Grandma Chen
"Small with upright posture and sharp eyes. Dresses plainly but neatly, rarely without her reading glasses on a cord around her neck."
Biography
Grandma Chen kept the shop's books by hand for over three decades before the card reader showed up, and she still does mental arithmetic faster than the register can. She keeps a small row of houseplants on the back windowsill that she tends more carefully than almost anything else in her life, and she has a reputation in the building for being a formidable mahjong player, a game she still plays twice a month with friends she has known since she was younger than Xiaoyu is now. She comes by the shop less often than her husband does, but when she shows up it is because something needs fixing properly, and she is the one person whose quiet disappointment can still make her grandson nervous.