A pair of black men's leather shoes faced me with their heels, the flat-soled kind. Men who wear such shoes generally fall into two categories—those who are tall enough not to need heels to add height, and those who are bosses. Since they are bosses, what they compare is no longer height but the height of their assets. Small and medium-sized bosses compare assets, while big bosses compare capital. When assets or capital transform from thickness into height, then a short man is no longer short, an ugly man is no longer ugly, and a tone-deaf man sings beautifully.
After running away from home to Shenzhen, I hadn’t personally met a real boss, but I often heard Li Juan, Qian Qian, and the Liu father and son talk about the legends of bosses. Qian Qian spoke the most and had the most unique insights.
She once observed insightfully, "Male bosses would never wear shoes with heels, afraid others might look down on them. High-end men’s shoes also never produce styles with elevated heels because those who can afford them are either rich or noble. Nowadays, when it comes to people, nobility is determined by how much money one has."
I remember Li Juan asking at the time, "Are you sure?"
Qian Qian replied, "Of course! Female bosses are different. Even those who are already tall still like wearing high heels to appear taller than wealthy men. Why did the ancients say ‘beautiful women are often ill-fated’? Back then, they had beauty but mostly lacked money. Even if they came from wealthy or prestigious families, no matter how much money their families had, it belonged to their parents. Times are different now. There are more and more women with net worths of millions or tens of millions, and there will be even more in the future. The money that belongs entirely to them will also increase. They all love wearing high heels to prove one thing—I am already tall enough and don’t need to rely on any man’s influence."
"Do short male bosses also not wear shoes with hidden heels?"
I asked such a silly question at the time.
"Tsk, wouldn’t they be laughed to death by other male bosses? Could they even close deals in the business world?"
Qian Qian wore an expression mocking my naivety at the time.
Li Juan disagreed, saying, "I’ve seen female bosses too. One female boss from our Northeast runs a coal mine, worth tens of millions, and reportedly never wears high heels."
Qian Qian asked, "How old is she?"
Li Juan replied, "In her early fifties."
Qian Qian asked again, "What about her appearance?"
Li Juan answered, "That’s pretty average."
Qian Qian let out another "tsk," rolled her eyes, shrugged, and spread her hands dismissively, saying, "Then, she probably doesn’t see herself as a woman anymore, only as a coal mine boss. To put it bluntly, she’s gradually becoming gender-neutral. To put it even more bluntly, she’s ultimately just a money-making machine. Men, whether they’re bosses or not, will gradually see her that way. She knows men all see her that way, but she doesn’t care at all because she has money…"
Li Juan said admiringly, "Yes, yes, it’s just as you said."
Qian Qian continued, "Men also know what she knows, and she knows men only see her as a money-making machine. At this point, what’s the point of high heels for her? Isn’t wearing high heels the same as wearing slippers all day?…"
Li Juan was left speechless, stunned and unable to respond.
Later, Li Juan said to me, "Our friend Qian Qian is incredible. She’s only in her twenties and already becoming a shrewd person. Just wait and see, there will definitely be no shortage of stories about her in the future!"The boss we three sisters were discussing that day referred to those who had truly "made it big." Although back then in Shenzhen, even across Guangdong Province and the entire southern region, people would call small shopkeepers "boss," deep down, they knew perfectly well—they were merely "small-time traders."
I shared Li Juan's sentiment, also feeling that Qian Qian truly had an "extraordinary" side—she seemed to possess a pair of fiery, golden eyes by nature, capable of discerning certain aspects of the human world with utmost clarity. Her insights were always so unique yet thoroughly reasoned, often leaving Li Juan and me sighing in admiration, unable not to respect her. And I often felt a sense of regret for Qian Qian—if she had attended a good university, studied abroad for a few years, and earned a doctorate in sociology, she would undoubtedly become a female sociologist in China, and one who would command great respect at that...
Lying on the bed, I lifted my gaze and idly stared at the heels of a pair of men's leather shoes. The bed was in a basement room of about twenty square meters. The room had a small horizontal window that opened inward, half above ground level, fitted with a screen; outside the screen were seven or eight iron bars as thick as fingers. The windowsill connected to the cement ground outside, sloping slightly toward the sidewalk. About a meter away from the windowsill was a marble platform, raised above ground level, merging with the steps of the side entrance of the office building. The shoes were on that platform.
