WHF Ch 25 – Bad People, Bad Deeds

As soon as the first day of the Lunar New Year passed, the factory’s heating was turned off. The factory floor was deserted, with only the smell of steamed buns wafting up from the cafeteria downstairs.

The dough should be firm, the red bean paste loose. That’s how you get the best steamed buns. Tu Laowu rolled up his sleeves in the sunlight and let out a loud sneeze. The sneeze echoed through the hallway to the boiling water room at the far end. The entire factory building was empty.

No one was around, everyone was busy. It was good to be busy.

Laowu shuffled over to the window and looked downstairs. This spot perfectly blocked the entrance to the east building, so he couldn’t see the sponsor’s car or the people. He could only vaguely make out the red balloon arch over the factory club – “Warmly Welcome the ‘Stand Up Fast’ Group to Guide and Learn.” Impressive, full of spirit.

While Laowu was admiring the factory’s glorious moment, Laoqi was squatting at his feet, facing the ice-cold radiator. His phone was plugged in, and he didn’t react to his uncle’s pacing.

The uncle and nephew had just had a fight. Saying “just now” wasn’t quite accurate; it should be said that from the moment the gun was snatched and the two of them fled the snowy plains, Tu Laoqi had decided to remain silent. It had been almost eight hours now. If you added another hour, it would be enough time to take the 2589 train to Beijing.

“I borrowed this from Grandpa!” Tu Laoqi had shouted as he ran, adding breathlessly, “I promised to return it!”

Borrow and return promptly, borrow again easily. A principle every Chinese person understood. Laowu felt extremely ashamed, so he didn’t dare reply to his nephew.

The uncle and nephew remained in this stalemate until 4:00 PM. Dinner was being served in the cafeteria, the evening party was about to begin, the factory director still hadn’t returned, and Laowu had already drunk a whole thermos of water.

Thinking of this, he picked up his teacup again. The tea leaves were pale, and a few were stuck to the side of the cup, like the small pieces of paper old ladies stuck to their eyelids. He spat at the cup, placed it back on the factory director’s desk, and looked down at Laoqi. This kid had been staring at his broken phone since morning, who knew what he was doing.

Laowu took a step back, cleared his throat, and asked, “What are you looking at?”

His nephew, as expected, ignored him. Laowu suffered in silence, walked away with his hands behind his back, and paced to the factory director’s ebony desk, looking at the numerous awards and certificates behind the leather chair.

He couldn’t understand the various awards and certificates. After walking a few steps, he finally saw one worth discussing.

“The factory director graduated from Beihang University!”

He exclaimed loudly, approaching the ebony cabinet and reading each word aloud.

“…completed undergraduate studies, has graduated, awarded a bachelor’s degree – talented, talented.”

After Laowu finished reading the diploma, the person next to the radiator turned around. Although his face was now towards him, he still held his phone in his hands.

“Look again, are you sure it’s Beihang?” Laoqi asked his uncle.

Unexpectedly, reading the diploma had roused his nephew. Laowu sized him up with his hands behind his back.

“Of course it is! Even if I haven’t gone to school, I’m not illiterate.”

Having said that, the uncle straightened his collar and took a closer look, squinting his eyes. He slowly straightened up, his face filled with astonishment.

“Why is there another college name here?”

Laoqi snorted and stood up, patting the hem of his coat.

“I saw this certificate a long time ago. He’s not the right material, yet he insists on pretending to be educated.”

He must have squatted for too long because his legs were numb. Laoqi walked with his feet stumbling, taking small steps towards the window. Laowu cleared his throat behind him.

“Laoqi, your uncle knows you’re resentful, but you can’t blame others. If you want to blame someone, blame your uncle.”

After a day of stalemate, this Northeast old man, who valued his reputation more than life, finally lowered his head. Laoqi rubbed his shoulders sheepishly, then asked:

“Uncle, do you have any news about Fang Hui? She used to reply to my messages, but I’ve been sending them for three or four days now, and there’s been no response.”

