Chen Fugui

Qianmen, east of the Arrow Tower. Not much had changed at the tea stall. There were still twelve of them, and customer foot traffic remained heavy, but Huang Zhanying had been weighed down with worry lately. The newspaper article back then had turned the tea stall into a sensation. Revenue had soared, and they had been selling over three thousand bowls a day. With both popularity and money to be made, others were naturally inspired to imitate them. Not long ago, right on the west side of the Arrow Tower, another cooperative had brazenly set up a tea stall of their own—and they had more people, twenty in all! This had siphoned off a good number of customers. Huang Zhanying kept the tally in her head: daily sales had been dropping steadily, down to just over two thousand bowls. "The weather's getting hotter by the day... Say, do you still sell tea in the summer?" "In summer, we let it cool down before serving. It quenches thirst nicely." "Oh, that works too, though I still prefer an ice pop or something. That's what really cools you off." "We'll have those, we will! Once the heat really hits, we'll stock ice pops too. Be sure to come back then!" Having seen the customer off, Huang Zhanying buried her head in wiping down the tables, feeling a little less anxious. As the saying went about Guo Jia's posthumous strategy settling Liaodong, a certain fellow had already laid everything out in advance, even securing their source of supply. "Warm a bowl of wine and bring a saucer of aniseed fennel beans!" A calm, breezy voice drifted into her ears. Without even looking up, Huang Zhanying replied, "Sorry, comrade, this is a tea stall. If you want a drink, head to a wine shop. There's one right over that way." "Uncultured. Personal cultivation is part of the revolutionary struggle, too!" Huh? Huang Zhanying looked up and saw that very fellow leaning on his familiar 28-inch bicycle, beaming at her. "Oh!" "Comrade Chen Qi!" "Comrade Zhanying! We've finally joined forces at Jinggangshan!" The two shook hands firmly. "Chen Qi's back!" "Everyone, come quick! Chen Qi's back!" "Did you finish writing your script? How is it? Can it be filmed?" "Does that mean we'll get to watch your work in the cinema from now on?" Their companions crowded around. Chen Qi shook hands with each of them in turn, muttering incomprehensible phrases like "the literary and art front is a living hell" and "making good films is serving the people." Everyone burst out laughing, and the air around Qianmen was filled with merriment. After a lively commotion, everyone returned to work. Huang Zhanying pulled him behind the tea stall. They no longer had to sit on the ground; they had small wooden stools now. "Not long after you left, district leaders came by," she said. "It was unannounced, with no advance notice, so I didn't tell you. They showered us with praise, said they fully supported us, and all that, but I haven't seen any actual action. "Then they mentioned municipal leaders would be visiting too, though the date isn't set yet. I figured I'd wait until it was confirmed before looking for you." "That works. You handled it just right." Chen Qi nodded. There was no need for him to personally receive district leaders anyway; it had to be municipal officials at least. When Brother Jiayin met with provincial grandees, it was merely an official audience, after all... "How's business been lately?" "A bit rough. Another tea stall opened to the west, and I heard someone even opened one in Temple of Heaven Park. Tea stalls are all the rage right now." "Have the sandals arrived?" "Five hundred pairs came in. They're stored at the subdistrict office." "How could five hundred pairs ever be enough? Even fifty thousand wouldn't be too many!" "You sure dare to dream. Where would the No. 2 Plastics Factory get fifty thousand pairs of sandals to give us?" After chatting briefly, Chen Qi stood up, clapped his hands, and gathered everyone together. "Comrades, you've worked hard during this period. I feel deeply ashamed, but I'm no deserter; I merely marched off to the battlefield of the literary and art front. "As you know, I went to revise a script, and now it's passed review. "I originally wanted to take everyone out to celebrate, but I don't have enough ration coupons on hand. So I'm putting it out there: pool together whatever coupons you can get your hands on, and I'll foot the bill. I'm treating everyone to a restaurant meal!" The crowd broke into enthusiastic applause and friendly jeers. "Writing scripts really is something else—sounds just like a cadre speaking!" "Haha, should we start calling you Director Chen from now on?" "Hey, don't laugh, Director Chen actually has a nice ring to it!" "I want to eat meat! Deep-fried pork belly, without skimming off any of the fat!" After lingering a while longer, Chen Qi wheeled his bicycle away. He made a deliberate detour to the west side of the Arrow Tower to take a look. Sure enough, another tea stall had sprung up, run by around twenty people, bustling and fairly energetic. The two stalls were roughly a hundred meters apart; shout on one side, and the other could hear it clearly. According to Huang Zhanying, although this group had set up a rival stall, they hadn't stirred up trouble or provoked anyone; they were simply minding their business. The subdistrict office couldn't very well intervene either. After all, both were cooperatives. Besides, no one held a monopoly on large-bowl tea. *Twenty people is quite a workforce. If we can absorb them, we should. Expanding our ranks makes for a proper faction of our own.