“We should target different sections at a time so we don’t have to run around the market in circles,” Cyrus says, reading over the list on his phone. “I saw someone selling lettuce from his cart just now—”

“Okay, okay, let’s go,” I tell him, eager to get started. Out of the corner of my eye, I can already see Lydia dragging her teammate to the closest radish stall, her expression so fierce I wonder if her haggling tactics involve intimidation.

We split from the rest of the group and turn left, making a beeline for the lettuce cart.

The person manning it is more a boy than a grown-up, old enough to have graduated from high school but definitely not college. He’s playing on his phone when we approach him, and glances lazily up at us without pausing the game.

“How much for two heads of lettuce?” Cyrus asks, straight to the point. A bit too straight to the point.

I attempt to smother my frown, but Cyrus sees it anyway.

“What?” he mutters.

“That’s a horrible way to start a negotiation,” I mutter back to him. “Why would you pose it as an open-ended question? You’re basically asking for a higher price.”

He stares at me. “How else would you ask for the price of lettuce?”

“I’d ask him if it was one yuan or two yuan. He’d pick two yuan, of course, and then we’d go from there.” My gaze flickers to the boy, who’s already returned to his game. “Just try it.”

“Fine,” Cyrus says with a heavy air of skepticism. He clears his throat. “Are these one or two—”

“Two,” the boy says.

I don’t need a mirror to know that the smile on my face screams I told you so.

“All right,” Cyrus says in Chinese, actively avoiding my smile, and begins to reach for his wallet. “Then we’ll have—”

I elbow him, hard.

“What now?” he says, spinning around.

“You can’t just accept it at two yuan,” I hiss. “There’s definitely room to go lower.”

“You bargain with him, then.”

“I will. Watch. Just don’t judge me for what I’m about to do.”

His brows shoot up. “Why would I judge—”

I switch my smile to the other one. The one I wear way more often in public, the one I’m admittedly a little ashamed of resorting to, but not so ashamed as to stop using it. It’s softer, half-sly, my chin tipping down, my eyes squinting into a smolder that’s as ridiculous as it is effective. Then, after consulting Google Translate, I fluff my hair out and lean forward as gracefully as I can over the pile of lettuce. “Really? You can’t go any cheaper?” I ask in a breathy voice I’m pretty sure I borrowed from a fantasy video game about sexy elves, but it’s perfect for my target audience.