After I Could See the Price of Everything

I was at the antique market. I'd just seen off a couple who'd come to have an item appraised. The woman had cried and thrown the imitation designer bag her boyfriend gave her onto the ground. All it took was one glance for me to tell them its actual cost: 280 yuan. That was exactly a hundred times less than the "28,000-yuan authentic boutique item" the guy claimed it was.

I gained the supernatural ability to see the true value of anything three years ago. It happened one afternoon when I was kneeling in dirty water in the supermarket's fresh-food section, polishing someone's shoes. I was twenty-three that year, a cashier at this chain supermarket, earning 3,200 yuan a month. Rent was 1,800, and after social insurance, I had just enough left to get by...