The night market at Cross Street began to smoke to life at six in the evening.
By the time Shen Qingqing pedaled her tricycle into the alley, a thick layer of grease and smoke had already coated the air.
The scent of charcoal from barbecue stalls, the spicy broth of malatang, and the scorched aroma of grilled squid twisted together and poured into her nose, making her sneeze.
Her tricycle squeezed through the narrow gaps between stalls. On the left, a cart selling liangpi blocked half the path, while on the right, a griddle for grilled cold noodles jutted into the road. Shen Qingqing swerved the handlebars, nearly crashing into someone’s sauce bucket.
“Move, move, move!”
No one moved.
She had looked up the rules of the night market before coming. First come, first served. No fixed spots. Whoever arrived early got the best location.
She finished preparing all the ingredients at two in the afternoon, left at three, pedaled for forty minutes to reach Cross Street.
It was already 6:15, too late.
The prime spots along both sides of the street were taken, even the second row was packed. Shen Qingqing rode from one end of the street to the other, then back again, her head turning left and right like a fan.
“Is there really no space left?” she muttered.
“There is.”
Huo Yan’s voice drifted from the back of the tricycle, flat and steady.
“You can see it?” she blurted, then choked on her own words. “No, wait… you can smell it?”
“Ammonia. The smell of decomposed urea. Southeast direction. Increasing concentration.”
Shen Qingqing rode fifty meters southeast and stopped.
A public toilet.
A makeshift dry latrine made of sheet metal squatted in the dead corner of the alley. Half the door was missing, and the fluorescent light inside flickered pale and unstable. The air carried a stench strong enough to knock someone over, forming a hellish contrast with the rich aromas of food drifting from the market.
Three meters to the left of the toilet entrance was an empty patch of ground.
A square about three meters wide, still marked with dirty water stains left by the previous vendor, with flies circling above them.
The only empty spot on the entire street.
Shen Qingqing stood there for five seconds, staring at the metal toilet, then turned to glance at Huo Yan in the back of the tricycle.
He wore the pair of sunglasses she had bought that afternoon for three yuan from a street stall. The cheap black plastic frame sat on his nose, covering his blind eyes completely. Under the streetlight, the shadow of his sharp jawline fell across his collarbone. Even dressed in the cheapest T-shirt and sitting in a rusted tricycle, his face did not belong in a place like this.
“We’ll take it.” Shen Qingqing slapped the side of the tricycle.
Huo Yan’s nostrils flared slightly, but he said nothing.
“I know it smells bad,” she said as she began unloading the iron wok, the bottom hitting the ground with a heavy thud. “Bear with it. It’s the first day. Having a place at all is already something.”
She carried down the stove, the wok, spatulas, seasoning bottles, and the bucket of rice noodles, arranging them one by one on the small square of space. When she lifted the gas tank, her back twinged, but she gritted her teeth and dragged it into place beneath the stove, connecting the pipe and turning the valve.
With a whoosh, a blue flame burst to life, lighting half her face.
“Good, it works.”
She pulled out a small folding stool from the bottom of the tricycle and snapped it open beside it.
“Sit here.” She grabbed Huo Yan’s wrist, pulled him down from the tricycle, and pressed him onto the stool.
The stool wobbled slightly when he sat, his body tilting half an inch before steadying, his back still straight.
Under the streetlight, half his face was illuminated, the other half in shadow, the lenses of his sunglasses reflecting the glow of nearby stalls.
A middle-aged woman passing by slowed her steps, her eyes lingering on Huo Yan’s face. She tugged at her companion’s sleeve and whispered something. The companion glanced back, mouth slightly open, both of them pointing subtly in his direction before hurrying away.
Shen Qingqing ignored them and bent down to adjust the gas pipe.
“Hey!”
A voice exploded from the neighboring stall.
She straightened and looked to her left.
It was a fried skewer stall with a two-meter-long oil fryer, golden meat skewers and rice cakes bubbling in the oil. The owner was a broad, heavyset middle-aged woman, her apron stained like camouflage with grease. She held a pair of long chopsticks, squinting sideways at Shen Qingqing.
“Who are you? New here?” the woman asked, pointing with her chopsticks.
“Yeah, first day.”
The woman’s gaze slid from Shen Qingqing to Huo Yan, pausing briefly on his sunglasses, then on the bandages wrapped around his hand.
“Oh?” She grinned, revealing a gold tooth. “Bringing a blind guy out to sell misery, huh? Even begging has gotten fancy these days.”
Shen Qingqing’s hand froze on the gas valve.
“What did you say?”
“I said—” the woman raised her voice, flipping skewers in the oil, dragging out her tone, “your man there can’t see, right? And his hands are bandaged too. You put him in front of your stall so people feel sorry and buy more, don’t you? I’ve been selling here for three years, I’ve seen every trick in the book—”
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Three sharp strikes.