The leather shoes shifted positions several times before my eyes. At first, the toes faced me as they approached; then the sides faced me as they paced back and forth; finally, the heels faced me, remaining still for the longest time.
When a cigarette butt fell, I realized it was a man smoking there. During the day, I had inspected the spot—because there was a standing ashtray, people often smoked there.
Was the man outside the window a boss? Or just a tall man? Regardless of what kind of man he was, I began to dislike him—there was clearly a designated place to stub out cigarettes, so why did he have to toss the butt on the ground? Back then, there were quite a few men like him who lacked public morality, forcing me to sweep up cigarette butts every few days. I didn’t dislike men who smoked; my adoptive father also smoked. About half of the male guests who visited our home smoked, so I had grown accustomed to seeing men smoke since childhood. But I couldn’t stand having cigarette butts littered outside my window, even though from inside the room—whether standing, sitting, or lying down—I couldn’t actually see the butts on the ground. Just because I couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there. Knowing they were there, I felt uneasy if I didn’t sweep them clean, as if there were something unclean within me. I didn’t have a cleanliness obsession. I believed that even if it wasn’t an illness, it was still a flaw. I was no longer the "Princess of Yu County"; I was now a Shenzhen factory girl—how dare I develop such a flaw? I considered myself unworthy. But having grown up in a clean home and on clean streets, I had developed a habit of loving cleanliness. I’d rather be a bit more diligent, hoping that wherever I lived, the area outside my window and door would be neat and tidy.
Shenzhen already had several five-star hotels, with even more four-star and three-star ones. Ordinary ones like Holiday Inns were abundant, and small inns were practically sprouting up everywhere. And I had already lived in this room for two weeks.I chose this hotel run by people from Northeast China, located in a basement, to stay in because the lodging fees were relatively cheaper, and the room was spacious enough, with two single beds, complete with tables and chairs, and relatively new. There was also a bookshelf, which I liked the most. The bookshelf was provided as a display rack; I picked one and paid ten yuan to have someone bring it into the room. This way, the bookshelf could be fully used for books. Influenced by "Principal Mother" and "Mayor Father," I have loved reading since childhood. Days without books to read were simply unbearable for me. Even if I didn’t have to work all day and lived in luxury, it would still be an inhuman existence, merely the life of a higher animal. At that time, China published good books almost every year, and as soon as they were released, they became hot topics in the literary world. I had already bought a few, wrapped them in book covers, and placed them on the shelf. I also bought two shade-loving plants—a pothos and a hydrangea. I planned to buy a radio before the Spring Festival, as it was said that household appliances would be heavily discounted then. My idea was that after the Spring Festival, when Li Juan returned to Shenzhen, she wouldn’t have to search for cheap accommodations anymore; this room would be our shared "home." Compared to the truck compartments on construction sites, I felt fortunate to be able to live in such a room. Of course, another important reason for my decision to stay long-term was that this was the only place that allowed me and "Little Friend" to live together. I would rather live under a bridge than abandon "Little Friend," so I paid half a year’s lodging fee upfront. The fact that the owners were a couple from Northeast China also influenced my decision to some extent. Li Juan is from Northeast China—she is honest, straightforward, and chivalrous, someone worth befriending for the long term, a true sister. I have a favorable impression of people from Northeast China...
Suddenly, a sound came from outside the window—the sound of a woman running in high heels. Immediately, a pair of red high heels appeared before me, the tips pointing toward me. Suddenly, those high heels lifted off the ground, and the pair of flat men’s shoes spun in place like a dancer’s shoes, also pointing their tips toward me. The shoe surfaces were polished to a shine, spotless. Then, just as suddenly, the high heels landed, their heels facing me and remaining still.
I thought the woman’s calves in black stockings looked beautiful, her skin tone appearing exceptionally fair against the stockings.
After that, the two pairs of shoes remained motionless for a long time.
