Yang Sisi's car hadn't even arrived yet when she started honking her horn from a distance. As she got a little closer, she rolled down her window and waved at me. I then walked towards her and asked, "How did you find this place?"
"I can't tell you that, but now that I've found you, you have to accept the consequences of your bet."
I chuckled to myself, secretly hoping she would walk right into my trap. I replied, "It's fine if you don't want to tell me, but you'd better not make any unreasonable demands."
Yang Sisi hesitated for a moment, then said, "You'll have to treat me to a meal later, and then come with me to set up a street stall in the ancient city this afternoon..."
"Street vending! Kid, who forced you to this?"
Yang Sisi looked at me with a worried expression and replied, "Can you stop making sarcastic remarks? Don't you know who's 'forcing' me? Besides, there's nothing shameful about setting up a street stall. It allows me to experience society directly and is a way to immerse myself in the front lines of life. You can see the good and the bad at a glance."
"Come on, you're making setting up a street stall sound like a monumental achievement!"
Yang Sisi smiled awkwardly.
I asked again, "So, what do you want to sell at your street stall?"
Yang Sisi opened the trunk of the car and said to me, "A friend of mine sells ethnic clothing in the old town. Yesterday, she went to Thailand with her friends and gave me these clothes. She said I could get a 20 yuan commission for each item I sold. I thought it was a good deal, but I also heard that there are a lot of urban management officers in the old town who keep catching us small vendors, so I was thinking of finding someone to help me."
"If I help you with this, it would be considered a gang crime!"
"You twist the meaning of your words as soon as they get in your mouth? This is clearly teamwork, okay? If I were to carry all these clothes by myself, I'd definitely get caught. With you joining my team, it's a different story. With those long legs of yours, if you don't do some petty thievery, you'd be letting your parents down for giving birth to such a wonderful person like you!"
Can I spit in your face?
Yang Sisi was so startled that she leaned back, covered her face with her hands, and replied, "How can you be so disgusting? We're all from Shanghai, just consider it support for my startup!"
...
In a tiny noodle shop in the old town, she ate egg noodles, and I ate shredded pork noodles—it was incredibly shabby. I finally couldn't hold back and said, "Why would you give up being a proper rich lady and insist on coming to Dali to live such a degrading life?"
“I feel like I’d be living a humiliating life in Shanghai! Last time, some classmates threw a party, but it was really just a personal show. I was carrying a 300-yuan bag, and someone said to me: ‘Sisi, when you’re out socializing, you can’t carry such a cheap bag. If you don’t have money, just tell me, and I’ll lend you one. I have so many different kinds.’”
I smiled, and Yang Sisi continued, "I can't stand people making sarcastic remarks about me. When I got angry, I took my dad's card and bought a Hermes bag. On the surface, I felt smug. But when I think about it carefully, I'm not much different from those people. They're hypocritical and materialistic, and I'm just a rich kid who relies on my parents for status. In essence, we're all parasites that contribute nothing to society. So after that, I hated that circle even more! I really want to find a comfortable place to live the life I like, and Dali is pretty good."
After Yang Sisi finished speaking, she put a spoonful of millet pepper into her noodle bowl with a sense of satisfaction and asked, "I've asked you so many times, but you still won't tell me why you want to leave Shanghai?"
"There is no hope."
"Ninety percent of people from other places in Shanghai see no hope, and very few actually leave. This is definitely not the real reason you left."
I put down my chopsticks and looked at Yang Sisi, who was also looking at me expectantly. I didn't want to talk to anyone about Lu Jia or Wang Lei; I just wanted to bury their tragedy deep in my heart and turn it into motivation to live well.
Yang Sisi finally lost her patience, waved her hand, and said, "Hey, you're really boring. Don't suffocate yourself with too many worries!" After saying that, she gave me a disdainful look, and then poked the noodle bowl twice with her chopsticks as if venting her frustration.
...
In the ancient city, there are so many vendors selling ethnic costumes that you can see one every fifty meters, all trying to make a living. In less than an hour, we had already been chased away by the urban management officers twice, and finally escaped to National Highway 214. This is not a place to do business, so no one cares about us there.
Yang Sisi and I sat under the shade of a tree. She wasn't discouraged at all. While fanning herself with her hand, she said, "Although those city management officers made me feel very undignified, at least I still sold two sets of clothes. Hehe, I made a net profit of 40 yuan!"
I glanced at her and replied, "Go to the convenience store across the street and buy me a bottle of water. I'm dying of thirst."
"This is hard-earned money! Can you please stop being so extravagant?!"
"Give me some; it contains my blood and sweat too."
Yang Sisi clutched the loose change to her chest and replied with a miserly air, "You wish! You only came to help me sell clothes because you lost the bet, and have you even helped me promote the clothes all this time? How dare you ask for a commission!"
"I may not have made any great contributions, but I'm sure I've put in a lot of effort. How about I buy you a bottle of water?"
"No, next time you go out, bring your own water. Don't waste my hard work."
"There won't be a next time. It's better if we never see each other again. I've found that as soon as I get involved with you, I'm doomed!"
Just as Yang Sisi and I were arguing, Tie Nan rode his unlicensed motorcycle out of the intersection and bumped into me. He wasn't surprised at all; I guessed he was just an old hand who spent his days wandering around the old city.
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