Behind the university district, there's a snack street called Yanhuoli. The oil in the woks crackles louder than the stars, and no one has ever asked who the streetlights are shining for.
At eighteen, Nian Huanhuan sang on the three steps outside a noodle shop, a battered guitar wrapped in tape strapped to her back. The fee for the spot was a six-yuan bowl of noodles. The owner had only three fingers and kept a tab for everything.
At the very back of the noodle shop sat someone who wrote. He never looked up, never signed his name, and spoke so little you'd think he was trying to save money. He burned the drafts he didn't like and wrote the things he wanted to say on napkins.
She was exactly the kind of girl who, when she liked someone, wanted the whole street to know.
On this street were a couple who had haggled over prices for six years, a fortune-teller who pretended to be blind, and an old scavenger who had spent half his life clipping old newspapers. They watched her sing and watched him listen, worrying about the two of them for years.
Later, the street was torn down, and half the paper was burned. He kept the unfinished sentence for many years.
If I write it down, then...
She would have to find the rest of that sentence herself.
