"Why are my eyes so often full of tears? Because I love this land so deeply!"
When the plane landed in Beijing, cold air he had long missed, mixed with the grime of coal burned through the winter, poured into Chen Qi's nose. He spread his arms and could not help exclaiming.
Just as he was about to pour out more feeling, Xiao Mo cut him off impatiently. "All right, all right, hurry up and go!"
"You're so heartless, so cold!"
"We still have to see you back, then return to the unit and report. We've no time to chatter with you. You'd best get in the car. How you behaved in Hong Kong—we do have a say."
"Oh-ho. You ate dozens of Hong Kong feasts off me, and now you're threatening me? If you've got the nerve, let's inform on each other!"
Chen Qi curled his lip and ducked into the car. Xiao Mo and Xiao Geng saw him all the way to his parents' home, dutiful to the last. At the gate the three of them said goodbye. He smiled. "Thanks for the trouble. This trip was a pleasure. I hope I'll see you next time."
"That depends on when you head out again!"
"We have to go too. Goodbye, Comrade Chen Qi!"
The two of them bit down hard on the word "comrade," and then they were gone.
He stepped into the courtyard compound. It felt as if a long time had passed, yet nothing here had changed. He went into his family's single-story house. Inside, everything was still neat and orderly: a television, a radio, a tape recorder, all of them there. Plainly the richest household in the compound.
His own little bed in the outer room was still kept. It was November now, and Beijing had already begun to turn cold.
He simply lit the stove. When quitting time came, footsteps thudded outside, followed by Yu Xiuli's delighted shout. "Aiyo, my son!"
…………
Chen Qi stayed one night at his parents' and left early the next morning.
Coming back from Hong Kong to Beijing, he had crossed twenty years in an instant. The Honda Accord had flown off. The chamber pot still sat under the bed, and he was back to wiping himself with coarse paper.
Withered blossoms and sorrowing grass, trees shedding their leaves in a rustle—fewer people were out at Shichahai. He put on a cotton-padded jacket and bicycled, huffing and puffing, to Lechunfang. At the front gate he was about to fish out his key, then stopped, took up the knocker, and started banging.
"Bang, bang, bang!"
"Who is it? Who is it? Quit knocking!"
Whoever was inside had clearly just gotten up. The answer was lazy. Footsteps came, the door opened with a clang, and Dai Hanhan's chubby little face appeared. She had glasses on. She stared blankly for two seconds, then ran back inside screaming.
"General Manager Chen is back!"
"Publisher Chen is back!"
"The Proprietor is back!"
The front courtyard was in an uproar at once. Left, right, and straight ahead, doors creaked open, and in the blink of an eye seven or eight people had gathered before him.
Liang Xiaosheng was wearing a flashy red sweater—one look and you could tell Jiao Dan had knitted it. He ran over happily and gave Chen Qi a hard pat. "You're finally back! With you gone, this place always feels leaderless and short on energy!"
"You've kept the ranks in pretty good shape! Oh, Teacher Li, Xiao Ji—you've moved in too."
Li Jianqun and Ji Chunhua nodded.
Chen Qi glanced around. The front courtyard had two dorm rooms on each side. The four from the editorial department lived on the right. The left had fewer people: Li Jianqun and Ji Chunhua each had a room to themselves. Everyone stood in the yard, waiting for him to speak.
Instead he waved a hand. "Old Liang, Xiao Ji, bring the cargo tricycle and come with me! The rest of you make breakfast. We'll all eat together in a bit!"
"Brother Qi, what are we going to do?" Ji Chunhua asked.
"Buy things!"
In those days, personnel sent abroad on official business had an enviable benefit: they could buy duty-free goods.
As early as 1979, Beijing had led the way in supplying people going abroad, and the goods were all foreign-made.
