Chapter Ninety-Eight: Passed by Word of Mouth

“Am I supposed to wash my hair lying down?” The woman followed Hong Tao into the back room and, after seeing the shampoo chair, pondered a moment before asking in confusion.

“Yes, please lie back as you like. The covers are all clean; they’re changed every morning.” Hong Tao assumed she was worried about getting her clothes dirty.

“Oh, I’m not worried about my clothes. This place is quite clean. I was just curious about your shampooing method. It’s a bit like a salon in Europe. Have you been to Europe?” The woman lay back on the chair and shifted slightly to test it, finding it rather comfortable. Only then did she let Hong Tao place the towel under her neck.

“No, I haven’t. I came up with this myself. In winter, when everyone’s wearing more layers, it’s not easy to bend over. Lying down is more convenient—and more comfortable, isn’t it?” Hong Tao began rinsing her hair. Her hair was of average quality, and it had been permed before, so it felt rather rough under his hands.

“Mmm. Too bad we don’t have beauty salons here. After a long day’s work, lying on a bed and having someone massage you—that’s real comfort. But your chair is pretty good too.” The woman kept her eyes open, looking repeatedly at the ceiling, probably because it was the first time she had ever seen one like this.

“That’s true. If you could steam the face a bit, remove dead skin and the like, it would be even better. It wouldn’t just be restful; it would also help preserve one’s looks. Too bad there’s nowhere in our country to buy that kind of machine, and no scrubs for sale either. I suppose things will be better in a few years.” Her words made Hong Tao think of the beauty treatments he used to do for his wife in later years.

“You were lying to me just now, weren’t you? You said you’d never been to a beauty salon, so how do you know there are machines that puff out steam and scrubs inside?” Although Hong Tao had spoken casually, the woman caught the odd note in his words.

“My father’s work unit has foreign instructors. They brought the machines from abroad and taught me!” Hong Tao could only lie with a perfectly straight face. Anyway, if she insisted on asking which foreign instructor had taught him, he would just say she’d gone back to her own country. She wasn’t going to dig up exit records, was she?

“Your father is a university teacher?” The woman seemed to believe him.

“Yes, he is. Actually, I think if I had those kinds of machines, I could open a beauty salon myself. I could teach the massage techniques to the staff. It’s just that the beauty products would be hard to get; they’re all imported, and even with money, you can’t buy them.” Hong Tao wrung out her hair, wrapped it in a towel, then helped her sit up.

“That’s not really such a difficult thing. Finish my hair first, then we’ll talk about the beauty business.” Holding the towel on her head, the woman walked back to the chair while talking.

Hong Tao had designed a straight hairstyle for her, but even straight hair required a perm of sorts—not to curl it into flowers, but to straighten it. Her original hair had a slight wave. Hair like that could be straightened with a blow dryer alone, but it wouldn’t last long before it sprang back. Since he wanted to show off his skills, Hong Tao decided to go to a little extra trouble; it would also serve as a bit of advertising for his shop.

To straighten the hair, he placed a small board beneath a lock of hair, then mixed cold-perm solution with white flour and spread the paste over the hair to hold it in place. In effect, that was how the hair was straightened. The flour had adhesive quality, which made it perfect for keeping the hair stuck to the board instead of slipping off. In later years, there were special plastic boards made precisely for this purpose, but Hong Tao had no way of getting them now. He had long since prepared substitutes. Just like the boards he used for perming explosion curls, these were not made of bamboo this time, but of plywood sawn into strips two inches wide and a little over half a foot long.

When Hong Tao finished mixing the paste and started perming the woman’s hair, not only did the woman stare blankly, but Sister Da Ling, the Han sisters, and the two customers who were having their hair permed all gaped as well. None of them could understand what Hong Tao was doing. When they asked, he said nothing, and certainly did not tell them that the paste was made with white flour. Before long, her hair had all been pressed flat in sections against the wooden boards, and Hong Tao clamped the large heating hood over her head and left it there.

“Your gadget is really strange. What kind of hairstyle are you planning to give me?” The woman endured it for a while, but in the end she could not hold back her curiosity.

“It’s called a mushroom cut. Your face is rather round. If you wear a style with high bangs, it wouldn’t look balanced. We need the hair on both sides to frame your face a little, so it appears more like an oval or melon-seed face. That would suit you perfectly.” Hong Tao gestured roughly at her face in the mirror.

“Then what are these little wooden boards for?” The woman still did not understand.

“They’re for straightening your hair. You still have traces of the old perm, and the curls make it hard to set properly. It’s also hard to manage on your own after you go home. Once I’ve straightened it for you, you’ll just need to blow-dry it every morning. By the way, you do have a blow dryer, don’t you?” Hong Tao began explaining the purpose of the little boards.

“Hair can be straightened too? That’s the first I’ve ever heard of it. Yes, I do have a blow dryer.” She was still not entirely convinced. Not only her, but the other women nearby, including her two companions, did not believe it either. The two of them had already returned from the aunt’s room. They weren’t empty-handed, either; each held a small slip of paper, a receipt for collecting clothes left by the aunt for customers who had ordered custom-made garments. It looked as though they had already spent some money over there first.

