booktalesy Chapter 100 Door-to-Door Visit
Chapter 100 Door-to-Door Visit
Wang Cunzhi's Jialing 70 was parked at the gate of the courtyard, and the exhaust sound was shorter than usual.
He turned off the engine and strode into the yard, the canvas bag still hanging on his shoulder, not bothering to take it off.
Old Fang was squatting at the workshop entrance wiping the third wooden sign when he looked up at him and draped the rag over the water ladle.
"Ma Desheng has been suspended from his duties. Director Sun signed the papers last night, and the Industry and Commerce Bureau locked his office overnight."
"The warehouse behind the old salt warehouse was raided this morning, and they found over a hundred bags of fake fertilizer inside." Wang Cunzhi stopped under the loquat tree and placed the canvas bag on the stone slab. "The guy surnamed Ma initially denied everything. But when his brother-in-law heard that the industry and commerce bureau was coming to investigate, he got scared and confessed everything."
His brother-in-law handled everything from dumping the fake fertilizer from the chemical plant, mixing it with talcum powder, to printing woven bags; the man surnamed Ma was responsible for stuffing it into the supply and marketing system.
"What about Hong Laosan's case?" Jiang Haiping walked over from the kitchen doorway, carrying an enamel mug.
The honeycomb briquettes in the kitchen slowly turned red, and the water on the stove bubbled and steamed.
Lin Xiu'e stood in front of the stove, holding an old lunchbox in her hand, and looked back at the yard.
"The Industry and Commerce Bureau has removed him from the list of suspects in the transportation process, officially clearing him of any wrongdoing."
Hong Laosan wasn't the one who switched the goods; he was a scapegoat chosen by the man surnamed Ma. Director Sun said that the transport handover form only had a circle drawn on it, without his signature, and that circle didn't count legally.
Wang Cunzhi pulled half a document from his canvas bag. It was mimeographed and still smelled of ink. "This is a correction letter issued by the supply and marketing cooperative this morning. It acknowledges that there is no direct evidence in the transportation process to prove that Hong Laosan switched the goods."
All previous charges have been withdrawn.
With this letter, Hong Laosan can legitimately run his transport business; no one will dare use this case to pressure him anymore.
Jiang Haiping took the correction letter and read it from beginning to end.
The mimeographed words were blurred in some places, but the red seal of the supply and marketing cooperative at the bottom was neat and tidy. He folded the correction letter and put it in his pocket.
Hong Laosan squatted on the steps at the entrance of the kitchen, hugging his knees with both hands and burying his head in his arms.
He hasn't gone back since leaving the industrial and commercial bureau. Last night, he slept on the floor in the service station workshop.
When the correction letter arrived, he took the paper and looked at it for a long time, his lips moving as he silently read each word.
He read very slowly, and he didn't recognize all the words, but he finished reading.
Then fold the paper, hold it with both hands until the edges wrinkled.
"Hai Ping".
"Okay." Jiang Haiping didn't wait for him to continue.
Third Aunt stood at the gate of the courtyard, carrying a snakeskin bag in her hand.
She didn't come in, but placed the bag on the ground across the threshold. "Sweet potatoes. Digged before the first frost, stored in the cellar for two or three months, they're sweet now."
She pushed the bag further inside, then straightened up.
She saw the correction letter in Hong Laosan's hand, didn't ask what it was, her lips twitched slightly, and she turned and walked towards the seawall.
After taking a couple of steps, he wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
Hong Xiaobing ran out of the old parts warehouse, caught up with the sea embankment, and stuffed a bag of sesame candy into his third aunt's hand. "My mom made it."
Third Aunt took the sesame candy, pinched the seal of the plastic bag with her fingers, and nodded.
Just as the courtyard quieted down, the creaking sound of a bicycle chain came from the seawall outside the gate.
Ding Haifeng returned on his old bicycle, with a bulging snakeskin bag tied to the back seat, the opening of which was secured with two ropes.
He propped his bicycle against the loquat tree, but the support wasn't firmly in place, and the bicycle tilted slightly. He reached out to steady it.
"Where's your father?" Old Fang asked.
"He went back to Baishakou. He said he was useless staying on Hongjia Island, because there were still some old ship parts he hadn't finished teaching there, and he said he wanted to finish teaching them."
Ding Haifeng unloaded the snakeskin bag from the back seat and untied the rope.
The bag contained five or six water pump impellers of varying sizes. Some were badly rusted, and some still had dried mud on their end faces.
He picked one up and turned it over; the lettering on the back of the impeller was blurry.
"My dad got it from a secondhand shop in Baishakou. He said it was stolen from the service station by Ma Desheng when he was dealing in old ship parts."
These impeller models match the "scrapped and missing" entries in the register.
Ding Haifeng arranged the impellers one by one on the stone slab.
Of the five impellers, three have the word "Binhai" cast on the back in a blurry manner, while the other two are obviously old parts, but their models do not match the registration book. They were probably mixed in with the ones that Ma Desheng collected from elsewhere.
He took the micrometer out of his pocket and squatted down to measure the inner diameter of the first impeller.
The white tape with the character "峰" on the handle is already frayed.
After measuring each item, I recorded the data, and the draft paper was filled with a row of numbers.
Zhou Haisheng squatted down next to him, turning each impeller over to check the casting lettering and measure the outer diameter, while silently reciting the model number.
"Haifeng." Jiang Haiping's voice came from under the loquat tree.
