Chapter 7
At the supervisor’s command, the monitor on duty lifted the lid off the iron vat. Food was finally being served. The orderly lines began to stir, every child craning their neck to peek inside.
Shen Quanquan stood on tiptoe, staring hungrily. He was too far back to see clearly, so his eyes tracked the child at the front of the line. The boy picked up a small enamel bowl from the dish tub. The monitor ladled soup into it from one vat, then reached into the other and pulled out a plump, rounded boiled mountain yam to hand him.
Shen Quanquan gasped in delighted surprise, his eyes gleaming like stars as he turned to Lin Duozhi. “Mountain yams! It’s mountain yams!”
“I can’t see it from here. Really?”
Shen Quanquan gulped down a mouthful of spit before nodding with solemn certainty. “Really.”
The other children also caught sight of the boiled yams, their faces breaking into wide grins.
Though mountain yams were dry and coarse, easily choking you if swallowed too fast, they were large, filling, and had a faint hint of sweetness. Not a single child in the orphanage disliked them.
The junior-class children up front had already received their portions. Carrying a piping hot yam in one hand and cradling a bowl of soup in the other, they carefully navigated toward the tables on the other side of the cafeteria. The children waiting in line swallowed repeatedly, wishing the queue would move just a bit faster.
Shen Quanquan had only shuffled forward a few steps with the line when an orphanage staff member hurried to the cafeteria entrance, informing the supervisors that the director needed them right away. Left with no choice, the supervisors instructed the monitors to keep dishing out food and hurried out the door.
Every child in the cafeteria watched them leave. They watched them step outside, cross the sports ground beyond the windows, and finally vanish up the stairwell of the administration building.
“Grab the mountain yams!”
Someone in the senior-class queue yelled out. The quiet cafeteria erupted instantly as a horde of older kids surged toward the vats.
They formed a frantic mob, hands lunging into the vat for the boiled yams. The monitors shoved and struck at them, screaming warnings at the top of their lungs, but it was utterly useless.
Wang Zhusheng’s older brother had been one of the monitors on duty, but now he joined the frenzy too, elbowing aside anyone nearby as he stuffed yams into his arms and pockets.
Children raised in an orphanage were like little wolves; fighting for food and guarding it was pure instinct. After a few seconds of stunned paralysis, the younger kids threw caution to the wind and charged forward as well.
Shen Quanquan sprinted forward too, but having started near the back of the queue, he remained stuck on the outer fringes of the mob, unable to get anywhere near the vats.
Anxiously circling the crowd, he hopped up and down to peer inside. He finally spotted a narrow gap, but the moment he poked his head in, someone’s backside shoved him right out, knocking his cap off in the process.
Beside him stood Liu Sijin’s older sister—the older girl with the shaved head. Tall and long-armed, her thick eyebrows furrowed as she tore through the fray. Grabbing the collars or hair of anyone in front of her, she dragged them backward, carving out a direct path straight to the vat.
Shen Quanquan had just scooped up his cap when, through a gap in the forest of legs, he spotted a mountain yam lying among the jostling boots, half-crushed by someone’s foot.
A spark of joy flared in his chest. Dropping to all fours, he scrambled between the legs. But someone’s knee slammed hard into his nose, sending a burst of stars through his vision as tears welled instantly in his eyes.
He couldn’t care about his throbbing nose right now. Squinting through the tears, he lunged for the yam. But just as his fingers touched it, a heavy foot came down, stomping on his hand and squashing the yam into utter mush.
Shen Quanquan yelped in pain, snatched his hand back, and scrambled out in reverse. His nose throbbed, his fingers stung, and he hadn’t even secured the yam. Tears streaming down his face, he backed toward the windows, shaking his throbbing hand repeatedly.
The vats were emptied in no time. The older kids dispersed, and the younger ones swarmed forward, staring mournfully into the empty iron containers. Some quietly moved aside to ladle bowls of soup, while others began to weep.
