Don’t Cry, Tai Lake Read Free Page A

for the benefit of our customers,” Uncle Wang said, emerging from the kitchen. “Nowadays people feed eels hormones and whatnot. So I keep them in water for a day after they’re caught, to wash out any remaining drugs.”
    But could drugs really be washed out of their systems that easily? Chen doubted it, and his appetite for eels was instantly lost.
    “Well, give me a portion of stinking tofu,” Chen said. “And a lot of red pepper sauce.”
    Presumably, stinking tofu was a safe bet. Chen looked up only to see the young woman shaking her head with a sly smile.
    He restrained himself from asking her to explain. It wouldn’t be so easy to talk across the table with the old man going in and out of the kitchen. There was something intriguing about her. She knew the proprietor well, yet she didn’t hesitate to speak against the food here.
    Soon, Uncle Wang placed a platter of golden fried tofu on the table along with a saucer of red pepper sauce.
    “The local tofu,” he said simply, heading back the kitchen.
    “The tofu is hot. Would you like to join me?” Chen turned to the young woman, raising the chopsticks in a gesture of invitation.
    “Sure,” she said, standing up, still holding the water bottle in her hand. “But I have to say no to your stinking tofu.”
    “Don’t worry,” he said, signaling the bench opposite and pulling out another pair of chopsticks for her. “Some people can’t stand the smell, I know, but once you try it, you may not want to stop. How about a beer?”
    “No thanks,” she said. “The local farmers use chemicals to make that tofu, though perhaps it’s a common practice now. But what about the water they use to make it—and to make the beer? You should take a look at the lake. It is so polluted, it’s undrinkable.”
    “Unimaginable!” he said.
    “According to Nietzsche: God is dead. What does that mean? It means that people are capable of doing anything. There is nothing that is unimaginable.”
    “Oh, you’re reading Nietzsche,” he said, impressed.
    “What are you reading?”
    “A mystery novel. By the way, my name is Chen Cao. It’s nice to meet you,” he said, then added with a touch of exaggeration, in spite of himself, “As in the old proverb, it’s more beneficial to listen to your talk for one day than to read for ten years.”
    “I’m simply talking shop. My name is Shanshan. Where are you from?”
    “Shanghai,” he said, wondering what kind of work she did.
    “So you’re on vacation here. A hard-working intellectual, reading English in a Wuxi eatery,” she said teasingly. “Are you an English teacher?”
    “Well, what else can I do?” he said, reluctant to reveal that he was a cop. Teaching was a career he had, in his college days, imagined for himself. And he felt an urge, at least for a while, to not be a cop. Or not be treated as a cop. Police work had become a bigger and bigger part of his identity, whether he liked it or not. So it was tantalizing to imagine a different self, one that wasn’t a chief inspector—like a snail that didn’t carry its shell.
    “Schoolteachers earn quite a lot, especially with the demand for private tutoring,” she said, casting a glance at the dishes on the table.
    He knew what she was driving at. Chinese parents spared no expense for their children’s education, since that education could make a huge difference in an increasingly competitive society. Detective Yu and his wife Peiqin, for instance, spent the bulk of their income on private lessons for their son. A schoolteacher could make a small fortune by giving private lessons after hours, sometimes squeezing ten students or more into a small living room.
    “No, not me. Instead, I’m debating whether or not to translate this book for a small sum.”
    “A mystery,” she said, glancing at the book cover in English.
    “Occasionally, I write poems too,” he responded impulsively. “But there is no audience for poetry today.”
    “I used to like