The metal ladle hit the wok, the sound crisp and piercing, making even the lightbulbs across the street tremble.
Shen Qingqing stood up straight, gripping the ladle, facing the woman head-on, her spine straighter than the spatula in her hand.
“Shut your filthy mouth.”
Her voice was not especially loud, nor fast.
“I make a living with my skills. I don’t need to sell pity.” She spun the ladle once, its base pointing toward the woman. “If you think your skewers can sell on their own merit, mind your own pot. Say one more word and I’ll wash your mouth with hot oil. Try me.”
The gold tooth flashed again. The woman opened her mouth, then closed it.
She stared at Shen Qingqing for three seconds. Shen Qingqing did not blink, her grip on the ladle tight, knuckles pale.
“Tch.” The woman rolled her eyes and turned back to her fryer, muttering under her breath about “crazy” and “poor but arrogant,” her voice low enough not to carry.
Shen Qingqing slammed the ladle back onto the wok with a clang.
She took a deep breath, her chest still rising and falling, then glanced toward Huo Yan.
He sat on the stool, posture unchanged, hands resting on his knees. The sunglasses hid his expression.
But the corner of his mouth moved.
Barely! A fleeting curve.
“What are you smiling at?” Shen Qingqing put her hands on her hips.
“I’m not.”
“I saw your mouth move.”
“My lips were dry. I licked them.”
She shot him a glare, though he couldn’t see it, then turned back to set up the wok. She turned up the flame and poured in oil.
The pork lard hit the pan with a sizzle, the rich aroma rising into the air, clashing head-on with the stench drifting from the toilet.
The two scents battled, neither winning.
Shen Qingqing wiped the sweat from her forehead, standing before the wok, spatula in hand, eyes fixed on the alley entrance.
People came and went.
Footsteps approached, passed by her stall without slowing, heading straight for others. Occasionally someone glanced her way, only to wrinkle their nose at the toilet behind her and walk faster.
Ten minutes passed. Her wok was hot, but she hadn’t cooked the first portion.
Twenty minutes passed. Plenty of people walked by, but not one stopped.
Thirty minutes passed.
The oil in the wok had been reheated three times. Shen Qingqing kept stirring the empty pan, flipping nothing but air.
Across from her, the grilled cold noodle stall had already served seven or eight orders. The fried skewer stall next door had a small line forming, the woman loudly calling out deals while oil crackled loudly.
In front of Shen Qingqing’s stall, there was nothing.
Not even a fly bothered to wander over, circling instead near the toilet.
She gripped the spatula, her palm sweating, making the handle slippery.
A gust of wind blew from the direction of the toilet, the stench hitting her full in the face.
“Ugh.” She gagged slightly, covering her nose with her sleeve.
From the stool, Huo Yan spoke.
“Half an hour.” Shen Qingqing bit her lip and said nothing.
“Not a single customer?”
Her spatula knocked softly against the edge of the wok.
“…It’s still early. The peak won’t start until eight.”
Her voice rose slightly, but lacked conviction.
Huo Yan tilted his head slightly toward the toilet.
“Can you smell it?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“This location,” he said evenly, “has ammonia levels exceeding normal within a five-meter radius. Any food aroma gets suppressed. No matter how fragrant your noodles are, the smell is overwhelming after three meters.”
Her spatula dropped slightly, tapping the wok with a clear note.
She glanced at the metal toilet, then back at her empty stall.
The neighboring vendor’s voice floated over again, oily with mockery. “How’s business, newbie? Want me to send a couple of customers your way?”
Shen Qingqing ignored her.
She glanced at her phone.
7:03 PM!
The money left in her pocket was just enough for tonight’s gas and tomorrow’s rice noodles. If she sold nothing tonight, there would be no breakfast tomorrow, and no rent the day after.
Wang Guihua’s grace period had two days left.
Standing in the clash between toilet stench and pork fat aroma, Shen Qingqing had only one thought.
She had to pull people in.
But how?
She looked down at the heated oil in the wok, then at the steady flow of people at the alley entrance. The surface of the oil reflected her face, sweat, grease, stray hair blown loose, and reddened eyes.
Her thumb pressed against her phone screen. The interface of “Food and Medicine Share the Same Origin · Culinary Compendium” was still lit, the S-grade recipe icon flickering in the corner.
A line of text popped up.
[Prompt: After activating an S-grade recipe, aroma diffusion radius can reach 15 meters. Start cooking now?]
Shen Qingqing stared at the words, her eyes shifting slightly.
She lifted her head and looked toward the dense crowd fifteen meters away.
The spatula struck the edge of the wok again.