As soon as he said this, Laowu’s thoughtful and responsible demeanor vanished. He shook his head:

“I haven’t heard anything about that, you can’t blame me for this.”

Seeing his nephew’s face immediately crumple, Laowu quickly added, “Maybe she found a good job, met a good person?”

Seeing that Laoqi was about to cry, Laowu hurriedly began to speak earnestly, “Qi, don’t take this the wrong way, but fate is predetermined. I told you, when we went to Wutai Mountain, the fortune teller said you wouldn’t find true love before your third marriage. This kind of thing just has to—”

“Stop rambling, Uncle,” Laoqi said, waving his hand, all his grievances reduced to this gesture. “Are you going to tell me the story of how you met Auntie again?”

“Yes! Those were the good old days.” Laowu clearly hadn’t paid attention to what his nephew was saying. “When your auntie snatched my mother’s urn, I knew she was meant to be my wife.”

Listening to his uncle ramble on about his past at the technical school, Laoqi pursed his lips, unplugged the phone from the wall, wrapped the cord around his hand, and stuffed it into the pocket of his army coat. As he turned and walked around the balcony, he seemed to suddenly realize something, and abruptly turned back.

“Uncle, do you think the factory director knows where Fang Hui went?”

Laowu narrowed his eyes, pursed his lips, and replied, “Don’t talk nonsense. Fang Hui only worked as an accountant at the factory for two years, how would the factory director know where she went?”

After his words, the silence in the room seemed to question his statement. Both of them looked at the diploma in the ebony cabinet, the proof of talent, or rather, the appearance of talent.

The uncle, with his hands behind his back, paced towards the cabinet, muttering to himself through the glass:

“This matter, it’s really hard to say…”

Before he could finish his act of worldly wisdom, the factory director’s office door suddenly opened. A bang, a gust of wind, and the factory director appeared from behind the wooden door.

He didn’t seem to care about the old man and the young man in the room. He loosened his tie inside his work jacket and sat back in his chair. After a sigh, he picked up the cold teacup from the ebony desk, closed the lid, and looked up at Tu Laowu, who was standing very close to him, obviously having just been staring at the certificate.

“Who poured this water?” he asked.

Laowu poured it, Laowu drank it, and the remaining bit was also Laowu’s leftovers.

“I, I poured it,” but Laowu didn’t dare admit that he had touched it.

Factory Director Sun looked at him silently, opened the lid of the cup, swirled it, and asked:

“Is there something you need?”

After the uncle and nephew exchanged glances for half a minute, Laowu spoke first.

“It’s like this, Factory Director—”

“Wait,” the factory director frowned, closed his eyes, and raised a hand to signal him to stop. “If it’s bad news, don’t mention it today. The deal with the sponsor fell through. They’re suspicious of the factory’s financial structure because of that incident in the news before. I don’t want to hear any more bad news for a while.”

That incident in the news, that incident on the Songhua River, the incident where old Fan stabbed himself in the river and was pulled out, now lying in the morgue at the police station.

The silence was long and drawn out. Sun Jiu opened his eyes. “What do you want to say?”

After the factory director’s speech, Laowu had already ruled out the possibility of proactively admitting his mistake. He hesitated, gestured with his left hand, then his right, then crossed his arms and gave an awkward smile.

“We want to ask you for some funding.”

He said it as if he were the sponsor who had just dumped the factory director. After he finished, the factory director looked up, and so did Laoqi. Laowu maintained his smile and glared at his nephew first.

This wasn’t what we agreed on! That’s what Laoqi’s expression conveyed.

When they had just returned to the glass factory, they had clearly agreed to confess their mistake to the factory director directly – admit their wrongs, accept the consequences. Those two punks were more difficult to deal with than they had thought. The factory director was wise, and they were asking for his guidance.

How did he jump the gun!

