Regrets at the Ruins' End

The rain fell like rusty needles, pricking the back of Chen Mo’s neck as he crouched in the alley behind a convenience store, counting coins. Three one-yuan coins and seven fifty-cent coins came to four yuan and fifty cents, still exactly seventy-nine yuan and fifty cents short of the rent due tomorrow at noon. His phone vibrated in his pocket. A message from his landlady, Sister Zhang, sounded like a death sentence: “Xiao Chen, if you can’t pay tomorrow, start packing. Someone else is willing to pay two hundred more.”