Chapter 142: Canopy Bed

The washing machine was placed in Hong Tao’s home. Whenever his mother wanted to wash anything from then on, she no longer had to wait until Sunday to take it over to his maternal grandmother’s place. She could simply wash things in the evening while watching television. For a mother with a mild case of germaphobia, this washing machine was truly a godsend! However, it was hardly conducive to saving water; curtains and bedsheets that used to be washed once a week were now being washed twice a week!

When buying things for his own home, Hong Tao still had to use his maternal grandfather as a pretext, but he didn't need to bother for purchases made for the shops. Seizing this opportunity, Hong Tao also outfitted the store with a refrigerator and two two-ton Mitsubishi air conditioners. To acquire these few items, he practically troubled all of Ms. Jiang and her colleagues, and his opening line to anyone he met was always: "Exchange some Foreign Exchange Certificates, will you!"

The refrigerator was placed in the hair salon. Inside, there were not only popsicles and soda, but also iced coffee, all of which were provided free of charge to customers. In the days before air conditioning, waiting to have one's hair done at the salon was quite a grueling affair. Once there were many people, it inevitably got hot, and coupled with the heating hoods and hair dryers used during perms, electric fans alone could not solve the problem. Being able to drink a cold beverage could be considered a small luxury.

Now things were much better: two air conditioners, one in the hair salon and one in the clothing store, and fortunately, there was heavy-duty power available to drive them. According to Hong Tao’s instructions, as long as the temperature outside exceeded 30 degrees Celsius, the air conditioners had to be turned on. He told them not to fear electricity bills and not to worry about wearing out the units; the indoor temperature had to be kept below 26 or 27 degrees Celsius. To this end, he even hired someone to seal all the gaps in the doors and windows with rubber strips.

With these two weapons—especially the air conditioner—business at the hair salon and the clothing store flourished even more. On scorching hot days, who wouldn't want to find a cool place to stay? Although the prices at both shops were quite expensive, for those women who loved beauty and possessed the financial means, it was still worth it. One certainly couldn't go through a hair styling session only to end up drenched in sweat. While the hair might look good afterwards, the clothes on one's body would look atrocious, plastered completely against the skin, rendering any sprayed perfume utterly useless.

"Oh... Uncle Zhou Junior... Uncle Zhou Senior... You two poor chess players are at it again! Whose turn is it to treat today? Let me see... Uncle Zhou Junior, your opening cannon move is useless now; even the cannon mount is gone. You'd better rush to the bottom rank quickly, because once Uncle Zhou Senior's little pawn closes in, you'll have to run whether you want to or not!" It wasn't just customers who were willing to come and patronize the shops; even the local beat policeman and the neighborhood office director would wander into Uncle Er's comic book store on the second floor whenever they had free time. Both of these men shared the surname Zhou, and both loved playing Chinese chess. Whenever they met, they had to play a couple of rounds. Their skill levels were evenly matched, and whoever lost had to treat the other to sheep’s offal soup across the street.

"Go, go, go... off with you, do you understand that spectators should remain silent while watching a game?" Director Zhou was just about to win when he heard Hong Tao offering advice to Officer Zhou, and immediately became displeased.

"I originally intended to move my cannon anyway; whether he spoke or not, I had to move it! Go do whatever you're supposed to do, don't stir up trouble here!" Officer Zhou didn't appreciate Hong Tao's input either, and joined in driving him away.

"Hey! I've really turned into a rat trying to squeeze through a bellows! Where is Uncle Er?" Rebuffed, Hong Tao could only go and tidy up his stack of comic books by himself, picking out the torn and dirty ones to set aside separately, ready to throw them away the moment he found replacements.

"Oh, that's right. Uncle Er asked me to tell you that he went down to the South City to haul back some items, and said you should clear out some space for him so he'd have somewhere to put them when he returns." Director Zhou finally raised his head and relayed Uncle Er's exact words to Hong Tao.

"Clear out space again? Just how big are these items? Can't they fit in this room?" Hong Tao turned his head and looked at the furnishings in the room. There was definitely enough space to put a large wardrobe, but during this period, aside from acquiring a large long table, he hadn't come across anything particularly sizeable.

"How would I know! Check! Hehehe... You're dead!" Without even raising his head, Director Zhou slammed a chess piece onto the board and looked at Officer Zhou with a triumphant grin.

"It's all Hong Tao's fault. If he hadn't meddled, I wouldn't have lost this game! I'm not playing anymore!" Officer Zhou pondered for a long time and realized he had indeed been checkmated, so he simply shifted the blame onto Hong Tao.

"I say, Director, can we not slam the chess board so hard? That chess table of mine is made of huanghuali wood, and I got it with great difficulty. If you smash it apart with another slap like that—!" Hong Tao held a deep contempt for Officer Zhou's sportsmanship in chess, and even more so for Director Zhou's habit of slapping the board with the pieces. The chess pieces weren't worth much, but the table underneath was a genuine treasure. Fast forward to the 21st century, and let alone playing chess on it, just taking an extra glance at it would cost money!

"Tch, you can only fool laymen. What kind of huanghuali? Isn't it just a beat-up old table? Back during the Campaign Against the Four Olds in previous years, nobody even wanted this kind of thing for firewood—it just produced smoke without any flames, and huge piles of them were stacked along the streets, all doused in gasoline and burned by the Red Guards!" Director Zhou nonchalantly picked up his teacup and took a sip.

"I say, Hong Tao, instead of studying properly, you spend your time getting all these old pieces of furniture and putting them on display. Isn't this just wasting money? Don't your maternal grandfather and your father keep you in check?" Officer Zhou had an equally dim view of Hong Tao's hobby and joined Director Zhou in grumbling.