Once the initial wave of sharp pain subsided, Shen Quanquan adjusted his cap with his aching fingers, only to notice Wang Zhusheng and his brother seated at a nearby table.
Wang Zhusheng clutched a yam in his left hand, his mouth stuffed full, while his brother peeled another and pressed it into his right.
Terrified of the older boy, Shen Quanquan sniffled and edged away to put some distance between them. Yet he couldn’t resist sneaking glances their way—stealing peek after peek until Wang Zhusheng caught him in the act.
Wang Zhusheng’s gaze locked onto Shen Quanquan’s face, and he yanked on his brother’s sleeve. “Look, Bro! The stink bug is gonna die! The stink bug’s nose is bleeding!”
Seeing the brother look up, Shen Quanquan spun around in sheer panic. He wiped his nose with his sleeve, coming away with a smear of bright red. Looking down, he saw tiny red specks dotted across his chest.
“Eat faster! Ignore everyone else, the supervisors are coming back soon,” Wang Zhusheng’s brother ordered.
Shen Quanquan had never had a nosebleed before and had no idea what to do. Though terrified of the older kids, instinct led him to seek help from his elders, his fearful eyes darting toward the seniors. But they were all terrified of the supervisors catching them, wolfing down their yams as fast as they could; no one had the time to spare him a glance.
“Shen Quanquan’s nose is bleeding.”
“Why is Shen Quanquan bleeding?”
Several younger kids gathered around him. From nearby, Wang Zhusheng shouted, “He’s gonna die!”
Frightened out of his wits, Shen Quanquan stood frozen, eyes downcast as blood dripped from his nose. Lin Duozhi came over carrying a bowl of soup, startled by the sight. “What happened to you?”
“Lin Duozhi, I think I’m gonna die,” Shen Quanquan whimpered, his voice trembling on the verge of tears.
“Ah! Are you really gonna die?!” Lin Duozhi gasped in horror.
Before Shen Quanquan could reply, the cafeteria doors were kicked open, and several supervisors marched in, seething with rage. Brandishing wooden disciplinary rulers, they began laying into the older kids without a word of warning.
The rulers came down hard on the padded cotton jackets, making dull yet loud thwacks. The thin padding did little to blunt the sting. Stricken kids cried out in pain, while those who hadn’t been hit yet frantically crammed yams into their mouths, choking so hard their necks strained and their eyes rolled back.
“Put the yams back in the vats right now!” a supervisor roared.
Some quickly dumped the yams back, while others snatched every extra second to swallow what they could, stopping only when grabbed by the collar and struck multiple times before limping away.
The younger children stood frozen in terror, hardly daring to breathe. Shen Quanquan desperately wanted to ask for help, but didn’t dare make a sound now. He simply backed flat against the window, gazing mournfully at the supervisors with tears streaming down his cheeks.
A supervisor walked past, casting two glances at him. “What’s the matter with you?”
Shen Quanquan’s lips quivered. “I’m gonna die.”
“You won’t die.” The supervisor pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket, rolled two little paper plugs, and handed them over. “Stuff these up your nostrils.”
Shen Quanquan hurriedly took them and jammed both plugs into his nose as instructed. Lin Duozhi tilted his head to look at him, offering comforting words: “You’re fine now. The supervisor said you won’t die.”
His mind at ease at last, Shen Quanquan found the spirit to observe the others. Seeing Wang Zhusheng’s brother refusing to let go of his yam until a supervisor whacked the back of his hand with a ruler—leaving him grimacing in pain and frantically rubbing his knuckles against his trousers—Shen Quanquan felt an overwhelming surge of glee, nearly bursting into laughter.
Standing nearby, Wang Zhusheng glared at him with venom. Though the tear stains were still wet on his cheeks, Shen Quanquan poked out his tongue to pull a face, lifted his chin with triumphant arrogance, and flicked the paper plug poking out of his nostril.
The older kids had already devoured a good portion of the food, and what was returned barely filled four vats, much of it bearing bite marks.
