On the outer side of his right arm, a fierce, cwed azure dragon was tattooed in vivid detail.
On the inner side of his left arm, however, were the six sacred Buddhist sylbles inked: Om Mani Padme Hum.”
The combined meaning of these two—perhaps some kind of underworld magic, embodying both offense and defense.
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When I woke up in the morning, my brother was already lying in bed, sleeping like a dead pig.
He wasn't just working part-time to save up money for his student loans—he also wanted to buy a second-hand car to practice driving. He said he felt ashamed always borrowing his friends’ cars, and if he accidentally damaged something, he’d have to pay for repairs and apologize. It would be much easier to have his car. Hence, we barely saw each other on weekends. Thinking about it, his life was pretty miserable.
I walked downstairs to find Mom and Dad sitting in the living room, working on some crafts.
"Hey, little one, you got yourself a boyfriend, huh?" Dad teased.
"Stop talking nonsense." I opened the fridge, poured some milk into a gss, and called it breakfast.
"Go check the door. Your boyfriend sent you a gift," Mom added with an oddly amused smile.
"What's with you two so early in the morning? What is this, The Simpsons or The Addams Family?" I muttered, sipping my milk as I walked to the door and opened it.
My old bicycle was parked neatly outside.
I crouched down to inspect it. No doubt about it—the tires had been repced with new ones.
"Huh? What's going on here?" My mind immediately went to A-Ta. Could that man really have been so full of energy that he fixed my bike and brought it back? Highly suspicious—especially since he'd specifically asked which house was mine st night.
The problem was—I had locked it.
"The regur customer from that café is interested in our daughter, huh?" Dad said loudly to Mom.
"Young people these days are so out of control, always being romantically reckless," Mom replied, pying right into his act.
I was both amused and annoyed, but I had to admit— A-Ta bringing my bike back saved me a lot of trouble.
That evening, when A-Ta picked me up on his scooter at NET, I thanked him first, then immediately scolded him for being so ridiculous.
His expnation was simple: since school had just started, he had nothing better to do.
Plus, he had a habit of exercising before bed. So, te st night, he walked my bike over to a repair shop he knew, stuck a note on it asking for new tires, and then, early this morning, he rode it back to my house and took the bus home.
"A repair shop, you know? Just a note?" I was skeptical. Would a shop really fix a bike just because someone left a note?
"Yeah. They're the ones who taught me how to unlock a bike, too. It's easy. I can teach you if you're interested ."
A-Ta spoke so matter-of-factly, like it was the most normal thing in the world. But it still felt weird to me.
Ten minutes ter, he was weaving through an underpass, turning into a narrow alley, then another alley within the alley. Finally, we stopped in front of a semi-self-service undromat.
At st, I found out who Auntie Jin-Dao was.
"A-Ta! Are you here to do undry or to eat?"
Her voice was loud, and she looked like a prison warden from a women's penitentiary.
"Auntie Jin-Dao! It's Sunday! Don't tell me you're not cooking today!"
A-Ta raised his voice along with his ughter.
"You actually remember! You've got quite the appetite, huh? Eh? Who's the girl next to you?"
Auntie Jin-Dao fshed a mouthful of gleaming gold teeth and curiously ruffled my hair.
"My friend, we just met not long ago. Her name is Si Ying."
A-Ta gave my shoulder a firm pat, and I could feel his sheer strength nearly shaking me apart.
"Si, as in longing, and Ying, as in firefly," I added, though my soul felt completely dazed.
Auntie Jin-Dao was the proprietor of a undromat.
(T/N: 金刀; jīn dāo, literally transtes to "golden knife" in English. In the context of a name, "金刀嫂" (Jīn Dāo Sǎo) could be interpreted as "Sister-in-w Golden Knife" or "Auntie Gold-Tooth" (since the character has gold teeth, which fits the nickname). It might also imply someone bold, sharp, or skilled—possibly in cooking.)
Yes, yes, you heard that right—I'm sorry, but we were actually going to have a meal in a undromat. I was absolutely stunned.
"Then you and your girlfriend help me watch the shop for a bit. That good-for-nothing still isn't back yet—no respect for me at all." Auntie Jin-Dao casually grumbled a few more compints, then headed upstairs, leaving behind the endless hum of the surrounding washing machines.
"A-Ta?" My expression must have been utterly bnk.
"Hmm?" A-Ta, on the other hand, looked like Neil Armstrong just after nding on the moon. I was sure he was just asking for trouble.
"In a undromat? You're treating me to dinner in a undromat?" I grabbed A-Ta′s shoulders and shook him hard, hoping to jolt his brain back to a normal frequency.
I had thought that tonight we'd be going somewhere fancy—maybe a steakhouse like Bullfighter or Ponderosa. After all, being saved from death is no small favor; maybe, just maybe, I could even expect some high-css hotel cuisine. At the very least, I figured we'd end up at a pce like Aristocrat Family Restaurant or, worst-case scenario, Domino's—because, well, when Dad's hungry, I'm hungry too!
"It's not a undromat! It's Auntie Jin-Dao!" A-Ta′s expression wasn′t just smug—he was grinning like Stephen Chow after nding a royal flush.
"Right… Auntie Jin-Dao." My face must have been full of awkward lines, and I barely stopped myself from giving him a sarcastic thumbs-up.
"She's the unrivaled culinary queen of Hsinchu! The Auntie Jin-Dao—once hailed as the ‘Fragrant Kitchen Beauty’ twenty years ago!" A-Ta practically shouted, looking like he was about to pull a royal flush from his pocket just to prove his point.
And so, we ended up minding the undromat for forty whole minutes. To be honest, my brain was getting scrambled by the deafening hum of the washing machines, but A-Ta, for some reason, decided to start talking to me about aliens.
Frankly, I don't really believe in aliens, so the more he talked, the dizzier I got.
