Before the sound of car doors opening had even reached the end of the alley, the entrance to the lane had already exploded into chaos.
“The chengguan(urban management officers) are here! Run!”
No one knew who shouted first, but the voice was sharp enough to shake loose roof tiles. The entire night market on Shizi Street erupted like an overturned anthill, every vendor moving at once.
The old man selling grilled cold noodles slammed the iron griddle onto his tricycle cart, twisted the handlebars, and pedaled away without looking back. The young girl selling tanghulu hoisted the bamboo pole over her shoulder and darted through the back door of a roadside mahjong parlor. Two middle-aged women selling socks exchanged a glance, one grabbing an armful of merchandise while the other dragged a woven sack behind her, the plastic scraping sparks across the ground as they fled in opposite directions.
The fastest person there was the vendor next door.
The fat landlady.
Shen Qingqing saw it with her own eyes.
That two-hundred-pound woman kicked over her own oil pot with one foot, boiling oil splashing across the pavement with a violent hiss, and she did not even spare it a glance. Both hands seized the handles of her fried skewer cart, her waist sank, her legs drove forward, and she shot off with the cart as though they were a single unit. She moved so fast the wheels carved two black streaks across the concrete, her silhouette stretching sideways beneath the streetlights like a blurred shadow.
Three seconds.
Three seconds earlier, the fat landlady had still been on the phone filing a complaint. Three seconds later, she had vanished around the corner of the alley, leaving behind only the scorched smell of spilled oil and peanut shells scattered all over the ground.
Shen Qingqing froze for a second.
Only one second. Then she turned toward the three thugs sprawled on the ground.
The knife-wielding one reacted first. The switchblade snapped shut with a click and disappeared behind his waist. He bent down, grabbed the short, stocky thug covered in tattoos off the ground, slung the man’s arm over his shoulder, and dragged him into the dark side alley. The tattooed thug’s left leg trailed limply behind him, his knee unable to bend, the tip of his shoe scraping across the concrete with harsh scratching sounds as muffled curses leaked from his throat.
“Damn bad luck… fuck… I’ll kill you two another day…”
The one holding the steel rod tossed it toward the base of the wall. The stainless steel pipe bounced twice before rolling into the drainage ditch, and he turned to follow the other two into the darkness. Their footsteps faded deeper and deeper into the alley until the sound was swallowed by the approaching sirens.
The flashing red and blue lights at the mouth of the alley grew brighter. Car doors slammed open and shut. Someone was shouting through a loudspeaker, the amplified voice buzzing indistinctly in the night air, but Shen Qingqing understood the tone perfectly.
Inspect the stalls. Check permits. Confiscate equipment.
She looked down at her setup.
The wok still sat on the stove, the cooking oil untouched, the gas valve still open, blue flames licking the bottom of the pan. The folding table had overturned, paper bowls were scattered everywhere, the soy sauce bottle lay shattered, and the basin of rice noodles rested crookedly atop a snakeskin sack.
She could not pack any of it away. None of it.
She twisted the gas valve shut, extinguishing the fire.
Then she spun around, crouched, and shoved both hands beneath the stove to drag out the metal cash box. The lid hung open, banknotes and coins scattered all over the ground from when the thug had thrown it earlier. She knelt to pick them up, fingers scraping against the concrete, her fingernail cracking painfully against the edge of a coin and making her hiss.
Five yuan, ten yuan. A fistful of coins. One twenty-yuan bill.
No time to count.
She stuffed everything she managed to gather back into the box, tucked it against her chest beneath the hem of her T-shirt, and clamped both arms around it.
The loudspeaker was closer now. Footsteps too. The beam of a flashlight swept across the alley wall, cutting a white streak through the damp bricks.
Shen Qingqing turned toward Huo Yan.
He was still standing there.
Both arms hung at his sides, his back perfectly straight, no emotion visible beneath those sunglasses. Like a stake hammered into the ground.
“Why are you still standing there?!”
