Charity

In the poorest year of my life, I got pregnant by accident.

Jiang Yi took out an online loan to pay for my abortion. While I was recovering, the most nutritious thing I ate was a chilled chicken drumstick from the market. Five yuan each.

It hurt to see him working construction all day and delivering takeout at night. To ease the burden on him, I rested for just three days before taking a part-time waitressing job at the private club where a friend worked.

“This job is in high demand. Good daily pay, tips too. I only put you forward because you were really struggling.”

“Don’t worry. All you have to do is serve tea and water. Nothing shady, I promise.”

That night, I saw Jiang Yi in the seat of honor in a private room, everyone gathered around him.

He ordered seven or eight bottles of wine at 180,000 yuan a bottle. A watch he casually gave one of the hostesses was said to be worth 1.6 million.

After partying until the early hours, he wiped the lipstick marks off his face, picked up the yellow helmet beside him, and got up to leave.

“Yo, Yi, you’re still playing delivery guy and factory girl with that woman?”

“Isn’t your old man pushing you to get married? Just end it already. If she finds out who you really are, she might never let go!”

Jiang Yi gave a derisive laugh. “She’s not capable of that.”

I stood quietly in a dark corner, my head meekly bowed.

My abortion had cost two thousand. Everything he’d bought to nourish me over those three days came to a hundred.

Two thousand one hundred.

The price of a single fruit platter in this room.

That was how cheap I was.