Chapter 5.1 Old Village Fishing Tackle (Extra)

I lit a cigarette and looked at the scenery outside the window. Fatty opened my window a crack so the airflow would suck the smoke out of the vehicle.

He was driving very slowly. Poker-Face sat in the back seat, crowded in next to the New Year’s goods. There were a lot of people coming to visit this trip, so I had prepared a lot of specialties. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t all fit in the cab of the vehicle.

We were in a used Nissan pickup truck. It was far less practical than my Jinbei, but it was the only one in town that I could buy on such short notice. Although the owner kept ensuring us that the engine was well maintained, it hadn’t been turned on in a while and the throttle felt uncomfortable. It was like stepping on cotton.

If you left the town, went to Panshan, and then to the city, you could get on the Tongsan Expressway and drive for more than ten hours from Fenshuiguan in Cangnan to Hangzhou in Zhejiang for the New Year. That was what I had originally intended, but I decided to stay here in the end.

Xiao Hua and the others had mentioned that they wanted to visit the south, saying that Fujian should be warm this time of year. Hehe, you’ll know when you get here, I said to myself.

The county road back to the village took a winding path up the mountain, where it became a single lane in many places. Coupled with the cliff right outside the window, it was very exciting.

It was very cold this year, so all the mountain springs were frozen into icy layers that covered the slopes and streams. Since I was holding my hand out the window as I smoked, I could clearly feel the sting of the low temperature outside.

“By the way, are you still in your thirties this year?” Fatty suddenly asked me.

I didn’t answer, but focused on unscrewing a bottle of mineral water to use as an ashtray. I raised my hand and looked at my fingers, finding that the place where I had held the cigarette had turned black and yellow from the smoke. It was a result of smoking shoddy cigarettes. When going to graves in the mountains, it wasn’t enough to pack a few cigarettes, so I had to bring tobacco and roll them myself. But the tobacco couldn’t be pure, so I had to find a kind of bean leaf on the side of the road, dry it, and then roll it with the tobacco. Like this, it could be used for a long time. It didn’t taste good, but it was much better than going cold turkey.

I have to give up smoking, I said to myself.

The days after Poker-Face came out of the mountains were the coldest in Fujian. Fatty and I watched him dump cold water over his head in the yard and both felt as if we had brain freeze. We had all been timid and felt the weakness in our bodies, but he was still the same.

You’re in your thirties. Forget your age. This may be the only way.

Just as I was thinking this, the car suddenly slowed down and then came to a stop. I looked up and saw that the cars on the road in front of us were in a long queue and there was a traffic jam. There was a big truck leaning precariously on the side of the road, with one of its wheels hanging over the edge of the cliff. Its center of gravity was shifted more towards the cliff and it felt like it would turn over with just one kick.

Most vehicles took this road to avoid the highway tolls, and weren’t all that careful. If they went too fast, they were prone to accidents in this kind of freezing weather.

Fatty lowered the window and poked his head out. As the cold wind poured into the car, Poker-Face woke up. When Fatty pulled his head back in, he was already swearing, “Damn it, it’s blocked again. I swear, this is the eight hundredth time on this road. I told you we should’ve taken motorcycles. If we had, we would’ve been able to pass by these fucking bastards.”

Our truck had stopped at the very end of the line, and we could see many drivers had already gotten out of their vehicles and were doing radio calisthenics. A farmer aunty set up a stall and started selling the goods from her vehicle directly, indicating that the traffic jam was going to last for a while. I opened the door, got out, and threw the cigarette butt into the bottle. The cold air made my dizzy head feel more and more awake.

There were mountains on one side of the road, cliffs on the other, and scattered trees above and below. We could see hills behind the mountains, and a village about half a mile away that was looming in a mountain depression. The houses were made of yellow cement and had dim black tiles. It looked to be a relatively poor village.

I stretched, turned on my phone to look at WeChat, and walked along the side of the road.

Xiao Hua and the others had already set out from Beijing. Their first stop was Hangzhou to visit my parents and Uncle Two. After that, they would charter a car to come and visit me. Fuck, I wondered what my parents would say to me. But I wasn’t afraid of that. Uncle Two was coming. He must be worried about me.

Xiuxiu’s WeChat Moments posted more than twenty new products to be sold before the end of the year. I resisted the impulse to block her and went to give her a few likes.

WeChat didn’t exist a few years ago, but now I couldn’t do without it.

After walking for five or six minutes, I reached the big truck and asked the driver who was smoking in the front it what happened. The driver was from the northeast and transported things from Guangzhou to Fujian. The truck was his. He looked disappointed as he told me that he got scared when he hit a bird, and ended up jerking the wheel. Now he wouldn’t be happy celebrating the New Year. The truck was stuck here, and he estimated that it would take more than six or seven hours to fix it. It was difficult to get help in a place like this, so I could only offer some words of comfort.

I walked back to our truck and told Fatty to pull over. There was no other choice. We’d have to be our own porters and carry our things over the mountains to the nearby village. Hopefully we’d be able to find a few motorcycles there to transport the goods. It was more expensive, but it was better than not being there when my parents arrived.

It was impossible for three people to get out of the car and carry all the New Year’s goods. Even if they picked the important ones, it would still be thirty kilograms per person. If it hadn’t been for the fact that we were used to carrying heavy things, we would’ve probably had a hard time celebrating the New Year’s.

We walked off the road and down the mountain into the sparse hilly forest, headed towards the village.