Her voice exploded out of her, cracking halfway through the shout. She rushed over and grabbed Huo Yan’s wrist, tugging hard on the red nylon cord still tied there.
“Run!”
Huo Yan staggered from the pull, his body pitching forward half a step.
“Run where?”
“Anywhere there aren’t people!”
Shen Qingqing clenched his wrist in her left hand while her right reached for the tricycle handles. The cart still sat beside the stall, half a sack of unused rice noodles and two bundles of bean sprouts piled inside. Her fingertips brushed the cold metal handlebar, but sweat slicked her palm and she lost her grip.
“The cart! We have to take the cart too!”
“You’re insane.” Huo Yan’s voice remained flat and even. “Leave it.”
“Leave my ass! That thing cost me seventy-five yuan!”
She grabbed the handlebars again, fingers locking tight, thumb pressing against the brake cable as she twisted the front wheel around.
“That seventy-five yuan cost me half my life. I’d rather die than abandon it!”
Without waiting for his answer, she dragged him toward the far end of the alley.
Her left hand pulled him along while her right shoved the cart forward.
The tricycle wheels rolled through spilled soy sauce and shattered glass with loud crunching noises, the chain squealing harshly as it turned. The sack of rice noodles slid toward the edge of the cart with every jolt, bean sprouts spilling from a tear in the bag and leaving a green trail behind them.
The alleys of the urban village were narrow, old brick walls pressing close on both sides with peeling plaster exposing gray cement beneath. Electrical wires sagged low overhead, some close enough to touch if you raised your hand. The road was uneven and full of potholes, puddles littered with cigarette butts and plastic bags.
Shen Qingqing ran in flimsy slippers, the strap on her right sandal coming loose and slipping lower with every step. She had to grip it with her toes, making her run crookedly.
“Go left!”
Her voice was already hoarse, each word forced out through ragged breaths.
“There’s a corner up ahead. Past it is the residential area. Chengguan vehicles can’t get through there!”
Huo Yan let himself be dragged along behind her.
His steps were unstable. When he stepped on a raised manhole cover, his ankle twisted and his body lurched sideways, but Shen Qingqing’s grip tightened instantly and yanked his balance back.
“Careful! There’s a pothole there!”
Her voice came urgently and loudly, every word bursting straight from her chest.
Huo Yan said nothing.
He stumbled clumsily, his left foot clipping his right heel, nearly stepping on his own shoelaces twice. His shoulder slammed into a rusted pipe sticking from the wall, smearing reddish rust across his sleeve.
He looked like he was struggling badly.
At least on the surface.
In reality, from the moment the sirens sounded at the alley entrance, his brain had already completed an acoustic model of the entire escape route. The echoes rebounding off the walls told him there was a side passage one-point-two meters wide to the left, a garbage bin three meters to the right, and a four-centimeter drop in the pavement exactly eleven steps ahead.
His ears tilted subtly in the night wind, capturing every sound behind them.
The footsteps of the chengguan. Two people. Rubber-soled shoes. Stable pace. Not chasing very aggressively, focused instead on clearing away the stalls.
The loudspeaker had stopped. The flashlight beams had not followed them.
There was no need to run this fast.
But Shen Qingqing did not know that.
She ran desperately, gasping so hard it sounded like she would collapse at any second. Sweat soaked her palms, and twice her grip slipped on his wrist. Each time it did, she only grabbed him harder, her fingernails digging crescent marks into the inside of his skin.
She was afraid of losing him.
The corner of Huo Yan’s mouth shifted slightly.
He could have told her the chengguan were not pursuing them.
But he did not.
Instead, he deliberately made his steps even messier, slamming his shoulder into the wall once more with a dull thud.
“Huo Yan! Are you okay?!”
Shen Qingqing instantly turned around, slowing half a step. The force in her grip changed from pulling to supporting, her fingers sliding from the outside of his wrist to the inside, cradling the pulse beneath his skin.
“I’m fine.” His voice carried rough, heavy breaths, each inhale sounding strained. “Slow down. I can’t keep up.”
