Chapter 4

The look on a person's face can't lie.

A buzz of muttering ran through the crowd, and plenty of people eyed the stall owner with suspicion.

For a moment, everyone's attention was fixed on my phone.

I was pulling up my past payment records to compare them with today's when a line of text suddenly popped up at the bottom of the screen:

"Please connect to power soon, or the device will shut down within 60 seconds."

That was when I remembered I'd been running around all day and hadn't had a chance to charge my phone. I'd meant to grab dinner and charge it slowly once I got home, but I'd gotten held up.

No time to fret over it. I made a snap decision, opened WeChat, and sent a message out.

The old man had a little more nerve than the stall owner, and he kept pushing. "Hurry it up. You're not hiding something, are you?"

I held up my phone openly. "My phone's dead. Please be patient and wait a moment—it'll all be clear soon enough!"

The old man let out a big breath of relief and immediately went back on the attack. "So you're gonna keep putting this off day after day? No proof is no proof. Quit dragging this out and wasting everyone's trust. Turns out you're nothing but a paper tiger!"

The stall owner recovered her composure too, wanting to seize the chance to smooth the big things into small ones and the small ones into nothing. She put on a tolerant expression. "Young people are under a lot of pressure and want to blow off steam after work. That's understandable enough. But I'm just a small vendor. I make my living on my skill and my honesty..."

She clapped her hands together as if struck by sudden inspiration. "How about this, young lady—you apologize to me, say you shouldn't have thrown mud on my name, and the rest of us will let it go."

The old man glanced to the side and chimed in. "Put yourself in someone else's shoes! If you've got any sense of public decency, apologize and we'll let you go! We won't hold you responsible!"

"No."

The old man's eyebrows shot up. "Don't refuse a favor when you're offered one!"

"First you slander someone with your bare word, then you fabricate evidence out of thin air. Everyone here has been waiting patiently—they're not here to play house with you. All these people's time and energy—can you afford to pay for it?"

I rapped the tin edge of the stall and said steadily, "One is one, two is two. I stand behind every word I've said."

"The evidence that the stall owner sets her prices however she pleases really is on my phone. I just can't show it right now."

"There's one more thing. I originally wanted to speak with the stall owner privately and ask if there'd been a misunderstanding, but since you all want an explanation this badly, let's just let everyone here be the judge."

"Rachel's duck-leg noodles have never used duck legs—they use chicken legs!"

The stall owner swayed and nearly lost her footing.

"Before, I only suspected it, and I never had time to confirm. But today the proof is laid out right in my face, and I can't look away."

"The stall owner sold me a bowl of duck-leg noodles for eight dollars today, so she's still turning a profit. Eight dollars can't even buy a duck leg, let alone a whole bowl of noodles on top of it, which means she has to save on something somewhere."

The stall owner raised her voice, all bluster. "I sell you a cheap bowl because you've been out all day, and now even that's wrong?!"

I gave a faint smile. "If you don't have the character for it, don't go gilding your own face."

I waved everyone in closer. "I don't have much experience, but everyone here is a real hand at farm work. Give me some pointers—look at the size of this 'leg,' the bones, the shape. Is it chicken or duck?"

An old woman in reading glasses studied it for a long moment, then spoke up first. "Chicken leg, no mistake about it, chicken leg! This duck leg doesn't even have the duck's spur. It only fools city folk."

An old man beside her slapped his thigh. "You said it! Duck legs never have grain this fine!"

The others jumped in with their own opinions, and in no time the whole thing was buzzing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the stall owner and the old man abandon the stall entirely, grab their bags, and try to slip away while no one was watching. I called out sharply, "Didn't you want evidence? Now that there's evidence, you think you can run without an explanation?"

The stall owner stiffened her neck. "Who's running? Something's come up at home, so this old woman will head back and see to it. We can hash this out once it's settled!"

"I'm afraid you'll have to submit to an investigation first. You can leave once the matter at hand is settled."

Two Market Regulation Bureau officers arrived quickly, gave me a nod, showed the stall owner their credentials, and spoke by the book.