When the woman’s coquettish and sweet voice drifted in from outside the window, I closed my eyes.
Just because my eyes couldn’t see didn’t mean my ears couldn’t hear.
I had to cover my ears.
I remembered what Qian Qian once said: "At times like this, how wonderful it would be to be gently held by the man you love and fall asleep in his arms."
Turgenev’s collection of short and medium-length novels was right beside my pillow; I had just finished reading his First Love while lying down.
I had already experienced my first love, but I held a dismissive attitude toward my "first love" at "Guishi" because it ended shortly after it began, neither intoxicating me nor hurting me. It was like water in a pot—just as it began to warm up, the fire was removed, and it cooled down.
It was as if I had never been in love, hopelessly lost in an inexplicable illusion.
I knew it was called "spring longing."
Suddenly, I began to yearn for a true first love, like the one Turgenev wrote about:"My entire body was filled with this premonition, this anticipation. I breathed it in, and it flowed through every vein in my body with each drop of my blood... It was destined to be realized soon."
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I dreamed of Han Bin. He shouted at me, "It’s complicated, too complicated," and I turned and walked away. That’s when I woke up. Outside the small horizontal window, nothing was visible except a gloomy sky framed by the window, and a light rain had begun to fall. The moment I opened my eyes, a large leaf, half green and half yellow, drifted down slowly, just like a paper airplane descending.
It was Little Friend who woke me up. I had covered its sandbox with a plastic board, and it quickly learned to push the board aside before squatting over it, but it seemed unable to learn how to cover it again. After teaching it a few times, I realized the task was too difficult for it and gave up. It also seemed to know that the plastic board should be replaced after squatting, and as long as I was around, it would always urge me to do it.
I reached under my pillow for my watch and glanced at it—almost ten o’clock. I got up, covered the sandbox, played with Little Friend for a while, and then lay back down.
I had always harbored resentment toward Han Bin because he had "profaned" my first love. I admit that first love doesn’t necessarily have to succeed at once, but I found it hard to accept such a clichéd ending. His worldliness turned my first love into something not worth remembering. Once you’ve had a first love, no matter how passionate later loves may be, they can never be the first. Every time I thought about it, I regretted it—it lingered in my mind.
But on that Sunday morning, after dreaming of Han Bin, I decided to forgive him completely. In this world, many people’s first loves leave them severely wounded or even cost them their lives—like Cui Yingying, Turgenev’s "Asya" and "I"; like Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, Romeo and Juliet; like "La Dame aux Camélias" and Werther, Esmeralda and Phoebus...
In the end, I wasn’t truly wounded by my first love; I had merely lost face. Didn’t I also humiliate Liu Zhu? So why couldn’t I put myself in Han Bin’s shoes, understand his worldliness, and forgive him?
"Yes, I should forgive. Only complete forgiveness means truly letting go and moving on, right, Little Friend?"
After saying this while holding Little Friend’s head, my inner world suddenly cleared, as if under a cloudless sky.
Little Friend meowed, as if in agreement.
Someone knocked on the door a few times.
I got up and opened the door—it was Yao Yun.
Yao Yun was also a girl from the Northeast, or more precisely, a grown woman from the Northeast. The innkeeper had told me she was twenty-eight. There were still many laid-off workers in the Northeast. Yao Yun once told me that three generations of her family had worked in the same state-owned factory. Her grandfather had retired but couldn’t receive his pension on time, and both she and her father had been laid off at the same time.
She said this while I was brushing my teeth. She had just washed her hair and was watching me, drying her hair with a towel as she spoke. Her tone was calm, almost as if she were discussing a casual topic—perhaps because there were so many people in the Northeast sharing the same fate?
Yet my heart was filled with sympathy.
That time, I brushed my teeth for an unusually long time. I didn’t dare respond to her words, had nothing to say, but couldn’t just listen blankly, so I kept brushing.Some people are unwilling to confide in others about the hardships they face in life, and Li Juan is one of them. In my view, she is actually deeply burdened by her family circumstances, yet she only briefly mentions her family situation when talking to me about her responsibilities, and even then, not to complain. Some people appear more willing to share their current circumstances with others, but they are selective—they will only speak if they believe someone is a trustworthy listener; otherwise, they absolutely will not. So, they are not "foolish" or what some might call "overly familiar." Trust or distrust hinges on only one premise—as long as there is no aversion or contempt. Perhaps Yao Yun is too lonely, too isolated; perhaps she senses that I am a trustworthy listener; or perhaps she believes we are both "kindred spirits adrift in the world."
