Wei Zike is nearly thirty and has been driving a taxi in Mang City for almost seven years.
She eats thirteen-yuan boxed meals in the drivers' canteen, where the air reeks of sweat. She drives the same routes, picks up passengers who keep nearly the same work schedules, and, after her shift, painstakingly records the day's earnings in an old-fashioned ledger.
Her life isn't remarkable, but it's ordinary enough. She's never experienced any great upheaval.
That is, until a new hotel called Dream opened in Mang City.
The hotel owner was a new face. Her voice was soft and gentle, her eyes and brows full of tender allure, and her gorgeous, bewitching face was half-hidden beneath yellow-green lights, drawing plenty of passersby to stop and admire her.
The hotel was thriving from the day it opened.
Wei Zike had dropped off passengers at its entrance a few times, but each time she left without lingering.
Because she was terrified of those hooklike eyes.
Until one day, the hotel owner herself got into her cab, asking for a ride from the hotel to an old residential complex.
In the car, the woman breathed quietly, like a drunken, limp snake.
Worried that the woman might throw up in her freshly cleaned car, Wei Zike couldn't help glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
And met those hazy, cloying, affectionate eyes in the rainy night.
Startled, she swerved.
Wei Zike hurriedly steadied herself, only to hear a wet, sticky laugh from the back seat.
Then, after helping the drunk woman out of the car, the woman pressed her feverishly warm, sticky palm against Wei Zike's and leaned close to her ear to say,
"Would you like to come upstairs for a while?"
[This is not a sequel to Old Snow. Qiu Qiu and Xiao Li will probably only appear as "friends from afar."]
[Switching roles. Neither one is more dominant.]
Theme: I haven't figured it out yet
