[Fresh Melon of the day!]

Gu Xicao’s eyes lit up as she dragged a garbage bag. Without hesitation, she stomped on a soda can, flattening it before tossing it into the bag. “What is it? Tell me.”

[Old Chen, the garbage collector, got caught messing around with Widow Zhang last night by his wife. She slapped them both across the face—twice!]

Gu Xicao gasped.

Now that was juicy gossip!

If she remembered correctly, Widow Zhang was almost seventy, while Old Chen was just in his fifties. The two had always seemed close—Widow Zhang frequently brought Old Chen soups and desserts she’d made. But Gu Xicao had always assumed their relationship was just friendly. She hadn’t expected there to be… something more.

This revelation left her genuinely stunned.

Lin Yuan, carrying two cardboard boxes, returned to see Gu Xicao spacing out again. Concerned, he asked, “Sister, are you tired? How about I take the stuff to Uncle Chen’s? You can rest here for a bit.”

Gu Xicao snapped out of her daze and looked at Lin Yuan’s worried face. She couldn’t help but sigh—poor kids always grew up fast.

Lin Yuan was only nine years old. If he’d been in school, he would have been in third grade, worrying about homework and playing with friends. Instead, he had to help her pick up garbage to make ends meet, while also caring for his unrelated “big sister.”

Gu Xicao had been in this world for about a month now. If it weren’t for Lin Yuan, a caring brother and the entertainment provided by her Melon-Eating (Gossip) System, she would have wanted to die.

When she first woke up, she found herself in 1990s Hong Kong.

Though Hong Kong’s economy was thriving, not everyone shared in its prosperity. People like the original Gu Xicao and Lin Yuan’s family were struggling just to survive. As illegal immigrants, even getting ID cards was tough—surviving was even harder.

At the end of last month, Lin Yuan’s mother had died of a heart attack, leaving just Gu Xicao and Lin Yuan to fend for themselves. They now lived in a cramped subdivided flat, surviving off what they earned collecting garbage.

“No need. Let’s go together. Old Chen’s a cheat. Last time you went alone, he used a rigged scale to short us sixteen yuan!”

Just thinking about it made Gu Xicao angry.

They could barely make seventy or eighty yuan after three days of hard work, and Old Chen had the audacity to cheat them out of sixteen yuan in one go.

Serves him right to be slapped by his wife.

Feeling reinvigorated, she grabbed the garbage bag and said, “Let’s go. We’ve been lucky today and found so much cardboard. Later, I’ll buy you some cake.”

Hearing this, Lin Yuan swallowed hard and nodded enthusiastically.

The recycling station was in a secluded corner of Mong Kok. After bypassing the bustling streets and crowded areas, they took a shortcut, arriving half an hour later.

The station was surrounded by corrugated iron sheets, forming a small yard cluttered with various kinds of garbage. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed incessantly.

Dragging the garbage bag inside, Gu Xicao called out, “Uncle Chen, Auntie Chen, we’re here to sell garbage!”

A stout middle-aged woman wearing a heavily stained apron emerged, her face stern. She shot them an unfriendly look. “What’s all the shouting for? Selling garbage doesn’t mean you need to yell.”

“Auntie Chen, we didn’t want to disturb you. By the way, why is it so quiet today?”

Gu Xicao dropped the bag as Auntie Chen squatted down to empty it, letting cans and bottles clatter onto the ground. She sorted through them roughly, unscrewing tightly sealed bottles and shaking out any remaining liquid.

“It’s not quiet at all. We just had a rush earlier. Business is good,” Auntie Chen replied, glancing up. “Old Chen! What are you doing in there? Get out here and help!”

Old Chen shuffled out of the house, looking guilty. He began counting bottles and weighing the cardboard.

Finally, he announced, “Bottles and cardboard… 20 yuan. Altogether, 81 yuan.”

Lin Yuan couldn’t hold back. “Uncle Chen, that’s not right. Our cardboard weighs 42 pounds, and at 60 cents a pound, it should be 25 yuan and 20 cents. You shorted us!”

“Shorted you? How?”

Auntie Chen immediately glared at them, her large, round eyes fierce. Placing her hands on her hips, she looked especially menacing as her gaze landed on Gu Xicao’s fair, clean face, a hint of jealousy flashing across her expression.

“These cardboard pieces are damp. We’re already giving you a good deal at 20 yuan. If they were dry and weighed properly, they wouldn’t even be worth that much,” she said, pointing a sausage-like finger at a damp patch on the cardboard.

Gu Xicao felt her face flush with anger.

That water wasn’t there before—it had clearly come from the puddles Auntie Chen had dumped out earlier.

Unlike other garbage collectors who tried to scam by leaving water in cans and bottles, she and Lin Yuan always emptied and crushed them before selling.

Apparently, being honest didn’t pay.

“You… you…”

Lin Yuan, still a child, was so upset he couldn’t find the words to argue back.

Taking a deep breath, Gu Xicao reminded herself not to lose her temper. They couldn’t afford to offend Auntie Chen and her husband. Their recycling station was the only one in Mong Kok—if they burned this bridge, they’d have to travel to another district to sell their garbage.

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Melon is being used instead of gossip, I prefer ‘melon’ because it sounds more fun. Let me know if you don’t like it, and I’ll change it.

Melon= Gossip