At exactly seven in the morning, He Mu's phone rang. It was Tavan calling. His heart raced with excitement, but just as he was about to answer, the caller hung up. Ding. A message came through:
"Are you awake?"
"Not yet."
"Hey... after you get up, can you go check on the pigeon?"
He Mu put on his shorts and flip-flops and hurried down to the lobby. He looked under the table—the pigeon was listless, its head drooping, its chest rising and falling with labored breath.
He sent a short video to Tavan.
"It's still alive! But it's very weak. Your medicine doesn't seem to be working."
"Okay, I'll go buy some other medicine."
"Get some small-grain antibiotics and some red antiseptic solution to apply to the wound."
"Alright, I'll go now."
He Mu went upstairs to grab some money and threw on a short-sleeved shirt. He ran over to Building B to borrow Shan Ge's car and drove out to buy the medicine.
He held the pigeon between his legs, fed it a piece of the antibiotic, and applied the antiseptic. He was about to put it back in its spot when a cleaner in a green uniform came to tidy the lobby. Seeing the pigeon, she gave He Mu a thumbs up and gestured for him to wait a moment.
After a while, the woman returned with a cardboard box. He Mu placed the pigeon inside, along with the water and breadcrumbs. The woman smiled, went out, and came back with a small handful of rice. He Mu wondered—this was probably her own lunch.
The cleaner wiped away the mess the pigeon had made overnight. He Mu took out 50 baht and handed it to her. She accepted it with both hands, beaming, and gave a slight bow. He Mu said goodbye and went back to his room. Today, he needed to do laundry—it had piled up over several days.
At noon, Shan Ge called and invited him to lunch.
At six in the evening, He Mu arrived at the place they had agreed on. His heart was pounding. He was half an hour early. The location was on a steep slope. On the downhill side, tall concrete speed bumps were placed every ten meters or so, forcing cars to crawl. Beside the road was an empty lot piled with crushed stone. A large steel-framed building stood nearby, with glass tanks of shrimp underneath. There were also four large concrete pools on the ground, with groups of people gathered around them, doing something He Mu couldn't quite make out. It didn't look much like a restaurant. He wasn't sure why Tavan had asked him to meet here. He paced back and forth on the gravel, waiting for them.
At 6:20, they arrived. Tavan was still in her work uniform, a yellow-and-blue ID badge pinned to her chest. Her sister wore jeans and a long-sleeved top. As soon as they met, the sister asked:
"How's the pigeon?"
"It's still moving around. Looks like it might recover. I'll check on it again when I get back tonight."
Tavan sighed with relief. "It's still moving—it'll definitely get better! Please give it more medicine and apply some more antiseptic tonight."
"Don't worry. The little guy will be fine!" He Mu assured her.
With that, the sisters led him inside the building where he'd seen the shrimp earlier.
So this was a shrimp fishing spot. The people He Mu had seen gathered around the pools were mostly young Thais, each holding a short rod, fishing for shrimp.
Tavan walked up to the counter, and He Mu followed. The three of them rented three shrimp rods. The rods were short, without telescoping sections—they were made of carbon fiber, very light and springy. The line was about two meters long, with a small hook—no barb, unlike fishing hooks. The bait was milkfish intestine cut into rice-sized pieces.
Each shrimp pool was about seventy to eighty square meters. Bubbles rose from seven or eight spots in each. The water was about 1.7 to 1.8 meters deep, with the surface about forty centimeters below the pool's edge. The water wasn't very clear, tinged yellowish-green. A small artificial rockery stood in the middle of each pool, planted with aquatic plants. A little sea lion figurine spouted a gentle stream of water. Long-armed shrimp crawled slowly among the plants.
Small plastic stools and little plastic tables were set up around the pools. The three of them picked a spot—the stools were designed to be just the right height for comfortable sitting. He Mu and the sister sat down, while Tavan stood beside her sister.
Each person was given a small bucket with a hole about the size of a fist. Caught shrimp went into the bucket. He Mu bought a few bottles of water and some snacks and put them on the plastic table.