As the Spring Festival approaches, the number of people in downtown Shenzhen dwindles day by day. It is said that around the festival, Shenzhen almost becomes an empty city. In this semi-basement inn, only Yao Yun and I remain as guests. Like timid people huddling together for courage, we both need the warmth the other provides.
Yao Yun tells me that the water will soon be cut off for several hours, fearing I might not know and be unable to wash my face.
I truly had no idea. Thanking her, I immediately pick up my basin and head to the washroom.
When I come out of the washroom, I see Yao Yun’s back as she walks out, while the landlady watches her retreating figure with a shrewd gaze from behind the counter. Yao Yun’s silhouette in a cheongsam and a knitted shawl is quite alluring. Northern women generally appear more curvaceous than their southern counterparts. Without makeup, she wouldn’t be considered pretty, but with makeup, she transforms into someone entirely different, exuding a strong feminine charm. She never goes out without makeup.
The innkeeper and his wife are not returning to their hometown in the northeast for the holiday. Their son, daughter, and both sets of parents have come to Shenzhen, all staying at the inn to celebrate the Spring Festival together here. I smile at the landlady, and she smiles back. As I turn away, she picks up the phone. Hearing the sound of her dialing, I slow my steps, hoping to catch her conversation—with a woman’s instinctive sensitivity, I feel her gaze at Yao Yun’s retreating figure is highly unusual, and her smile at me seemed forced. So, I suspect her call might be unfavorable to Yao Yun. If that’s the case, I think I should warn Yao Yun in time—even though our relationship is merely that of two guests with no special connection.
"People away from home should look out for each other"—this is the creed my "convent" instilled in me!
I am quite confident in my ability to distinguish good people, not-so-good people, and bad people—I believe Yao Yun is essentially good.
Yet, I cannot stop walking.
By the time I enter my room, I haven’t actually heard a single word of the landlady’s conversation.
I have a second job now, working as a caregiver in a hospital. Before the Spring Festival, caregivers are hard to hire, so families offer higher pay, and during the holiday, they pay double daily. This can’t be considered a formal job, just a "short-term gig." The city is almost empty, and finding stable work at this time is highly unrealistic.My work hours were from noon to midnight, caring for the elderly father-in-law of a township entrepreneur. The old man was nearly eighty years old and had undergone a partial gastrectomy due to a stomach ulcer. I had been caring for him for over ten days, starting from when he could only consume liquids. Now, he was already able to eat easily digestible meals. I had never met the township entrepreneur, but I had seen his daughter a few times—a woman in her forties, with a stout figure, dressed in modern, flashy clothes, dripping with jewelry, and unbearably vulgar in her speech and demeanor. I had never worked as a caregiver before, but because I once had a "Principal Mother" from a nursing school, I had often lingered around the school since childhood, soaking up the environment. I quickly adapted to the role and performed far more meticulously than the average caregiver. At first, the old man was extremely satisfied with my work and often expressed his gratitude. His daughter, however, was different. Every time she visited, she would scold me with a sour face, either complaining that I hadn’t done something well or accusing me of falling short in some way. Adopting an attitude of correcting my mistakes and striving for improvement, I never argued back, silently enduring it all. Influenced by his daughter, the old man later became dissatisfied with me too, as if every accusation from his daughter was justified. Between the lines, he implied that his earlier words of gratitude were because he had been deceived by my false performance. To this, I simply smiled and listened, silently enduring. After all, he was not only old but also a patient. Who told me to take on this job?
That day, as I was feeding the old man, his daughter arrived again. She stormed into the ward and shouted, "Are you blind? Can’t you see my father’s mouth wide open?"
Finally, I could bear it no longer. I set the bowl down, stood up abruptly, and glared at her, saying, "I’m not blind. I saw it. What do you mean?"
