Chapter Eighty-Six: Wash, Cut, Perm, and Blow Dry Extra Chapter

By two this afternoon the book will be up for the Sanjiang chart, and that is inseparable from everyone’s kindness. If you think it is still passable, then I have one more small favor to ask: on the front page, open the Sanjiang page and cast a vote for the author. My deepest thanks to everyone in advance!

"The cold wave lotion has a very strong smell, like urine, so of course we have to do it in the yard! Come on, put it here. Sit with your back to the sun. Right, go fetch that little stool for me; I need it to stand on." Without even turning his head, Hong Tao strode to the middle of the yard and ordered Han Xue around as though she were a servant.

"Go soak your hair under the faucet." Han Xue had only just sat down when Hong Tao issued his next command.

"I washed my hair yesterday!" Han Xue tried to resist.

"I'm not telling you to wash it. Just wet it a little so it’s easier to cut!" Hong Tao’s words made Han Xue feel woefully ignorant. She could only obediently crouch under the yard faucet, drench her hair, and then come back to her chair.

"Can you cut it to match this?" Before Hong Tao could even lift the scissors, Han Xue suddenly stood up again, fished a sheet of paper out of her back pocket, and handed it to him.

"Well now, you came prepared. Don’t worry, I can do something like this." Hong Tao took it and saw that it was a still image clipped from a magazine, a front-facing picture of the female scientist from The Man from Atlantis.

"You really can do it?" Han Xue still did not dare sit down. She had never been fully at ease, and now that she saw Hong Tao standing on a stool, he looked anything but like a barber.

"Why do you have so many questions? Would I lie to you? I’m counting on making you prettier than a movie star so you can advertise for me. Hurry up, I still have to feed my crickets later!" Hong Tao simply reached out, pulled Han Xue down into the chair, and tied a scrap of cloth around her neck.

"Little Hong Tao, your Third Sister has come to learn your skills! Welcome me or not?" Just as Hong Tao made his first snip, another young woman came into the yard. She wore green trousers and a white blouse, with a round face, round eyes, and a round head.

"Hello, Third Sister! You sure know how to arrive on time, coming to school just as the bell rings." Hong Tao lowered the scissors again. She was the third daughter of his maternal uncle-in-law, his cousin Jin Ling, whom Hong Tao called Big Ling Sister.

"School? Hey, you dare pretend to be my teacher? I’ll pinch you to death!" Big Ling Sister’s temper was nothing like her younger aunt’s. She spoke quickly and acted quickly, loving to joke and make a fuss. Every year at New Year, when she came to pay respects to Grandma, she would play with the boys in her younger uncle’s crowd.

"Stop it! Stop it! The scissors will stab someone!" Hong Tao had no choice but to circle around Han Xue, dodging his cousin’s attacks.

"Oh, are we still getting this cut or not? Stop fooling around!" Han Xue sat there unable to move. She could only watch Hong Tao and his cousin weave back and forth around her as though she were an obstacle, and finally she could not help but shout.

"Well, who’s this?" Big Cousin Third Sister was also a carefree soul, and only now noticed there was a stranger sitting there.

"My younger aunt’s classmate. Quit fooling around. I’m doing something serious here. Go drag over a chair. I’ll show you the basics first, then you can learn slowly later." Once Hong Tao was sure his cousin would not chase him anymore, he stood behind Han Xue again and prepared to continue cutting her hair.

"Oh my, sister, where did you buy those trousers? Aren’t they just like the ones on television? Stand up and let me see them, let me see!" At a glance, Big Cousin Third Sister noticed the flared pants Han Xue was wearing, and immediately forgot to leave. She grabbed Han Xue and insisted she stand up for a look.

"You don’t need to buy them. Your younger aunt made these. Go ask her for a pair." Han Xue frowned in irritation. But this was also Hong Tao’s relative, and her entire head of hair was still in Hong Tao’s hands, so she could not lose her temper. She could only point toward Hong Tao’s younger aunt’s room, hoping to send the girl away first.

"Really? Then I’m going to my younger aunt!" Big Cousin Third Sister said nothing more. With a whoosh she dashed off, the two little brushes at the back of her head nearly flying up.

"Come learn how to cut hair first! Your pants are guaranteed. Hey, Big Ling Sister, come back!" Hong Tao had been waiting to teach his cousin to cut hair, but she had plunged into his younger aunt’s room and refused to come out.

"Stop shouting. She won’t be out anytime soon. Hurry and perm my hair instead. I’m turning into a monkey here, and you’re just playing with me!" Han Xue was getting impatient. She had been sitting there for nearly half an hour, and only one snip had been made. Most maddening of all was that single snip; now she could not even say she did not want it cut anymore.

Han Xue had good hair: it was fairly coarse, and each follicle usually produced only one or two strands. Hair like that was easier to handle and easier to section. It was nothing like those people whose follicles sprouted three or four hairs each, every strand thin as silk. After a perm, it all puffed out like cotton fluff, dense and thick, and did not look good at all. Hong Tao had been unable to buy the small plastic curlers used for tight curls, so he had to make them himself from bamboo: find bamboo as thick as a little finger, cut it into short segments the length of a finger, then buy some nonwoven fabric used for clothing linings and cut it into palm-sized rectangles, along with rubber bands in the same number as the little bamboo sticks. That would do.

