Chapter Ten: Stationery

“Brother Hong, do you really believe what he said? He just wants to avoid going to daycare. You need to keep a closer eye on this kid—it's one thing for him to be mischievous, but he can't start lying to his parents at such a young age!” Uncle Jin, with his straightforward temperament, didn't hesitate to question Hong Tao's character. Any other parent might have taken offense.

“Old Jin, we still need to encourage reasonable requests from children. I’m not spoiling him. I agreed to let him study at home himself, but only under certain conditions. First, he has to tell me exactly how he plans to study, and second, he has to show results. If he fails either, I’ll tie him up with rope if I have to and send him to daycare.” Hong Tao’s father wasn’t bothered by Uncle Jin’s bluntness; in fact, he seemed to be explaining more for Hong Tao’s benefit than for Uncle Jin’s.

“I’ll go listen in on classes at school. My uncle is on the third floor, and the first-grade classrooms are on the first. They always leave the back doors open. I can listen in from there—no one minds. I used to do this when I went looking for my uncle, just lying at the back door. If anyone tries to bully me, I’ll shout for my uncle to come deal with them. After morning classes, I’ll go to Grandma’s for lunch, then review by myself in the afternoon.” Hong Tao pointed to the five-story building nearby.

“…Your family’s produced a real oddball. I’ve never heard of anyone going to school like this, but I’ll admit—he’s thought it all out, even securing himself some backup by roping in your brother-in-law. Who does he take after, you or your wife?” Uncle Jin’s eyes widened in surprise, not anger. He couldn’t find any loopholes in Hong Tao’s plan; every step was feasible, leaving him speechless.

“All right, we’ll do as you say. Here’s five cents—buy yourself an ice pop if you get thirsty at noon. Here’s the house key, wear it around your neck. Your mother’s gone to work. Your books, pens, and notebook are on the table. Remember to lock the door when you go out to play. Old Jin, I’m running late for work. We’ll talk more tonight if anything comes up.” Hong Tao’s father glanced at his watch, hurriedly mounted his bicycle, and rode off—his workplace was far away.

“Dad, take Xiao Tao to daycare too, or the teachers will criticize him.” Despite always being bullied by Hong Tao, Jin Yue still cared about him and didn’t want him to be scolded by the teachers. In truth, the daycare teachers seldom scolded Hong Tao, fearing he’d fly off the handle and start wielding chairs against them.

“Oh, your brother Xiao Tao is going to school now. We’ll see tonight whether he gets a beating or earns praise. You’d better behave yourself and not run around, or your father and I will both give you a spanking tonight. Your dad’s willing to reason with you, but I won’t indulge you.” Uncle Jin couldn’t figure out what Hong Tao was up to, but he still couldn’t fully believe the boy genuinely wanted to study on his own. A troublemaker who just yesterday was causing mischief in the alley suddenly deciding to become a self-taught prodigy—what adult would believe that?

“Dad, I want to go to school too! Buy me a little schoolbag!” The mention of school caught Jin Yue’s attention. At that time, few daycare children didn’t love the idea of school—not that they were passionate about learning, but because every day they watched their older siblings line up with backpacks, singing as they walked down the alley, and wearing red scarves. It made them envious.

As for what learning actually entailed, they wouldn’t realize how tough it was until they actually started school. Then, most kids who’d begun would no longer want to go. That’s how life works: things you once yearned for often become dismal or tiresome once you’re truly in them—like school, or work.

“All right, all right, I’ll buy you one next year. You’re too young to start school now.” Uncle Jin pushed his bicycle away, coaxing his daughter as he went.

“So why can Xiao Tao go to school? I want to go too…” Children are quick to compare. Whether it’s clothes, food, or toys, they’re always curious and eager to try whatever others have. Why others can do something isn’t a question they think to ask—that’s for parents to explain, so they can understand.

“At last, I finally have some power in my hands!” Watching Uncle Jin pedal away with Jin Yue and disappear around the corner, Hong Tao slipped the key-string around his neck, weighing the house key in his hand. He finally felt he wasn’t just a little kid anymore.

