Compared to the Xi Tie Cheng factory, the few light industry factories inside Tie Cheng’s city limits had hit hard times even earlier. The laid-off workers — elderly, frail, or sickly — all squeezed their way into night markets to set up stalls. There were more vendors than buyers, and a whole evening might not earn more than a few yuan. Anyone young and strong had considered going away to work — some heading south, some going abroad. For a time, a wave of emigration swept across the Northeast. Long lines often snaked outside the doors of labor agencies, and countless people were driven by fate overseas, scattered across foreign construction sites, kitchens, and garbage dumps.
Zhuang Ge’s older sister had gotten a footing in Japan years earlier. She ran an acupuncture and orthopedic clinic in Yokohama, and when business was busy, her technicians weren’t enough to keep up. Zhuang Ge had once asked Xiao Man if he wanted to go to Japan. As summer drew to a close, Xiao Man gave the matter serious thought once more. The night market would stop operating after the Mid-Autumn Festival, there was still no word on being called back to work, and if he wanted to earn more money, he’d have to go abroad.
Xiao Man went into the city to find Zhuang Ge at the Bili Jeans store and told him he’d made up his mind — he wanted to go to Japan and see the world. Zhuang Ge agreed: “Let’s try our luck. Visas out of Fujian and the Northeast haven’t been easy to get these past couple of years — if it works out, great; if not, we drop it.”
“Why has it gotten hard?”
“Too many fake chefs going over! The Japanese side doesn’t trust it anymore,” Zhuang Ge said. “Now the student visa is the safer option. My sister knows a fly-by-night language school in Yokohama — they’ll issue an acceptance letter if you pay.”
“What do I need to do right now?”
“First get your passport sorted quickly.”
“Once I have a passport, can I go abroad?”
“It’s not that simple! A passport is China’s permission to let you leave. A visa is Japan’s permission to let you enter!”
Xiao Man quickly got his passport sorted. Next came the materials the language school required, and when the list was laid out before him, he felt his head spin at once. Aside from his ID card, he couldn’t produce a single notarized document.
“Heaven never starves the blind sparrow!” Zhuang Ge’s sister guided him by international long-distance call. “I’ve heard there are people who carve fake seals under the overpass in the city. Apparently they’ll carve anything except the State Council’s red stamp — they dare not make that one.”
So Xiao Man tucked his document folder under his arm and went into the city. He wandered around under the overpass for half a day without finding any seal-carving stalls. He went again the next day — still only an old man repairing bicycles and a laid-off woman selling socks and hair clips. Xiao Man asked the bicycle repair old man about it. The old man just shook his head: “Fake seals? Not out here in broad daylight.”
Xiao Man still wasn’t ready to give up, so he sat under the concrete pillar and waited. After a good while, the sky darkened and looked like rain, and the bicycle repair old man was getting ready to pack up and leave. Xiao Man helped him load his tools onto the three-wheeled cart. As the old man was about to leave, he asked Xiao Man: “What do you need a seal carved for?”
“I’ve been put on standby, so I want to go work abroad.”
“You need a fake seal to fool foreigners?”
“Right — to fool the little Japanese devils.”
“Sigh. If the factory were doing well, you wouldn’t need to go abroad and suffer in a foreign land.” The old man shook his head. “I’ve heard that workers who go abroad get worked like donkeys and horses. All they do is dig ditches and pick through garbage, and the foreigners look down on them.”
“Being a donkey in a foreign land at least means hay when you need it.”
“That’s the truth.” The old man pointed with his hand. “Off you go, son. Go look carefully at that telephone pole over there.”
Xiao Man walked up to the telephone pole and finally, below “one-shot cure for sexually transmitted diseases,” found a string of handwritten pager numbers. He turned back and asked: “Call this pager number to find the seal carver?”
“I haven’t said a word!” The old man gave a nod. “Son, when you get to Japan, earn your money honestly and don’t go astray.”
Xiao Man noted down the numbers, found a phone booth in the rain, and dialed the pager number. The call came back quickly — a middle-aged woman’s voice. She said to meet in the main hall of the city hospital outpatient building in half an hour.
Xiao Man looked at his watch and hurried through the rain toward the hospital. By the time he arrived, his clothes were soaked through, though the document folder against his chest was still dry. Having no time to wipe his face, he made half a circuit of the outpatient hall, and a woman came toward him and winked: “Little brother, come with me!”
