The Taiwanese female boss was transferred away, and Xia Lei welcomed a new boss: Kong Sheng.

Kong Sheng was a returning overseas graduate from an American business school. These professional managers who had drunk from the foreign well and wore the gleaming halo of an international MBA understood both what foreign bosses liked to hear in a presentation and the unspoken conventions and deep contextual subtleties of the domestic scene. They moved effortlessly between China’s realities and the expectations of foreign bosses, equally at ease with whiskey and tequila or with Wuliangye and strong sorghum liquor, equally capable of playing close to the policy line without crossing it and steering clear of the high-voltage lines of compliance.

Before he took up his post, the Asia-Pacific board gave Kong Sheng a high-challenge target: year-on-year growth of 45%, with an accompanying promise that he would be considered a candidate for China Regional General Manager. Kong Sheng, in turn, put forward his conditions of full empowerment, demanding absolute authority over personnel decisions and financial control. And so Kong Sheng and the foreign management put each other on the gaming table as their respective bets.

After taking up the post, Kong Sheng wasted no time in ousting the regional managers from all four compass directions, then brought in his own former subordinates as replacements. He also slashed the bulk of the marketing budget, freeing up several million in flexible funds. Finally, he drove away Xia Lei’s direct superior, the commercial director, saving six or seven hundred thousand a year in salary costs. Poor Xia Lei, despite his modest wages, now shouldered the weight of most of the commercial department’s workload, all the pressure concentrated on him alone.

As for Xia Lei, Kong Sheng had been observing him for a long time. In principle, an official carried over from the previous regime was a risk — better not to employ him if it could be helped. But from a work perspective, Xia Lei’s competence was beyond reproach, and his cooperation was good. If he were let go, there was genuinely no suitable candidate to replace him.

One afternoon during the lunch break, Kong Sheng decided it was time to put a bit of pressure on this young man. He called Xia Lei into his glass-walled office, and while continuing to reply to emails on his computer, asked: “How many years have you been with the company?”

“Over three, not yet four,” Xia Lei replied.

“The average turnover cycle for positions in our industry is four years, isn’t that right?” There was a layer of implication behind Kong Sheng’s words.

“Yes, four years,” Xia Lei said with a slight smile, “but it’s not absolute — it varies from person to person.”

Kong Sheng stopped typing and looked up at Xia Lei.

“Four years or eight years — it doesn’t matter to me either way. I just want to stay with a good boss. I’d follow him to another company if needed.” Xia Lei had known this conversation would come sooner or later, and had prepared in advance his somewhat clumsy declaration of loyalty.

“True — whatever bowl you eat from, it holds the same rice!” With that line delivered, Kong Sheng lowered his head back to the screen.

“You’re right — the bowl makes no difference, but a good boss is rare. That’s why I want to keep working alongside you!” Xia Lei had let his professed loyalty come out a little too eagerly.

“Let’s leave it there for now.” Kong Sheng finally squeezed out a thin smile. “Go on with your work.”

Walking back to his own seat, Xia Lei carefully turned over the conversation in his mind, deciding that he had made his position sufficiently clear. Doubt those you employ, or employ them without doubt — ultimately it came down to Kong Sheng’s own judgment. But Kong Sheng was a professional manager through and through, even his smiles were professional, and his true thoughts were impenetrable to the ordinary person.

At half past six, after finishing the inventory count, Xia Lei began pulling data to write up a PowerPoint. By eight o’clock his eyes were beginning to blur, so he went to the office pantry, ate his takeaway, and then returned to his seat to continue working. Around half past eight, Kong Sheng emerged from his glass office to leave for the night. He said hello to Xia Lei, told him he was working hard, and headed for the elevator.

While waiting for the elevator, Kong Sheng reconsidered and turned back to the office. He asked Xia Lei whether he smoked.

Xia Lei’s mind made a quick calculation, and he stood up. “I do — in fact, I was just thinking of having one.”

The two of them went to the smoking area. Xia Lei accepted the cigarette Kong Sheng offered, lighting Kong Sheng’s first. They smoked and chatted, exchanging small talk, while Xia Lei worked hard to look like a practiced smoker. When the elevator arrived, Kong Sheng stubbed out his cigarette, turned, and got in. Xia Lei also extinguished his own half-finished cigarette. The stone he had been carrying in his chest settled to the ground. Although Kong Sheng had said nothing explicit, the gesture of inviting him to smoke together was an unmistakable sign of goodwill — it meant Kong Sheng did not yet want to let him go.