She yelled back, "Are you clueless or just pretending? My father’s mouth is wide open because he wants to eat big mouthfuls! Yet you insist on feeding him half-spoonfuls at a time. Do you think it’s fun to make him anxious?!"
I was about to respond when the old man also lost his temper, shouting, "I used to have a big appetite, and I told her that! She’s doing this on purpose! I won’t eat anymore! If I can only eat half-full every meal, I might as well starve myself!..."
A nurse, hearing the commotion, entered the ward.
I turned and shot the old man a disgusted look, then walked out without a word.
"Look at the way she glared at my father. I really want to slap her..."
The woman shouted this at the nurse.
Just as I was taking off my caregiver uniform in the hallway, the woman came out too.
I stepped right up to her, planted my hands on my hips, and said sternly, "You wanted to slap me, didn’t you? Go ahead. But before you do, I suggest you think carefully: if I fight back, who do you think will end up worse off?"
I stood half a head taller than her. My nearly half-year stint as a kitchen helper had turned me into a girl who clearly looked strong and capable.
The woman stared at me, stunned.I continued, "I pretended to be mute multiple times in the ward because I didn’t want to argue with you in front of your elderly father, sparing both of you from embarrassment. Now I want to tell you, I’m no ordinary caregiver—I graduated from the Yuxian Nursing School in Guizhou Province! Although that nursing school is located in a small county, it existed even before Liberation. Look it up online and you’ll see it’s the most renowned nursing school in several southwestern provinces of China! My approach is beyond reproach. For patients who’ve undergone gastrectomy, after discontinuing liquid diets, they must eat in small bites, slowly and carefully, to prevent choking and coughing, which could reopen the surgical incision! If that happens, they’d have to go back to the emergency room for a second surgery. Do you fucking understand?!"
The woman stood frozen in front of me as if under a spell, not even blinking.
A nurse came out and criticized the woman, affirming that my approach was professional and entirely correct.
"Your father’s condition isn’t stable yet, so it’s best not to discharge him anytime soon. With the Spring Festival approaching, you should consider yourself lucky we found someone as excellent as Xiao Fang to care for him! If she quits, will you come every day to care for your father? You should know our current shortage of caregivers—we’re already overwhelmed."
The nurse’s words broke the spell on the woman, but she merely shifted her gaze and regained her ability to speak.
Still maintaining her arrogance, she said, "But I’m paying more..."
Her words only stoked my anger further.
I said, "So you think you're something special just because you've become a wealthy woman? Do you really believe money is all-powerful? In my eyes, you're nothing more than... I quit!"
At that moment, I was suddenly engulfed once again by a surge of rage rising from the depths of my heart—no, not engulfed, but rather driven by an explosive force radiating outward from within. I wanted to slap that woman across the face, but I didn't dare. If I did, I would lose any moral high ground I had. I wanted to smash something, but there was nothing within reach that I could grab and hurl—even if there had been, I still wouldn't have dared. What right did I have to destroy hospital property? If I broke something, wouldn't I have to pay for it? The biggest deterrent to my impulse was that I was facing a woman who hadn't tried to take advantage of me financially. Besides, my two friends weren't there, so no matter how I vented, I simply didn't dare.
I wanted to call her the despicable Russian landlady from Mumu, but halfway through the thought, I remembered that Turgenev never gave that landlady a name—in the novel, she was simply referred to as "the mistress"...
I had endured that woman's condescension and unreasonable scolding many times, and I had tasted enough of the bitterness of swallowing my pride. She had money, but it wasn't as if I would be unable to pay my rent and end up homeless without her wages.
Suddenly, I calmed down. My anger came and went quickly, and reason reasserted itself just in time, preventing me from doing anything extreme.
I said calmly, "Madam, then I solemnly declare in your presence that I quit. Please give the wages you owe me to this nurse, and I will come to collect them tomorrow morning..."
With that, I turned and walked away.
That was the only feasible and correct way for me to preserve my dignity.
"Stop! You also cursed at me with a 'damn you'—how do we account for that?"
