Chapter Eighty-Six: Safely Delivered

Niu Dali taught with great seriousness, and Xiao Zhang studied just as earnestly. Before long, the vehicle had been given a simple round of maintenance and repairs.

With nothing else to do, Niu Dali glanced over at Xiao Zhang, who was wiping the windows with a rag, and could not help but grin.

He accepted the cigarette Chen Liang handed him. “I say, Liangzi, you really know how to hide things. At a time like this, you can still dig out cigarettes!”

“Haha, Brother Niu, if there’s something to smoke, then smoke it. One fewer cigarette now means one fewer later,” Chen Liang said with a laugh.

“What, you and Xiao Zhang are that familiar?” Chen Liang asked, glancing at the hardworking young driver before turning back to Niu Dali.

“We’re in the same transport team. You tell me whether we’re familiar or not.” Niu Dali nodded. “He’s a good kid, a pity he ended up with Wang Dalan as his master. Even the best child gets ruined by that.”

Niu Dali sighed, then launched into a barrage of complaints. “Liangzi, you’re not from our transport team, so you don’t understand. Wang Dalan is the laziest man I’ve ever seen, lazy enough to dig worms out of his own backside. Being his apprentice is a disaster of eight lifetimes. Any skill he has, he keeps hidden as if afraid someone might steal it. He’d rather have his apprentice do odd jobs for him forever. Damn it, he’s taken on three apprentices before, and not a single one amounted to anything!”

“Heh, Brother Niu, you don’t think this matter is just going to pass, do you?” Chen Liang was rather disdainful of Wang Dalan too, and decided to reveal a little to Niu Dali.

“What? Is there more to it?” Niu Dali blinked in surprise.

Chen Liang gave him a side-eye. “Brother Niu, do you know what this would have been called in ancient times? On the big side, it was delaying military matters, a capital offense under the law. On the small side, it was sabotaging production, and by regulation that meant dismissal!”

“Xiao Zhang is just an apprentice worker. He can’t bear that kind of charge. So what do you think will happen to Wang Dalan when he goes back? Can he still stay in the transport team and live easy? If they don’t make him scrub the toilets, the factory is already being merciful.”

Niu Dali was startled by Chen Liang’s words. “Liangzi, is it really that serious?”

“What do you think?” Chen Liang looked at the diligent Xiao Zhang. “Brother Niu, if you really think that kid is good, then take another apprentice. What difference does it make whether you herd one sheep or two?”

Seeing Niu Dali fall into thought, Chen Liang did not disturb him. Instead, he called out to Xiao Zhang, who was still wiping the glass. “Xiao Zhang, you should rest a bit too. We still don’t know how much road lies ahead, and later on we’ll be counting on you to take a turn at the wheel!”

In those days, the steering wheel of an Eastern Wind Great Liberation truck had no power assist. Turning it was brutally heavy and exhausting. If one man drove day and night without stopping, he truly could not endure it.

It took another two or three hours before the temperature of the radiator finally dropped completely. Only then did Niu Dali shut the engine off for good, add water and fuel, inspect everything once over, and then take the starting crank to the front of the truck and begin to hand-start the engine. It was a pitiful machine, with not even electric ignition.

After restarting the vehicle, Niu Dali drove with utmost caution at thirty miles an hour, creeping forward at a snail’s pace. Wang Dalan had ruined the truck thoroughly, leaving it with a host of minor faults. Being able to get it running again was already quite good; speed was not something to hope for.

Xinjiang had an enormous temperature difference between day and night. At noon it was so hot it made one miserable, yet by nightfall it turned freezing.

No wonder people said that in Xinjiang one wore a padded coat in the morning, gauze in the afternoon, and ate watermelon while hugging a brazier. In this damned weather, a person truly suffered.

Chen Liang, visiting Xinjiang for the first time, also got his first real taste of what it meant that the days here were so long. Though it had only just grown dark, it was already eleven or twelve at night.

After night fell, Chen Liang took out a signal flare gun, leaned halfway out of the window, and fired one into the sky.

Then he watched the surroundings carefully, hoping his uncle-master and the others would see it and answer with a flare of their own.

Unfortunately, after driving for half an hour, he still saw no flare rise from the other side. With no other choice, Chen Liang could only estimate the time and fire one signal flare every hour.

After firing three flares in a row, Chen Liang finally saw a flare slowly rise from the dim distance ahead.

“Brother Niu, speed up!” Chen Liang shouted to Niu Dali, turning his head. Good heavens, this had really not been easy. They had finally arrived.

“All right, hold on tight.” Niu Dali floored the accelerator. Without even stepping on the clutch, he relied on the skill of a seasoned driver and, in the brief instant of acceleration, smoothly shifted the truck into high gear.

As the old saying goes, a mountain looks close, but a horse can be run to death before it is reached. This was no exaggeration at all. Chen Liang and the others accelerated for a full hour before they finally reached the gate of the base.

There, they saw Uncle-master Lu Youwei pacing anxiously back and forth at the entrance.

Chen Liang hurriedly got down from the truck. “Uncle-master, I’m back.”

“You little brat, you’re finally back! You scared the hell out of me!” Uncle-master blurted out in excitement.

“Hah! Baldy, so this is the outstanding junior disciple you praised to the skies?” At that moment, a man in military uniform came over from the side.

“Greetings, sir!” Chen Liang quickly saluted. His uncle-master had fought all his life and knew countless people, but for someone to call him by the nickname “Baldy” clearly meant their relationship was anything but ordinary.

“Drop the formalities. Your uncle-master is my life-saving benefactor! If he hadn’t risked his life to carry me off the battlefield back then, I would not still be here!”

“Haha, old company commander, that’s an unfair way to put it. You remember carrying me, but have you already forgotten how, back then, you carried me across the grasslands?”

“Come, Xiaoliang, let me introduce you. This is my old company commander, Feng Shi, General Feng. He is now the head of the Lop Nur base.”

A general! Damn it all, Chen Liang felt the sourness rise in him again. He stole a complicated glance at his uncle-master. He had known the old man had powerful connections in the army, but he truly had not expected them to be this powerful.

More than that, his uncle-master had climbed snowy mountains and crossed the grasslands. He had clearly been part of the Fourth Field Army that marched the Long March with the leader’s own forces.

If his uncle-master had not left the army and entered civilian service, he would at the very least be a general by now, wouldn’t he? Then would that not make him a child of a military compound too?

Damn it, he could not keep thinking about this, or he would become completely sour. Once, there had been an opportunity to become a child of the compound right in front of Chen Liang, and he had not cherished it. If he could start over, he would cling tightly to his uncle-master’s thigh, and no matter what, he would never allow him to leave the army.

“All right, Baldy, look at how exhausted the boy is. Hurry and let him wash up and rest,” General Feng said, unable to keep from speaking when he saw Chen Liang looking so weary.

“Ah, Uncle-master, wait a moment,” Chen Liang called, running back to the cab. Under Niu Dali’s incredulous gaze, he fished out two bottles of liquor from beneath the front passenger seat.