He looked at the half-finished cigarette still in his hand and noted the brand. Tomorrow he would need to stock up on a few packs of the same kind, and find an opportunity to proactively invite Kong Sheng out for a smoke and a chance to unwind. In the workplace, performance alone was not enough — personal connection mattered too. It was precisely these back-and-forth exchanges outside of work that could establish private trust.

At nine o’clock, after verifying all the data and just as he was about to shut down his computer, Xia Lei heard a chime from his MSN. Xiao Dan’s icon had lit up — she had sent him a coffee emoji. He typed: “Darling, where are you?”

Xiao Dan: “I’m keeping a friend company while they work late.”

Xia Lei: “How come you’re not here keeping me company while I work late?”

Xiao Dan: “What — are you sulking again?”

Xia Lei: “If you don’t keep me company, I sulk.”

Xiao Dan: “All right, all right. Finish up and get home soon. If I’m in your dreams, that should be enough.”

Xia Lei: “I’m shutting down now — I’ll call you in a little while when I get downstairs.”

When the elevator doors opened into the office building lobby, Xia Lei came face to face with a smiling Xiao Dan. He flicked her nose. “Ha — you really can be sneaky. What friend working late? You were here all along.”

“Aren’t you my friend?” Xiao Dan handed Xia Lei a cup of warm milk tea.

“Not just a friend — your boyfriend, thank you very much.” Xia Lei opened the lid of the milk tea. “How did you know I was working late?”

“I saw your MSN had been online the whole time, so I guessed you must be in the office.”

“Of course — end of quarter. Busy every day.” Xia Lei steered Xiao Dan into the lobby convenience store. “Darling, wait while I grab a pack of cigarettes.”

“What? You… have taken up smoking?”

“No choice. Cigarettes are a key to the door — sharing a smoke with the new boss is the only way to build a closer relationship.”

“That must be really hard on you, a non-smoker.”

“That’s workplace life. Every new ruler brings his own court — and as far as the new boss goes, I should actually count myself fortunate.”

They left the office building and walked along talking, all the way down to the ferry terminal on the riverbank. In the night breeze they stood pressed close together, gazing across at the Bund on the far side of the Huangpu River. Shanghai at night — blazing lights and unceasing traffic, like a lavish and glittering pageant in perpetual motion. And at that very moment, in their hometown, a thousand li away in Xi Tie Cheng, most people had already drifted into sleep.

Chunchun and Xiao Man had officially joined hands.

The two of them found every excuse to get together for long, rambling conversations — from the flower bed to the canteen table, talking all day without running out of things to say, and when daytime wasn’t enough, continuing on their phones at night. Xiao Man went specially into the city to get a mobile phone plan. After the ward lights went out, he lay in bed under his quilt, sending text messages to Chunchun.

Xiao Man: “Just thought of a question — what’s the flower language of the four-o’clock?”

Chunchun: “Stop calling it the land mine flower from now on — call it the garden jasmine. Its flower language is L and H. Guess what they stand for.”

Xiao Man: “Darling, you’re the top student from Tiecity Experimental High School, and I’m the class dunce from Xi Tiecity Middle School — my English really isn’t up to much!”

Chunchun: “They’re definitely words you know. If you guess right, I’ll give you a reward tomorrow.”

Xiao Man: “Lucky and Happy?”

Chunchun: “Not quite — flower language isn’t adjectives. They’re nouns.”

“Nouns?” Xiao Man crawled out from under the quilt, rummaged out a “Double Happiness” cigarette box, and typed out the English letters printed on it. “Is it Luck and Happiness?”

Chunchun: “Not quite right — it’s actually Love and Hope!”

Their romance quickly caused a sensation throughout the entire psychiatric hospital. Everyone said that lightning had struck a brush fire — that Daling had met his Meiling.

Even the hospital leadership was stirred into action. At the weekly all-staff administrative meeting, everyone discussed whether this pair of sweethearts should be separated. One person argued that Xiao Man was essentially a ward caregiver, and that having a romantic relationship with a patient was a violation of work discipline. Another said that even if Xiao Man were not a caregiver, romantic relationships between patients should still be prohibited — such things, when they went wrong, ended in desperate measures. Still another said there was a management loophole, and that male and female outdoor recreation time should be staggered.

