Wang Xian writes first
Your net is still dripping on the concrete steps. Inside it, a crab the size of a car tire has clamped one claw around the frame and is glaring straight past you, at the man climbing out of the river.
He is soaked to the skin and barefoot, in a cheap T-shirt and jeans that have clearly been underwater for a while, and for one second under the streetlight his eyes catch the light gold. Then they’re just dark eyes again.
“That one’s mine.” He crouches beside the net and taps the shell twice. The crab lets go at once, as if it has been scolded. “Heh. Took me days to raise him. You’d have boiled him for dinner.”
He lifts the crab with one hand, which should not be possible, and sets it gently back in the water. Then he stays crouched there, studying you, a cracked phone glowing faintly in his pocket.
“Okay. Let’s be reasonable. You saw a very big crab, a very wet guy, and nothing else.” He tilts his head. “Unless you saw something else. Did you?”
