I'll wait for you amidst the romance of nature.

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'd walk right into my trap so I wouldn't have to go looking for her. I replied, "It's fine if you don't want to tell me, but you'd better not make any unreasonable demands."

"It's not excessive at all, I just want to ask you for a small favor."

"Tell me, what do you want me to do for you?"

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 drove 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 forced me to do this? ... Besides, I don't think setting up a street stall is shameful at all. On the contrary, it allows me to directly experience all aspects of society. It's a way to immerse myself in the front lines of life, where 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 then asked her, "So, what do you want to sell at your street stall?"

Yang Sisi quickly opened the trunk of the car and said to me, "A friend of mine sells these ethnic-style clothes in the old town. Yesterday, she and her friends went to Thailand for vacation and gave these clothes to me. She said I could get a 20 yuan commission for each item I sold... I thought it was a good thing, 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 group crime!"

"Why does it all sound so different coming from your mouth? This is clearly teamwork, okay? If I were to carry all these clothes by myself, I'd definitely get caught. But with you joining my team, things are completely different. Look at 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 on you?

Yang Sisi was so startled that she leaned back, covering her face with her hands, and replied, "How can you be so disgusting... We're both from Shanghai, just consider it support for my business!"

"What a huge undertaking!"

……

In a small noodle shop inside the ancient city, Yang Sisi and I sat facing each other. She had egg noodles, and I had shredded pork noodles—it was incredibly meager. I finally couldn't help but say to her, "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. The guys showed off their car keys and luxury watches, and the girls showed off their handbags and their entire outfits... I was carrying a 300-yuan bag, and someone said to me: 'Sisi, when you're out socializing, you can't carry a bag like that. If you don't have the money, just tell me, I can lend you one. I have several bags like that anyway...'"

I smiled, and Yang Sisi continued, "I can't stand people making sarcastic remarks about me, so when I got angry, I took my dad's card to the mall downstairs and bought a limited edition Hermes bag. On the surface, it made me feel smug... But thinking 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 added a spoonful of chili peppers to her noodle bowl with a sense of satisfaction, and then asked me, "I've asked you so many times, but you still won't tell me why you left Shanghai?"

"There is no hope."

"Ninety percent of people from other places in Shanghai see no hope, but very few actually dare to leave. So I don't think seeing no hope is the real reason you left."

I put down my chopsticks and looked at Yang Sisi. She looked at me expectantly, unaware that this was a painful past I didn't want to share with anyone. I didn't want to talk about Wang Lei with anyone; I just wanted to bury her tragedy deep in my heart and transform it into motivation to live on.

Yang Sisi finally lost her patience and waved her hand, saying, "Ugh, you're so boring! You've got too many worries, you'll suffocate yourself!"

"Adults' troubles are too terrible. I'm afraid that if I tell you, it will scare you to death."

"Oh my, you'd better not say anything. It's better for you to die than for me to die! ... The troubles of adults are really scary!!" Yang Sisi gave me a disdainful look after she finished speaking, and then poked the rice bowl twice with her chopsticks as if venting her anger.

……

You don't know how fierce the competition is in this industry until you set up a stall. In the ancient city alone, there are so many vendors like Yang Sisi who sell ethnic costumes by moving around from place to place that you can see one every fifty meters. Whenever someone shouts "The city management officers are coming," they scatter in all directions and then find the next place without city management officers to continue their small business and make a living.

Within an hour, Yang Sisi and I had been chased twice. Finally, with nowhere else to run, we fled to National Highway 214. It wasn't a place to do business, but at least no one was bothering us. Yang Sisi and I sat under the shade of a tree. She wasn't discouraged; while fanning herself, she said, "Although those city management officers treated us terribly, at least we sold two sets of clothes…hehe, 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, replying with a miserly air, "You wish! You only came to help me sell clothes because you lost the bet, and besides, have you even helped me promote the goods all this time? How dare you ask for a commission!"