“This is not a failure of our management,” said Director Huang, who was chairing the meeting, delivering his final verdict. “Looking at it from the positive side, this romantic episode between patients is precisely proof that our hospital’s standards of therapeutic rehabilitation have reached an entirely new level!”

Having told this tale that no one in the room believed — himself included — Director Huang had no further interest in keeping Xiao Man hospitalized. After the meeting, he called Xiao Man to his office for a talk: “You troublemaker, you really do know how to create headaches for me! This time, the fact that you can carry on a romance shows that you have the confidence and ability for interpersonal interaction. I suggest you get discharged as soon as possible and return to society.”

“All right — that’s what I’ve been planning as well,” Xiao Man said, his mind clearly already made up. “Thank you, Director Huang, for looking after me all these years. It really is time for me to go back out there.” He then reached into his trouser pocket and produced two cigarettes, handing one to Director Huang.

“This… would be the first time I’ve smoked with a patient in my own office,” Director Huang hesitated for a moment, then lit the cigarette anyway. “But then, from this moment on, you Xiao Man are no longer a patient either. This is the last one I’ll smoke off you.”

After being discharged, Xiao Man and Chunchun chose a spot for their flower shop at the entrance to the lane near Chunchun’s home. The two of them worked inside and out preparing for a full month before the shop was finally ready to open. They named it the “Garden Jasmine Flower Shop.”

Customers would often ask what a garden jasmine was, and Chunchun would point to the cluster of four-o’clocks at the door. The customers would say it was far too ordinary — you saw them everywhere. Chunchun would smile and produce Xiao Man’s well-worn saying: “There are advantages to being ordinary, just as there are difficulties to being precious — everything has its own way of living.”

Running a flower shop turned out to be quite physical work. Behind every romantic bouquet that a customer walked out with in their arms lay the thought and sweat of the floral designer. Each week Xiao Man had to haul back two cubic meters of cut flowers from the flower market. Back at the shop, the first task was immediately trimming the stems and stripping the leaves — roses required the additional step of removing the thorns one by one — followed by the painstaking work of storing them, changing the water, and adding preservative. When some of the flowers had been treated with pesticides, Xiao Man would come out in a rash all up his arms.

Chunchun moved her computer to the flower shop, and the two of them would listen to music while washing, cutting, and trimming. Xiao Man’s favorite was humming along to “A Fish That Swims All Day Long”: “A fish that swims all day long — the fish keeps on swimming; a person who thinks of you all day long — the love never rests.” Chunchun said the lyrics of that song were lovely — so simple, yet so full of feeling. Xiao Man said that the year that song came out, he was thirteen. Chunchun asked: so you were already chasing girls at thirteen? Xiao Man said: not at all — what the song meant to him was freedom from care.

The shop floor was divided into an outer and an inner room — the outer room for business, the inner room used as a storeroom and Xiao Man’s sleeping quarters. Every evening after closing time, Xiao Man would walk Chunchun home and then return to the shop to go online. Sometimes he would browse the “Ghost Stories” section of “Tianya Community,” sometimes play virtual billiards on “Cola Bar.” Later on, as Baidu’s Tieba forum communities began to take off, Xiao Man opened a “Xi Tie Cheng Factory Forum.” He called Xia Lei to invite him to be deputy moderator.

“Moderator is roughly equivalent to a factory-level official — shouldn’t you pick a more impressive username?” Xia Lei asked over the phone.

“What do moderators usually call themselves?”

“All sorts of things — ‘Creator of Worlds,’ ‘Pangu,’ ‘Brahma the Great God,’ and the like.”

“Those titles are too grand for me to carry,” Xiao Man said. “I’ll stick with my ‘Fish That Swims All Day Long.'”

The “Xi Tie Cheng Factory Forum” quickly gathered more and more factory children. Some had already settled in other cities, some were away working migrant jobs, and others had stayed on in Xi Tie Cheng without venturing out. Everyone greeted each other in the forum and exchanged news. People posted old photographs of factory life, sharing memories of canteen banquets, basketball competitions, factory sports days, and Lantern Festival celebrations from their time in the workshops. High school classmates even posted graduation photos to the forum. Xiao Man sat at his screen pointing out the Year 3 Class 2 graduation photo to Chunchun.

“Xia Lei’s glasses are really thick. Xiao Dan is so lovely-looking,” Chunchun said, studying the photo for a while before asking: “Hmm — how come you’re not in this graduation photo?”

“Don’t ask — I was in a juvenile detention center working a sewing machine at the time.”