His father entrusting him with the house key was a sign of the greatest trust. But whether that trust would last, or grow, depended on his own efforts and behavior in the days to come. Since he’d come to this world, he had to live by its rules. As the old saying goes: if you’re a dragon, coil; if you’re a tiger, crouch.

Hong Tao returned home first. Classes hadn’t started yet, and it wasn’t the right time to slip into the school building; he’d have to wait until after morning exercises, when teachers and students were in their classrooms.

His home was on the ground floor—a two-bedroom apartment with a small kitchen and a little bathroom, though the bathroom was shared between two families. The building was originally constructed by army engineers, and no one knew what they’d been thinking: every stairwell had four apartments per floor; the first and second floors had four two-bedroom units, the third floor had two three-bedroom units. The restrooms were in the hallway, one on each side, shared by two households apiece.

At that time, living in an apartment with a kitchen and bathroom—no need to queue in the winter for the public toilets—was considered high-class. There were few apartment buildings in Beijing then, most of them inside the housing complexes of major ministries, all built in the Soviet style.

“Not a bit has changed! Am I living in my own memories?” Hong Tao opened the door and stood at the threshold, hesitant to enter. He’d imagined countless times what his home should look like, wondering if it matched his childhood memories. After all, decades had passed—could a child of three or four remember so clearly?

Reality gave him a firm answer: his memory was excellent, at least for his early years. The furnishings, layout, details—even the quality of light—were just as he’d remembered.

The first thing he saw was a small room of seven or eight square meters, with a little bed and a folding table, a sideboard against the wall, and a bookshelf. From the ceiling hung a thick black wire, suspending a frosted glass lampshade. This room served as the family’s dining room, his father’s study and smoking lounge. Since Hong Tao’s mother hated smoking, his father could only smoke there. He often stayed up late reading, even after being assigned to factory work and unable to teach anymore. To avoid disturbing his wife and child, he’d sleep on the little bed if he read late.

This room was also the living room. Visitors would chat and play chess with his father here; the larger inner room was off-limits unless you were family. His mother was a clean freak: as long as she was home, she’d sweep and mop nonstop, wipe the furniture, and insist that both Hong Tao and his father wash their hands. Unless you were close kin, she wouldn’t let you into the bedroom—otherwise, she’d have to clean the whole place again. In time, his father stopped arguing and simply entertained guests in the outer room. People weren’t so particular then, and there were no sofas to fuss over.

Hong Tao didn’t enter the inner room either. He just opened the door and glanced in: a big bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a washstand, a sewing machine—that was all. The room seemed sparse and empty. Opposite the door was a large window overlooking most of the area in front of the building; if you pressed your face to the glass, you could even see the street beside the building.

“Sigh… a life of toil!” Hong Tao looked down at the drying water stains on the cement floor, knowing his mother had cleaned again before leaving. Maybe she hadn’t wiped the furniture, but she’d definitely mopped the floor. He decided not to go in and make more work for her—there was nothing inside he needed anyway.

On the table was a large cover made from window screen cloth. Under it sat a piece of fried dough and a bowl of soy milk, clearly left by his father for him. Next to them were two books, a small notebook, and a pencil. The books were old, first-grade textbooks, but still in excellent condition. Hong Tao could never understand how those girls managed to keep their textbooks so pristine—did they not read them?

The little notebook was handmade by his father from old test papers. His father had a whole box of these: one side bore exam questions and student handwriting; the other was blank. He’d cut them to quarto size, stapled them together for scratch paper, and now he’d given one to Hong Tao. Oh, and there was one piece of high-tech equipment in their home—a stapler. In those days, most families didn’t have one, nor did they need one, but his father had one and let Hong Tao play with it, though not with the staples.

The pencil was old, just the length of a palm, hexagonal in cross-section, painted dark green with a faint bamboo pattern. Anyone born in the seventies or eighties would recognize it instantly: the classic Chinese pencil.

That was a premium item then. Most pencils at the time were unpainted, round, with the natural wood showing, and you could see how the two half-moon pieces were glued together. These days, that would be called environmentally friendly; back then, it was just simple, cheap manufacturing. There were also some pencils with colorful designs, but the most expensive and professional were these Chinese pencils, marked “HB” for the hardness of the lead—H for hard, B for soft, with a number in front. For example, 4H meant level four hardness, harder than 2H.