"Forget about it. You can carefully recall the memories some other time." Fatty took a hard drag of his cigarette.
I scratched my head, suddenly feeling that the scenery in front of me wasn't as beautiful as before. As we kept walking, I remembered how the tattoo was obviously a map of Banai. But why was it so similar to this island?
Wang Zanghai once built two identical cities. One was located in Yunnan and the other was on the coast. Compared to those two cities, this island and Guangxi were in a symmetrical geographical location with similar terrain. Was this kind of terrain something God drew with a pen?
"Is it a coincidence?" I asked Fatty.
He smiled and said, "It's nothing for you to worry about. Studying and researching is a good way to pass the time."
"Don't you have a preliminary conclusion or something?" I asked. "The fact that you're talking like this shows that you've been thinking about it for a long time. Or, do you have inside information?"
"That's not true." Fatty told me he was surprised when he found out. He glanced at the address, continued looking at the house numbers, and kept talking, "You would probably think the same thing. The Zhang family may have studied this island. The Zhang family's ancient building in Banai was built later, but this island has existed since ancient times. Maybe a Zhang family member had been to this island and especially liked it here, so he stipulated that every Zhang Qiling had to have it tattooed on his chest."
I thought about it and realized that it was also possible. The Zhang family did have too many unsolved secrets, after all. Fatty arrived in front of a village house and looked at the house number, "Found it." After he said this, he started knocking on the door while singing, "I'm a little flower, I'm a little apple [1]."
After singing a few words, the door was opened and a fat, middle-aged woman with a big smile looked at us, "Did you come here for something?"
Mandarin was fairly standard, so Fatty and I were both relieved. Fatty pulled up his WeChat and showed it to her. The middle-aged woman looked behind us before letting us in.
There was a courtyard behind the house that was filled with all kinds of snakeskin belts and paper boxes. It seemed to be a place that helped factories process sticky packaging for boxes. If there were some food factories or small light industrial products factories in the village, the children and elderly from every household would pick up some work putting the sticky packaging on boxes and bags. A box usually cost anywhere from one to five mao [2], so someone with good skill could subsidize the household.
I looked at the boxes and found that they seemed to be for some kind of cake. Across the courtyard was the house where the homeowner's family slept. There were side rooms located on either side of a small living room in the middle where you could eat. There was no path in the back. Before my eyes could start looking for the goods, the middle-aged woman moved the old wooden cupboard near the inner wall of the small living room. There was a door behind it that was covered in a thick cloth. Once the cloth was pulled aside, we found that there was another courtyard in the back.
To my surprise, the yard was full of people. Porcelain was piled up everywhere except for the places where people stood. Some people were washing the sea porcelain, while the remaining number of people appeared to be customers. They were all very quiet as they ordered goods and watched the porcelain washers work.
"Drink. This shopfront is big enough," Fatty ordered as he handed me something colorful. I thought it was a small-scale private blend, but I didn't realize that this coastal area had become a wholesale market.
The elder sister was particularly skilled as she took out a small notebook that looked like an order pad and wrote two 12s on the page. Then, she tore half of it off and handed it to me before placing the other half in a basket. She used a clip to clamp it on the basket and said to us, "When you see a good one, put it in the basket and pay me the money. We'll wash it for free."
I was stunned and looked at Fatty, who muttered, "This is some awesome shit. It's just like treating yourself to some hot spicy soup." The woman left without paying us any mind, so Fatty and I began to walk around the piles of barnacle-covered porcelain. I wasn't interested, so I told Fatty to pick them out while I went to see an old man who was washing some of the porcelain. As I watched his technique, I realized that he must have made a living washing these kinds of things. He definitely must've been washing them for decades.
At the seaside, everyone did part-time work. Most of those who devoted themselves to making a living like this were old grave robbers, so they had to know a lot about what went on around the island. There weren't many people in front of the old man, so I leaned over to watch him work. He looked at me and I looked back at him before asking, "This technique must've been around for thirty years, right?"
"Fifty years." The old man's accent was very heavy, but I could still understand it. I continue to stand close to him, "Have you passed it on? It's a pity that this craft will be lost."
The old man shook his head. "Unfortunately, the things in the sea are almost gone."
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Notes:
[1] I think it's from Chopsticks Bros. It could also be Ha Jingjing's song "I'm Your Little Apple" but I couldn't find it.
[2] One mao (aka jiao) is equal to 1/10 of a yuan or 10 fēn.