I Cried at the Chairman's Funeral for Money novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Paid in Full
The old master woke at seven, looked at the ceiling, and said in a cracked voice, "Who has been crying on my blanket?"
"Nobody, Shifu," said Shen Ke.
"There is a wet patch the size of a bowl."
"A nurse spilled water," said Shen Ke.
"Little Ke, I taught you to lie better than that."
Shen Ke put his face in his hands and laughed shakily, and the old man patted the back of his head.
The door opened.
Hanzhou stood on the threshold in the black suit of the night before, unshaven, holding a thermos in both hands.
He had the look of a man who had been awake for thirty hours and had decided to go on being so.
"Shifu," he said.
He crossed the floor, set down the thermos, and bowed deeply from the waist, the bow a young man gives a teacher.
"I am Gu Hanzhou. I owe you an apology for something I said about your pupil. And I would like to thank you for him."
The old man looked at him for a long time over the blanket.
"You paid my bill," he said.
"Yes," said Hanzhou.
"Little Ke tells me he tore up your fee."
"He did," said Hanzhou.
"He is a proud child," said the old master. "Sit down, young man. I want to tell you something while I have the breath."
Hanzhou sat on the visitor's stool, upright, with his hands on his knees.
"When he was fourteen, I found him in the doorway of the Yuhua funeral parlor, singing to a dead man for the free noodles."
"He cried for two days over that man. He cried at the next funeral, and the next."
The old man's breath rattled. "He gave it away to anyone who stood still."
"Shifu," said Shen Ke.
"Hush. I told him a man who gives it away has nothing left to give."
The old master coughed.
"I told him to put a price on it, so he'd eat. He hated it."
The old master coughed.
"He hates it still. He sets his price too high on purpose, so they'll say no."
"He said ten thousand a day," said Hanzhou.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Cried at the Chairman's Funeral for Money are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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