My era, 1979!

Chapter 14 Bathhouse Food Coupons and Short Poems

By the time we returned to the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers' Guesthouse, the sun had already set.

As the wooden door creaked open, the kerosene lamp in the corridor swayed violently.

Xu Chengjun put his canvas bag at the foot of the bed in room 302 and heard the sound of running water coming from the bathroom next door.

Amidst the shouts of men: "The last pot of hot water!"

"Just arrived at the guesthouse?"

The middle-aged man in the bed diagonally opposite peeked out, holding a bath towel in his hand, with soap suds still stuck to his ears.

"Hurry up and get to the public bathhouse, or you'll only be able to take a cold shower."

Xu Chengjun took out an enamel mug and a change of clothes, and was immediately enveloped in a wave of heat as he stepped into the corridor.

The bathhouse was a large open space with water flowing on the cement floor, and a dozen shirtless men were crammed under four faucets.

Some people were pouring water over themselves with tin buckets, while others were squeezing blackheads in front of a mirror. The steam smelled of cheap soap.

"Excuse me, excuse me!" A young man in military trousers walked out carrying a water bottle. "The boiler room worker said the boiler will only be heated until eight o'clock tonight, so hurry up if you want to take a shower!"

Xu Chengjun quickly grabbed a tap near the window and turned the water to lukewarm when a young man wearing glasses rushed over carrying a bucket: "Comrade, could you share some hot water? If I don't rub this ink stain off soon, it will seep into the fabric."

The other person pointed to the ink spots on the blue shirt, sweating profusely with anxiety.

"Use it."

Xu Chengjun moved aside and watched the young man pour hot water onto his shirt.

"Thanks!" the young man said while rubbing his shirt. "I work for the provincial newspaper and I have to submit my article tomorrow. This shirt is borrowed from a colleague."

Xu Chengjun's heart skipped a beat. Oh, I need to socialize!

Just as I was about to start a conversation, the bathhouse suddenly went dark.

Someone cursed "Damn it!" and then a match snapped. In the dim light, everyone groped their way out, some wearing the wrong underwear, some wearing the wrong slippers, which drew laughter and curses.
-
When I returned to the room, the other three beds were already occupied.

The old man near the door was circling job postings in the newspaper with a red pen, muttering to himself, "Textile factory is hiring apprentices, room and board provided..."

The young man on the upper bunk was combing his hair in front of the mirror, the smell of hairspray making people sneeze.
Later I found out he was a salesman, carrying two boxes of "Phoenix" brand snow cream as samples.

"Feeling refreshed after your bath?" The uncle diagonally across from me handed me an enamel mug filled halfway with strong tea.

"I just noticed 'Fengyang' printed on your bag. Is the wheat harvest almost over there?"

"In another half month." Xu Chengjun took the teacup, his fingertips touching the notch on the rim. "Uncle, have you been there?"

"I passed by here two years ago while hauling coal," the uncle said, pulling a cloth bag from under the bed and taking out a hard, dry steamed bun.

"Want to trade me something? I bought this with Shanghai grain coupons; it's softer than coarse grain steamed buns."

In 1979, grain coupons were divided into local and national categories, and Shanghai grain coupons were considered hard currency in other regions.

Xu Chengjun took out two national grain coupons (one tael each) and handed them over: "Want to exchange for two? I also have some pickled vegetables here."

The uncle's eyes lit up, and he stuffed two white steamed buns into his hands: "It's worth it! These buns are mixed with milk powder; you can only buy them at the supply and marketing cooperative with industrial coupons!"
-
While eating steamed buns with pickled vegetables, Xu Chengjun opened the "People's Literature" magazine in his canvas bag.

I borrowed it from the commune library last month; the cover is all worn and curled.

There was a piece by Wang Zengqi called "Receiving the Precepts," which he read with great interest, especially the section about "Minghai becoming a monk," which he wrote over and over again in the blank spaces.

I suddenly remembered what Mr. Xu said: "Life is like grass in the field, it has to grow in accordance with the seasons."
-
It was late at night when I was revising the manuscript.

The cicadas outside the window gradually stopped chirping, and only the clock in the corridor ticked away.

Xu Chengjun revised the parts he was unsure about again.

After finishing revising, I rubbed my sore wrists and my gaze fell on the People's Literature magazine on the corner of the table. The phrase "time moves slowly" from the article "Receiving the Precepts" suddenly struck me.

He took out some scrap paper and a pencil and wrote down the four characters "Time is water".

