“Go ahead and go to bed, Yu,” Peiqin said. “I’ll join you as soon as I’ve finished cleaning up.” Yu lay on their bed, smoking, thinking, and listening to her footsteps in the kitchen. It would take her a while to clean up, he supposed. Turning over, he pulled out the cassette player and put in the tape that Old Hunter had recorded in the ernai café. The tape didn’t start from the beginning, but that was fine with him. A: We really are pathetic, spending hours with a cup of coffee, stirring our lives with a little spoon, serving our men from head to foot. And as a result, we’re called all sorts of bad names, as if we’re the ones responsible for the problems of a corrupt society. B: Oh be content, woman. What those provincial sisters earn by working hard all day isn’t enough to even buy a cup of coffee here. C: Not only is it a pathetic life, we don’t know even how long it’ll last. Youth slips away like a bird. It’s just a matter of time before we’ll be dumped in the trash like a worn-out mop.
