Chapter Fifty: Hospitalization (Extra Chapter)

According to the agreement between Hong Tao, his father, and Director Bai, he was supposed to start school at the age of six—that is, on September 1st, 1978. During the summer, his parents had already bought him clothes for school: a pair of brown corduroy trousers, a crisp white long-sleeve shirt made of Dacron, and black corduroy shoes with white rubber soles. Altogether, it was quite a smart outfit. His father even specially went to the department store to get him a high-end plastic pencil case, with a small magnet on the lid that would make a satisfying snap when closed—far superior to the tin pencil cases everyone else had.

Jin Yue’s family was also busy. Following Director Bai’s suggestion, Jin Yue could enroll a year early alongside Hong Tao, since she had already completed the first-grade curriculum and was reciting multiplication tables. Besides, if the two children went to school together, they’d have company and could encourage one another. So Jin Yue’s mother made sure to buy her a pair of brown overalls embroidered with flowers on the chest and a pair of red leather shoes when she took the shuttle to Shanghai, along with a pencil case just like Hong Tao’s—though hers was even fancier, since she got to wear leather shoes while Hong Tao wore cloth ones. After all, as the saying goes, without shoes, you’re halfway to being poor.

Unfortunately, neither Hong Tao nor Jin Yue ended up wearing their new clothes to school. Hong Tao fell ill; to be precise, both he and his young uncle contracted acute hepatitis and were admitted to the Sixth Hospital. This time, it really wasn’t his uncle’s fault. The incident began when Hong Tao insisted his uncle accompany him to the spontaneous roadside market his eldest uncle had talked about. The two of them hopped on the No. 107 trolleybus, rode all the way out past Xizhimen, and actually managed to find the Gaoliangqiao market.

His young uncle, who rarely got to eat anything nice, was overwhelmed by the array of food there. He wanted to try everything, and the two of them ate until they were stuffed, then happily made their way home, already planning to return the next week. But within a few days, Hong Tao started aching all over, as if he had a severe cold. At first he thought nothing of it, but his condition worsened—he began running low fevers in the afternoons and felt nauseated at the sight of anything oily.

His young uncle developed nearly identical symptoms. That was when Hong Tao realized they must have caught something, and quickly told his mother. The news shocked her, and the next day she took them both to her workplace for tests. The results were clear: both had acute jaundice-type hepatitis.

In those days, hepatitis and tuberculosis were diseases that could easily be fatal, which frightened Hong Tao out of his wits; his legs turned to jelly. For a modern soul who had traveled through time—a person supposedly fearless and in control—this was his one weakness: fear of illness. No matter how clever or knowledgeable a time traveler might be, the body is still flesh and blood; once disease takes hold, he is as helpless as anyone else.

But this time, things weren’t so dire. Thanks to his sensitivity to his own health, Hong Tao, together with his uncle, had caught the illness early. By the time they were admitted to the Sixth Hospital, they were just beginning to vomit and have diarrhea, not yet fully into the jaundice stage—so their early “confession” meant their treatment could be more lenient.

Regardless of leniency, they had to remain in the ward. Since hepatitis is contagious, even after the disease stabilizes, patients can’t roam around; they must wait until the infectious period passes, which takes at least three months.

As a result, school was out of the question—not just for him, but for Jin Yue as well. The teachers were afraid she might have caught hepatitis too and could spread it to other students. Jin Yue herself didn’t want to go; she was used to staying with Hong Tao and had picked up many of his grown-up habits—regular bathing, attention to dress, a penchant for cleanliness, careless spending, a reluctance to play with children her own age, and so on. Uncle Jin was already worried she’d be bullied if she started school too young; now that Hong Tao wasn’t going, he decided it would be better for his daughter to wait another year as well.

Aside from missing school, under Hong Tao’s mother’s leadership, Jin Yue’s family, Hong Tao’s family, and their grandmother’s household all underwent strict disinfection. Anything Hong Tao and his uncle had touched, slept in, or worn was boiled in hot water at the very least. Old or outgrown clothes were simply burned, and even bedding was thrown out. Hong Tao’s mother issued a final ultimatum: no one was allowed to visit him at the hospital without her permission.

With the family’s only doctor in charge, everyone had to comply. Thus, Hong Tao was completely cut off from the outside world. He could only wonder if his collection and bicycle parts would survive the boiling water; he didn’t dare ask, since his parents didn’t know those things belonged to him. His eldest uncle visited once when he was first admitted, bringing a bag of apples, but never appeared again—presumably blocked by his mother.