By the time her hair was half cut, Big Ling Sister had finally finished admiring herself and was at last willing to come out. She was still wearing the same white shirt on top, but now her lower half had changed into a pair of flared trousers. Anyone could see they were not tailored just for her; the legs were a little too loose. But she did not care. She kept pacing around Hong Tao and Han Xue, hoping to hear a compliment.

"Oh, my dear auntie, let’s stop turning in circles. You look absolutely stunning in those trousers, all right? Now go take them off. If your father comes back and sees you wearing that, I’m guessing you’ll get at least three swats on the backside with a shoe sole!" At first Hong Tao ignored her, but as she kept circling without end, he had no choice but to bring out her father. He was a strict father to the core, the sort who reasoned with no child. If they disobeyed, he hit them; and when he hit, he loved to use a shoe sole to spank their bottoms, a sound he seemed to enjoy immensely.

"Hmph... Where is my dad?" Though Big Cousin Third Sister only gave a snort, she did not dare say anything too disrespectful. Her eyes kept darting toward the courtyard gate.

"At the alley mouth. Hurry and take the pants off and sit here properly to learn from me. Once you get to the shop later, you can wear them every day and no one will care. But if you can’t learn, you won’t be able to wear them at all." In Hong Tao’s eyes, girls like Big Cousin Third Sister and his younger aunt were still children. What they thought and what they feared, he understood very well.

"All right then. Do you think I can learn it?" Big Cousin Third Sister felt her cousin was right, but worried she might not be able to pick it up.

"If you can teach a dog by throwing it a piece of meat, then you can learn too. Are you dumber than a dog?" Hong Tao said irritably. He hated people who said before even starting that they could not learn. That was not stupidity. That was laziness.

"Hahaha... If I were your cousin, I’d beat you first! Who talks about family like that?" Han Xue could not bear to listen anymore, and laughed so hard her whole body shook.

"Exactly. So disrespectful..." Big Cousin Third Sister gave Hong Tao a casual slap and hurried back into his younger aunt’s room to change her trousers. In her heart, those shoe-sole spankings from her father had truly taken root; just hearing about them was enough to scare her.

"Listen carefully. Before cutting hair, you first divide it into three major sections: one section on top and two on the sides. When you cut, you can start with any section you like, but after you finish, you still have to go through everything once more. Use your index and middle fingers to hold the hair you want to cut, and use your thumb or little finger as a ruler to control the length you leave behind. If it’s long hair, pick some fixed point as your reference, like the pattern on the clothes or the back of the chair. Each section of hair should be cut layer by layer, and the finer the layers, the better. Don’t aim for it to be too even. The more even it is, the uglier it looks. It needs a natural gradation, and the hemline can’t be straight like it was cut by a knife. Look, it should have a curve, with the sides a little shorter and the middle a little longer..." Hong Tao had his cousin sit off to the side and watch while he used Han Xue’s whole head of hair as a teaching model, explaining the basics to her first.

"Oh, so Little Tao is going to be a teacher now? Taking over from your father, and even giving your cousin a lesson. Let me see how good your hand is!" Aunt Sun from the inner courtyard happened to come out. Seeing Hong Tao cutting Han Xue’s hair, she came over to watch too.

"Hard to tell, really. Before this, when he cut his grandfather’s and younger uncle’s hair, he only used clippers. I never expected he could use scissors on long hair too, and he’s pretty skilled at it. Who taught him all this? Strange indeed!" Grandma Tai from the inner courtyard was also watching. Seeing another neighbor arrive, she began muttering softly.

Hong Tao did not mind these neighbors watching. Let them watch. Maybe there were potential customers among them.

After roughly explaining the basics of cutting hair to his cousin, Han Xue’s hair was considered roughly prepared. The next step was rolling it up, and for that, his cousin did not need to just listen to theory anymore. She could work with her hands directly. Anyway, if a roll was not done well, it did not matter; once it was unwound, it could simply be rolled again. It would be done only when it was truly done.

After Hong Tao taught Big Cousin Third Sister several times, he simply left her alone and ran to the kitchen to boil potato chunks for the crickets. By the time he finished with the crickets, his cousin was still at it, not even halfway through the rolls.

"Hong Tao! Pour me some water to drink, will you? You care more about your crickets than about people. Does every perm take this much trouble? It’s been nearly three hours. Can it even be done before lunch?" Han Xue could no longer sit still, constantly shifting in place.

"Oh, right, I almost forgot about you. I’ll get it now. Don’t hurry. Isn’t this just a demonstration for my cousin? If I were doing it myself, it’d be finished in two hours. Hang on a little longer. We’ll have lunch at my grandmother’s place at noon—fried flatbreads stuffed with lard-crisp, egg, and chives." If Han Xue had not said anything, Hong Tao really would have forgotten her.

Big Cousin Third Sister was not too stupid after all. At last she managed to roll all of Han Xue’s hair. After Hong Tao checked it, he reworked a small portion, then wrapped a towel around Han Xue’s head and began applying the cold wave lotion.

"Watch closely. First the towel has to be wrapped properly so the lotion doesn’t run onto the face or neck. Then you must not squeeze too much or too little. As long as every curl is damp, that’s enough. When applying it, you can hold a small towel beneath the curl with your hand so the excess gets absorbed. Remember this: never use too much. If it runs onto the customer’s clothes, you’ll have to pay for them." As Hong Tao squeezed the lotion onto the little bamboo curls all over Han Xue’s head, he explained the precautions to Big Cousin Third Sister. He did not expect her to remember everything at once. This kind of work was all about skill through practice: watch more, do more, and after a few tries, you would learn.