At this moment, the factory director’s hand was still on his face, his expression calm, his emotions stable.

“What did you say?”

He asked Tu Laowu, a hint of a smile even appearing on his face.

Seeing the factory director’s smile, Laowu’s joy intensified. “I said—”

“What the fuck are you saying! What the fuck are you saying!” Sun Jiu suddenly stood up, his roar reaching the ceiling, rushing out of the room, echoing through the factory corridor, endlessly. “My own factory was rejected by the sponsors, and now I have to become your sponsor, is that it?”

After this internal outburst subsided, Sun Jiu slumped back into his chair, grabbed the cold tea, and gulped it down, picking a tea leaf out of his mouth. It could very well have been the one Laowu had spat on.

Laoqi’s face contorted, and he couldn’t help but speak:

“Factory Director, let me be honest with you. Those two who saw us by the river, that yellow-haired guy and the bald guy – they were too clever. Forget about us getting rid of them, they almost didn’t let us come back! We wanted to ask for your guidance, whether to kill them or whatever you say, we’ll do it, but we really can’t handle it ourselves.”

Listening to his nephew blurt out everything he should and shouldn’t have, Laowu felt a little weak in the knees and hurriedly added, “Or, you could just sponsor us a little money, and we’ll bribe them with the money, and then—”

The tripartite meeting fell silent. Sun Jiu’s hand was still on his mouth. The tea leaf was gone, but the shock remained, deafening, earth-shattering.

“You’re saying, after you told me last time that someone saw you two on the river, you’ve spent all this time trying to, murder them?”

Hearing the factory director repeat the tripartite consensus they already knew, the uncle and nephew were a little confused. They looked at each other and could only nod in response.

Their answer was met with a long sigh. Sun Jiu deflated like an inflatable doll in front of a gold shop, collapsing back into his chair with a series of hissing sounds, leaving only the sound of leather creaking. Facing the ceiling, the factory director raised a hand and pointed at the fluorescent light.

“It’s all the sins of a past life, all left over from a past life.”

If you didn’t know better, you’d think there was a Buddha installed on the ceiling. The factory director conversed with Buddha for a while before slowly lowering his head, his expression returning to normal, though the red in his eyes remained.

“I told you two to go out there and minimize the physical evidence, spend some money to disrupt the information, and create some false evidence. This is a society ruled by law, I’m not your mafia boss, and I didn’t tell you to kill anyone!”

After saying all this in one breath, the uncle and nephew stared at each other. All the gangster aura they had initially perceived from the factory director turned out to be a fucking illusion. They had gotten off at the wrong stop from the beginning, the wrong stop entirely.

Laowu was still quick-witted. He opened his mouth and said, “Aren’t we turning over a new leaf now? Aren’t we asking you for funds for that very reason?”

Factory Director Sun nodded slightly, but not in agreement. “I don’t want to hear you talk right now.”

Both sides fell silent. The factory director leaned back in his chair. After a moment of thought, he looked up and asked, “Where’s Secretary Yan?”

Where was Secretary Yan? Good question. The uncle and nephew had been here all afternoon and hadn’t seen his pointed collar shirt and sweater.

“Didn’t he go to the cafeteria with you?” Laoqi asked. Laowu shook his head. The factory director remained silent.

After a while, Sun Jiu abruptly stood up, muttering to himself, “Not a single fucking useful person.”

He picked up his phone, his car keys. Just as the factory director was about to leave, there was a knock on the door. Outside stood Yan Guoxian, whose whereabouts had been unknown all afternoon. He was followed by two people, both in police uniforms.

“Factory Director,” Secretary Yan began smoothly, “The police would like to ask you a few questions.”

Sun Jiu’s hand was on his leather jacket, as if he was about to leave. With police at the door, this looked very suspicious, and he knew it. So he released his hand and cleared his throat.

“I’ve already given a statement to the police about the murder of the factory employee, that incident on the river. Is there anything I need to add? I’m quite busy.”