"These aren't mine, you know. They belong to Uncle Er. I'm just a primary school student; buying a few comic books is all I do..." Hong Tao refused to admit that he was the one who bought all these things, and Uncle Er made for a convenient scapegoat.

"Oh, give it a rest. You might fool outsiders, but do you think I'm unclear on how many tricks Uncle Er has up his sleeve? Aside from a tricycle, he probably doesn't have a single valuable item to his name. I've even asked your maternal grandmother, and she said that the matters around the house are managed by you and your eldest aunt's husband. Well? You have nothing to say to that now, do you? Shall I call your eldest aunt's husband over so the two of you can confront each other?" Officer Zhou didn't fall for Hong Tao's tricks. It seemed he had put a fair amount of effort into investigating Hong Tao, his grandfather's family, and had looked into Uncle Er along the way.

"Then my eldest aunt's husband must have been the one meddling! It really has nothing to do with me! If you don't believe me, go call him over and ask!" This wasn't Hong Tao's first time dealing with the police; he knew their methods all too well. If they knew 10%, they would claim to know 80%, then coax out 20% of the truth from you, use that accumulated 30% to squeeze out the remaining 70%, and ultimately force you to tell the whole truth. Therefore, when speaking with them, you had to deny everything to the bitter end unless they produced hard evidence.

"Hey! You really have a stubborn mouth, kid! No wonder the teachers at your school all say you're a freak! Do you believe me if I take you down to the police station right now? Let's see if your mouth stays so tough then!" Officer Zhou felt quite humiliated that he couldn't extract the truth from a mere child right in front of the neighborhood director.

"You'd better take me to your home then, as long as you provide food and lodging, that'll save my family the trouble! By the way, do you have a daughter? Around my age? I can go keep her company!" Hong Tao didn't show the slightest sign of yielding.

"Hahahahahaha!" Director Zhou was so amused by Hong Tao's shameless attitude that he burst out laughing.

"You stop right there! Still running! If I don't beat you up today, my surname isn't Zhou!" Failing to intimidate Hong Tao and ending up on the losing end instead, Officer Zhou dropped all pretenses and gave chase, ready to strike. But Hong Tao was far too cunning; the moment his words trailed off, his body had already bolted to the stairwell.

"Ouch!... Are you trying to kill me?! Running around in broad daylight! You nearly crashed the life out of me!" Alas, man proposes and heaven disposes. Just as Hong Tao dashed down the stairs, he collided head-on at the corner with Uncle Er, who was walking up. If the old man hadn't been in such robust physical condition, he would almost certainly have been knocked off his feet by Hong Tao.

"Ouch... Ouch... Are you hurt? It's all his fault, he was chasing me and trying to hit me!" Hong Tao hurriedly steadied the old man. His two years of practicing judo hadn't gone to waste; when faced with an emergency, his body had already made a protective reflexive response, causing his elbows and knees to instinctively lift up, driving a solid impact straight into Uncle Er's stomach.

"How old are you, and you're still acting up all day long! Have you cleared out that space for me?" Even though Uncle Er had a very hardy constitution, taking that hit from Hong Tao still felt rather unpleasant. Rubbing his stomach with one hand, he asked the question.

"There's plenty of space upstairs, I checked. No need to clear anything out, even a large wardrobe could fit..." Hong Tao said nonchalantly while helping the old man rub his abdomen.

"You and your obsession with large wardrobes. Don't make a peep yet, come upstairs and we'll talk!" Uncle Er whispered quietly to Hong Tao, then led him back up to the second floor, where he began chatting idly about everything under the sun with Officer Zhou and Director Zhou. Harboring a hundred and twenty curiosities, Hong Tao crouched beside the bookshelf and continued flipping through his comic books.

By nearly one o'clock in the afternoon, both Director Zhou and Officer Zhou had returned to their respective units for work. Only then did Uncle Er bring Hong Tao downstairs, leading him through the back door of the clothing store directly into the courtyard. At that moment, a massive pile of items was stacked right in the middle of the courtyard, looking very much like disassembled furniture components. Ranging in size from large to small, many of the wooden boards were carved with hollowed-out floral motifs, looking exceptionally delicate. Lu Yunpeng was standing guard beside the pile of things all by himself.

"What on earth are these?" Hong Tao was utterly puzzled. He picked up a component about the thickness of a calf and inspected it; it featured carved patterns and mortise-and-tenon joints, bearing a resemblance to a table leg, but it was far too thick and extremely heavy.

"You silly boy, these are treasures. Just wait until your jaw drops. Come on, Little Six, help me move these things into the room first. I'm afraid upstairs won't have enough room to display them; let's put them in the empty room next to yours for now." Without explaining what these wooden boards actually were, Uncle Er and Lu Yunpeng began carrying the wooden panels, large and small, inside one by one just as if they were handling fragile porcelain. Once inside, under Uncle Er's direction, they began assembling them.

"This is... a bed!" No sooner had the four-sided frame been pieced together than Hong Tao recognized it. It was a bed—a wooden bed of a very ancient style, complete not only with bed boards and a bed frame, but also with a canopy overhead.

"This is called a frame bed, and what's more, it's an old antique from the early Qing Dynasty. Thanks to my fourth uncle knowing this family, we managed to haul it back for just 500 yuan! Ah... once the elders passed away, the ones left behind were all good-for-nothing prodigals. It's made of top-grade huanghuali wood. Originally, there was also an outer alcove framework, but a few years ago their family had it broken up and used for other furniture. Otherwise, you lucky kid would have ended up with a complete set of alcove bed furniture, now *that* would have been magnificent!" As Uncle Er pieced the bed together, he introduced its various components to Hong Tao. (To be continued...)