At the intersection beneath the overpass, the road surface, worn out from years of neglect, was once riddled with potholes. Drivers who frequented this route would instinctively steer around the sunken manhole covers to avoid scraping the undercarriage of their cars. After the summer rains, the eroded roadbed, repeatedly crushed by heavy vehicles, became even more bumpy and unbearable.
Last week, the intersection was repaved with fresh asphalt, the depressions were filled, and a new crosswalk was painted at the widest point.
Previously, this bustling intersection had no crosswalk to speak of. Perhaps one had been planned initially, but it had vanished through years of wear and tear. As a result, during the morning and evening rush hours, people crossed the road without its constraints. Whenever there was a gap in traffic, they would swarm across.
Now, with the new crosswalk in place, pedestrians have to wait for the traffic light behind the stone bollards at the end of the line. The intersection is so wide that the green light is just long enough for someone to cross at a brisk pace. If you were an elderly woman with slow steps, you might only be halfway across when the light turned red.
Consequently, when these grannies wait for the light, they step over the curb, moving past the starting line of the crosswalk and crowding forward until they occupy nearly half a lane of the road. Only from this vantage point do they stand a chance of making it across safely when the light turns green.
At the other end of the intersection, waiting for ninety seconds under the exposed, blazing sun is a torment. No one wants to “stand in punishment” under the sun. During the morning hours when the sun beats down mercilessly on this spot, people often choose to take a detour through two other intersections under the overpass, even if it means walking a longer distance.
After half-past ten in the morning, the crowd at “Dehua Lou” for breakfast thinned out considerably. A little boy, stepping on his mother’s dress, climbed onto a long bench and played a game with himself on all fours. In his mother’s hand was a small bowl of hot dry noodles that had become stiff and dry. The boy took one bite fed to him by his mother, then lay back on the bench, using his fingernails to dig out tiny stones from the crevices of his shoe soles. His mother was discussing with her husband where they could go this week.
“Liu Qiang and the others are in Shandong. It’s raining over there.” “I checked the weather forecast. It’s going to rain in Lijiang in a couple of days too.” “And that godforsaken place, Hainan, it rains every few hours. It never stays dry.”
The mother turned her head and saw her son picking at his shoes. Her temper flared. With a clatter, she threw down her chopsticks. “Are you going to eat or not? If you don’t, I’m throwing it out!” “You’re so loud, you scared me!” the child shouted shrilly, slapping the table. “You think I enjoy feeding you? Look at the state of you!” “I’m not eating!”
Her husband, sitting across the table, shoveled the last mouthful of fried rice from his bowl and set down his utensils. The mother began to complain about her unreliable friends, blaming them for recommending food that gave her child diarrhea. A woman at the next table, with one foot propped on her stool, commented on her daughter’s friend, “A real sháo (idiot).”
The husband uncrossed his legs, picked up his phone, and stood up to leave. The child quickly scrambled down from the chair and ran to grab his father’s clothes. The father ruffled the boy’s hair and said, “So you do know to be scared of being left alone.”
The table was a mess: a used tissue lay on an uneaten soup dumpling, the small bowl held leftover noodles, and an empty drink cup sat beside them. After the customers left, a young waitress came over to clear the table. She efficiently dumped the leftover food and disposable tableware into a bin, swept the surface with a cloth, and straightened the chairs. The table was clean again, waiting for the next guest.
Tian Meili bought a pound of frozen roasted chestnuts at the Wanda Plaza in Lingjiao Lake, three bus stops away from her home. The shop was on the exterior of the mall, and under the glare of the sun, there were hardly any customers. More than half of the street-facing shops had their roller shutters down. There were no “For Rent” signs on the doors; perhaps the owners had simply chosen to escape the heat at home during the hottest season.
The mall’s underground parking garage, which used to be so full on weekdays that you had to go down to the second basement level to find a spot, was now largely empty even on the first level. The sparse lighting made it seem all the more dim and deserted.
It had been a long time since Lin Song had felt so famished and faint; he probably had low blood sugar. For breakfast, he’d had only a bowl of hot dry noodles and a pack of small corn buns to eat on the go. It wasn’t until three in the afternoon that he bought a beef and tomato omurice from a convenience store next to his client’s office, but he never found the time to eat it. The combination of low blood sugar and mild heatstroke was indeed making his head spin.
For dinner, he made do with a bowl of congee, a steamed bun, three pieces of chocolate, and a bottle of Yakult. He was finally recovering. He poured a small dish of fried peanuts and opened a 330ml can of Budweiser. The day’s toil was, at last, over.