Noodle Shop Owner Treated Me as Sucker; I Closed Her

On my way home from work, I stopped at the roadside stall by the entrance of my community and bought a bowl of duck-leg noodles, just like always.

The woman who ran the duck-leg noodle stall had a kind face and a pitiful air about her, so as long as I got off work on time, I came by to give her my business almost every day.

Since she saw I bought so much, she'd often throw in some extra noodles.

But today I'd been out on fieldwork all day and was soaked through. To keep off the sun I'd bundled up until only my eyes showed, and my pant legs were splattered with water spots and mud. I looked like an absolute mess.

Even my own mother would've come by and cried out, "Where'd this beggar come from?"

The woman glanced at me and quoted a price. "Eight dollars!"

My hand froze mid-scan.

Didn't this place always sell duck-leg noodles for twenty-five dollars?

Section 1

I blinked and instinctively looked up at the stall's sign: Rachel's Duck-Leg Noodles.

I hadn't come to the wrong place, had I?

I was the one who helped put that sign up, and the line of brush-written characters along the bottom"Honest goods, honest prices, fair to young and old"I'd begged my grandfather to write when he came to visit me.

The old man is a well-known calligrapher. Plenty of his fans travel a thousand miles just for those words, only to eat a single bowl of duck-leg noodles.

I never told her, because I didn't want her to feel any pressure over it.

Even drenched in sweat from the heat, she never stopped working, looking just as honest and hardworking as she had three years ago.

Back then she'd just shown up and didn't even know how to set up a stall. She spread a newspaper on the ground, propped a pot up beside it, and started selling foodand got chased off pitifully by the city code enforcement officers.

I couldn't stand to watch, so I helped her rent a stall, get her supplies together, obtain a health permit, and register with the government. I walked her through every step until the stall was legal, compliant, and booming.

On opening day, she wept and grabbed my hand, practically ready to kneel down before me, saying she'd feed me noodles for free for the rest of my life.

I told her there was no need, that I'd just done it as a good deed.

The duck-leg noodles sold for twenty-three at first, and later twenty-five.

So where did this eight dollars come from?

I frowned and probed, "Duck-leg noodles this cheapdo you even make any money?"

She looked me over. "You look unfamiliar. First time here?"

I went along with it and nodded. "Just passing through on a business trip. I've got a train back in a little while."

A flicker of ease crossed her face. "My business is booming, honey. I don't make my money off this."

I asked, puzzled, "If the noodle stall isn't making its money from noodles, then where does the money come from?"

She lowered her voice and said furtively, "It's all about one price per personreading a customer's spending power exactly. That's how you get repeat business!"

"This is a high-end community, full of rich folks! I've been here long enough that one look tells me whether a customer's got money or not. Different people, different mealsthose with money ought to pay a little more!"

She wore a look of complete entitlement and made a couple of gestures with her right hand. "Starting price is fifteen, and the rich pay extra."

I sucked in a cold breath, a wave of dizziness washing over me.

When the duck-leg noodle stall first opened, I'd even helped spread the word around the neighborhoodand this heartless creature was what I'd promoted!

I forced a smile and asked, feigning curiosity, "And nobody's ever caught on?"

She spat out two sunflower-seed shells, which landed on the noodles beside her, and brushed them off without a thought. "These fat sheep care most about saving face. Talking money is beneath themdead easy to handle! And the more you fleece them, the happier they are. It's what these young folks call feeling like they deserve it."

"I'm doing a good deed here. Sure, I take on the risk of setting the price, but the customer walks away satisfied! And I don't even make them bring me a banner of thanks!"

I let out a couple of cold laughs. This swindler's abacus really did click loud. I'd been cheated by her all this time, and I was supposed to be thanking her over and over?

She got more and more pleased with herself as she talked, waving me closer with delight. "You know who pays the highest price in this whole community?"

A sudden, ominous feeling rose up in me. "Who?"

She said mysteriously, "There's a young girl around heresoft as they come, does whatever I say. I just play the victim a little and she's hooked. Runs around handling everything for me. I don't have to worry about a thing."

