered something under her breath, then dragged the red string forward and plunged deeper inside.
Huo Yan followed where she pulled him, stepping directly into the water. His sneakers were instantly soaked through.
Cold, his toes curled slightly inside his shoes, but he did not stop walking.
Too many sounds poured into his ears, messy and chaotic. To his left, someone scraped an iron ladle against a scale pan with loud clangs. To his right, a woman shouted prices at the top of her lungs.
“Three-fifty! Three-fifty! Last truck of the day!”
Above them, the sheet metal roofing rattled under the wind, rusty panels banging against each other like someone sawing through wood.
But he could tolerate it.
Nothing overhead pressed down like a ceiling. Well, technically there was a metal roof, but it leaked, wind could pass through it, the air moved freely, and it did not suffocate him.
The ground beneath his feet was solid too, not like the unstable metal floor of the bus that constantly swayed beneath him.
And there was still the string around his wrist.
The other end tugged steadily ahead of him, pull after pull, the rhythm even, the force neither too weak nor too strong, just enough for him to know where she was, how fast she walked, and when she turned.
Shen Qingqing cut through the crowd like a ship breaking waves. Her flip-flops slapped through dirty water as she passed the fish stalls, the tofu stalls, and mountains of stacked cabbages, heading straight for the deepest corner of the market.
The wholesale market had its own rules. The stalls closer to the entrance charged higher prices, while the deeper you went, the cheaper things became. The innermost row, right beside the public restroom and garbage collection area, sold nothing but scraps and leftovers: broken rice noodles, cracked eggs, ugly bean sprouts, and discounted goods left unsold at the end of the day.
In her previous life, Shen Qingqing had worked construction jobs. Every meal she ate had been scraped together from places like this.
She could tell which stalls were worth buying from and which ones should never be touched even with her eyes closed.
“Stand here. Don’t move.”
She pressed Huo Yan beside a concrete pillar and looped the red string around it once, not to tie him there, but to keep the crowd from separating them.
“I’m going ahead to check the goods. Lean against the pillar and wait for me. Two minutes.”
Huo Yan stayed silent, one hand in his pocket as he leaned against the pillar.
Shen Qingqing jogged to the third stall in the last row and crouched down beside a sack of dried rice noodles.
The noodles sat inside an open woven sack, pale white and looking decent enough.
She picked one up and rubbed it between her fingertips.
Snap! It broke cleanly like chalk into three pieces.
Shen Qingqing tossed the fragments back into the sack, dusted off her hands, and walked away.
Second stall.
The noodles were slightly yellow. She lifted a strand and sniffed it.
Sour!
She left immediately.
Third stall.
The noodles were white and thin, with elasticity. She twisted them between her fingers and they did not break. Only after bending them into an arc did they crack, fine fibers stretching from the fractured ends.
Shen Qingqing’s eyes lit up.
She glanced toward the stall owner behind the counter, a middle-aged man in a white tank top, his stomach bulging like a watermelon strapped to his body. He lounged there with one leg crossed over the other, scrolling through his phone while cracking sunflower seeds, the shells scattered all over the ground.
Shen Qingqing walked over and patted the woven sack.
“Boss, how much for these dried rice noodles?”
The man lazily lifted his eyelids. A sunflower seed shell shot out from the corner of his mouth as he looked her over, then glanced toward Huo Yan leaning by the pillar in the distance, his eyes clouded gray, his hand wrapped in bloody cloth, thin as a bamboo pole.
The man pocketed his phone and sat up straighter.
“Authentic early-season rice noodles. One-fifty a jin, no bargaining.”
Shen Qingqing did not answer.
She crouched again, grabbed a handful of noodles, spread them across her palm, sniffed them, then rubbed two strands between her fingertips.
After three rubs, she stood and tossed the noodles back into the sack.
“Boss.”
“Hm?”
“How much aged rice did you mix into this batch?”
The man’s crossed leg immediately dropped.
“What did you say?”
“I said you mixed aged rice into these noodles.” Shen Qingqing brushed powder off her fingers. “Fresh rice flour should be bluish white. Yours looks gray. Starch oxidizes when old rice sits too long, that’s why the color changed.”
She picked up another strand and snapped it in front of him.
