Read Don’t Cry, Tai Lake for Free Online Page A

taking a drink from her bottle. “Of course, there’s more than a single cause. In addition to the industrial pollution, sewage treatment measures also lag far behind the social and economic development of the Yangtze River delta. In the early nineties, the annual industrial sewage entering the lake was estimated at 540 million tons, and household sewage at 320 million tons. But nowadays, the total sewage is more than 5.3 billion tons. Only thirty percent of the household sewage is treated before being dumped into the lake.”
    “Wow, you keep all of those figures in your head?” With an apologetic smile, he asked, “Do you mind if I smoke? I need to digest those figures. This is a serious problem for China.”
    “Go ahead,” she said, noticing that he took out a soft pack of China , one of the most expensive brands. Then she realized that she must sound like a research report. “Sorry for the lecture. I forget you’re on vacation.”
    Perhaps it wasn’t just a subject that she was passionate about; talking about it also gave her a sense of self-justification. She was unpopular at the company, where people took her as something of a Cassandra figure, and that morning she almost became a murder suspect.
    “No, you don’t have to apologize. On the contrary, I’m grateful for your conversation—or your lecture, if you want to call it that. It’s something I could never have learned from the official publications. It’s really shocking.”
    She couldn’t help noting the look of serious attention on his face, bookish yet sincere. She hadn’t had an attentive audience like Chen before. Nor one where she didn’t have to worry about the consequences of talking openly. He wasn’t local, and would probably be gone in a week.
    “Your work is truly important, Shanshan,” he said in earnest.
    “I’m a nobody in the company. No one cares about what I say. If anything, it only marks me as a troublemaker.”
    “Because of your work?”
    “It was naïve of me to take the job so seriously. I was hired for the sake of appearances, which I found out after I started work. All my research was put into a newsletter available only to the company executives. I doubt whether they ever read it, or whether they did anything about it if they did read it. Time and again, I felt obliged to speak out against Liu’s business decisions, like shutting down the waste treatment facility or fabricating the reports being sent to the agencies. But what difference did it make?” She smiled a bitter smile. “It’s strange that I’m telling you all this.”
    “There is one line in a Confucian classic, Shanshan. Some people may never really know each other even if they’re together until white-haired, but some people may be true friends the moment they meet each other, taking down their hats .”
    “Yes, I remember that line too.”
    “Now,” he said, “do you think the phone message you got was because of your work?”
    “That’s possible, but I doubt Liu would have gone to the trouble. He could have easily fired me.”
    A siren sounded not too far away, and Chen looked up. The street they had just turned onto was lined with food stalls and souvenir kiosks. They were close to the ferry.
    “Wait a minute,” he said and walked over to a stall.
    She saw him talking to a man behind the counter at a snack stall under a white-and-red striped umbrella. Chen pointed at something, then came back carrying a large brown paper bag.
    “Slices of roast beef and steamed buns. You can’t drink only water, Shanshan.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Chen, but you don’t have to do that.”
    “I promised Uncle Wang. You can break the bun into two and put the beef in between, which is a very popular way to eat them in the northwest. The sauce is also in the bag.”
    “You’re an impossible connoisseur. I’m sorry about spoiling your appetite back at Uncle Wang’s place.”
    “It was for my own good, and I really appreciate it. Here is my cell