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墨書 Inktalez
In the second grade of elementary school, one evening during winter vacation, my mom told me, "Tomorrow, Grandpa is going to Gaosha to sell ginger. You can go along to help."
Hearing this news, I jumped up with joy. From the adults' conversations, I learned that Gaosha is the largest market town in the county, even bigger and more bustling than the county seat. I heard that the streets are filled with people. Before this, I had only traveled once to a remote area called Miaowan, which was even more secluded than our Xizhong Village Committee. The chance to go to Gaosha was a huge temptation for me.
The next day, as soon as there was a hint of dawn in the sky, my mom woke me up. We needed to leave early to reach Gaosha before the people started their work or daily activities. It was a full twenty miles from our home to Gaosha, and if we set off too late, we might miss the best time to sell ginger.
I followed my grandpa on the road in a daze. After walking less than a mile, I completely woke up. Sometimes I walked in front of my grandpa, jumping and hopping, and sometimes I intentionally bumped into the dew on the grass by the roadside, watching them roll down. When I got bored, I remembered to ask my grandpa, "What can I help you with?"
Grandpa smiled slightly and said, "Of course, I won't ask you to carry this burden. You can't lift over 100 pounds. Your mom is worried about too many people buying ginger, and I can't watch over it alone. Others might steal ginger from the basket. It's weighed at the production team, and if it's short, we have to compensate. So, I need you to help watch over it."
After a pause, grandpa said, "What I really want you to help with is something else. You learned multiplication in school, right? Today, when we sell the ginger, you can handle the math, and I'll just handle weighing and collecting money."
Hearing my grandfather say this, my mood suddenly dropped. It turned out that I wasn't going to play; I had to do math problems instead. I had only just memorized the multiplication table not long ago.
Seeing that I was feeling down, my grandfather comforted me, saying, "Once we finish selling the ginger, I'll let you look at three picture books on the street, and then I'll buy you something you like."
So, as we talked and walked, the twenty-mile journey didn't seem so far. We soon saw a big bridge leading to Gaosha. My grandfather told me that this bridge is called Tai Ping Bridge and is about as old as he is. The river beneath the bridge flows from our Commune and our platoon, known as Suspended Stone Production Team, and is called Tiao Shui River.
Crossing the Tai Ping Bridge, we were faced with two paths: one was a wide asphalt road leading straight ahead, while the other was a cobblestone path that turned right and followed the river downstream. Grandpa chose the right turn. He told me that although this road was a bit harder to walk, it would take us through Pig Farm Street, where there were more residents. There would likely be more people buying ginger, and perhaps we wouldn't even need to reach the center of the street to sell all the ginger from our cart, allowing us to play on the street afterward.
Grandpa was indeed correct. After just a few steps around the corner, a small restaurant nearby opened its door, and the owner asked to buy two pounds of ginger. Grandpa took out the scale and quickly set it up with the weights. The man had already picked out the ginger he wanted, and when weighed, it came to two pounds and two ounces. Grandpa immediately said, "Thirty cents per pound; can you calculate how much that is in total?"
This was simple, and my answer came out without hesitation: "Sixty-six cents!"
After setting up the scale, it seemed like there was a prearranged agreement among the ginger buyers. Suddenly, five or six of them crowded around. Grandpa kept saying, "Take it easy, don't push. There's plenty of fresh ginger for everyone to buy." He continued to weigh the ginger and called out the weight for me to calculate the price. Then he collected the banknotes and coins (at that time, coins of one, two, and five fen were all called "gang banger") and let the buyers take away the weighed ginger.
As grandpa and I walked along, we sold ginger all the way. As we approached the center of the street, there were only a few weak and sickly people left in the over 100 catties of ginger. The buyers began to pick more carefully and complain more frequently. Grandpa remained calm and unhurried. He looked at the nearly empty basket and said to the buyers, "This is all the ginger left. It's only two jiao and five fen per catty."
Grandpa spoke lightly, but it was a challenge for me, the one doing the math. We had just learned to multiply two-digit numbers by one-digit numbers. When faced with catties and two jiao, I needed to calculate two-digit numbers multiplied by two-digit numbers. How could I figure it out?
Grandpa seemed to sense my embarrassment and changed his tone, saying, "Let's make it two mao and one fen per jin." Then he pulled me aside and told me, "It's easy to calculate this way. First, calculate the cost at two mao per jin, then figure out the fen and add another ten fen to the total. For example, if you have three and a half jin of ginger, at two mao per jin it's seven fen, then add another seven fen to the total, making it seven fen and seven mao."
Following Grandpa's method, I quickly mastered the trick of calculation, and the remaining ginger was soon sold. With no burden, I had some free time, and Grandpa took me to a stall selling picture-story books. He gave the stall owner three fen and asked me to squat down and read slowly while he went to buy some things on the street, saying that the New Year was approaching and it was a good opportunity to purchase necessary supplies.
Time flew by while reading the comic book. Even with the temptation of the story, I squatted for a little while before feeling my stomach rumble; I was hungry.
At that moment, Grandpa returned to the stall after buying some things. Seeing that I had almost finished looking, he called me to get up and walk forward, stopping at another small stall where he ordered two bowls of noodles—one for each of us.
Looking at the red oil glistening on the surface of the noodles and smelling the pervasive aroma, I could hardly resist the urge to gulp down the entire bowl in one go. However, my mouth was simply too small; even with all my effort to open it wider, I could only take in a little bit at a time. Moreover, this was my first experience with noodles from this kind of stall, which were quite different from what Mom cooked. It took me nearly ten minutes to finish. Grandpa set down his bowl and chopsticks, watching me with a hearty laugh for quite a while before I finally finished this delicious bowl of noodles.
It was time to go home, but Grandpa took me along a different route. After crossing Tai Ping Bridge, we did not return the way we came; instead, we walked along the asphalt road to a place called Xianjiyao. There, we bought two large jars and placed them in a basket before taking a mountain path back home.
I happily followed along as my grandfather, in his sixties, carried over a hundred pounds on his shoulders while keeping a stern eye on me, his grandson who loved to hop around. Throughout the day’s labor, he not only fulfilled my wish to look at picture books but also took the opportunity to teach me some calculation tricks that I had not yet learned in school. He was quite pleased with this, and during the twenty-mile journey home, he maintained a cheerful demeanor, no longer frequently intervening in my playful hopping.
Unfortunately, this opportunity to go out with Grandpa only happened this once before he passed away when I was in college.
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