A breeze from the corridor seeped in through the window cracks, causing the candlelight to flicker.

Xu Chengjun's pen trembled, and the days in Fengyang, the nights of revising manuscripts, the turmoil in the car, and the days spent buried in official documents in his previous life all suddenly flowed out from the tip of his pen.

Time is like water, overflowing the unfinished tracks.

Some stones were polished to a moonlight.

Some of the sharp edges and corners have grown into the skeleton of the riverbed—
He wrote so fast that the pen tip poked several holes in the scrap paper.

The sales clerk on the top bunk rolled over and muttered, "Who's still awake?"

Xu Chengjun quickly held his breath and waited until the other person started snoring before continuing to write. It wasn't until the morning light crept onto the pages that he realized he had filled three pages.
-
"Did you write this?"

Xu Chengjun was startled. He looked up and saw the young man from the provincial newspaper standing in front of the table, holding his scrap paper in his hand, his eyes wide.

It turned out that the other person got up in the middle of the night and stumbled upon the candlelight, then casually picked up the manuscript and started reading.

"Nonsense."

Xu Chengjun tried to snatch the paper back, but the young man held him down.

He chuckled to himself, thinking, "You're such a know-it-all!" "'Mud on the toes of shoes,' 'Stars falling from eyelashes'—that's brilliantly written!" The young man's voice suddenly rose, waking everyone in the room.

An old man near the door leaned over, his reading glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose: "Read it to me, I loved listening to opera when I was young."

The young man cleared his throat and began to recite in the morning light.

As the poem reads, “All the unspoken ‘later’ stories / in the breath, the sound of gently turning pages,” the first rooster crows from the direction of the bathhouse, and the window paper gradually turns white.

"Submit it to the Hefei Evening News!"

The young man shoved the poem into Xu Chengjun's hands, saying, "The supplement is currently soliciting poems on the theme of 'New Era,' and yours is really well written!"

"Can it be done?"

Xu Chengjun was also unsure about the standards for selecting poems in this era.

As for this poem, if you ask him, it's definitely unparalleled in our time and unmatched in the world!
But it wasn't him who said that.
“I’ll deliver it for you!” the young man patted his chest. “My cousin is the supplement editor, and he said last time that we ‘lack poems with an earthy feel.’”

The old man near the door suddenly said, "I understand the saying 'time is sugar.' It's like my wife. When she was young, she always complained that life was hard, but now she smiles every day as she counts her grandson's shoe size."

Xu Chengjun's lips twitched.

but,

He was thinking about forty years when he wrote it, but he never expected that the old man would read it as the taste of daily life.
-
At breakfast, Xu Chengjun copied the poem onto manuscript paper.

The corn porridge in the canteen was so thick that chopsticks could be stuck in it, and he ate the white steamed buns he had exchanged for it with pickled vegetables.

Hearing my tablemate say, "The special economic zone has approved new projects" and "Individual businesses can now apply for business licenses," I suddenly felt that the word "time" on the scrap paper was seeping into reality with the morning light.

"Are you really going to vote?"

The sales clerk leaned over to look, the crumbs of fried dough stick in his mouth falling onto the paper. "If this makes you rich, you'll be the most cultured person in our guesthouse."

"Let's try it."

Xu Chengjun folded the manuscript paper into a square and stuffed it into the insert of "People's Literature".

Why would I write about him if I'm not going to submit it?
The sound of running water from the bathhouse came from the corridor again, but this time no one was fighting over the hot water.

Xu Chengjun gazed at the poplar trees outside the window, dewdrops falling from their leaves like someone counting the ticks of time.

He touched the grain coupons in his pocket; there were still six left.

As for that poem, whether it can be published or not seems less important.

Importantly, when he wrote "mud on the toes of his shoes," he thought of the paddy fields of Fengyang; when he wrote "stars falling from his eyelashes," he saw the lights of Bengbu Station.

These are all gifts from time.

And time quietly shone on the surface of that little poem:

"time"

Author: Xu Chengjun

Time is like water, overflowing the unfinished tracks.

Some stones were polished to a moonlight.

Some of the sharp edges and corners have grown into the skeleton of the riverbed.
Time is a tree, taking root in waiting.

Tree rings are a secret message.

Every fallen leaf holds the fingerprints of spring.

Travelers say time is a whip.
Moving forward while drawing shadows
Those who stop say time is sugar

Within the folds, the initial sweetness slowly emerges.

It will wear down the glaze of the oath.