On this day, the sky just brightened.
The eastern sun had not yet risen, and the donkey carts trudged along the streets, going door to door to collect the night's leftovers of rice and excrement.
The stench was fresh out of the oven, some dry, some watery, making the dung buckets on the donkey carts dribble with yellow.
"Daybreak cleans, the earth pollutes, you discharge waste, I move it aside, the sky clear and the air fresh, the world's alive..."
The cart driver collecting waste was an old man, wearing a straw hat, with a stick of licorice in his mouth, leaning against the stained dung bucket behind him, murmuring as if he had not yet woken up.
In the city's 365 professions, the waste removers of the capital had it much tougher than the night watchmen.
Hardly anyone was willing to do such filthy work.
Dinglingling...