The middle-aged woman had a typical street market look — her hair piled high atop her head like a rising mushroom cloud. The two walked to a depth of the corridor and sat down on plastic chairs. Xiao Man wiped the rainwater from his face with his sleeve, joked: “Big sister, that mushroom cloud hairstyle of yours — it really looks like an upside-down seal stamp.”
The woman gave him an unamused glance, flipped through the sample seal photocopies in the document folder, and extended her hand: “Brother, never mind my hairstyle — you need to pay a deposit first!”
“Shouldn’t it be cash on delivery?” Xiao Man didn’t agree.
“Starting up the engraving machine has costs. What if you decide you don’t want them? Then I’ve worked for nothing.”
“But what if you take the deposit and run?” Xiao Man retorted.
A roll of thunder came through the window outside. The mushroom cloud woman raised her hand toward heaven and swore: “May lightning strike down anyone who acts against their conscience!”
With things having come to this point, Xiao Man couldn’t very well argue further. He pulled out his money, paid the deposit, and arranged to pay the balance when the goods were delivered the next day.
“Even though my seals aren’t real, I make my living by craft. I can’t go against my conscience,” the mushroom cloud woman said, still chattering away as she left.
The next day, Xiao Man came early to the hospital outpatient hall. The mushroom cloud woman arrived as agreed — but with empty hands.
“Where are the goods?” Xiao Man asked.
“Don’t worry, they’re here. Follow me!” The mushroom cloud woman led the way, turning into the corridor of the inpatient building. “Give me the balance now — the goods will appear immediately.”
“You’re joking? I need to see the goods first!”
“Ancestor, what are you shouting for? Keep your voice down!” the mushroom cloud woman hushed him. “The goods are within ten meters of here. Give me the money first!”
Xiao Man still wouldn’t agree.
“Dear ancestor, I won’t deceive you — I’m a craftswoman,” the mushroom cloud woman was about to swear again.
“Never mind — stop talking. The sky is clear today, no thunder,” Xiao Man said, and paid her the balance. “If you run, you can’t outrun me.”
The mushroom cloud woman held the banknotes up against the sun to check the watermarks, then pointed to the flower bed beside the corridor: “Go look in those flowerpots — the ones with a white plastic bag inside.”
“Stay right there, don’t move,” Xiao Man said, uneasy.
“I’m not going anywhere,” the mushroom cloud woman said. “I’ll be right here waiting!”
Xiao Man jumped up onto the flower bed and rummaged through the pots, left and right, and finally found a white plastic bag. He reached inside, only to find a few crumpled tissue paper balls. He looked back — the corridor was empty.
The mushroom cloud woman had run! Xiao Man jumped down and chased after her, only to find the courtyard had several exits. No wonder she wanted to do the handoff in the corridor — this was her home turf, with multiple escape routes. Xiao Man was furious and flung the tissue paper balls toward a garbage bin several meters away.
Fortunately, his aim was off. The tissue balls landed beside the garbage bin, and from inside one of them rolled out a small plastic disc!
“Huh!” Xiao Man picked up the plastic disc and looked — there were indeed raised carved characters on it! It turned out the fleeing mushroom cloud woman hadn’t actually deceived him after all; she had simply been too stingy to include even a handle, and Xiao Man had nearly thrown them away as tissue paper balls.
These few fake seals solved ninety percent of the difficulty. Xiao Man finally assembled his jumbled-together documents into a complete set. The day the “Certificate of Permission to Remain” arrived in his hands, he held it up and examined it from every angle, scarcely believing it was real. He had originally thought it was worth throwing a few punches just to try his luck — he never expected to land a hit on the very first swing.
With the great task nearly accomplished, Xiao Man made a special trip into the city to bring the bicycle repair old man a carton of cigarettes. The old man asked Xiao Man: did you pass the background check? The fake seals weren’t exposed? Xiao Man said it wasn’t called a background check — it was called an entry review. The old man then asked: how much money can you make on this trip to Japan? Xiao Man said he was aiming to pay back the school fees in the first year, and then take it one step at a time after that.