“See the break? Fresh noodles snap with a smooth cross-section. Yours look grainy and uneven. Either you mixed in aged rice or tapioca starch. Tapioca’s cheap, right? Add it in and you bulk up the weight. One jin gains another couple liang for free.”
The man’s face darkened. He spat another sunflower shell onto the ground and slapped the sack.
“What’s with your mouth, little girl? Spreading rumors at my stall?”
“Then show me your inspection report.”
“Why should I show you? Are you buying or not? If not, get lost!”
Shen Qingqing stepped back and pulled out her phone.
“Fine, I won’t buy. But I already took pictures. Your packaging doesn’t even have a production date on it. I wonder whether the commerce bureau cares about stuff like this…”
“You!”
The man shot to his feet, belly thrust forward, towering a head above her.
“Who are you trying to scare?”
Shen Qingqing tilted her head up at him without backing down.
“Did I scare you? I’m just asking if the bureau handles this. If you’ve got nothing to hide, why panic over one phone call?”
The man’s eyes darted around.
Shen Qingqing’s phone screen was cracked, but still lit. Her finger hovered over the dial pad, thumb resting above the number one without pressing it.
They stared at each other down for five seconds.
The man caved first.
“Fine, fine. How much do you want?”
“Twenty jin.”
“One-twenty a jin. Lowest price.”
Shen Qingqing shoved the phone back into her pocket and planted her hands on her hips.
“Sixty cents.”
“Are you robbing me?”
“You mixed aged rice into this batch. Your cost probably isn’t even thirty cents. I’m already doubling your profit at sixty. If you won’t sell, I’ll ask next door.”
“The next stall mixes in even more than I do!”
“Then I’ve got even more reason to pay only sixty.”
The man opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He stared at her for two seconds, saw absolutely no trace of joking in her eyes, then finally gritted his teeth.
“Fine, sixty cents it is. Twenty jin, twelve yuan total. Cash only, no change.”
Shen Qingqing counted out twelve yuan from her pocket and slapped it onto the scale.
The man weighed out twenty jin of dried rice noodles, stuffed them into a snakeskin sack, and tossed it beside her feet.
“Go, go, quit blocking my stall.”
Shen Qingqing hoisted the sack onto her shoulder. Twenty jin pressed down hard enough to bend her knees slightly, but she clenched her teeth and held steady.
When she returned to the pillar, she dropped the sack at Huo Yan’s feet.
“First item secured.”
Huo Yan leaned against the pillar, head angled toward her.
He had heard everything.
Every single word.
The sound of her rubbing the noodles, the sound of her confronting the vendor, the way her speaking pace shifted from slow to fast and her volume rose little by little, the rhythm controlled with the precision of a card player laying out moves. First she revealed the flaw, then cornered the other side, then drove the knife in.
One-fifty reduced to sixty cents.
His thumb rubbed once inside his pocket.
At the Huo Corporation, he had negotiated procurement contracts worth billions. The largest single order totaled 3.7 billion yuan. He had sat inside a conference room, drank tea, signed papers, and kept price fluctuations within two-thousandths of a percent.
He had never known two people could argue like this over a bag of rice noodles worth a few cents.
Shen Qingqing gave him no time to process it.
She untied the red string from the pillar and dragged him toward the next stall.
Bean sprouts.
The vendor was a hunchbacked old man with three foam boxes in front of him: soybean sprouts, mung bean sprouts, and black bean sprouts.
Shen Qingqing crouched for three seconds before scooping up a handful of mung bean sprouts.
“Boss, how long have these been soaking?”
The old man squinted at her. “Started them last night. Fresh as can be.”
Shen Qingqing lifted the sprouts to her nose, then pinched the roots.
“Started last night? The roots already have whiskers growing. These are at least two days old. You’re selling two-day-old sprouts as fresh?”
The old man pursed his lips. “Then how much are you offering?”
“What’s your original price?”
“One yuan a jin.”
“Thirty cents.”
“Thirty cents? What do you think this is, cabbage?”
“These sprouts will wilt tomorrow. Once they wilt, they won’t sell for a single cent. At thirty cents you still profit. Tomorrow they’ll only end up in the trash.”
The old man slapped his fan against his thigh twice and gritted his teeth.
“Fifty cents. One cent less and I’d rather dump them.”
Shen Qingqing immediately stood and walked away.
After three steps, the old man shouted behind her.
