One minute might be as long as fifteen days. Jiang Youyou felt thirsty. Everything in her eyes became dimmer and dimmer. It seemed that she was back to her childhood, when a band of kids were bathing under the tap. The water in the summer was icy cool and tasted sweet. It was the water from the well. She felt like peeing just after she drank some water. There were yellow liquid running out between her legs. An Hua’s body lay still in the middle of the road. Perhaps it was not her, it might be Jiang Youyou herself. She shut her eyes so tightly. Now she lay together with her, also arrayed in public. A smell of barbecue pierced into her nose. It was really not easy to live, for everyone.

Deng Jun staggered to stand up but failed and fell to the ground again. The men around picked him up. At a distance, an inconspicuous cleaner pulled out a fake mobile phone and called 110 (the phone number to report to the police in China). The police wouldn’t come until at the end of the incident. The informer spoke with an unstandardized Putonghua in dialect, and the 110 policewoman couldn’t catch him. She repeatedly asked him, “You say Number Fourteen or Number Forty? Please say it slowly…”

Jiang Youyou held the money tight in her arms all along. But little was left for her. Only a few bills with blood.

“Keep beating!” Deng Jun spat.

A pair of shoes appeared in front of Jiang Youyou. They were brown frosted leatherlace-up shoes. They left such a deep impression on Jiang Youyou that she still liked men wearing shoes of this style after many years. You must have some reasons to like one thing. It must be related to some memory.

All was noisy, but after the noisy row everything would turn quiet. The appearance of the shoes must be the reason for the quietness. The thugs stopped.

Deng Jun saw a man, as if he were seeing a demon.

Zhao Gang’s dead body was cut into pieces and put into the washing-machine. In it the underwears of Deng Jun’s wife were found. Zhao Gang was the boss. It was easy for him to get the woman he liked. But his wife jumped off a building, perhaps she was pushed off by Zhao Gang. To be short, her skull fractured terribly.

Zhao Gang was the biggest brother. The biggest brother was dead, the second, third and the fourth big brother were certainly looking for the murderer. The one who found the murderer would become the biggest brother. At the first sight of Zhao Gang’s dead body Pu Yuanhui frowned and briefly said, “Tell the police to chase Deng Jun. We can’t do it ourselves.”

“Where should we search for Deng Jun, Boss?” Among his hands there was a tall, skinny fellow nicknamed Jisan, who was quirky and quick at figuring the boss out. “Or I’ll tell our men in our domain to watch out. How about mass texing?”

Pu Yuanhui nodded.

Marie Bar was the place Deng Jun first made his fortune by selling ecstasy. Pu Yuanhui thought Deng Jun would certainly go there to borrow some money and escape. Actually he would sometimes feel unworthy for Deng. Why so fussy? It was not his real wife.

Nine o’clock in the evening, a message on Jisan’s mobile told that Deng Jun showed up in Maire Bar.

When Deng Jun saw Pu Yuanhui, he felt too weak to escape. He was caught before he could run farther. Jiang Youyou raised her head to find the owner of the shoes watching her curiously, as if he were watching astray dog.

If he is the main character in a novel, Pu Yuanhui must be a handsome domineering man with wonderful strong features, long eyelashes, slender fingers and indifferent eyes. But it was a pity he was not in reality. Actually, Pu Yuanhui was not handsome, instead, he was a little fat and short. It seemed to be difficult for him to focus his eyes. He was wearing a red checked shirt and a pair of black framed glasses with hair cut in a crop, in such an image he didn’t look like a boss of a sinister gang. Among the people of the evening crowd, he looked like an IT engineer who was going out on a date after working extra hours in Huawei Company.

“He robbed me of my money!” Jiang Youyou pointed at Deng Jun and said slowly word by word.

Pu Yuanhui gave her a thumbs-up, “What an intrepid woman! Don’t you feel pain?”

Saying this, he reached over and pulled her up. She was very light, as light as a thin silk quilt. After bleeding so heavily she could still stand up, it was really incredible.

Jiang Youyou took back the money that Jisan wrested from Deng Jun. She felt grateful to them and said, “Thank you very much. I don’t feel pain. I’ll be OK after I have myself bandaged up in some clinic.”

The old man who was selling cigar next to the bar was watching the fight and was dumbfounded to see the bleeding girl walk towards him.

“Excuse me, but will you please give me a plastic bag to put my money in.” Jiang Youyou begged.

The old man trembled to pull out a red plastic bag which he picked up from an unknown place and gave it to her. One hundred thousand yuan of bills seemed to be a very thin stack in the bag. Jiang Youyou wrapped it and put it under her arm, limped forward away.

And then she turned back to bow to Pu Yuanhui, “Thank you for saving my life.”

She silently said to herself, “I wish I could meet you again in this city someday.”

If you are always thinking about one thing, it might come true one day. Jiang Youyou went asleep when the nurse was stitching her wounds. The stitches were done without anesthetic yet she didn’t feel pain. The only thing she felt was sleepiness.

If you go asleep, you don’t have so much terrible mess of troubles.