After the visa came through, Xiao Man called Xia Lei. On the other end of the phone, Xia Lei exclaimed in surprise: you’ve finally made yourself leave that factory? Xiao Man said it was a measure of last resort — he couldn’t just rot away doing nothing in Xi Tie Cheng. Xia Lei said Xiao Dan was also in the process of applying to study abroad, heading to Europe for a master’s degree. Xiao Man said that was wonderful — she was one step closer to her dream of being like Magellan. Xia Lei asked: what about you — do you have any dreams? Xiao Man said he had no real dream — he’d earn some startup capital in Japan, and when he came back maybe open a clothing store in Suzhou or Shanghai. Xia Lei said that counted as a dream. Xiao Man said, all right then, let’s call it a dream.
After getting his plane ticket, Xiao Man treated Zhuang Ge to a big meal at the “Golden Mammoth Grand Hotel” in the city. The two of them clinked glasses and traded toasts, polishing off half a case of beer until they were both a little drunk. “Thank you, Zhuang Ge, for helping me go to Japan and see the world — my gratitude is all in the drink!” Xiao Man stood up, planted a hand on his hip, and drained another bottle of Xuehua.
“No need to thank me! When you get to Japan, do me a favor!” Zhuang Ge was drunk, looking blissful, reverting once more to the dashing and romantic young man of Xi Tie Cheng he used to be. “Have you seen Tokyo Love Story? If you run into Rika Akana on the streets of Tokyo, tell her — I love her!”
The All Nippon Airways flight landed at Haneda Airport.
Zhuang Ge’s sister came to pick up Xiao Man in person. The two of them took the airport bus toward Yokohama. Watching the streets and alleys flashing past outside the bus window, Xiao Man kept murmuring: Japan, Japan — Tokyo, Tokyo. Zhuang Ge’s sister said: settle down for now. This is just the southern outskirts of Tokyo — we’re heading west, not through the real Tokyo.
When the bus arrived at Yokohama Station, Zhuang Ge’s sister brought Xiao Man to a fast-food restaurant for a set meal. The server brought to the table, besides pan-fried dumplings, also ramen noodles and rice. Xiao Man wondered why there were three types of starch together. Zhuang Ge’s sister explained that in Japan, pan-fried dumplings are eaten as a side dish.
“The world really is different!” Xiao Man marveled. “I should have left Xi Tie Cheng and gone out to see it sooner!”
Xiao Man barely attended the language school more than a few days a week. Most of his time was spent helping out at the orthopedic clinic. Besides the daily odd jobs, he also gradually learned basic massage techniques from the clinic’s Master Qu.
Japanese traditional Chinese massage was divided into basic full-body treatment and advanced orthopedic realignment. Xiao Man’s technique for the basic treatment was mediocre, but he still got a fair number of bookings. Most of the clients who booked him were female regulars — some in their thirties, but even more in their forties and fifties. The moment they saw handsome young Xiao Man, their dopamine levels surged, and no matter how he massaged them, they felt wonderful. Master Qu, sweating buckets from his busy work, complained to Zhuang Ge’s sister: “Boss, look — all the slim women are going to Xiao Man’s side. The ones left for me are all fat men. I’m exhausted!” Zhuang Ge’s sister laughed heartily and said: Old Qu, why not go get plastic surgery and pull the wrinkles off that face of yours?
A small lady named Yamamo regularly booked Xiao Man. When she couldn’t get his appointment slot, she wouldn’t see any other therapist at the clinic. Yamamo was around thirty-five or thirty-six, carefully made up, and always wore a smile when she spoke. Everyone quickly guessed she had a thing for Xiao Man. But what exactly did she like about him? Xiao Man’s Japanese wasn’t good, and his technique was only average — all that was left was his face.
Zhuang Ge’s sister had once joked that Xiao Man was destined to live by his looks and should go to Kabukicho in Shinjuku to become the top host at a host club. Master Qu chimed in saying those host club boys weren’t fit to carry Xiao Man’s shoes.
“Are you two taking pleasure in making fun of me?” Xiao Man protested. “I am not a kept man! I’m a craftsman!”
“Foolish little brother, Yamamo has taken a liking to you — she wants you as her young lover,” Zhuang Ge’s sister said plainly.
“Yamamo has the feminine charm I dream about. If Xiao Man doesn’t want her, I’ll take her!” Master Qu also joined in the teasing.
