booktalesy Chapter 101 New Year's Eve
Chapter 101 New Year's Eve
On Lunar New Year's Eve, the service station was quieter than usual.
The fire in the kitchen was burning brightly from early morning.
Lin Xiu'e, wearing an apron, moved back and forth between the stove and the cutting board.
Half a pork belly lay on the cutting board, its fat about two fingers thick; it had been delivered by Wang Cunzhi yesterday.
She removed the lean meat and cut it into small pieces, and sliced the fat to render oil.
The cracklings sizzled in the iron pot, and the aroma of caramelized oil wafted out through the cracks in the kitchen door.
Ah Hai was squatting at the workshop entrance wiping a torque wrench when he smelled the aroma of cooking oil residue. He looked up and glanced at the kitchen several times.
Old Fang emerged from the workshop, a cigarette dangling from his lips. A broom stood upright on the trunk of a loquat tree. The yard had been swept clean, with broken seashells and dried seaweed piled in the corner, waiting to be burned after the New Year.
He stood in the middle of the courtyard, looked around, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and flicked off the ash.
Jiang Haiping returned from the reef and placed the account book on the worktable.
The page with the debts on credit was covered with dense red lines, and at the bottom of Hong Laosan's line, there were four extra words: "Pay it off before the New Year."
He closed the ledger and stood there for a while. Then he walked to the kitchen door, took the two bottles of pickled vegetables that Lin Xiue had packed the night before from the windowsill, and put them in the bicycle basket.
The sound of bicycles could be heard coming from the seawall.
It wasn't the chain creaking; it was the soft, rustling sound of the tires grinding against the gravel.
Ding Fugui stood at the gate of the courtyard, pushing an old bicycle.
Two cardboard boxes were strapped to the back of the bicycle, wrapped in plastic sheeting, with the rope tightly tied around them.
He was wearing a clean gray work uniform, the buttons were neatly fastened, the collar was a little frayed, but it was clean.
His face was rough and red from the sea breeze, and his lips were chapped.
He saw Jiang Haiping under the loquat tree, propping his bicycle up at the gate of the yard, and pause for a moment as he kicked open the branch.
"I've come to deliver something." He took the cardboard box off the back seat and carried it into the yard.
The cardboard box was heavy and made a dull thud when it was placed on the stone slab.
Ding Haifeng stood up from the entrance of the old parts warehouse.
He was still clutching the micrometer in his hand, his fingers gripping the heat-insulating pad. When he saw Ding Fugui, he put the micrometer back in the box and walked over.
"The box contained the sealing gaskets for an old water pump. I searched for several days at the secondhand shops in Baishakou. They had models 204 to 207, enough for the service station to use for six months."
Ding Fugui peeled off the plastic sheet. Inside the cardboard box were sealing gaskets, each wrapped in old newspapers and secured with two rubber bands. "The other box contained old water pump blueprints. I didn't buy them; I drew them from memory."
I used to repair water pumps for the supply and marketing cooperative, and I memorized all the models I'd disassembled. I spent half a month drawing diagrams, but I couldn't remember some of the measurements, so I measured them myself with a ruler.
He opened the second cardboard box.
Inside was a stack of old drawings, drawn on the back of old newspapers and blank pages of old calendars.
The drawings were marked with tolerance ranges, speeds, and pressures in pencil, and in the lower right corner of each drawing was a line of crooked handwriting: "Drawn by Ding Fugui, please review by Haifeng."
Ding Haifeng picked up the top one, a cross-sectional diagram of the impeller clearance.
The pencil lines weren't perfectly straight, but each number was neatly aligned.
Next to the tolerance range of the bearing housing is written "±0.03, refer to the actual measurement with a micrometer".
He glanced at it once, then lowered his head and flipped to the next page.
"Some of the errand runners couldn't remember the exact measurements, so I measured them myself after I finished drawing them. Just in case you don't believe me, I wrote 'Please have Haifeng review this' on each one."
Ding Fugui stood in the middle of the courtyard, rubbing his hands on his pants. "I used to rip off the service station. When the rudder broke, I would just put on a layer of welding rod and paint it and sell it as new. I occupied public mudflats for three years and ripped people off when repairing boats."
Later, I asked Haifeng to hand over the metal nameplate to the service station. At that time, I wanted to reconcile with you, but I didn't tell the whole truth.
"This time with Ma Desheng, I've offended all those people I knew before. They'll never have anything to do with me again."
"Are you scared?" Old Fang put the cigarette back in his mouth.
