Return to the 1982 Staff Compound

Chapter 41: Mailing a Letter

Qiu Huoming comforted his mother and two younger sisters before returning to his own little room. Today, many things happened at once, which was really a bit upsetting.

He put the contract and receipt in his schoolbag into the drawer, took out a blank tape from under the bed, and chose "Shepherd's Song" as the first song of the "master tape". The songs after it remained unchanged, and the interval between each song was recorded, so that the whole tape would have continuity and there would not be large blank areas.

After finalizing the time difference, a new "master tape" was born, and Qiu Huoming began to repeatedly record with blank tapes.

As he continued operating, he felt like a robot without any emotions. There were already five tapes on the table. He glanced at the alarm clock and it was already 11 o'clock.

He put away the tapes on the table, went out to wash his face, yawned and prepared to go to bed.

Just as I lay down on the bed, I heard familiar footsteps coming from the door. The key clattered a few times. Qiu Jianshe was trying to open the door, but he couldn't open it no matter what he did. He got a little anxious and called out in a low voice: "Suniang, open the door."

No matter how he shouted, no one in the house answered him. He suddenly became anxious and turned around to knock on Qiu Huoming's door.

Qiu Huoming sighed, got up, opened the door and welcomed him in.

"Where's your mother?" he asked first.

"Mom was beaten today. What do you think about this?" Qiu Huoming said in a cold voice.

"Who the hell beat me? What happened? Tell me quickly. I'm so worried." Qiu Jianshe was fidgeting in the small room.

Qiu Huoming exaggerated the story and said, "If it weren't for the neighbor's help, you wouldn't be able to see your mother today."

This sentence was like a knife, stabbing Qiu Jianshe's heart.

His face looked like an overturned palette, and the flesh on his cheeks began to tremble. "This is so inhuman! This is so inhuman!"

"I, Qiu Jianshe, want to break off relations with them! What bullshit relatives, what cousins? Huo Ming, go tell your mom that I will not give up this job to their family even if I lose it!"

"Tell her yourself, she must not be asleep."

Qiu Huo knew Chen Suniang's temper very well. She would definitely not be able to sleep after being humiliated like this today.

"Come on, Dad. I'll go knock on the door. Just tell Mom what you told me. I'm sure she'll forgive you."

"Hey, okay, okay..."

After a while, Qiu Huoming shouted the door open. Qiu Jianshe took advantage of her inattention and quickly squeezed in through the crack of the door. Chen Suniang's low-voiced curses were immediately heard from inside.

Qiu Huoming lay at the door and listened in the corner for a while. His cheap father admitted his mistake very quickly. Chen Suniang made a fuss for a while, but probably thought that his attitude was very good, and her anger gradually subsided.

Qiu Huoming then moved his ears away, thinking that he must have passed this level of his father.

As long as Qiu Jianshe stops defending Qiu Jianjun, he can boldly retaliate against Qiu Jianjun for humiliating his mother today. Qiu Jianjun is a greedy man who knows how to curry favor with people. He was able to climb to his current position largely thanks to the meat processing factory. If someone is willing to check some of the accounts, they will be able to find evidence. This will be much more painful than beating him up.

He turned around, yawned, and went back to his little room, locked the door again and went to bed.

After being disturbed by Qiu Jianshe, the previous strong sleepiness dissipated a lot. Lying on the bed, she reviewed the matter of her eldest uncle. If she continued to make such a fuss, it was very likely that her third aunt would not get a job opportunity, just like a paradox in later generations: "Allocation based on the noise."

Since he couldn't sleep, he simply got up, turned on the light, took out the manuscript paper, and drafted the title of the article he was going to submit: "The Conspiracy of the Grand Uncle."

What the Great Uncle did was simply too numerous to list, and all of this was material for writing. Qiu Huoming wrote without stopping as he eloquently wrote a thick stack of manuscript paper. At the end of the article, of course, he ended by revealing his conspiracy and the Great Uncle being thrown into jail.

After writing it, he read it again. It was a coherent article that was written in one go and was very fluent throughout. This was probably a rare type of cool writing in the 80s. The bad guy's face was beaten to pieces, and the humiliation with words could be big or small. It all depended on whether the article could be published. Once published, he would send a copy back to the countryside to see if the second uncle's family still had face in the village.

Assuming 576 words per page of manuscript paper, I wrote a total of seven and a half pages, which, excluding spaces, is almost 4000 words.

He didn't plan to be selected, so he just treated it as a try and a way to vent his anger.

On the last half of the manuscript paper, I wrote my mailing address, name and age.

He put away the manuscript and rubbed his sore wrist. After his brain was excited, his whole body felt tired and he was really sleepy this time.

I turned off the lights and fell asleep almost as soon as I lay down on the bed.