Yamamo did indeed like Xiao Man’s youthful spirit. She once said Xiao Man reminded her of her first love, and Xiao Man had smiled without responding. Pining for lost loves is a middle-aged woman’s powerless bid to recapture youth; every time Yamamo saw Xiao Man, her heart leaped with joy, as if she’d returned to the intoxicating spring of her girlhood.
Toward Yamamo, Xiao Man remained entirely respectful and never overstepped his bounds. One time while she was changing, Yamamo unfastened her bra in front of Xiao Man. Xiao Man immediately turned away and said haltingly in Japanese: “Madam, for a back massage, it is only necessary to loosen the clasp.”
The more restrained Xiao Man was, the more Yamamo liked him. On Valentine’s Day she arrived early at the orthopedic clinic and gave Xiao Man an exquisitely wrapped box of chocolates. Xiao Man’s expression clouded with difficulty; he tilted his head and hesitated for a long moment, but in the end declined to accept it.
Master Qu soon heard about this and, both envious and regretful, said to Xiao Man: “You should have accepted the chocolates — wouldn’t refusing hurt her feelings?”
“Even so, I can’t accept something on that particular day,” Xiao Man said. “Accepting it would mean stringing her along.”
“Aren’t you single too, Xiao Man? Why not give it a try with Yamamo?”
“Of course I’m single. But Yamamo isn’t — she has a family and a husband.”
“That doesn’t have to be a problem — plenty of married Japanese men and women each have their own lovers.”
“That’s their business. I have my own principles no matter how the Japanese do it.”
“All right, forget I said anything,” Master Qu said regretfully. “What are you — Yan Qing from Water Margin? Not even accepting Lady Li Shishi.”
Yokohama was not a large city, but its Chinese community was not small — reportedly there were over a hundred Chinese restaurant cooks alone. A cook who often came for orthopedic massage was from Tie Cheng, making him half a fellow townsman of Xiao Man’s. Xiao Man called him “Brother Yu.”
Brother Yu’s lower back was covered with knotted muscles — pressing it felt like wood, solid as a plank. Xiao Man asked how he’d suffered such severe strain. Brother Yu said besides stir-frying in the kitchen, he also had other side jobs. He asked Xiao Man how many jobs he was working, and Xiao Man said just this one — 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“Brother, since you’ve come to Japan, you’ve got to work like a demon to make money — every inch of time is worth an inch of gold,” Brother Yu said. “Let me find you a late-night part-time job. Cash payment on the spot, no taxes, no records.”
Before long, Brother Yu introduced Xiao Man to a part-time server job at a late-night restaurant. The restaurant started work at nine in the evening, so Xiao Man got off at the orthopedic clinic at eight and cycled over there.
Xiao Man’s server duties included greeting guests, taking orders, serving food, and clearing tables. “Greeting guests” sounded like it might involve the food preparation area inside, but it actually meant reception and guiding. When a customer stepped through the door, Xiao Man the greeter had to shout “Welcome!” at the top of his lungs, and the other staff in the restaurant would echo the greeting a second time. After shouting twice, Xiao Man would guide the customer to their table and seat them. When the restaurant was quiet, two customers could be seated at a four-person table; at peak hours, Xiao Man would have to bow and nod, consulting other customers about sharing tables.
Once customers were seated, Xiao Man would quickly bring them tea. Customers sipped their tea while ordering — this was the most demanding stage for his listening comprehension. When he couldn’t hear clearly, he would point to pictures on the menu and gesture, frequently breaking into a sweat. After taking orders, Xiao Man was also responsible for delivering the food. The most difficult part was carrying set meals — a large tray full of bowls and soup was both heavy and hard to balance. Once customers began eating, Xiao Man also had to circulate and look for opportunities to clear empty plates. The rules for clearing mid-meal were to remove one plate at a time — plates could not be stacked and carried away together.
The nightshift at the restaurant was five hours long, only ending at two in the early morning. By the time closing approached, everyone was exhausted and barely awake. Once Xiao Man dozed off on the toilet seat and in a groggy daze heard everyone shouting “Welcome!” He reflexively shouted along — only to startle the customer urinating on the other side of the partition.