Ding Fugui did not answer.
He stood there, the sea breeze blowing the collar of his work clothes up, revealing the collar of an old shirt underneath, neatly buttoned.
He watched Ding Haifeng engrossed in flipping through blueprints, his lips twitched as if he wanted to say something but then swallowed it back. Then he looked up.
"I'll do it even if I'm afraid. I've screwed over too many people in the past, one more like Ma Desheng won't make a difference. But this time is different. This time it's not for myself."
"Keep the blueprints. Put the sealing gaskets in storage." Old Fang flicked off his cigarette ash. "You're not one to flatter the service station, but these parts and blueprints will be useful."
Ding Haifeng looked through the blueprints one by one, stacked them up, wrapped them in old newspapers, and tied them with hemp rope twice.
He picked up the paper package, walked to the worktable, and placed it next to the registration book.
"I will review it. I will check every piece of data, and then record the results in the bottom right corner of each drawing."
He opened the box and picked up the micrometer again. The white tape on the handle had worn new rough edges, and the word "peak" written with the ballpoint pen had faded a bit.
Ding Haisheng walked out of the new workshop.
He hung the welder's mask on the door frame and took off his gloves, placing them next to the mask.
He walked to the loquat tree, picked up the old oil pump impeller that Ding Fugui had brought, turned it over, and looked at the inscription on the back.
"Next time you go looking for someone, I'll go with you." His voice wasn't loud, and it was the same old thing he said.
Ding Fugui paused for a moment, then nodded.
The aroma of charred lard cracklings in the kitchen grew stronger. Lin Xiu'e poured the rendered lard into an enamel basin, scooped out the cracklings and placed them in a small bowl, sprinkled a pinch of salt, and carried it to the yard.
Ahai was the first to run over, grab a handful, and stuff them into his mouth, panting as they burned.
Ah Guang turned to the page for old items being stored in the register and wrote a line neatly: New Year's Eve.
A batch of sealing gaskets and a set of old water pump drawings. Source: Gift from Ding Fugui.
He pressed the paper down on the cover, looked up at the cardboard box, and added a note in the remarks column: Registered, pending verification.
Around noon, Jiang Haiping pushed his bicycle out of the courtyard gate.
There were two bottles of pickled vegetables in the basket and a bag of sweet potatoes tied to the back seat.
The wind on the seawall was even stronger than during the Lunar New Year. The reeds by the roadside were completely withered, bent over by the wind and unable to stand up again.
He rode to Hongjiadao Ferry, took the early ferry across the sea, and then rode another five miles to the shipyard's residential compound.
Fishing nets and cured meat were drying in front of the red brick building in the family compound, swaying in the wind.
His door was on the far west side of the second floor. There was an asparagus fern on the old shoe cabinet by the door. The leaves were still a bit yellow, but it had been watered.
He knocked twice on the door, and his mother poked her head out from the kitchen.
She was still holding a spatula in her hand, and her apron was covered in flour.
"I thought you weren't coming back this year." She put the spatula on the stove, wiped her hands with her apron, and went over to look at the pickled vegetables and sweet potatoes in his bicycle basket. "Did Xiu'e pickle these?"
"Um."
Jiang Weiguo came out of the study.
He wasn't wearing a Zhongshan suit, but an old woolen vest with a patch on the shoulder that his mother had sewn.
He glanced at Jiang Haiping, took the bag of sweet potatoes from him, placed it next to the shoe cabinet, and turned to pour a glass of water and put it on the table.
The father and son glanced at each other across the table.
"How's the service station?"
"The debts have been collected. The case of counterfeit fertilizer has also been closed."
"I understand." Jiang Weiguo pushed the cup towards him and didn't ask any more questions.
His mother brought the sweet potato porridge to the table and then took out a plate of dumplings from the stove.
The dumplings were made last night; they're filled with cabbage and pork.
She placed her chopsticks on the rim of her bowl, sat down opposite him, and watched him eat.
The sea breeze outside the window made the clothes on the clothesline slap and clack.
"You said you'd bring Xiu'e back for dinner when you left last time, have you forgotten?"
"I haven't forgotten." Jiang Haiping lowered his head and stirred the porridge a couple of times.
There was a single sugar crystal left at the bottom of the bowl. He picked it up and placed it on his tongue, waiting for it to slowly melt. "I'll bring her back after the New Year."
The asparagus fern on the windowsill swayed slightly in the wind, and his mother reached out and moved it further inside.