The two police officers looked at each other. The one on the left replied, “It’s not about that matter.”

Not about that matter, was that good news or bad news? The dignified factory director didn’t know whether to be happy or not for a moment. The police also noticed the changing expressions on his face and quickly answered:

“We’re here to ask you about your former accountant.”

Sun Jiu had already composed himself, straightening his tie, but this sentence still stunned him. “What accountant?”

“The accountant who worked at your factory for a year and a half. She’s been reported missing by the villagers.” Secretary Yan leaned against the door and pushed it open further, letting the police officers into the office. “Her name is Fang Hui.”

Tu Laoqi by the window abruptly looked up. The fluorescent light above flickered.

---

“How could you say such a thing?”

Xiao Juan stood by the gas stove, pulling at her apron, her face full of indignation, mirroring the steam rising from the clay pot.

“Were those words really that serious?”

Yu Tianbai also stood by the stove, scratching his head, stepping back to avoid the steam.

Ten minutes ago, he had returned to the apartment from the car. Five minutes ago, he had told Xiao Juan about his argument with the young master, omitting the part about the fight. The gist was that he had told Xiu Ma that his life was very fortunate, and Xiu Ma, for some reason, slammed the door and left. All of this stemmed from a few blunt words he had spoken to Xiu Ma thirty minutes earlier, which had resulted in the gentle girl now lifting the lid of the pot in anger.

For some reason, even though he had taken several steps back, the steam from the clay pot continued to relentlessly spray his face. Yu Tianbai had to turn his head and point at the pot, asking:

“Is this pot going to explode?”

Xiao Juan ignored his clueless question, turned down the heat, and said, facing the steam rising from the clay pot:

“When I first came to the city, Sister Xiao Fang told me not to judge other people’s situations, not to compare their happiness, especially not the employer’s family.”

Yu Tianbai’s hand, which had been scratching his head, now pointed back at himself: “Are you talking about me? I’m the one who hired him.”

Luckily, he hadn’t told her everything. Yu Tianbai was now feeling a little guilty himself. Facing the pale fish soup, Xiao Juan continued:

“Sister Xiao Fang was right. Judging others based on your own happiness is something only bad people do—”

Right, right, right, bad person, bad person. Yu Tianbai admitted his bad deeds and retreated to the kitchen doorway.

“Are you going to look for him later?” She had finally finished talking about Xiao Fang, and Xiao Juan returned to her usual soft-spoken demeanor, asking Yu Tianbai.

“It’s not that—” Yu Tianbai organized his words, “I’ll go back and see if I can bring him something.”

Xiao Juan, holding a ladle, looked at him blankly and turned off the gas stove. “But this is his home.”

Yu Tianbai nodded in agreement. “You’re right.”

The steam finally stopped following him. He turned and looked around the apartment. He hadn’t dared to look around much while Xiu Ma was there. Now he saw a large mirror on the side of the living room. Looking back from the kitchen, he could see himself clearly. This made the living room look much more spacious, and there was also a strange sense of familiarity, as if this was a familiar home he had visited sometime long ago, when he was very young.

As he stared at the mirror in a daze, he suddenly felt something move beside him. Yu Tianbai leaned his hand against the glass door frame and tilted his chin to look inside, coming face to face with a smiling woman.

Goosebumps instantly dropped from the back of his head to his heels, chills running through him one after another. Yu Tianbai exhaled, inhaled, and exhaled again three times, finally managing to open his mouth and speak:

“Hello.”

Xiu Ma’s mother was sitting in her wheelchair, having silently arrived beside him at some point. A serene smile graced her face, the ferocity from when Xiu Ma first entered gone, replaced by an almost girlish sweetness.

But it had to be said, that expression on her face was more chilling than any monstrous visage.

“Do you know Xiu Ma?” the woman spoke, her tone much clearer. 

“He’s my son, he ran away. If you see him, please tell him to come back.”