“Of course other people can’t do it, but I can. Don’t worry. In another fifteen minutes, you’ll know whether those thirty yuan were worth it.” If Hong Tao was not going to brag now, when would he?

After a while, Hong Tao began to teach Han Yan and Sister Da Ling, step by step, how to apply the setting lotion to the hair on the boards. Since the lotion would drip off if squeezed directly onto the wood, each board had to be lined with a piece of nonwoven fabric first, and then the lotion could be dropped onto that without running. After he had finished teaching his two apprentices, the setting time was up. This time Hong Tao did not do it himself. Instead, he instructed Han Yan and Sister Da Ling to remove the boards and wash the customer’s hair, since there was still plenty of white-flour paste in it and it had to be rinsed thoroughly.

When the woman sat down again, Hong Tao picked up the scissors and cut her hair layer by layer, thinning it little by little until it reached just about shoulder length. Only then did he pick up the blow dryer and the round brush for the final step: drying and setting.

“Sister, I can hardly recognize you anymore. You look at least ten years younger—practically younger than the two of us! No, I want one too. I can’t let you outshine me. Little stylist, do this hairstyle for me as well. I like it even more.” Before Hong Tao had even finished the final blow-dry, her two companions had already started placing their orders.

“Is it really that exaggerated? If it makes me ten years younger, wouldn’t I be a little girl again?” After it was done, the woman in the chair could no longer sit still. The haircut Hong Tao had given her featured neat bangs across the forehead, with all the hair around the sides curved inward in a smooth arc. It really did look like a mushroom. Such a hairstyle made a person seem younger and cuter. In later years, entertainment-industry celebrities in their fifties who still wanted to look youthful often used this style to hide the wrinkles along their cheeks.

However, Hong Tao had left one thing unsaid: although the hairstyle looked simple and was not hard to manage, he had not mentioned that after a few washes, the hair would no longer lie so obediently. It would take a certain amount of blow-drying skill to keep it in shape. And unlike permed hair, which could be a bit irregular, this style lost its effect if it was even slightly messy. The result was that one had to return to the salon and have it blow-dried into shape again.

“You do look younger, though. At first glance, you’re about the same age as them. If your clothes were a little more lively, you’d look like sisters. Right?” Hong Tao hurried to catch the opening. No woman didn’t want to be younger. At twenty, she wanted eighteen; at thirty, she wanted twenty-five. The more someone complained aloud about getting old, the more sincerely you had to insist that she looked young.

“Giggle... Not only are your skills good, your tongue is sweet too. Fine, then. I didn’t waste my thirty yuan. Go ahead and do theirs. I’m going over to the other room to try on clothes and see whether there’s a suitable dress here. I’ll buy one too.” The woman was thoroughly pleased with herself and drifted off toward the tailor shop. Naturally, the thirty yuan on the counter now belonged to Hong Tao.

It was already past eight in the evening by the time Hong Tao finally finished pleasing all three of these high-end clients. He did not give the other two, who were younger, the same mushroom cut. If everyone looked the same, his own skill would not stand out, and the advertising effect would be much weaker. Besides, if the hairstyles were identical, it would be obvious at a glance who was young and who was old. Just as clothes should not clash, hairstyles followed the same rule.

Although the salon had not taken in any new customers for most of the afternoon and evening, the income was still quite good. Three heads had brought in a total of ninety yuan, and the three women had also ordered four dresses. Since he had only had to serve the three of them, it had saved both effort and cost.

“Starting tomorrow, add a custom hairstyle option to the price list. Begin at thirty yuan, and customers won’t need to queue—they can be taken right away when they arrive.” Hong Tao intended to gradually steer the salon toward the mid- to high-end market from this point on. Of course, a transformation could not happen overnight. Once school started, Han Yan and Sister Da Ling would at best be able to manage some basic haircuts and perms. They could not even handle the low end properly yet, so things would have to proceed slowly.

The summer vacation ended quickly. Hong Tao put down his scissors and picked up his schoolbag. This time he was no longer a first-grader; he had become a second-grader. But for Hong Tao, there was no real difference between first and second grade. In class, he still drifted off and slept as usual. The only new thing he did now was draw all kinds of hairstyles, clothing designs, and patterns for furniture glass. After finishing the drawings, he kept some for later use and took others directly to the tailor shop or the salon, where they were turned into garments or hairstyles.

The homeroom teacher and most of the subject teachers still paid Hong Tao no mind. Homework could be handed in or not; as long as he did not cause trouble in class, that was enough. Still, the school was not entirely unchanged. The old principal had retired, and Director Bai had been promoted to vice principal, still in charge of teaching. However, Vice Director Li had not gotten his wish of becoming head of academic affairs; instead, because of his poor conduct during the special period, he was removed from the education system. Where he was transferred afterward, Hong Tao did not know.