The hot radish bone soup steamed into the frigid morning air, fogging up the eyeglasses of the street-sweepers.
Lin Mo stood quietly beside the blue delivery tricycle. He took a sip of warm goji tea from his thermos, watching Auntie Liu sip her hot soup.
Her knuckles were swollen, red, and split from the bitter northern cold. Her heavy canvas gloves lay on the wooden edge of the cart, soaked through with melted snow and gray road dirt.
“Auntie Liu,” Lin Mo said, his voice mild and calm. “Where does your team rest when you finish sweeping the bridge?”
Auntie Liu gave a shy, embarrassed smile, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin.
“Well, Chairman Lin,” she said quietly. “We usually sit on the concrete steps under the highway overpass. Or behind the public toilets if the wind gets too rough. The luxury shops along this road do not let us step on their floor mats. They say our boots track mud onto their imported carpets.”
Qin Haoran’s hands stopped scrubbing an empty metal lid. His jaw tightened in sudden anger.
“Those scumbags,” Qin Haoran muttered under his breath. “They leave their sports cars parked on the sidewalk all night, but an honest worker cannot stand inside for five minutes to warm her fingers?”