I paused for a moment, not turning my head, and said, "I admit it. I apologize to you. If you feel that's not enough, you can deduct it from my wages. If you think that gives you reason not to pay me at all, then please say so now, and I won't come tomorrow morning."
I walked away with a clear conscience, neither submissive nor arrogant, leaving only silence behind me.
The rain had stopped, the sky had cleared, and sunlight shone down on me. I didn't feel warmth; instead, I shivered.
My conflicted feelings toward money—both worshipful and fearful, and disgusted because of that fear—once again spread through my entire body like an incurable virus, as if cold liquid had been injected into my veins.
Because a son-in-law had become wealthy, his daughter could now flaunt her jewels and pearls, ordering people around and scolding them at will. Her old farmer father could stay in a private hospital room, enjoying medical treatment reserved for high-ranking officials, and he too had become temperamental and capricious, taking others' patient service for granted. The farmer's honesty and the elder's kindness had been devoured along with the lavish meals, digested into nothing but "filthy lucre."
The old folk saying, "When one person attains enlightenment, even the chickens and dogs ascend to heaven," refers to how, if someone in a family rises to a high official position, the entire clan often benefits greatly, as if they've all become superior beings—even the gatekeepers and sedan-chair carriers. This can almost be seen as a constant in human society, true across time and place, both in China and abroad.But I had heard Qian Qian say that in the economically developed southern regions of China, especially in Guangdong, the "path" in "one person attains the Dao" was no longer the "path" of officialdom but the "path" of the business world. The folk sayings encouraging children to strive for success had already shifted to: "Son, if you don't study hard, you'll only end up as a government official!"
Since arriving in Shenzhen, I often felt vaguely that an era called the "commercial age" was striding forward with unstoppable momentum, leading Shenzhen's new citizens to burn their bridges and charge ahead—the power of money in this land of opportunity was magnified like never before. "Power and status aren't true nobility; wealth and prosperity are real nobility"—Uncle Liu often taught Liu Zhu this, and indeed, it wasn't officials but big bosses who earned Liu Zhu's respect. Moreover, "time is money" had truly become one of the new values of Shenzhen's new citizens.
But I wasn't psychologically prepared to face such a new era. Before coming to Shenzhen, people like "Principal Mother" and "Mayor Father" were the ones I respected. My respect for others had never been tied to how much money they possessed. To put it further, one of the prerequisites for my respect was that they didn't constantly talk about money. If they did, I would often mentally categorize them as "vulgar." Yet after I ran away from home, what I frequently witnessed was people looking up to and respecting someone merely because they were wealthy—even if they were only nodding acquaintances.
The value orientations about life that once existed in my mind were often shattered into pieces by reality.
If I, a migrant worker, didn’t have the two sums of money left to me by Grandma Yu and my "Principal Mother," how would I have acted just now? Could I still have spoken with such dignity and composure? Could I have left the hospital with my dignity intact? If I had continued to endure again and again just to get the unreasonable woman to pay me for my nursing services, wouldn’t I have been pitiful? Isn’t it absolutely true that the wealthy hold an advantage—a sense of superiority—over those who struggle to earn money? But what exactly is so superior about that woman and her old father? Where the hell is their superiority?
Money, money, damn money—I truly don’t know how to view money correctly anymore.
I was reminded of a line from the radio storytelling "Qin Qiong Pawns His Maces" that I heard in elementary school: "A single coin can bring a hero to his knees."
A single coin, the heroic Qin Qiong—damnable money!
And yet, how grateful I am for money—the money in those two bankbooks ensures that I, a migrant worker, am such a fortunate and dignified migrant worker!
Wouldn’t it be hypocritical of me not to be grateful for money?
My mind raced uncontrollably with chaotic thoughts, one worry replacing another, and I only realized I had walked in the wrong direction after going quite far.
When I returned to the inn, it was almost two o’clock. The hallway was quiet; the innkeeper’s family of six were all taking their afternoon nap. There was a bell at the front desk—only when it rang would someone from the family appear to ask what was needed.
As I reached the door to my room, I heard the sound of a door opening behind me. Turning around, I saw a man coming out of Yao Yun’s room, and our eyes met.
The man hurried away.
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