The sister was an expert at shrimp fishing. Within half an hour, she had nearly half a bucketful. Tavan had caught five or six. He Mu hadn't caught a single one. The sister came over to see what he was doing. It turned out he hadn't threaded the bait properly around the hook, and his timing with the float was off. She showed him: "Don't pull when the float is just bobbing. Wait until it sinks below the surface, then gently press down on the rod—lift it up."
He Mu followed her advice and started to get results.
The sister turned to go back to her spot. Just then, there was a sudden splash in the water, as if someone had fallen in, followed by a startled cry from Tavan. He Mu looked and saw that it was the sister—the very one who had been teaching him—who had fallen into the pool! He dropped his rod. Tavan was about to jump in herself. He Mu held her back, quickly tore off his shirt, handed it to her, and slid down the side of the pool. He swam a couple of meters, gently put an arm around the sister's waist, and treading water, made his way to the edge. A crowd had gathered by now, and staff from the shrimp place had come over. They helped pull them both out.
The staff took the sisters to get cleaned up. The sister had no dry clothes to change into, so He Mu gave her his shirt and went shirtless himself. When the sister emerged, Tavan took her hand and fussed over her, asking all sorts of questions.
It turned out that as the sister was walking back, she had tripped over He Mu's little shrimp bucket, stumbled forward, lost her balance, and fallen into the pool. Tavan held her sister's hand and glanced at He Mu standing there shirtless—her previously frightened face now flushed. She was trying to hold back laughter. He Mu pointed at the sister's hair. "Your hairstyle got a little messy!" That was all it took. Tavan burst out laughing, burying her face against her sister's shoulder.
The sisters debated whether to go home. He Mu noticed people grilling shrimp behind the building and suggested they eat first.
They found a spot to sit. The place didn't just have shrimp—they offered a variety of grilled items as well. The shrimp were weighed to calculate the price. Suddenly, He Mu realized: oh no! Where was his phone? He felt his pocket and pulled it out—it was dead, soaked from the water. Tavan asked the shop owner for a hairdryer, wrapped the phone in several layers of tissue, and carefully dried it.
Tavan asked her sister if she had swallowed any of the pool water. The sister shot her a look, then held up three fingers. "Tastes terrible!" Tavan ordered her sister a bottle of soda water. Then she pointed to the pool and asked He Mu, "How many gulps did you take?" He Mu thought for a moment and held up one finger. "One gulp?" Tavan asked. He Mu sighed. "Not one gulp. I kept drinking!" Tavan doubled over laughing again, and as she repeated what he'd said to her sister, the two of them broke into giggles once more. The soda water arrived, but the sister didn't drink it. Tavan offered it to He Mu. He pointed to his stomach and mimed being full, sending them both into another fit of laughter.
Tavan suddenly laughed and said, "We came to fish for shrimp, but the shrimp fished for people!"
He Mu glanced at her.
He Mu noticed a shrimp that had jumped onto the ground. He picked it up and tossed it into a nearby pool. The sisters looked at him curiously. "Let it go back and warn the others. Next time, no fishing for people, or there will be serious consequences!" The sister laughed heartily. "It would die from that fall. It won't be delivering any messages for you!" Tavan laughed. "If it goes back, it'll probably say this place is too dangerous. We need to run far away!" He Mu smiled. "I wish they really could run far away. Unfortunately, this is an enclosed man-made pond."
They ordered three beers. The sister seemed to have a good tolerance for alcohol, and she had a hearty, cheerful personality. Her face was always wreathed in smiles. He Mu drank one beer with her; she finished two.
After dinner, the sisters decided to accompany him to get his phone repaired. The sister first went to change her clothes—she returned the shirt he had lent her—and fixed her hair, applying a touch of lipstick. The three of them went to the second floor of Robinson Plaza and found a phone repair shop. About an hour later, the phone was fixed. By then, it was getting late.
The sister said something to Tavan. Tavan smiled and said, "Mr. Amu, my sister wants to know if you're free to have dinner with us tomorrow night."
He Mu smiled. "You're both treating me?"
Tavan nodded, smiling.
"Okay, I'll come. Send me a WeChat message!"
With that, they parted ways.
Lying in bed, he thought about what she had said—"We came to fish for shrimp, but the shrimp fished for people." Chuckling to himself, he slowly drifted off to sleep.
(To be continued, next chapter: Salty)