Chapter 5: Market Day

The Stadium market sat in the old car park behind the sports centre.

Bai Jin counted two hundred hungry faces before he got out of the truck.

Dai Kun's weighing table stood at the centre under a striped awning.

A brass-tipped balance scale stood on it, polished and official, with a pile of grey sacks behind.

"Boss Bai," said Dai Kun, spreading his arms. "Welcome. Tokens or goods?"

"Goods."

"And what did you bring?"

The boy and two guards unloaded the truck bed.

Crates of eggs, tomatoes from the roof, dried mushrooms in paper sacks, six tins of cooking oil.

The crowd pressed in.

They had not seen a tomato in a month.

"Fresh," said Dai Kun, putting a mushroom sack on his scale. "Let's see. One kilo."

The needle swung and settled.

"Eight hundred grams," he said, shaking his head. "A pity. I'll give you six tokens."

"Weigh it again," said Bai Jin.

"The scale is the scale."

"Then you won't mind this."

He took a velvet bag from his jacket and shook out a heavy brass cylinder the size of a fist.

It was his father's one-kilo weight, which had sat on the Fuyuan counter for thirty years.

The city's certification was stamped on its base.

He set it on the Stadium's scale.

The needle swung and settled at nine hundred.

A murmur ran through the crowd.

"A bad scale," said Dai Kun. "Anyone can see..."

"Then bring a good one," said Bai Jin. "You, with the notebook. The list."

The boy stepped up beside him, notebook open, voice cracking with nerves.

"Twenty-two sacks of Stadium rice this month, all marked ten kilos," he read.

"I watched eight weighed at other tables. Seven point nine. Eight point one. Eight point four."

"Quiet, boy," growled Dai Kun.

"Eight point two," said the boy, louder. "Seven point eight. Every one of them under nine."

"That's a lie!"

"Then put a sack on my scale," said Bai Jin.

He nodded to Gong Ting.

Gong Ting lifted Bai Jin's own balance out of the truck bed with one hand.

He set it on the table, an old iron thing with real pans.

He picked up the nearest Stadium sack and dropped it on one pan.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Doomsday Bodyguard Wants a Raise from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.