“Forty! Forty works!”
Shen Qingqing turned around.
“Three jin for one-twenty. Got a scale?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Three jin of mung bean sprouts for one-twenty, packed into a plastic bag and stacked on top of the rice noodles.
Huo Yan stood nearby, listening carefully as she sparred with each vendor.
Her logic was brutally simple.
Find the flaw in the goods, grab the weak point, slash straight to the bottom line, and if they refuse, walk away. By the third step, they would always call her back.
She never gave up a single cent.
Buying eggs was even more outrageous.
A full crate weighed thirty jin. The vendor asked for five-fifty jin.
Shen Qingqing first picked up each egg one by one, holding them against the dim light filtering through the leaky roof. She selected four with hairline cracks and two with dark spots on the shells.
“Boss, there are six defective eggs in this crate. If I buy the whole thing, you either remove the bad ones or discount the price.”
“What’s wrong with those? A tiny crack doesn’t stop people from eating them!”
“Cracked eggs don’t keep. If they rot tomorrow, who do I return them to? You’re gonna write me a refund slip?”
The vendor was left speechless.
Shen Qingqing held up three fingers.
“I’ll take the whole crate for four-twenty a jin, and the six defective eggs come free. Otherwise I’ll buy from the stall across from you.”
“Four-twenty? Why don’t you just rob me?”
“The stall opposite sells for four. Want me to walk over there and ask?”
Shen Qingqing had already turned her foot toward the opposite stall.
The vendor panicked. “Four-fifty! Four-fifty, alright?”
“Four-thirty, plus the six defective eggs.”
“You really are…”
“Four-thirty.”
“Fine, fine!”
Grumbling curses under his breath, the vendor hauled the egg crate onto the scale. Thirty-two jin at four-thirty per jin totaled one hundred thirty-seven yuan and sixty cents.
Shen Qingqing did not have that much money.
She stood there holding the crate without moving, staring down at the numbers on the scale.
“Boss, what if I buy two crates at once?”
“Two crates?” The vendor perked up.
“What price would you give me?”
“For two crates… three-ninety a jin.”
“Deal. But I only brought enough cash for one crate today. I’ll pick up the second tomorrow and leave a deposit now.”
The vendor hesitated.
“Don’t worry, I won’t run. I’ll come back at the same time tomorrow. Your stall isn’t gonna grow legs and disappear. One crate at three-ninety means thirty-two jin for one hundred twenty-four eighty. Round it down to one hundred twenty-four.”
“Alright, alright. But you better come tomorrow.”
“Definitely.”
Shen Qingqing dug into her pockets for money.
She dug for a long time.
Wrinkled bills came out one by one, tens, fives, ones. She counted twice before finally scraping together one hundred twenty-four yuan.
Her pocket was empty.
She slapped the cash onto the scale, lowered the egg crate to the ground, then crouched to carefully retrieve the six defective eggs and tuck them into her T-shirt pocket.
When she stood again and tried to lift everything, thirty-two jin of eggs plus twenty jin of rice noodles plus three jin of bean sprouts proved too much.
“You carry the eggs for me.”
She walked over to Huo Yan and looped the rope handles of the egg crate around his wrist.
His fingers touched the woven cord. He lifted it, thirty-plus jin dragging against the wound beneath the cloth wrapping on his hand.
He said nothing and carried it.
Shen Qingqing led the way with the sack over her shoulder while the red string swayed between them.
Along the way she stopped at three more stalls.
Scallions, ginger, garlic. She bought them from an old woman packing up for the day. The woman asked for two yuan a bundle, but Shen Qingqing got three bundles for one-fifty and even received a small bag of dried chili peppers for free.
Her bargaining tactics shifted depending on the opponent.
Against crafty businessmen like the tank-top vendor, she used threats.
Against stubborn old men like the bean sprout seller, she walked away.
Against honest old ladies, she used conversation.
“Grandma, your scallions are so fresh. You grew them yourself, right? My man can’t see, I need to cook him something nutritious. Give me a cheaper price.”
Huo Yan carried the egg crate behind her, listening without pause.
Inside his head, calculations ran nonstop.
Rice noodles, original price one-fifty, final price sixty cents.
Bean sprouts, original price one yuan, final price forty cents.
Eggs, original price five-fifty, final price three-ninety.