He slept in for a rare time in the morning. When he woke up, it was already past nine o'clock. After washing up, his father and mother were not at home. There was porridge and a big steamed bun covered with gauze on the table. He uncovered the gauze, took a big steamed bun, bit it with his mouth, and walked out.

He stuffed the manuscript into his schoolbag, locked his door, said goodbye to his older and younger sisters, asked them to lock their doors at home, and then walked out with his schoolbag on his back.

After crossing the stone bridge, I finished eating the steamed bun. I felt a little choked and patted my chest. I should have drunk some water at home.

There are only two post offices in the county town, one on Cross Street and the other on North Street.

He went to the one at the cross street. There were several customized Forever 28-bar postal bicycles parked in front of the post office, with green canvas letter sorting bags hanging on the back seats. In the hall, uniformed postmen were sorting envelopes. They had a very high status in that era, and were employed by the state. They were also one of the eight major officials at that time.

Almost all young people are proud to be a postman.

Qiu Huoming bought a khaki envelope and an 8-cent stamp at the counter.

Then I walked to the table in the post office where people wrote and affixed stamps, and filled in the editorial address on the horizontal line on the front of the envelope stroke by stroke. I folded the manuscript paper in half and stuffed it into the envelope. Then I took the glue on the table and applied it to the opening of the envelope. After pressing it firmly, I applied a little glue on the back of the stamp and affixed it neatly to the upper right corner of the envelope address.

A young man next to him, with his coat open and a floral shirt underneath, licked the back of the stamp and then stuck it directly on the envelope with his saliva.

Qiu Huoming glanced away, fanned the envelope a few times, and felt that the glue was almost dry. Then he walked to the mailbox and threw the envelope in.

The cross street is very close to the South Gate, so Qiu Huoming went to look for Fang Jun. He hadn't seen him for such a long time, and he was worried that he would default on his debt.

If everything goes well, I'll be able to hand over about half of the tapes to him to sell on my behalf by next Saturday afternoon.

If the sales are good, he plans to settle Fang Jun's debt first, and buy a batch of blank tapes at the same time. If his batch of tapes sells well, pirated copies will surely emerge like mushrooms after a rain. He will be the first to try it, and there is no telling what will happen in the future.

When we arrived at the electronics store, there were a row of tricycles parked at the door. Fang Jun was standing at the door talking to a fat man. The store was bustling and seemed to be doing good business.

Qiu Huoming walked over and greeted him, "Brother Jun."

Fang Jun talked to the fat man for a few words and then walked towards him. "Brother Huo Ming, why are you here today? Have you finished your business?"

"That's about it. I'll bring some finished products to you next Saturday afternoon. You can sell them first. If the business is good, I plan to continue doing it later."

"How much do you plan to sell it for?"

"The price is 5 yuan. Brother Jun, you can sell it as much as you want. Just make sure you ship it out as soon as possible to prevent any future troubles."

"This price is not expensive. Wait for you to bring the finished product to me and let me see it. If it's good, I'll buy it all."

Fang Jun smiled and patted his shoulder. "I heard that the agent from the provincial capital will be coming soon. Thanks to you. Come on, come in and have a seat and a drink."

He took up the agency mainly to ensure that his electrical appliances could have a clear market, just like some of the home appliances currently piled up in his warehouse, which were shipped across the sea from the south. He couldn't talk about it openly and could only do it secretly.

"You're so busy, let's forget about it today and do it another day." Qiu Huoming was very sensible. Sunday was the busiest time for merchants, so of course he couldn't afford to make things awkward for himself.

Fang Jun's slicked-back hair looked more and more impressive. He stretched out his hand to comb his hair and said, "Yes, I'm too busy today. Let's get together again next Saturday."

"Brother Jun, can I rent you a tape recorder? I only have one at home, and it's really not enough for recording."

Qiu Huoming thought of last night's recording which was like Yugong moving mountains. A machine was really too slow.

"Rent? Forget it, you can give the things to me to sell when the time comes, and the difference will be considered as rent."

Fang Jun turned around and shouted, "Xiao Qian, take out the Sanyo tape recorder sample on the shelf."

A young man came out of the store, carrying a sample machine.

Qiu Huoming quickly took it, "Thank you, Brother Jun, do you want me to sign a form for you, and the blank tape from last time..."

"No need. No one on this street dares to default on my debt." Fang Jun said casually.

"Okay, Jun brother, you go ahead and do your work. I'll be leaving first."

Qiu Huoming held the sample machine and turned around to walk back.

Fang Jun looked at his back for a while, then went back to the store door and pulled the fat man to continue talking.

As soon as Qiu Huoming got home, he started to get busy. He only produced four tapes last night, which was too inefficient.