The supervisors had to snap the whole yams in half to distribute them among the junior and intermediate classes. When it was Shen Quanquan’s turn, the head supervisor took one look at his face—streaked with tears and blood, his nose plugged with paper—and picked out a large yam that only had a couple of bites taken out of it.
“Is that enough?” the head supervisor asked.
Shen Quanquan beamed from ear to ear. “Enough! More than enough! Haha…”
After lunch came free activity time. Shen Quanquan headed to the sports ground with a few roommates from his dorm. He hadn’t finished his yam, clutching the remaining half tightly in his hand.
“Why aren’t you eating that?” Lin Duozhi asked.
Shen Quanquan answered solemnly, “I have to go to work.”
Lin Duozhi was stunned. “You’re sneaking out to the junkyard again? You just got punished!”
“The punishment earlier wasn’t for sneaking out. That was for running out, running back in, and running out again. This is sneaking out.”
“If you get caught sneaking out, you’ll get punished again.”
“As long as I get to eat dinner, it’s fine,” Shen Quanquan said breezily.
Though his nose had long stopped bleeding, he kept the plugs firmly wedged in his nostrils. Whenever other children looked at him with curiosity, he would pluck one out and stuff it right back in.
“Shen Quanquan, what are you plugging your nose for?” someone asked.
“A nosebleed! If you get a nosebleed, you just plug it like this and you’re all set,” Shen Quanquan answered with immense pride.
“I saw an older kid plugging his nose like that once. So that’s what a nosebleed is!”
His altered nostrils immediately earned the baffling envy of the other children, leaving Shen Quanquan deeply satisfied.
After saying goodbye to Lin Duozhi and the others, Shen Quanquan slipped behind the pump house, instantly spotting several older kids loitering suspiciously by the fence.
Recognizing the young serial offender, the older kids relaxed after an initial moment of tension. Ignoring his presence, they slid a loose iron bar to the left and squeezed through one by one.
The last boy to squeeze through warned Shen Quanquan, “Remember to slide the bar back straight. If the supervisors find it and we can’t get out anymore, just wait for our revenge.”
“I’ll put it back properly,” Shen Quanquan promised at once.
He stood at a distance, waiting for every last older kid to slip through. After another half-minute, he trotted over, squeezed through the gap, and pushed the skewed bar back into place.
Ten minutes later, Shen Quanquan was strolling cheerfully down the main road, nibbling on his half-eaten yam while kicking pebbles along the way. After about twenty minutes of walking, a cluster of buildings came into view.
It was a lifeless, desolate town devoid of any vitality. Every structure showed signs of long abandonment; the wind whistled into dark, hollow window frames and howled through crumbling walls.
A tall wire-mesh fence surrounded the perimeter, but neglected over decades, the rusted netting was riddled with broken gaps. Shen Quanquan walked along the fence until he cleared the main cluster of buildings, slipping through a familiar hole.
Inside lay a vast clearing, bordered by heaps of collapsed concrete rubble. A few surviving tiers of concrete steps showed that this had once been a lively football stadium.
To the left of the field sat rows of identical cubes of various mottled shades—scrap metal crushed under immense pressure. To the right lay mountains of trash. An autonomous forklift was loading the refuse into a concrete facility constructed beside the field.
Emblazoned on the concrete building were the words: Morna Waste Processing Plant No. 3.
The older kids who had arrived earlier were already digging through the trash mounds, shouting and laughing loudly. Shen Quanquan didn’t join them, nor did he dare approach. He broke into a sprint toward the right side of the yard.
He traversed the grounds, only shouting once he was sure the older kids’ voices had faded completely: “Puppy! Puppy!” Raising the half-eaten yam in his hand, he called out, “Puppy, I brought you food! Puppy!”
He was out of breath from running, the paper plugs making it impossible to breathe through his nose, so he finally pulled them out and tossed them aside.
“Puppy, I’m here! You haven’t eaten today, so I brought you a meal.” Darting through the narrow gaps between the stacks of scrap metal cubes, he kept chattering loudly, “We had mountain yams today! I saved a huge piece for you. Try a bite, it’s super yummy!”