Scallions, ginger, garlic, chilies, bundled together for one-fifty.
How much money had she left home with?
Fifty from selling bags, one hundred from Huo Yan, two-fifty she originally had, minus seventy-five for the tricycle repair, plus four yuan for bus fare.
Seventy-three fifty.
With only seventy-three yuan and fifty cents in cash, she had purchased at least one hundred forty yuan worth of goods.
She had doubled the purchasing power.
Huo Yan shifted the egg crate from one hand to the other, fingers rubbing against the woven cord.
A thought flashed through his mind.
The Huo Corporation procurement department handled over forty billion yuan annually. The procurement director earned eight million a year, supervised more than thirty employees, and alone claimed six million in travel expenses every year.
He had reviewed the last quarterly financial report himself. Procurement costs had exceeded the budget by seven percent.
Seven percent. Seven percent of forty billion was 2.8 billion yuan.
If they threw her into the procurement department…
Huo Yan’s throat moved as he swallowed the thought back down.
Ridiculous!
Was he seriously considering letting a woman who fought over thirty cents in a vegetable market manage forty billion yuan in procurement?
And yet beneath all the street-market chaos, her negotiation strategy was fundamentally the same.
Information asymmetry, psychological pressure, alternative options, package bargaining, installment payments to lock in long-term low pricing.
Everything business schools taught, she used too, except textbooks explained it in English while she said things like, “You mixed aged rice into these noodles, didn’t you?”
Shen Qingqing finally stopped beside a faucet, dropping the sack to the ground as she bent over and caught her breath.
The back of her T-shirt was soaked through, clinging to her spine. The woven sack straps had left two red marks on her shoulders, visible above her collar.
“What are we still missing?” Huo Yan’s voice drifted from behind her.
Shen Qingqing straightened and pulled out her phone to check the ingredient list from the guide.
Dried rice noodles, check.
Eggs, check.
Bean sprouts, check.
Scallions, ginger, garlic, chilies, check.
Only one thing remained. Her eyes fixed on the final line of the list as she tapped the screen twice.
Pork cracklings.
The guide labeled it as the core seasoning, the soul of the S-rank recipe. Without pork cracklings, the texture of the fried noodles would drop two entire levels, and the rage-calming effect would be cut in half.
Shen Qingqing dug through her pocket.
Five yuan.
One crumpled five-yuan bill, plus sixty cents in coins the egg vendor had given back earlier.
Five-sixty. She looked deeper into the market.
The butcher stalls sat at the farthest end. Butchers in greasy aprons hacked at chopping blocks with cleavers, sending bits of bone and meat flying everywhere.
Pork cracklings were not expensive, but they would not be dirt cheap either.
Back in her previous life, the meat stalls near construction sites sold them for anywhere between three to five yuan a jin.
Wholesale markets should be cheaper.
Shen Qingqing clenched the five-sixty in her hand and walked toward the meat stall.
The butcher’s cleaver slammed into the chopping block with a heavy thunk. Grease glinted along the blade as he looked up at Shen Qingqing approaching, then at Huo Yan behind her carrying the egg crate.
“What’re you buying?”
“Got pork cracklings?”
“Yeah.” The butcher pointed his knife toward a basin piled with golden-brown crispy bits. “Freshly fried this morning. Eight yuan a jin.”
Eight yuan.
Shen Qingqing’s fingers tightened around the five yuan and sixty cents in her pocket, nails digging into the paper bill.
“Cheaper.”
“Eight’s already wholesale price. Outside they sell for twelve.”
“I want two jin.”
“That’ll be sixteen.”
Shen Qingqing stood silently in front of the chopping block, lips pressed together.
She only had five-sixty. Still short by ten-forty.
The butcher’s cleaver hacked down again, sending bone fragments flying against her feet. She did not move.
“Little girl, buying or not? If not, move aside, there are people behind you.”
Shen Qingqing glanced back.
Huo Yan stood three steps away holding the egg crate, head tilted slightly, expression unreadable.
The red string hung between their wrists. One of the dried scallion skins tied to it had already blown away in the wind. Only one remained, swaying as though it might fall at any moment.
Five-sixty.
Still short by ten-forty.
She inhaled slowly, pulled the money from her pocket, clenched it in her palm, and stepped forward.