Ding Haifeng looked up.
Do you know how dangerous what your father did this time was?
Ding Haifeng put down the impeller. "I know." He rode twenty miles to Baishakou to ask the people who used to deal in old ship parts with him. Some of those people were helping Ma Desheng transport fake fertilizer.
He asked them one by one, and when he finally got to the source of the counterfeit goods, someone told him, "Stop asking, or we'll break your legs."
He wiped the micrometer clean and put it back in the box. "He didn't stop. He said it was understandable that the service station didn't believe him about what he had done before, so he had to get the evidence back."
Jiang Haiping leaned against the loquat tree trunk.
Old Fang took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at Ding Haifeng.
Ding Haisheng stood at the entrance of the new workshop, his welding mask resting on the door frame.
He walked over and squatted down next to Ding Haifeng, picked up an impeller, turned it over to look at the characters cast on the back, and then put it down.
"Next time he investigates something like this, I'll go with him," Ding Haisheng said softly.
Ding Haifeng lowered his head and continued measuring the impellers. After finishing the last one and recording the data, he closed the draft paper. "He said he wouldn't do that kind of thing again."
He carefully wrapped each impeller in old newspapers, saying, "He said he just wants to finish teaching the craft of old ship parts now."
"Put these old parts in storage." Jiang Haiping picked up the impellers from the ground one by one and placed them on the worktable. "For those that were previously marked 'scrapped and lost' in the register, make a note next to them: 'Recovered.' The source should be noted as Ding Fugui."
Zhou Haisheng opened the register to the corresponding page and picked up a pen to write carefully in the remarks column.
Ah-Guang took a rag from the old parts warehouse shelf, wiped the rust off the impeller, and stuck a small label on the empty space on the shelf with a piece of broken seashell.
Around noon, Wang Cunzhi's Jialing 70 rang again.
He rushed back from the county, bringing back two documents.
One document is an internal notice from the Industry and Commerce Bureau regarding the handling of Ma Desheng, and the other is a notice from the Supply and Marketing Cooperative regarding adjustments to the transportation cooperation directory.
He handed the document to Jiang Haiping, sat down under the loquat tree, and took a sip from the enamel mug that Ahai brought him.
"Hong Laosan has been added back to the transportation cooperation list." Wang Cunzhi wiped the water from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. "There's one more thing. The supply and marketing cooperative has caused such a big commotion this time, so the higher-ups have ordered all agricultural service points in the county to rectify their records."
Director Sun specifically pointed out your service station's old parts management system, using it as a reference standard for the entire county. Director Sun said he wanted to make a copy of A-Guang's sixth registration book and distribute it to other service stations.
Ah-Guang was squatting by the worktable flipping through the register when he heard this. He looked up and stared blankly for a while.
He looked down at his own register. The sixth one had a number written on the cover using a ruler. Every page was straight, and each item was marked as either usable or scrapped.
"OK."
He turned to the last page of the register and wrote a line on it: December 29th, five old impellers were recovered.
Provided by Ding Fugui.
After finishing writing, he closed the register and put it back on the worktable, then pressed his palm against the cover.
Jiang Haiping folded the two documents and put them in his pocket, his hand touching the accounting book.
He took out his ledger and squatted down by the loquat tree. At the bottom of the line for Hong Laosan's debts, he wrote four words: "Pay it off before the New Year."
Below these four characters was the line he had previously written down: "The 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the Little New Year, making dumplings in the kitchen," and the line "Second in group work, first in sewing, first in old parts," all densely stacked together, almost overflowing.
"The last day before the New Year." Old Fang walked over from the workshop entrance with a cigarette in his mouth and a broom in his hand. "Sweep the yard clean, wipe the tools clean, and check all the old parts racks again. Finish work early this afternoon, and those who are having New Year's Eve dinner here can go help in the kitchen."
Ahai was the first to take the torque wrench off the shelf and slowly wipe it with cotton yarn dipped in machine oil.
Ah-Kuang spread the register on the worktable and began to check each item from the first old document.
Hong Xiaobing carefully coiled up the mooring ropes on the dock one by one, the old seawater on the ropes forming white salt frost between his fingers.
Ding Haifeng squatted under the window of the old parts warehouse, measuring the last set of data for each of the five recovered impellers, writing the specifications on the labels, and pasting them into the corresponding spaces.
Ding Haisheng leaned against the workshop door, opened the welding rod box, counted the remaining welding rods, and then closed it again.
Lin Xiu'e put down the tung oil basin, went into the kitchen, and tied on an apron.
Half a pork belly and a few cabbages were placed on the stove. They were delivered by Wang Cunzhi yesterday, who said they were New Year's gifts specially approved by Director Sun.
Jiang Haiping squatted under the loquat tree and flipped through the account book from beginning to end.
The page with the credit notes was covered with dense red lines, and only one line remained uncrossed.
He scratched a mark on the line with his fingernail, then closed the notebook.
His hand reached into his pocket and found the letter—his mother's letter, the edges of the envelope already worn and frayed.
Four days have passed since the 25th of the twelfth lunar month, and he still hasn't returned home.
He took out the letter and looked at the address his mother had written on the envelope. Next to the pencil writing, there was a faint pencil mark, which was made by his hand shaking when he wrote the letter.
He folded the letter again, put it back in his pocket, and went into the kitchen.
"Please fill the pickled vegetable jar for me tonight. I'm going home first thing tomorrow morning."