Normally, acute hepatitis didn’t require such a long hospital stay; once stabilized, patients could recuperate at home as long as they avoided close contact and ate separately. But with a mother who was a doctor, this was her moment to demonstrate her influence. Calling in favors through colleagues of colleagues, she negotiated with doctors at the Sixth Hospital, and the result was that Hong Tao and his uncle would stay until they were fully recovered.

Anyone who’s ever been hospitalized knows how excruciatingly dull it can be. There were no computers or cellphones to pass the time—just a few comic books and magazines, already worn to tatters. The hospital meals were all about balanced nutrition, with no regard for taste, and they barely used any salt. Hong Tao found the food even more nauseating than his hepatitis.

Hong Tao thought about sneaking out with his uncle for some fun—child’s play for him, really—but without any money in his pocket, there was little joy in roaming. Since he was broke, he pestered his mother until she finally relented and allowed his grandfather to come visit him.

His grandfather’s visits quickly became routine; by the next day’s visiting hour, the old man was slipping into the ward again, bringing braised meat for Hong Tao and his uncle, and secretly handing Hong Tao a wad of cash. He also brought news of his eldest uncle, who was deeply concerned about Hong Tao’s health, running to their grandmother’s house every other day, his lips blistering with worry.

Of course, Hong Tao knew what his uncle was really anxious about: his health was one matter, but the unfinished bicycle business was the real issue. But since he was still in the hospital, he couldn’t exactly show up at home in a patient’s gown to assemble bikes; the neighbors would gossip, and word would quickly reach his parents. In truth, it wasn’t just his uncle who was impatient—Hong Tao himself was eager. Money is never enough, especially since the bicycle business wouldn’t last forever. Sooner or later, when national policy changed, bicycles, watches, and sewing machines would become more readily available, making them harder to sell and less profitable. He had to make the most of it while he could.

Yet, trapped in the hospital and still so young, his pleas to be discharged were ignored by the doctors, who simply told him to behave and not cause trouble for his parents. Faced with this situation, Hong Tao resorted to his ultimate weapon: being a pest.

The first to suffer were the nurses. They often discovered that the patients in Beds 3 and 4 of Room 11 had disappeared, only to see two boys—one a bit older, one younger—wandering back down the hallway in their hospital gowns, sometimes munching half a candied haw, sometimes clutching half a roasted sweet potato. The nurses would scold them, but the boys would listen only for a moment before sneaking off again. The nurses were constantly on edge; if the head nurse made rounds and found the patients missing, they’d get in trouble.

But tormenting the nurses wasn’t enough for Hong Tao. He bought two decks of playing cards and a chess set from the hospital shop. When the weather was bad, he organized gambling games in the ward, teaching fellow patients to play “Landlord,” which soon spread to the whole ward. Patients who didn’t care for noise or cards clamored to be moved to other rooms.

If the nurses were vigilant, Hong Tao switched tactics, using the chess set to set up puzzles and challenging anyone who’d respond to a match, gambling on anything from pastries and fruit to toilet paper—anything but money. He even had his uncle play the role of bodyguard and record keeper. At the peak, toilet paper was in short supply throughout the ward, but Hong Tao and his uncle had stacks of it under their beds.

Most maddening of all, Hong Tao, this little rascal, insisted on taking cold showers in the men’s restroom every day—at least once. Never mind the waste of water; he’d soak the place and then march back to the ward stark naked. Though only six years old, he’d already grown in all the right places, which put the nurses and female patients in an awkward spot. They didn’t want to look, but there was no avoiding it. He was tall for his age, yet still just six—not quite a child, not quite a grown-up, straddling that awkward in-between.

After a little more than a month of this, the connections his mother had relied on finally wore thin. Using the New Year as an excuse, the hospital “persuaded” Hong Tao and his uncle to go home. Upon returning, his mother got into another argument with his father, blaming him for raising such an unruly child. Now all her colleagues and their colleagues knew her son was a notorious troublemaker.

Hong Tao’s father, who shared his son’s temperament, would always agree politely on the surface—“yes, yes, of course”—but never actually change his ways. He wasn’t at all ashamed of his parenting; in fact, he was proud. It wasn’t just self-satisfaction: every colleague, friend, classmate, and even his students who had visited their home had witnessed Hong Tao’s remarkable intelligence.

P.S.: Thanks to everyone’s support, the new book has already climbed into the top ten of three ranking lists—my best achievement since I started writing. Mere words of thanks aren’t enough, so here’s something more substantial: extra chapters! Please keep clicking and recommending!