The Miner's Wife? She's the Big Boss!

Canteen No. 2 at the mine was nearly closed until the narrator brought the West Zone miners to it, hundreds of men coming up from several hundred metres underground with an appetite. The queue got long and Qian the Fat Man, who owns the place, made his money. Once he had it he decided the miners ate too much. He worked out an arrangement with the canteen supervisor and began charging for second helpings without telling anyone, then cut the minced meat out of the dishes entirely. The narrator brings his lunch tin, still black with coal dust, to argue about it. Qian points at him in front of everyone: the same thirty yuan a day meal subsidy, and the technicians from the East Zone control room eat less and stay clean, so why should he keep feeding a crowd covered in mud. What Qian does not know is who runs the new East Zone mine that just finished construction across the way, the sealed, dust-free one his future customers work in. It is the narrator's wife.