Chapter 16: The Haircut of a Labor Reform Convict!

“Dongzi, you’re finally out!”

Li Xiangdong had guessed correctly. The visitor was indeed his childhood friend. The one speaking was not tall and had a dark complexion.

His name was Xiang Lin, and he had a buzz cut. He was clearly an educated youth who had returned to the city, but he looked exactly like a labor reform convict who had just been released.

This wasn’t a few decades later; going out with a “convict’s haircut” like this would get you laughed at.

“What were you dawdling in the house for? If you hadn’t come out, the sun would have melted me and Little Linzi.”

This was his other childhood friend, Zhang Sen. Among their group of friends, everyone liked to call him San Mu.

Li Xiangdong stood at the door, looked at the two of them, and smiled, “San Mu, you should learn from Little Linzi. Cut your hair shorter, it’s cooler.”

Xiang Lin rolled his eyes at him and explained, “Didn’t the subdistrict office arrange for me to be an apprentice at the barbershop? The old master in the shop saw that me and another guy didn’t know anything, so he let us practice on each other. In the end, it turned into this mess.”

Zhang Sen grinned, revealing a set of big white teeth, “Little Linzi, hurry up and tell us about that other guy. Did he also get a convict’s haircut?”

Xiang Lin smiled slyly, “He’s even worse off. He got a completely bald head, like a braised egg.”

“Hahahaha~”

Zhang Sen laughed so hard he was out of breath, almost passing out.

After the three of them joked around for a bit, Li Xiangdong asked, “What’s the occasion today?”

Xiang Lin said, “Ah Zhe is back. We’re going to welcome him.”

At the mention of Ah Zhe, Zhang Sen, who had been laughing just a moment ago, immediately sobered up.

Mainly because this childhood friend of theirs had it too rough. His experiences in the past few years were truly lamentable.

Ah Zhe’s full name was Shi Zhengzhe. Just by hearing the name, you could tell his family was educated.

Shi Zhengzhe’s father was a university professor who taught economics. Ah Zhe’s mother and maternal grandfather’s family had fled before the Humanitarian Torrent began.

Although his mother had left a letter disowning them, life was still difficult for the father and son.

Under such circumstances, if they had kept a low profile and avoided standing out, they might have been able to get by.

And that was indeed the case until the year Li Xiangdong got married.

But not long after, Shi Zhengzhe’s father couldn’t control his mouth and said some things he shouldn’t have.

To say he couldn’t control his mouth didn’t mean Ah Zhe’s father was a gossip. He was like Zhao Gang from the TV series “Drawing Sword,” which Li Xiangdong had watched in his previous life, who spoke out in anger after his ideals and beliefs were challenged.

Anyway, for whatever reason, he said some things he shouldn’t have, and then the father and son went to the southwest region to live in a “small villa,” experiencing the idyllic rural life that working people in later generations dreamed of, decades ahead of time.

In his previous life, it was from Ah Zhe that Li Xiangdong learned about the railway system’s recruitment, because the subdistrict office had given Ah Zhe a spot, saying that comrades who had been wronged should be given some consideration.

In the end, Ah Zhe didn’t take the job. Following the trajectory of his previous life, he didn’t stay in the city for long after returning. He and his father went abroad to join his mother. They didn’t meet again until the new millennium, when Beijing hosted the Olympics.

“Since Ah Zhe is back, we should go and visit him. But it’s not right for us to go empty-handed, is it?”

Li Xiangdong was in a bit of a bind. He only had thirty cents and two packs of Daqianmen cigarettes on him.

Zhang Sen said, “Dongzi, don’t worry, we’ve prepared things.”

“What did you prepare?”

Li Xiangdong was puzzled. His two childhood friends were not well-off.

Xiang Lin was an apprentice at a barbershop, and Zhang Sen had been assigned by the subdistrict office to pedal a tricycle. Moreover, both of them were married with children, and the money they earned was barely enough to support their families.

Xiang Lin said sheepishly, “It wasn’t me and San Mu who prepared it. It was Binzi. He used his connections with the back kitchen’s procurement to reserve a pig’s head and a whole set of offal.”

Binzi was also one of Li Xiangdong’s childhood friends. His full name was Qian Bin. After graduating from junior high, he didn’t go to the countryside but followed his father to work as a cook in a state-owned restaurant.

Hearing this, Li Xiangdong urged, “A pig’s head? Then what are we waiting for? That thing takes a lot of time to cook. How about this, I’ll go get some loose wine, and you two go buy some peanuts. The three of us should bring something too.”

“Alright, we’ll listen to you, Dongzi.”

The three of them split up. Xiang Lin and Zhang Sen went to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy peanuts, and Li Xiangdong went to the small tavern to get loose wine.

Getting loose wine required an empty bottle. His family’s empty bottles were in the main house. To avoid his mother’s nagging, he went back home and just grabbed two enamel mugs from his own room to make do.

He spent the last thirty cents he had to buy two catties of loose Erguotou wine. Coming out of the small tavern, he held one mug steadily in each hand.

Things in this era were meant to be sturdy, durable, and large. A catty of wine only filled an enamel mug about seven or eight-tenths full. Once the lid was on, it wouldn’t spill at all.

Li Xiangdong walked into the large courtyard where Qian Bin’s family lived. He saw Xiang Lin, Zhang Sen, and two fat men, one large and one small, squatting in the courtyard, using fire to singe the hair off a pig’s head. Several children from the courtyard were gathered around, watching the excitement.

Beside them were two large iron basins. One contained the already singed pig’s trotters and tail, and the other contained a whole set of pig offal soaking in water.

He placed the enamel mugs in his hands on the windowsill and greeted the middle-aged man holding a cattail leaf fan, “Hello, Uncle Qian. Sorry to trouble you on such a hot day.”

Uncle Qian smiled like a Maitreya Buddha, “Dongzi is here. It’s no trouble at all. I’m just giving instructions. You guys still have to do the work yourselves.”

He stood up, lifted his shirt to expose his belly, and patted it a couple of times. He pointed at the windowsill with the fan in his hand, “Why did you bring two enamel mugs with you?”