Japanese service work was famously humble. Servers were expected to apologize to customers at the slightest provocation. The restaurant manager had once trained Xiao Man on how to bow: a 15-degree bow was a “slight nod of apology,” a 30-degree bow was “medium bow of forgiveness,” a 45-degree bow was “respectful bow of apology,” and there was also a 90-degree bow called the “deepest bow of apology.” The hardest for Chinese servers to bear were the kneeling “sincere apology on bended knee” and the full prostration bow with forehead to the floor. One time when the chef accidentally cooked the wrong dish, he went down on his knees right in front of the customer’s table. These forms of apology struck Xiao Man — who had grown up in a factory and mining unit — as deeply wrong. In Xi Tie Cheng, even factory directors and Party secretaries had to treat veteran workers politely. Labor was supposed to be a glorious thing — why had it become so servile and demeaning in Japan? Unable to bear the fake smiling, constant bowing, and apologizing, he applied to the manager to be transferred to the kitchen as a deep-fry cook.
The deep-fry cook didn’t need to cater to anyone’s expression — only to fry things properly. The pay wasn’t much, but Xiao Man was at peace with it. Every night he faced one large and one small frying pan: the large pan for frying potatoes and fish pieces, the small pan exclusively for tempura. The large pan got half its oil changed daily, while the small pan got completely fresh oil every day. Before closing, he also had to disassemble and clean both pans, then reassemble them. Day by day the routine went on. Although the work was tedious and tiring, Xiao Man still felt content and satisfied.
The server who replaced Xiao Man was a female student from Shanghai on a study program. This young woman performed her bowing and smiling to perfection, yet even she was once verbally berated by a customer until she was in tears.
The cause was that when she was carrying a plate, her hand tilted slightly and the different sauces on the plate got mixed together. The diner was a Japanese man in his forties who lectured the Shanghai woman at length without any sign of stopping. The young woman was reduced to tears, the manager also came over to help defuse the situation, but the middle-aged man continued to nag. Everyone was guessing that this man was either mentally unstable or had come to the restaurant specifically to take out his frustrations on someone.
Xiao Man, watching from the sidelines, finally couldn’t stand it anymore. He took off his apron and stepped forward with a shout: “Are you done? Shut your mouth!”
“A Chinese?” The man glanced at Xiao Man’s name tag, his expression contemptuous. “You corpse-carrying idiot — go back to your poor country!”
“Fool!” Xiao Man slammed the table hard, scattering food and dishes across it. “Get outside!”
“What?” The middle-aged man hadn’t understood.
“Get out here — let’s settle this with our fists!” Xiao Man rolled up his sleeve, pushed open the restaurant door, and stood outside in the wind on the small street.
The middle-aged man was so frightened he couldn’t hold onto his chopsticks, and shrank into the corner of the dining table without daring to say a word, staring at the manager. The manager was also startled by Xiao Man’s behavior — he hadn’t expected this normally quiet Xiao Man to be so transformed. He hurried outside to try to persuade Xiao Man to stand down.
“I must teach him a lesson today!” Xiao Man unpinned his name tag and threw it to the manager. “I just quit — this has nothing to do with the restaurant.”
“Don’t be rash!” The manager had no choice but to hold Xiao Man back with all his strength, giving the middle-aged diner cover to slip out of the restaurant and leave.
This incident shocked the entire restaurant street. The consequence, naturally, was that Xiao Man was fired. The manager said that regardless of who the customer was, you couldn’t confront them — the most you could do if someone was being unreasonable was call the police. Xiao Man neither apologized nor argued. He took off his work uniform and handed it back to the manager. In the end, the manager personally cooked Xiao Man a bowl of noodles, which Xiao Man ate in silence before bowing farewell and leaving.
Now free of his part-time job, Xiao Man no longer had to rush off every evening. In his free time he would go to the magazine racks at convenience stores to read employment recruitment magazines. Convenience stores held late-night discount promotions on prepared foods: 30% off at eleven o’clock, 50% off at midnight. When a store employee walked into the food aisles with “discount” stickers, Xiao Man and a group of other poor people would follow behind — the employee would slap on a sticker, and they would pick up the item.
As his visa expiration date drew closer and closer, Xiao Man wanted to ask Brother Yu to introduce another part-time job.
He went to the Chinatown district to find Brother Yu several times but he was never there — they said he’d gone back to China to visit family. After waiting several weeks, Xiao Man finally got his chance when Brother Yu returned to Yokohama. Xiao Man took him to a pub near Bandoh Bridge for a couple of drinks.