Clearing the labyrinth of scrap cubes, a row of corrugated iron sheds appeared before him. There were four in total. Leaning against the door of one shed was a towering mound of empty cardboard boxes. Faded letters were still visible across the rusted metal wall: Shorten Construction Time, Pay Attention to Safety.
“Puppy, did you miss me? Were you waiting for me?”
Shen Quanquan dashed up to the shed with the cardboard boxes and pushed the door open. The rusted sheet metal slammed against the wall with a dull, rattling clang.
Panting heavily, he scanned the empty room, then hurried to push open the other three doors in sequence.
Turning toward the metal scrap heaps, he called out, “Puppy, where did you go? Are you hiding from me?”
“Puppy, come on out! I brought you food!” Shen Quanquan waved the half-eaten yam, his eyes crinkling into a gentle smile, his voice soft and coaxing. “The yummiest mountain yam ever. We’ll split it half-and-half. Just try one bite and you’ll see. Hurry up and come out…”
His eyes darted around the surroundings, and his expression instantly hardened into a fierce glare. “I picked you up yesterday, so you’re mine now! If you don’t come out, once I catch you, I’m gonna hit you! I’ll beat your nose until it’s ruined! You’ll die! Even stuffing paper plugs won’t help!”
The puppy still didn’t appear.
The fierceness faded into panic, his tone tinged with desperate pleading: “I won’t hit you. I was just bluffing to scare you into coming out.”
The junkyard remained utterly silent, save for the distant, faint echoes of the older kids shouting and laughing. Shen Quanquan stood in a daze for a long time before hanging his head and trudging back into the first shed.
Though small, the room had likely served as a foreman’s single dorm, furnished with simple pieces salvaged from some residential building.
Against the left wall stood an iron-framed bed, next to an intricately carved wooden nightstand. Across from it sat a long sofa. The sofa was badly worn, its yellowed foam stuffing exposed; fresh scratch marks scored its surface, with several tufts of padding ripped free.
Shen Quanquan often overheard the supervisors chatting, and he had heard the word “work” more than once.
“…Can’t chat, gotta get to work… The director is in his office…”
Thus, scavenging for trash had become his “work,” and this row of sheet-metal sheds had become his “office.”
The corrugated metal walls were plastered with vibrant, colorful papers—not just torn illustrations from books and patterned packaging, but even colorful leaflets advertising remedies for male impotence.
Right in the center hung an advertisement missing one corner, depicting adorable anthropomorphic animals. It was pasted in the most prominent spot, its creases carefully smoothed flat, clearly the decorator’s absolute favorite.
The single bed had no bedding, serving instead as a storage shelf. Piled on top were stacked empty cardboard boxes of various colors, a yellow plastic stool missing a leg, a handle-less pink mug, and other scavenged trinkets.
A chaotic assortment of knickknacks and mismatched colors filled the cramped space to the brim.
Still refusing to give up, Shen Quanquan searched the room once more. Squatting down to peer beneath the bed, he spotted a wide gap in the wall behind it.
He stared at the gap for a long while before murmuring in sudden realization, “Oh… you know how to crawl through holes, too. That’s right… you can crawl through holes.”
Certain that the puppy had left on its own, Shen Quanquan stopped looking. He quietly sat down on the sofa, lowering his head to nibble on the remaining half of the mountain yam.
Taking a massive bite, he puffed out his cheeks and bobbed his head, trying to sound cheerful: “Fine, leave! If you leave, I get to eat it all by myself! This whole yam is mine, all mine! I still have the black balls, too—now I can eat every single one!”
He chewed with exaggerated noisiness, swinging his little legs over the edge of the sofa, but tears slowly gathered in his eyes.
Shen Quanquan couldn’t hold it in any longer. His mouth crumpled, and he burst into heartbroken sobs. “Yesterday I asked if you wanted to be my puppy, and told you to shake your head if you didn’t. You didn’t shake your head! How could you break your promise?!”