* Chen Qi climbed onto his bike and pedaled leisurely away, pondering whether he ought to stage an exhilarating 1979-style business war. *** "The kid from the Chen family is back!" "Oh, he's back? Did his script get killed?" "I wish! But no, it actually passed! My kid graduated from high school, and sitting in his room for two hours, he could barely squeeze out five words. Where's the justice in that?" "He just has talent, that's what. Talent doesn't play by the rules!" When Chen Qi returned to the residential compound, he was once again surrounded and gawked at like a zoo monkey. Working at Xinhua Bookstore, no matter how unglamorous their daily grind might be, meant the residents were at least literate. Reading more words meant reading more books, and reading more books meant thinking more thoughts. Every one of them felt like a fallen angel, harboring a faint trace of petty bourgeoisie deep in their bones. Books and movies were the compound's two spiritual pillars. And now you were telling them that the utterly unremarkable kid from a coworker's family had whipped up a screenplay out of nowhere, and the damn thing had actually been approved? What, did your *Genshin Impact* just launch? They were envious, jealous, their eyes green enough to dismantle capitalism itself... The compound had seven inner courtyards and over a hundred residents, and people practically battered down the Chen family's door. Out of every ten visitors, three came to gawk, three came to deliver passive-aggressive barbs, and the rest came to set him up with matches. "Xiuli, I'm just speaking my mind here: your boy is nineteen, so you'd better get him married off soon so you have one less worry. My niece on my mother's side works at a garment factory, pulling in forty yuan a month! She's pretty, tall, just with a tiny flaw on her face." "Don't listen to her nonsense! The mole on her niece's face is bigger than a pot lid!" "My niece is the real catch—looks just like Liu Xiaoqing..." Chen Qi sat quietly in the corner, keeping a polite smile on his face and offering zero opinions. Chen Jianjun chuckled along, chiming in with an occasional remark, for this was Yu Xiuli's home court. Yu Xiuli had already let her pride run wild, holding court and maneuvering like a master diplomat in their twenty-square-meter room. In all her forty-odd years of life, she had never felt this thoroughly satisfied. It was more thrilling than her wedding day! To achieve wealth and honor without returning home was like walking in embroidered robes through the dark of night. Chen Qi hadn't hidden anything away; he had come home openly and proudly, and once the neighbors gradually trickled out, he just as openly disclosed his script payment. If his family had been full of toxic, unbearable relatives, keeping it under wraps wouldn't have mattered. But when one's family was genuinely good, there was no need. Besides, this eight hundred yuan was money he could easily earn again whenever he wanted. For his parents, however, the shock was immense. "Y-y-you... you received that much in royalties?" "Beijing Film Studio didn't make a mistake, did they?" His parents stared blankly at the red-and-yellow bank passbook. Across the cover ran the words "Demand Savings Account Passbook," beneath which was printed "People's Bank of China." The passbook was made of kraft paper, its coarse fibers clearly visible. At present, the Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Bank of China—the three major state banks—were gradually resuming operations, followed later in 1984 by the establishment of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. "Here's what I'm thinking," Chen Qi said. "Right now the house only has a radio, so it'd be best to add another major appliance. "Let's buy a television, and a cassette recorder so we can listen to songs. Then another bicycle, so we'll have two bikes and enough wheels even if we head in different directions. Ow..." "Have you completely lost your mind?!" Yu Xiuli slapped him with a sharp crack and berated, "A nine-inch black-and-white television costs four hundred yuan! An imported-brand cassette recorder runs more than two hundred! You made eight hundred in total, and you want to blow it all at once? You prodigal spendthrift!"