Brother Yu sat down and got straight to the point: “I heard about what happened at your old restaurant job. Brother, don’t forget why you came to Japan — to make money. There are so many unfair things in this world — can you fix all of them?”
“Sorry, Brother Yu — I wasted a job opportunity,” Xiao Man apologized.
“That said, you can’t get rich just from working jobs anyway,” Brother Yu waved his hand. “Even if you work three jobs, after deducting school fees and living expenses, you’d have at most thirty or forty thousand left!”
Xiao Man nodded — actually thirty or forty thousand was already quite a sum for him.
“Saving at that rate is too slow. I’ve got a big job lined up — no theft, no robbery, no killing, no arson. It’s harvesting vending machines. Do you dare to do it?” Brother Yu asked.
Vending machines were a distinctive feature of Japanese retail. In busy commercial areas, there was one every two or three hundred meters. Brother Yu had worked at the Tie Cheng mint before coming abroad, and he had studied the coin-slot vulnerabilities of vending machines. He knew that with the right alloy density and magnetic flux values, you could fool the first-generation machines. The reason Brother Yu hadn’t been seen in Chinatown for a while was that he’d made a trip down to Nanhai in Guangdong province, where there was an entire cluster of township factories producing game tokens. He had ordered several burlap sacks of coins cast to the size of a 500-yen piece, which had just been smuggled into Yokohama by fishing boat.
“Harvesting vending machines is illegal, but it’s very hard to get caught in the act — as you know, Japan is full of vending machines with nobody watching them,” Brother Yu said. “Honestly, from the time a vending machine company notices, to making a report and launching an investigation, is about ten days. Within ten days you’re safe. After ten crazy days, everyone breaks off and stops. Then we all head home and buy houses and cars.”
“I never had any thought of buying a house or a car — I just want to open a clothing store,” Xiao Man smiled, unconvinced. He dipped a chopstick in soy sauce and did calculations on the tabletop: “Say each transaction yields four hundred yen change — that’s about thirty yuan in RMB. In a day, minus four hours of sleep, you can do two thousand transactions, which would be sixty thousand yuan. In ten days that’s six hundred thousand? That doesn’t seem realistic.”
“Six hundred thousand is the gross. I take a third off the top,” Brother Yu said. “Also, for safety’s sake, you’ll have a partner — two people per team, coordinating with each other. Each person minimum fifteen, maximum twenty — I’ve already worked it all out.”
Twenty thousand — that was equivalent to twenty years’ wages for a Xi Tie Cheng worker. Ten days to equal twenty years!
“You decide for yourself. I wasn’t originally planning to bring you in on this. Since you found me, that means you and this windfall have a connection — time is tight. We start the day after tomorrow,” Brother Yu said, producing a coin the size of a 500-yen piece. “Gamble on this one play. Get twenty thousand in hand and go home — buy a house, or open a store.”
This choice came too suddenly. The bonito flakes on the dinner table swayed in the rising heat, and Xiao Man’s heart swayed too. Would he work hard through the rest of the year and go back to Xi Tie Cheng with thirty or forty thousand to continue waiting on standby? Or gamble on this one play, and with twenty thousand in his pocket head to Suzhou to open a store? He took the sample coin, looked at it once, and tucked it into his chest pocket.
The next morning, the orthopedic clinic had few customers. Xiao Man slipped out during a break and found a vending machine on the street outside. He took out the coin Brother Yu had given him, and with some skepticism slid it in and pressed a button. Sure enough — “clunk” — a box of tissues dropped out, followed by a cascade of change coins “clatter-clattering” down. He fed in another one and pressed the cigarette button — more coins “clatter-clattering” down.
Xiao Man was about to bend down and pick up the change and cigarettes when a woman’s voice from behind asked: “Xiao Man, do you smoke?”
Xiao Man turned around — it was Yamamo, asking the question. Today she was wearing a striped mid-length skirt, looking elegantly slender.
“I’m embarrassed to say — I’m a little tired, just came out for a cigarette,” Xiao Man quickly explained.
“Wonderful — I smoke occasionally too,” Yamamo smiled, pulling a box of women’s menthol cigarettes from her handbag. “But I don’t smoke on the street. Xiao Man, will you come with me somewhere nearby?”
