Shi Ding helped his father carry the triangular timber box to Ruan Qiling’s house. He liked visiting this house. The twisting laneway that led to a hidden corner of the yard was itself attractive enough. Inside, the unusual furniture, the walls of books, the rarely seen chocolates and, most of all, the elegant manner of this female professor seemed so alien that it excited him. His first visit had been coming to watch TV with his mother a few months ago. That had also been the first time he had ever sat on a sofa. Afterwards, he told his friends the sofa was so springy that when he plonked himself down he did a backwards roll. No one could challenge him because they had only seen sofas in photographs.
Ruan Qiling’s cellar was under the kitchen. Shi Wangcai had cemented the floor of the cellar, plastered the walls and installed big shelves in it. He had spent a good week figuring out how to make it easy for Ruan Qiling to get down into it.
One of the kitchen’s two doors opened to the front room and the other to the living room. Shi Wangcai led his son to the second door. He pointed to the threshold, which, as in all traditional households, was about five centimetres high in order to block evil spirits, and instructed Shi Ding to pull it up.
“Dad, you want me to pull the threshold up?”
“Yes, just do it.” Shi Wangcai seemed amused.
With a slight squeak, a square of floor board – the trapdoor – opened when Shi Ding pulled the threshold up. “Brilliant, Dad! The threshold’s a handle, no one would guess there’s a cellar down there.”
Resting the trapdoor against the doorframe, Shi Ding saw the rungs of a ladder running parallel to the floor just under the opening. Ruan Qiling watched from behind as Shi Wangcai placed his right foot on one of the rungs and pushed on it. “The ladder is counterbalanced,” Shi Wangcai explained. “There is a pulley attached to the ceiling below. A rope goes over that to a counterweight.”
“I’ve got it. It springs back up when you come up. Amazing!” Shi Ding exclaimed. Ruan Qiling nodded in agreement.
“But there’s a problem. See this?” Shi Wangcai climbed down the ladder into the cellar and when he took his foot off the ladder, it sprang up. “Now I’m stuck at the bottom of the cellar. You need to be tall and strong enough to pull the ladder back down. It’s not easy when you’re trying to carry things up.” He stood on his toes to yank the ladder down and climbed back to the surface.
“So we need something to hook the ladder onto,” Shi Ding interjected.
“Good thinking! You’re my son after all.”
Ruan Qiling enjoyed their interaction. She handed Shi Ding a biscuit and Shi Wangcai a cup of tea she had made for him. Shi Wangcai was busy fiddling with the timber box, so she held the cup for him. Shi Ding watched her. This professor was not a bad-looking woman, with her large black eyes, pale complexion and graceful composure.
Ruan Qiling felt his gaze. She turned to him. “I nearly forgot. I have something for you.” She went to the living room and came back with a small box in her hand. “Shi Ding, this is very good cream for healing pimples.”
Shi Ding did not know how to react. The colour and design of the box proclaimed that it must be expensive. He turned to his father for help.
“Thank Professor Ruan, will you?” Shi Wangcai said happily. Then he called out, “It’s ready to go. Shi Ding, when I get on the ladder hand me this brace.” He moved the triangular timber brace near the trapdoor.
“Okay, Dad. But why do you need such a big brace? Can’t you just fix a metal hook of some sort on the floor?”
“Well, this brace has another use. Look.” Shi Wangcai drew their attention to the back edge of the triangle. “I’ve hidden two drawers here.” He gently nudged the drawers out and slid them back in again. Since the brace was made of leftover floor boards, you would not notice the drawers at all.
“That’s clever,” Shi Ding said admiringly. “What are the drawers for?”
“For – well, for valuables, I guess.” Shi Wangcai replied, casting a quick glance at Ruan Qiling.
“Like what?”
“Depends,” Shi Wangcai shrugged. “Do you remember my innovation certificate? And some old photos?” He gave a dry cough. “Anything you treasure that you don’t want to lose, or just to keep to yourself, is valuable.” Shi Wangcai’s voice got softer and softer.
It was Ruan Qiling’s turn to throw Shi Wangcai a quick glance. Their eyes met for a fleeting instant. Shi Ding was trying the drawers and did not see this. He said, “Dad, if we’d had a drawer like this for the Long March wall-hanging, a bigger one I mean, Mum wouldn’t have been able to destroy it.”
Shi Wangcai stepped on the ladder and scuttled down into the cellar.
IV
Mr Dong asked Sun Lanfen to supervise Dong Ermei every evening, from her release from school detention at six until bedtime. He said he would prepare her dinner before leaving for his nightshift, but she had to have it at Sun Lanfen’s house.
“Mrs Sun, please, please help me on this account. Call me a heartless father or a bastard. Ermei’s so out of tune I’m worried she’ll tell Pingshun’s girlfriend what happened at school. Believe me, if they can’t find who wrote the slogan, they’ll blame her! She’s an old reactionary’s daughter, is there anyone better to take the rap? I can only hope that Li Mei stays with Pingshun long enough to see that he is a wonderful young man. If you can make Ermei behave … Maybe, just maybe they’ll forgive her. Surely everyone can see she’s too dumb to commit a serious crime.”
Sun Lanfen agreed. She felt it her duty and she wanted to do something for the silly girl. What Mr Dong said was not baseless, yet she was withholding some information which could get Ermei out of the mess she was in. She was torn between two hopeless youngsters. She reasoned that if she did not share this information, Ermei could still survive, with her help, but if she disclosed this information, that would be the end of Xu Yongcai.
“Leave her to me, Mr Dong. It’s my duty as chairman. I’ll make sure she does self-criticism every day. And I’ll write her a good report. She’ll be fine, don’t you worry!” She spoke in her sternest voice in an effort to reassure herself as much as Mr Dong.
This was the third night that Sun Lanfen had barred Ermei from going back home before nine-thirty, no matter what her excuse. She had sat next to her, sewing or knitting, watching as she wrote out her self-criticism. Whenever Ermei started to complain that she had nothing new to say, Sun Lanfen would threaten her with all kinds of consequences or cajole her, saying that the more she wrote, the better impression it would make and the earlier she would be signed out of detention. Tonight, however, Ermei decided that she had had enough.
“I want to go home, Aunt Sun.” It was only eight o’clock. Ermei had been restless because she knew from the sumptuous dinner her father had prepared earlier that Li Mei was coming over.
“Sorry, you have to stay here till bedtime.” Sun Lanfen was tired and she couldn’t hide her impatience. Because of this supervision arrangement, she had had to send her own boys to stay with their uncle nearby because she did not want them mixed up with Ermei. As for her husband, a simple and silent labourer, he had had his daily drink and gone to bed.
“But I’m not a prisoner. I’ve run out of ideas. Let me go home for ten minutes, then I’ll know what to write. My brother is very smart. I can ask him to help me.”
“Don’t you dare bother your brother.”