Rage flared in my chest at once. Wasn't that a perfect description of me? I'd been so worried she didn't know how things worked that I even took a few days off just to walk her through the whole process. That woman cried her eyes out about how she'd met a kindhearted personwhen she was a two-faced snake the whole time!

My voice went cold and hard. "Someone helped you that muchshouldn't you give them a discount?"

She waved a hand. "Oh, please, I would've, but that young thing's so high-minded she wouldn't take one! So I figured, fine, I'll just quote her a high price to make her feel good about it! Started her off at twenty-three, but the girl's a real spendthriftdoesn't have much money and loves to spend it, never misses a meal. So don't blame me for hiking the price."

"And every now and then I toss a few extra noodles onto her plate, and she's just so grateful for it!"

Grateful?

I was so furious I slapped my hand down on her stall and ripped off my face covering. "Give me my money back!"

Rachel stared in disbelief, and the spatula slipped from her hand and clattered into the pot, splashing a few drops of hot broth onto her skin.

Her face twitched a few times, and she came out from behind the stall to grab my hand, asking sweetly, "Why are you off work so early today? It's so hot out. If you want noodles, just say the word and I'll make them ahead and bring them up to your place."

I took two steps back and said coldly, "Good thing I was out on fieldwork and got off early today, or I never would've caught such a great show."

I spread my hands impatiently. "Cut the crap. Give me my money back!"

Rachel packed up the noodles, playing it like she had everything under control and just wanted to smooth things over. "Why be so cold with me? It only hurts feelings. I'll pretend I didn't hear that. This one's on the house, and I'll give you a discount every time you come from now on, all right?"

Still trying to muddle her way out of it, betting on the idea that I'm an easy mark, that a few words will smooth me over!

I did a good deed and got treated like a punching bag, a sucker to be fleeced all this time. Even a saint would come down and give her a couple of punches.

I was so angry I laughed, and then I actually calmed down. "Fine. If you want to pretend nothing happened, then let's tally up this account properly. Once it's clear, I'll pretend nothing happened too."

I pulled out my phone, opened the calculator, and punched in the numbers one at a time. "Ever since I helped you set up your stall three years ago, I've come to buy a bowl of noodles for dinner on basically every workday.

"There are 250 workdays in a year. I'll count it as 230 days to give you a break. You have to refund the full markup on everything above eight dollars, which comes to 11,730 dollars."

Rachel's voice shook as she shouted, "There's no way it's that much! This is robbery!"

I kept typing on my phone. "So you do know it's robbery? Back in '23 I ran around for you picking out the cart, having the sign made, getting advice on running the stallI spent 510 dollars treating people to meals.

"In '24, when you got sick in the spring and again in the fall, I took you to the clinic, asked around for directions, found you a doctor. I covered the medical bills right there and you never once mentioned paying me back1,300 total.

"Last year your car broke down, and I found the shop that fixed it220 total.

"I've rounded everything down for you. Altogether it comes to 13,760 dollars. Alipay or WeChat, either works for me."

Rachel's face flushed crimson. "Th-those were all gifts from you! And now you want them back? That's low!"

I sneered. "Who said they were gifts? This is unjust enrichment. Pay it back if you can. If you can't, that's fine too."

Rachel's calculating eyes suddenly flashed with greed, and she slapped her own cheeks a few times and forced a smile. "See, I always said itsuch a kind girl, she'd never have the heart to bully anyone. From now on I'll only charge you 13 for the duck-leg noodles, lower than anyone in the neighborhood!"

I said unhurriedly, "If you can't pay it back, then I'll see you in court. I've got all the evidence saved right here on my phone."

Rachel's expression changed, and she lunged to snatch my phone. I twisted aside, and she couldn't stop in time and fell hard to the ground.

"Ow! Ow"

The woman shrieked, "A young punk's bullying an old woman! A young girl's beating people in the street! Where's the justice in this world?!"