“You have to keep up even if you can’t!”
Her slipper finally flew completely off her foot, leaving her bare right sole slapping against the concrete. A sharp pebble stabbed into her foot, making pain shoot into her teeth, but she never stopped running.
“If you fall, I’ll carry you, but right now keep moving!”
Her left hand dragged his wrist forward while her right shoved the tricycle into an even narrower alley. Residential buildings lined both sides, their rear walls crowded with air conditioning units dripping condensation onto the slick ground below.
One of the tricycle wheels jammed against a raised floor tile. Shen Qingqing shoved hard once without moving it, then shoved again. The cart slammed into the wall with a metallic bang.
“Fuck!”
She cursed under her breath, released Huo Yan’s wrist, grabbed the handlebars with both hands, and yanked upward. The front wheel bounced over the obstacle. Immediately, she caught his wrist again and kept running.
During the half second she let go, Huo Yan’s fingers curled slightly.
Then relaxed again.
When she grabbed him once more, his palm subtly turned two degrees toward her hand, making it easier for her fingers to lock around him securely.
Shen Qingqing never noticed.
Her attention was fixed entirely on the ground ahead and the sounds behind them.
Footsteps echoed through the alley behind them.
Not the rubber soles of the chengguan.
Rubber slippers.
Slap, slap, slap!
An uneven rhythm, one fast, one slow, mixed with the dragging scrape of something being hauled along.
Huo Yan’s ear tilted half a degree.
Three people.
One of them was being supported, his foot dragging across the ground. The short tattooed thug. Huo Yan recognized the sound immediately, the grinding friction of dislocated bone and cartilage against concrete carrying a distinct frequency.
The knife wielder walked on the left, fast steps, center of gravity pitched forward, minimal arm swing, right hand pressed behind his waist.
The one with the rod walked on the right, heavy footsteps, landing first on the outer edge of his foot. Left-handed.
They had not gone far at all. They had circled around and intercepted them from the other side.
The chengguan were clearing the rear.
The thugs were cutting in from the flank.
Forty meters left until the residential exit.
Thirty-five, thirty.
Huo Yan’s thumb pressed against the red cord tied around his wrist, rubbing slowly over the knot.
His other hand hung at his side, fingers gradually spreading open. He remembered the exact position of the bamboo chopstick in his pocket, the sharpened tip pointing upward against the outside of his thigh.
Pull it out. Grip it in reverse.
Wait until the footsteps from the side alley came three meters closer. The knife wielder would emerge first, arm lifting between seventy and eighty degrees.
The chopstick would thrust upward into the radial artery at the wrist, pierce through, twist forty-five degrees, then pull free.
Zero point eight seconds.
The second thug’s reaction time would range between one-point-two and one-point-five seconds. More than enough time for him to switch targets.
His fingers touched the fabric of his pocket.
Then his right foot struck something.
Hard. Thick. Raised three centimeters above the ground with sharp edges. A broken slab of concrete.
The instant his toes smashed against it, the impact shot through his ankle, the joint twisting inward by fifteen degrees.
Under normal circumstances, his cerebellum would complete balance correction in zero-point-zero-three seconds.
But he was pretending to be blind.
A blind man terrified out of his mind, stumbling helplessly while running.
If his body made a perfectly precise balance adjustment at this moment, if his spine compensated, if his center of gravity shifted smoothly, if his knees absorbed the force naturally, then every act he had maintained on the bus, at the food stall, in front of everyone these past days, would be destroyed instantly.
His upper body was already pitching forward.
His center of gravity tipped past his toes.
Wind roared past his ears as the damp smell of the ground rushed toward his face.
His hand still hovered beside his pocket.
The chopstick remained inside.
Then Shen Qingqing’s hand, the one gripping his wrist, changed.
From pulling to yanking.
The red nylon cord stretched to its limit, cutting deep into both their wrists, the knot giving a faint creak as the fibers strained toward snapping.
“Huo Yan!”
Her voice exploded above his head.