The friends around the table were so absorbed in listening they forgot to draw tiles, until Lu Jun reminded them.
One of them asked, "Where'd it come from?"
Xu Ping, looking proud, said, "She said she saved it up herself, saved for over a year, just enough to buy that one bottle of liquor… At the time I was stunned, then I beat her up, asked her if she was saving money just to buy that bastard liquor to drink? But my daughter didn't say a word, I beat her and she didn't even shed a single tear, just sat steady as a rock next to her dad, watching him finish that entire bottle. Only afterwards did I find out it was vodka, ninety‑proof baijiu…"
The friends listening were sweating on their foreheads, and asked, "What happened afterward?"
"Afterward? Afterward her dad died."
The friends were badly shaken, even put down the mahjong sauce in their hands.
Xu Ping kept drawing tiles, speaking in a calm, detached tone: "He froze to death."