Several old men and women who'd been sitting nearby cooling off immediately came over, fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans. "What's going on? What happened? Take it slow, tell us!"

Rachel's face brightened. She sat on the ground and pointed. "It's her! I saw she was a regular, so I gave her a discount a few times, and then she got a taste of it and started forcing me to refund all her money at the discount rate!"

Rachel slapped her thigh and pretended to cry. "We're a small businesshow are we supposed to survive this kind of thing? A refund, and she wants ten or twenty thousand!"

Then she pointed at the few hot spots that had just splashed onto her hand. "I said no, and lookshe scalded my hand! This is deliberate assault!"

An old man immediately flew into a rage. "Young people these days have no drive, always scheming crooked little tricksnext thing you know they're committing crimes!"

This old man was from the next community over. The year before last, his wife had just passed away when he started chasing after Rachel for a twilight romance, and it had made quite a stir for a while.

Now he was strutting like a peacock spreading its tail. "You'd better publicly apologize to Rachel today and pay her something for emotional distress. Only then will we call this even!"

Endless jabs rained down on me like drops of rain. I gripped my phone tightly and steadied myself. "You're the one who sizes people up to price-gouge, always charging me twenty-five dollars. Today you didn't recognize me and charged me eight, and that's when you let it slip. It's only right that I ask for my money back."

The crowd paused for a moment, going quiet for the time being.

Seeing that things weren't going her way, the stall owner narrowed her eyes, twisted her lips, squeezed out a few tears, and dialed up her performance:

"A young lady like you, looking so fresh and clean, ought to speak with a conscience. I know I'm from the countryside and can't compare to you glamorous city folks, but I do my work honestly, with a clear conscience!"

An older woman, moved by this, reached out and helped her up. "Don't be scared, honey. We're all right here. As long as you're in the right, let's see who dares bully you today!"

The old man snorted hard through his nose and said in a snide tone, "The world really is going to the dogs. It's only that conditions these days won't allow it, otherwise I'd have you in the stocks and paraded through the streets today!"

"Right, otherwise there's no curing that filthy, mouthing-off habit of yours. We've been too soft on you young people."

"Back when we were young, society was so stable, and your generation has wrecked it all!"

"Look at you, all grubby and shabby. You're a disgrace to the neighborhood and the whole city. It'd be embarrassing just to live next to you."

"They say your looks come from your heart. A dark mind shows itself as a sloppy appearance, doesn't it?"

"Who knows what schemes she's cooking up to hurt people in private!"

"So arrogant over some tiny scrap of profit. Give it a couple more days and she'll be out killing people in the street. You need to be taught a lesson before you'll straighten out."

...

The stall owner shrank back behind the crowd, chiming in with a word of support now and then, playing the part of someone completely above it all.

Seeing the woman in front of me getting more and more heated, I pushed down a hand that was about to reach at my face, and stated my position before she could glare and bristle:

"I know you elders probably aren't familiar with this noodle stall, and you mean well. But these days, whose kid doesn't grab something from a street stall now and then? Helping this owner cheat me out of my money does you no goodit might even hurt your own family!"

Was it worth playing the good guy for nothing, or cutting down an unknown menace?

The moment I said that, the crowd's energy visibly dropped, and the faces around me showed people weighing it over.

The stall owner shoved through the crowd from the back and blurted out, "Open your mouth and out comes filth."

Then she turned to the crowd and made a few morale-boosting gestures. "Young people these days only know how to say pretty, useless things. Don't let yourselves be fooled by sweet talk!"

The old man who'd been chasing after the stall owner immediately fell in line, pretending to have seen the light and declaring righteously, "So that's it! Trying to fool us too! A repeat offender, just as I thought. We older folks have a duty to teach you black sheep of society a lesson!"

I gave a cold laugh and tapped my phone screen awake. "Sweet talk? Talk is cheapseeing is believing. I can show my evidence. Can you?"

The stall owner's face went white in an instant!

The look on a person's face can't lie.