Buy them overseas, and wasn't the foreign exchange simply handed to someone else? So the state first bought the goods and brought them home, issued quotas to people going abroad, and let them buy with foreign exchange inside the country. That saved foreign exchange, and it also avoided people shouldering and hauling things, a sight that did the country's image no good.
For now there were only duty-free shops. In 1983 a China National Service Corporation for Personnel Going Abroad was established to run them as one.
Chen Qi and Old Liang rode bicycles, and Ji Chunhua rode the cargo tricycle, to a duty-free shop. Nothing inside was especially remarkable—household appliances of every kind, bicycles—except that no ration coupons were needed.
The place was the same sort of thing as an Overseas Chinese Store.
Only his change in status had given him this benefit.
Chen Qi produced his papers for them to check. His quota was quite high. He lacked nothing himself; he mainly wanted to get a few perks for everyone. He made a circuit and picked out a television, a radio, a tape recorder, and a bicycle.
"Old Liang, leave these at the editorial department for now. Count them as a loan from me. You can pay in installments and buy them over bit by bit. In the end they'll be the editorial department's common property."
"Good. That's what I think too!"
Liang Xiaosheng nodded. The greatest thing he had learned from his dealings with Chen Qi was that even blood brothers keep clear accounts.
Chen Qi had allocated a hundred thousand yuan as startup money for founding the magazine. Liang Xiaosheng operated and managed that sum, while these things Chen Qi had bought himself. Public stayed public, private stayed private. The money had to be reckoned clean.
He browsed a little more and bought an electronic keyboard, saving it for Gong Xue to play.
He hesitated over a refrigerator and did not buy one. The power supply was unsteady now—a short outage every three days, a long one every five. A fridge would be nothing but a dead weight.
They loaded a whole cart. Ji Chunhua climbed on in high spirits, tasting what it felt like to be a tycoon. The three of them returned to Lechunfang and caused a sensation at once. Hearing it was for the editorial department, the others screamed even louder.
"Ahhh! Wonderful! We'll have a television to watch!"
"The set goes in the office, not the dorm. What are you going to watch?"
"I—I—can't I just spread a bedroll on the office floor?!"
"Easy, easy. Just set it there. Everyone can watch!"
They cooked for themselves in the little kitchen. The reception room of the main house served as the dining room. People from the editorial department and the film company made no distinction among themselves. The air of a shoestring troupe was thick.
Chen Qi, though, couldn't stand to see it. "I'll go over to Beijing Film Studio in a bit and file a report in the company's name, and try to get us a few more rooms. Everyone just hold on for this stretch."
"What are you saying? At home it's eight people to one room. Here I live two to a room. You couldn't drive me out if you tried!"
"That's right. It's so pleasant here, and even the work feels comfortable!"
"General Manager Chen, you're far too strict with yourself. We're all actually quite content!"
"No, no, no. Mainly I want somewhere a bit nicer to live myself."
That one line set everyone laughing. They all knew the house was Chen Qi's own, given over as dorms, and were already grateful beyond words. The rear courtyard was private living space. Aside from Old Liang and Xiao Ji, no one else had really been inside.
They kept away of their own accord. The conditions in there were bound to be excellent anyway.
Hearing now that he still wanted to live even better—how good would that have to be? They could not imagine it, and simply took him to be joking.
Liang Xiaosheng said, "After we eat, unveil the plaque. I checked the almanac just now. Today's an auspicious day."
"You still haven't hung it?"
"Isn't that obvious? We were waiting for you to get back!"
So after breakfast everyone ran outside again. Liang Xiaosheng had long been ready, firecrackers and all.
Dai Hanhan held a camera. Chen Qi stood beside the vertical plaque draped in red cloth. There was no grand ceremony to speak of. He called out, "The World of Wonders editorial department is officially established today!"
With a swish, he unveiled it.
The old men and old women round about came out again, squeezing through the gaps in the crowd to watch the excitement. This mysterious No. 6 Courtyard finally had a grand name:
World of Wonders Magazine Editorial Department!
Chapter 250