Xiao Man nodded, and the two of them stepped into a nearby fire escape stairwell. Xiao Man lit Yamamo’s cigarette first, then his own. He exhaled a breath of smoke and said: “Madam Yamamo, I’ll say my farewell to you in advance. I’ll be leaving here soon — thank you for all your kindness over this time!”
“So suddenly! Where are you going? What will you be doing?” she asked.
“Leaving Yokohama, going to help a friend with something,” Xiao Man shook his head. “I can’t say more now. I just know I’m leaving.”
“I… am also your friend. I don’t want you to go,” Yamamo reached out and took Xiao Man’s hand. “What reason? Please tell me!”
“I’m not making much money here. I need to find different work.”
“I can help you. Whatever money you need, I’ll help you with it — all right?”
“No — I can only feel at ease spending money I’ve earned myself.”
“Xiao Man, please don’t rush around exhausting yourself just to earn money,” Yamamo pressed her face against Xiao Man’s chest and wrapped both arms around him. “I’ll help you — as long as you stay by my side.”
Xiao Man still shook his head, and gently extracted his arm from Yamamo’s embrace.
“I like you, Xiao Man,” Yamamo said, releasing him reluctantly and smoothing her hair. “If you ever have difficulty, please tell me — unless… you truly don’t like me.”
“I… do like you,” Xiao Man said, “but not in this way.”
Yamamo lay awake that night. She genuinely wanted to keep Xiao Man at her side — but what way did Xiao Man like? What way did he want?
The next morning, Yamamo wanted to find Xiao Man and ask him once and for all. But Xiao Man had left the orthopedic clinic early in the morning. Zhuang Ge’s sister also couldn’t say where exactly he had gone. Looking at Xiao Man’s empty work locker standing open, Yamamo’s eyes brimmed with tears. Only then did she understand — the ambiguous embrace of the day before had only been Xiao Man’s polite gratitude and farewell.
Xiao Man had gone early to Brother Yu’s residence for the meeting.
Brother Yu lived in a semi-basement in Chinatown. The room was packed with men who wore looks of weathered experience — most of them were fellow Northeasterners who had been drifting around Japan for years, along with a few remnant members of the “Doraiken” diaspora. Everyone was counting on this one opportunity to turn their fortunes around.
At the meeting, Brother Yu grouped everyone into pairs — one person responsible for making the transactions and collecting change, the other responsible for driving and keeping watch. Each team received a bag of fake coins, two baseball caps, and a walkie-talkie. Xiao Man was paired with Old Guo from Changchun, responsible for working the Kobe stretch. At the close of the meeting, Brother Yu reminded everyone: the harvesting operation would begin at midnight on a unified signal, end after ten days on a unified signal, and under no circumstances were they to push their luck.
After the meeting broke up, Old Guo drove a rented Subaru pickup truck carrying Xiao Man westward, passing through Shizuoka, Nagoya, Osaka, and Nara, and finally arriving in Kobe.
They parked the truck at a suburban gas station. There were only passing travelers here, and no one paid them any attention. When the clock struck midnight, Xiao Man walked up to the vending machine beside the gas station, fed in a 500-yen fake coin, pressed a button, and a packet of tissues dropped out, followed by a shower of change “clattering” down. He fed in another one and pressed the cigarette button — more change “clattering” down.
The change and small goods from each transaction were their harvest. Xiao Man and Old Guo were too busy to count carefully. Within the allotted time there was no time to waste — every inch of time was truly worth an inch of gold. When they were hungry they ate boxed lunches and snacks in the truck. When they were tired they dozed sitting up in the truck. The vending machines never clocked off, and neither did they.
A week in, they had been at it day and night, harvesting over a thousand vending machines. Their estimated take already exceeded five hundred thousand yuan in RMB. The progress was ahead of schedule, and both men had dark circles under their eyes. Old Guo yawned non-stop. Xiao Man fought to stay alert and kept Old Guo company in conversation, worried he might doze off at the wheel and cause an accident.
As the two talked, the topic drifted to Brother Yu. Old Guo said he had worked with Brother Yu on rigged pachinko machine cards in the past. It had gone wrong four or five years back, and a whole group had been deported back to China. Only he and Brother Yu had stayed on in Japan. He and Brother Yu were planning to finish this job and go back to China to open a big restaurant.
Xiao Man said that after going back home, he wanted to open a clothing specialty store in Suzhou.