"You may not have made any great contributions, but you must have 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 from the intersection of Yeyu Road and bumped into me. He wasn't surprised at all; I guessed he was just an old hand who wandered around the ancient city all day with nothing to do.

I tossed him a cigarette, and after he lit it, he looked at Yang Sisi beside me and asked with a smile, "Quite a pretty girl, is she your girlfriend?"

"Look at your eyes! What makes her worthy of me?"

No sooner had I finished speaking than Yang Sisi raised her hand and began slapping the back of my neck repeatedly. I protected myself while laughing... and amidst my laughter, she cursed, "You're an old man who's almost at the end of your life, don't you have any shame? Go grab anyone off the street and ask them if I'm not good enough for you, or if you, with your disrespectful age, are not good enough for me!"

"I was wrong, I'm not good enough for you, I'm not good enough for you..."

Yang Sisi stopped, but kicked me again the next second, startling Tie Nan. He then exclaimed to me, "Quite a formidable girl. Where did you find her?"

"Don't even mention it, ever since I met her it's been a history of blood and tears... Have you ever seen a man nearing thirty being chased around like a chicken by a bunch of city management officers in an ancient city?... Seriously, just thinking about what happened just now, my heroic spirit is severely damaged!"

Tie Nan laughed loudly, but Yang Sisi replied dismissively, "If I were you, I wouldn't complain like that. You should thank me properly. If I hadn't given you this opportunity, when would your old bones ever get a chance to be exercised... It's good to have some energy. Look at how you ran just now, you had the air of a fugitive! Those girls on Renmin Road were practically staring... You were amazing! A two-meter-high wall, you 'whoosh' and you were up there. Even a dog wouldn't be that agile!"

I was just about to retort when Tie Nan suddenly looked towards the city gate and said, "You two are probably going to be 'whoosh' away again; a truckload of city management officers is coming."

Yang Sisi and I looked up and realized that Tie Nan was really not joking. We were so scared that our courage was shattered. I grabbed the bag of clothes and carried it on my shoulder, then pulled Yang Sisi and ran across the street.

All they heard was Tie Nan shouting from behind, "Let's go back tonight, have a couple of drinks, and bring your girlfriend along too."

Yang Sisi replied, "Drink your sister! I'm not his girlfriend... Let's save our lives first."

……

After selling in such a secretive manner for half a day, Yang Sisi's business was doing quite well, selling a total of about ten items. I said that this was because it was the peak season and that it might not be easy to sell in the future, but she insisted that it was because she was enthusiastic and good at marketing.

Whatever the truth may be, the day's business did end in a state of fear. I put the remaining clothes back in the trunk of her car, then sat in the shade next to the car and lit a cigarette.

Yang Sisi came over and finally decided to buy me a bottle of mineral water. I opened it and drank half of it in one gulp. Then, she took a box out of the bag next to her and handed it to me, saying, "Here, this is for you."

"What is it?"

"Why don't you open it and take a look?"

I opened the box, and inside was a beautifully crafted marionette. Just looking at it made me feel quite good.

Yang Sisi then said to me, "I know you're bored by yourself, so I bought you a little something to cheer you up... So, smoke less." As she spoke, she took the half-smoked cigarette from my hand and threw it into the trash can next to her.

She didn't need me to say thank you; the next moment she took out her phone, seemingly chatting with someone. I felt a little dazed... it seemed like it had been a long time since anyone had reminded me to smoke less.

I suddenly thought of Lu Jia, who had gone far away, and a pang of doubt struck me: had she ever truly loved me? She seemed to have never cared about my smoking. All she cared about was whether I got a promotion or a raise, yet all these years I had disappointed her…

In a daze, Yang Sisi suddenly patted my shoulder, then smiled with narrowed eyes, "Someone's treating us to a big meal tonight, do you want to come?"

"Your friend?"

"The people I know in Dali are all poor. They wouldn't dare to say the words 'big meal' so easily... Besides, they specially invited you. I'm just following along and enjoying the benefits."