Visually, it would take about an hour to walk the distance, but it actually took an hour and a half since we had to walk up and down the mountain. We were sweating all over as we walked to the small dirt road towards the village, trampling a lot of the soybeans that had been planted. I was prepared to go into the village and pay the villagers for the damage.

But when we finally approached the village, we panicked. After passing by the earthen houses on the outskirts of the village, we saw that the doors had rotted and collapsed. There were offerings and incense burners full of red paper in front of the doors. They had clearly been there a long time, for all the perishable offerings had rotted away and there were only some unknown things that were covered in dust. The ink from the red faded paper had spread like blood along the ground. If it had only been one house, it would be fine. But every house here had it, which was a bit scary.

I glanced at Poker-Face, and found that he looked calm. He obviously felt that things were a little strange, but he wasn’t interested. As the three of us despondently walked closer to the village, I prayed again and again that this wasn’t a deserted village and that someone here had a motorcycle. When we finally walked into the village, we came to an area with concrete houses, where I was relieved to see a shop.

Fatty immediately went up. A young wife holding a baby and watching TV in a purple down jacket was the one watching the shop. Fatty went up and knocked on the glass counter. “Big sister, I’d like to ask you something.”

The young wife turned around and showed a frightened expression when she saw that we were carrying heavy loads and sweating profusely. She started to shout in the local dialect, and an old woman who was probably her mother soon came out of the back room. Fatty put on a simple and honest smile and continued to ask, “We can’t climb the mountain anymore. We’re hoping to find some motorcycles to take us out. We’re willing to pay for them.”

“Motorcycles?” The young wife’s face was pale as she looked at us expressionlessly. I immediately pretended to be very simple and put on an honest expression as well, hoping to charm the old woman.

The young wife didn’t say anything else to us, but answered the old woman when she said something in the local dialect. The two of them talked for a while, and it was clear the old woman knew what was going on. The young wife pointed to the other side and said, “My mother says there’s a tractor in that alley over there. The owner is willing to transport goods for money.”

We immediately nodded and thanked them before fleeing to the alley near the shop. Fatty rubbed his cold sweat and said, “Damn, why was that little girl just like a ghost? She had no charisma at all.”

“Maybe the men in this village have gone out to do work. It’s too deserted here. There’s usually no business, so she’s probably always watching TV. It’s easy to become expressionless like that.” I said, suddenly remembering Wang Meng. “People might come back in the next two days, and then it’ll be lively.”

As we went further into the deep alley, we could see that the doors on the concrete buildings were rusty. I couldn’t tell if there was anyone living in them. After walking for two or three minutes, we suddenly saw a crude wooden sign hanging on the door of an old brick house.

In rural areas, the simplest buildings were yellow mud houses that were often used for storing farm tools and raising livestock. Old brick houses came in second. Most of the older ones were either well preserved, or retained after the landlord’s house had been knocked down. Most of the bricks were old blue ones, because many of the old walls would bulge or crack. That was the case with this house. The expansion and deformation of the wooden window frame also proved this point.

The wooden sign was obviously old, and had several words painted on it: Lei Meilian Fishing Tackle.

The gate was open and it was dark inside. It was the entrance of a traditional peasant’s house and had several benches and a square table placed against the inner wall. There was a calendar of Chairman Mao and the Eight Immortals (1) on the wall, along with some offerings on the square table. The floor was laid with sunken brick and had a lot of bamboo and bamboo shavings on it. There were some tools like iron hoops on the side, which seemed to be used for processing the bamboo.

But other than that, there was nothing else here.

“Is this it?” When Fatty asked me this, I couldn’t help but think, if you ask me, who am I supposed to ask?

“No tractor?” Fatty stuck his head in. “This place is so fucking poor, will there really be a tractor?” Just as we were thinking about giving up and leaving, we suddenly saw a thin old man come out of the alley close to where we were standing. He was wearing a pair of old glasses and looked at us with a frown.

We also looked at him as we passed by slowly.

The old man’s eyes glinted and it was clear to see he wasn’t afraid of anything. He watched us pass by intently, as if he were looking at a thief.

The situation was really awkward, but Fatty whispered that we should leave quickly and not look at him. When we passed the old man, we could see that he was actually following us. Every time we moved forward, he would follow closely behind.

“Is it a robbery?” Fatty asked. “Did he get a look at our pork ribs? I told you we shouldn’t flaunt our wealth!”

“This bastard looks almost ninety and is still robbing? How weak do you think we are?” I retorted. “Don’t fucking jump to conclusions. Maybe he thinks we’re thieves.”

“Would a thief steal a hundred and twenty kilograms worth of stuff and put it on his back? Such a thief is way too inspiring.” Fatty spit out.

We were just preparing to speed up, when the old man suddenly opened his mouth and asked in broken Mandarin: “Friends on the same path, can you do me a favor since you happened to pass by?” (2)

We paused for a moment and then stopped, noticing that the old man was looking at Poker-Face instead of us. He walked up to him and said, “Looking at the way you walk, you do that, right?”

<Extra 5.0> <Table of Contents><Extra 5.2>

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TN Notes:

(1) A group of legendary “immortals” in Chinese mythology. Each immortal’s power can be transferred to a vessel that can bestow life or destroy evil. More info here

(2) I think this is a code for grave robbers to recognize each other.

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Poker-face was stuck in the back with the presents because he’s a gift to this world (⌒▽⌒)♡. Good job Wu Xie (＾＾)b I’m so happy we’re back to the Iron Triangle again. It’s been so long (╥_╥)