Old Guo asked why go all the way to Suzhou?
Xiao Man said he was an orphan, and his best friends were all in Suzhou and Shanghai. Of the four jobs he’d worked — making explosives, selling clothes, doing orthopedic massage, and waiting tables — he still liked selling clothes the best.
That evening, Old Guo drove the truck to the harbor road in Kobe. They planned to harvest this area and then go eat some seafood to replenish their energy — they’d both been exhausted enough. As usual, Xiao Man went to work the vending machine while Old Guo drove off to refuel.
Xiao Man leaned against the vending machine, pressing buttons while yawning repeatedly. Just then two police officers on bicycle patrol passed through the intersection. Xiao Man immediately straightened up, turning to face the vending machine and bowing his head to pretend he was carefully counting his change. The two officers cycled past Xiao Man without paying him much attention.
Xiao Man was relieved and about to leave when the walkie-talkie in his pocket suddenly crackled with Old Guo’s call: “Xiao Man, Xiao Man! There are cops on patrol nearby! Watch out, watch out!”
Hearing the urgent shout in Chinese from the walkie-talkie, the two police officers suddenly grew suspicious. They turned back and questioned him: “You’re not Japanese? Please take out your ID!”
Xiao Man pointed to his ear, pretending not to understand. In his pocket at that moment were not only the walkie-talkie but also dozens of fake coins — once the police searched him, the physical evidence would be irrefutable.
“Please take out your ID!” the police officer repeated.
Xiao Man pointed behind the officers. The moment they turned to look, he took off running toward the cargo dock.
The two officers immediately reacted, drew their batons, and gave chase with shouts. The commotion alerted several dock security guards on duty, who joined the pursuit. After Xiao Man sprinted out of the container yard in panic, he looked ahead in despair — before him stretched a bare, exposed pier!
This was a dead end! The police and security guards behind him were barely twenty meters away. What now?
Xiao Man gritted his teeth, climbed to the outside of the pier railing, turned, and jumped into the sea!
The waters of the Seto Inland Sea were icy cold. In the instant the seawater closed over his head, Xiao Man reached into his pocket, pulled out the fake coins, and flung them to the seabed. Then, seizing the moment of surfacing, he screamed for help in Japanese: “Tasukete! Tasukete…”
The seawater gurgled into his mouth and nose, sealing Xiao Man’s voice tight.
In a daze, Xiao Man seemed to return to the old Xi Tie Cheng. He looked down from the air at the winding river, and saw Master Ding pushing a small child up onto the riverbank. Xiao Man thought: isn’t that me? But then who am I? In the very next instant, he saw the starlight over Xi Tie Cheng again, and this time it seemed he was sitting up on a warm heating pipe high in the air. Rain began to fall, his father was abandoning him, and he walked through the downpour toward his grandmother’s house. The road was flooded with rainwater. The water rose to his chest and he felt the cold. The water rose to his mouth and nose, and he felt suffocation.
When Xiao Man came to, a doctor in a white coat was holding a tuning fork to his head, testing his neurological reflexes. He didn’t know he’d already been brought to the nearby harbor district hospital.
Xiao Man’s mind was still a blur. Half-coherently he heard a voice shouting from the ceiling of the emergency room: “Cops — run!” He immediately sat up, leaped to his bare feet, and ran for the door — only to be yanked down by a guard officer at the entrance, and he passed out again.
The next time he came to, Xiao Man sat with glassy, vacant eyes and said nothing. The police arrived with an interpreter to question him in the hospital room, but Xiao Man kept pointing to the ceiling light, repeating only one phrase over and over: “Tasukete! Tasukete!” The doctor subsequently showed the police Xiao Man’s EEG. The waveforms were chaotic and tangled. The diagnosis was Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder — people who had suffered an extremely powerful psychological shock or terror close to death would produce this kind of mental disarray.
A week later, the police found Zhuang Ge’s sister and notified her of Xiao Man’s imminent deportation. When Zhuang Ge’s sister and Yamamo went to the Kanagawa police station to visit him, Xiao Man still sat wordlessly with a vacant stare. Zhuang Ge’s sister waved her hand in front of his gaze — Xiao Man’s eyes didn’t blink and his head didn’t move. First his finger made a gesture for silence, then he pointed up at the ceiling. His mind had begun to experience auditory hallucinations.