A buzz of muttering ran through the crowd, and plenty of people eyed the stall owner with suspicion.

For a moment, everyone's attention was fixed on my phone.

I was pulling up my past payment records to compare them with today's when a line of text suddenly popped up at the bottom of the screen:

"Please connect to power soon, or the device will shut down within 60 seconds."

That was when I remembered I'd been running around all day and hadn't had a chance to charge my phone. I'd meant to grab dinner and charge it slowly once I got home, but I'd gotten held up.

No time to fret over it. I made a snap decision, opened WeChat, and sent a message out.

The old man had a little more nerve than the stall owner, and he kept pushing. "Hurry it up. You're not hiding something, are you?"

I held up my phone openly. "My phone's dead. Please be patient and wait a momentit'll all be clear soon enough!"

The old man let out a big breath of relief and immediately went back on the attack. "So you're gonna keep putting this off day after day? No proof is no proof. Quit dragging this out and wasting everyone's trust. Turns out you're nothing but a paper tiger!"

The stall owner recovered her composure too, wanting to seize the chance to smooth the big things into small ones and the small ones into nothing. She put on a tolerant expression. "Young people are under a lot of pressure and want to blow off steam after work. That's understandable enough. But I'm just a small vendor. I make my living on my skill and my honesty..."

She clapped her hands together as if struck by sudden inspiration. "How about this, young ladyyou apologize to me, say you shouldn't have thrown mud on my name, and the rest of us will let it go."

The old man glanced to the side and chimed in. "Put yourself in someone else's shoes! If you've got any sense of public decency, apologize and we'll let you go! We won't hold you responsible!"

"No."

The old man's eyebrows shot up. "Don't refuse a favor when you're offered one!"

"First you slander someone with your bare word, then you fabricate evidence out of thin air. Everyone here has been waiting patientlythey're not here to play house with you. All these people's time and energycan you afford to pay for it?"

I rapped the tin edge of the stall and said steadily, "One is one, two is two. I stand behind every word I've said."

"The evidence that the stall owner sets her prices however she pleases really is on my phone. I just can't show it right now."

"There's one more thing. I originally wanted to speak with the stall owner privately and ask if there'd been a misunderstanding, but since you all want an explanation this badly, let's just let everyone here be the judge."

"Rachel's duck-leg noodles have never used duck legsthey use chicken legs!"

The stall owner swayed and nearly lost her footing.

"Before, I only suspected it, and I never had time to confirm. But today the proof is laid out right in my face, and I can't look away."

"The stall owner sold me a bowl of duck-leg noodles for eight dollars today, so she's still turning a profit. Eight dollars can't even buy a duck leg, let alone a whole bowl of noodles on top of it, which means she has to save on something somewhere."

The stall owner raised her voice, all bluster. "I sell you a cheap bowl because you've been out all day, and now even that's wrong?!"

I gave a faint smile. "If you don't have the character for it, don't go gilding your own face."

I waved everyone in closer. "I don't have much experience, but everyone here is a real hand at farm work. Give me some pointerslook at the size of this 'leg,' the bones, the shape. Is it chicken or duck?"

An old woman in reading glasses studied it for a long moment, then spoke up first. "Chicken leg, no mistake about it, chicken leg! This duck leg doesn't even have the duck's spur. It only fools city folk."

An old man beside her slapped his thigh. "You said it! Duck legs never have grain this fine!"

The others jumped in with their own opinions, and in no time the whole thing was buzzing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the stall owner and the old man abandon the stall entirely, grab their bags, and try to slip away while no one was watching. I called out sharply, "Didn't you want evidence? Now that there's evidence, you think you can run without an explanation?"

The stall owner stiffened her neck. "Who's running? Something's come up at home, so this old woman will head back and see to it. We can hash this out once it's settled!"

"I'm afraid you'll have to submit to an investigation first. You can leave once the matter at hand is settled."

Two Market Regulation Bureau officers arrived quickly, gave me a nod, showed the stall owner their credentials, and spoke by the book.