Chapter Eighty-Eight: Buying a Ticket at the Bathhouse

On the way there, every driver had been sighing and grumbling, each convinced the job was a complete loss. It took forever, and worst of all, there was not the slightest profit in it.

But once the trucks were loaded with fruit, every one of them was suddenly in soaring spirits, so eager they looked ready to shoulder the vehicles themselves and run home overnight.

On the road back, they all drove with the pedal floored, racing day and night toward home. Fruit, after all, does not keep forever; if they went too slowly, the whole cargo would be ruined.

It had taken five days to reach Western Frontier, but on the return trip they made it back to the Capital in only three. That was proof enough: if you want the mule to run fast, you must dangle a carrot in front of it.

The moment Chen Liang returned to the factory, he immediately turned in his weapons and ammunition, then dusted off his hands and left. As for his share of the fruit, no one in the factory would dare shortchange him. The portion for the three men of the Chen family would certainly be the finest of the lot. That was what real clout looked like.

Though Chen Liang had already bathed while stationed with the Frontier Corps, he had spent another three stifling days shut up in the truck on the way back to the Capital. The smell on him now was so pungent that even a dog, coming near, would shake its head and walk away. It was sharp enough that even dogs wanted nothing to do with him.

Filthy and disheveled, Chen Liang got home a little after two in the afternoon. The moment he stepped into the courtyard, he saw Silly Pillar standing there with a look of disgust, pinching his nose.

“Heavens, whose stink is that? So it’s Liangzi?”

“What happened? Just come out of some refugee shelter? Or did you fall into a cesspit? A smell like this doesn’t come without thirty years of careful aging.”

At that instant, Chen Liang truly wanted to sew that foul, flapping mouth of his shut with a needle. Damn it all, would it kill the man to keep quiet for even one moment?

He shot him a vicious glare and ignored him. That bastard was always like this: the more attention you gave him, the more carried away he became.

Chen Liang went inside, fetched a towel and slung it around his neck, then gathered a clean change of clothes in his hand. He was planning to head to the bathhouse for a long soak. Escorting freight wore a man down badly when it dragged on too long.

And in those days there were no saunas, no massages. If one wanted to loosen the body and ease the fatigue, a bath was the only way. He would have to soak himself properly in hot water at the public baths.

When Silly Pillar saw that Chen Liang was ignoring him, he grew anxious at once. Such a rare chance to catch Chen Liang making a fool of himself did not come often; how could he let it pass without having a good laugh?

“Liangzi, wait for me. I’ll come have a soak too. Let’s go together.”

“The bathhouse isn’t owned by my family. If you want to go, who’s stopping you?”

Truth be told, the bathhouse culture in the Northeast in later years was nothing compared with the old Capital’s. Against the Capital’s grand tradition, it was hardly worth mentioning. Those old descendants of noble houses had elevated the art of bathing to an extravagant flourish.

At the public bath not far from home, Chen Liang pushed aside the thick padded curtain, and a wave of steam rushed over him.

He walked to the ticket window and passed in one bath ticket and a dime.

“Comrade, one single admission.”

The ticket seller inside had looked indifferent at first, but the moment he heard Chen Liang’s voice, he lifted his head at once.

“Brother Liang?”

“Little Turtle?” Chen Liang bent slightly and looked in through the window. “Well now, so you’ve taken over your mother’s shift?”

Little Turtle had grown up with Chen Liang and the others. Because he had been soft-tempered as a child and happened to bear the surname Wang, Chen Er the Fool and the rest had jokingly nicknamed him Turtle. Since he was younger than the others, he became Little Turtle.

These days, though, not just anyone dared call him that. After growing up, under the influence of Chen Liang and the others, Little Turtle had toughened up completely. Especially after Chen Er had taught him a few genuine wrestling techniques, he had become the sort who would turn hostile at a single harsh word and drag a man into a one-on-one fight without hesitation. He was overbearing in the extreme.

“Brother Liang, you all started working, didn’t you? There was no point in me loafing around outside by myself. My mother was getting on in years anyway, so I just took over her post.”

With that, Little Turtle pushed the bath ticket and the dime back out, then handed over an admission slip.

“Brother Liang, how could I let you pay to bathe here? Wouldn’t that be a slap in your little brother’s face?”

“All right then. Between brothers, I won’t stand on ceremony. But you’d better take these cigarettes. If you dare toss them back, I’ll come in there right now and give you a beating. Believe it or not.”

Brotherhood was built on just this sort of exchange: today you help me, tomorrow I help you, and the bond grows deeper with time. So Chen Liang did not refuse over such a small matter. After taking back the money and bath ticket, he tossed in a pack of Red Pagoda Mountain cigarettes.

Seeing Little Turtle in a panic, ready to throw them back, Chen Liang said a single sentence and stopped him cold. Little Turtle clutched the cigarettes and scratched his head hard.

“Brother Liang, now you’re making things difficult for me. I’d rather you just paid.”

A bath ticket sold at the pigeon market for only a dime; add another dime for admission, and it came to no more than twenty cents. But the pack of Red Pagoda Mountain cigarettes Chen Liang casually threw over was worth seventy-two cents, nearly four times as much as the regular fee. It left Little Turtle thoroughly troubled.

“When your elder brother gives you cigarettes, you take them and keep them. Say one more word and I’ll reward you with a slap.” With that, Chen Liang picked up his clothes and headed into the changing room.

“Brother Liang, wait a moment. I’ve got some fine tea for you,” Little Turtle called, hurrying out from the ticket booth to follow him, only to be stopped by the people queued behind him waiting to buy tickets.

“Comrade, I still need to buy a ticket.”

Little Turtle casually shoved the man aside with one hand.

“Get lost. Look at that face of yours. I’m not selling tickets today. Go back wherever you came from.”

“Hey! Comrade, how can you act like that? How can you suddenly say you’re not selling tickets?”

The man looked at Little Turtle’s powerful, muscular frame, then down at his own body, lean as bare ribs, and quite visibly lost his nerve.

“Damn, you’ve got a lot to say. If you want a ticket, then wait. Keep yapping and I’ll let these fists, big as sandbags, educate you.”

Seeing the man had wilted and would not dare make a scene, Little Turtle sneered at him and ran off to bring tea leaves to Chen Liang.

When he came back out from the men’s bath, a cigarette at his lips and swagger in every step, Little Turtle cast a look of royal contempt at the same man still standing in line.

Then he stepped back into the ticket booth, impatience written all over his face.

“All right, all right, so much trouble. Hurry up, hurry up, every one of you. Broad daylight and you lot insist on coming to wash your filthy hides…”

Still cursing under his breath, Little Turtle briskly took the money and tickets passed to him, flung the admission slips toward the window without caring whether they were properly caught, and barked out, “Next.”

The man, too cowed to utter a word even while being cursed at, picked up his admission slip from the window and trudged into the men’s changing room with a face full of bad luck. Damn it all, to come for a bath and still get bullied like this—it was simply outrageous.

But there was nothing to be done. He was scrawny as a rack of ribs, and he could not beat Little Turtle in a fight. After suffering the insult, he could only swallow it in silence.