The rainy season of July came around again. Three days of continuous heavy rain made business at the flower shop go quiet.

Xiao Man stared restlessly at the curtain of rain dripping from the eaves, knowing that if the rain didn’t stop, Xi Tie Cheng’s factory would be flooded again. Every year the floods passed through, and in the worst years the water overflowed the embankment and lives were lost. By midday the rain still had not let up, so Xiao Man said a quick word to Chunchun, pulled on his rain gear, and headed to Xi Tie Cheng to tidy up his little room.

When he reached the Tiecity long-distance bus station, it was exactly as he had expected — a notice of suspended services had already been posted in the ticketing hall: “Due to heavy rain and road conditions, all routes temporarily suspended.” Xiao Man went to the dispatch room to ask around, and learned that the drivers had all gone home for the day and there would definitely be no more buses today. “One step too late again!” he muttered to himself, and went to the square out front to try his luck at finding a shared ride.

“Last run to Xi Tie Cheng! Last run to Xi Tie Cheng!” In the square, only one unlicensed taxi driver was calling out at the top of his voice.

Hearing the familiar Xi Tie Cheng accent, Xiao Man felt a jolt of gladness. He walked up behind the driver and gave him a punch: “Wang Dongdong, you money-grubbing so-and-so — rain or shine, nothing stops you!”

Wang Dongdong turned around and was thunderstruck: “In this downpour — where are you trying to get to?”

“Back to the factory! Need to sort out my little room before it floods.”

“Give me half an hour — if I still can’t get more passengers, we’ll head off just the two of us.”

“Right, I’ll help you drum some up.” Xiao Man cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone and bellowed: “Xi Tie Cheng — twenty seats, last run! Xi Tie Cheng — twenty seats, last run!”

“My dear fellow!” Wang Dongdong clapped a hand over Xiao Man’s mouth. “In weather like this you can’t charge twenty — it’s got to be fifty!”

The two of them called out in the rain in front of the station for a good while without attracting a single passenger.

“Back to base — let’s go!” Wang Dongdong got in the car and started the engine.

“Hold on.” Xiao Man ducked into a little shop in front of the station and bought two plastic bags of pickled vegetables, bottled water, and instant noodles. “Put these in the car — one bag each. I’m worried it’ll be like last time during the flood, with no food or water.”

The road was all mud and ruts, and the car jolted along like a wild horse that had thrown its bridle. The two of them drove and chatted, and then suddenly there was a loud clang — the car door next to Wang Dongdong fell off. They got out quickly, fished the door from the muddy puddle, and took a close look: the hinge had broken clean through.

“Where did you dig up this wreck?” Xiao Man asked.

“Second-hand market — eight thousand yuan. I never expected the bodywork to be in such bad shape.”

They wedged the broken door into the back seat, Wang Dongdong put on his rain gear, and they drove on. After an hour and a half of jolting through mud and water, they finally brought the mire-covered car back to Xi Tie Cheng. Just before getting out, Xiao Man told Wang Dongdong: “Make sure you park the car on high ground. If you can’t find any, rig up a plank and drive it up onto a flower bed.”

“Is it really that serious?”

“Look up there!” Xiao Man pointed at White Horse Mountain in the distance — a waterfall was pouring down from a cliff halfway up the slope. Local mountain people had a saying: “water hanging at the mountain’s waist, floods hitting within half a day.” A waterfall like this meant the mountain’s soil had absorbed more water than it could hold, and a flash flood was imminent.

After parting with Wang Dongdong, Xiao Man waded through the water back to his little room. He sent the television and bedding upstairs to a neighbor on the second floor, then moved every piece of furniture up off the floor — the wardrobe and sofa were both hoisted onto the bed. When he was done, he helped the neighbors on either side tidy and stack their belongings, until finally everyone together piled sandbags at the entrance of the stairwell.

Xiao Man had his midday meal at a neighbor’s place. He had barely gotten halfway through it when the loudspeaker on the residential compound crackled to life: “Attention, residents! Please remain on high alert and be prepared to evacuate the residential area at any time.” A little while later, the loudspeaker came on again: “Attention, flood-prevention and rescue team members! Please bring your tools and assemble at the river embankment and sluice gate.”

Xiao Man was not a team member, but he put down his chopsticks all the same, borrowed rain boots and a spade from a neighbor, and headed to the embankment.

When he reached the embankment and looked out, the floodwaters before him surpassed anything from ten years ago. The churning brown torrent was like an unshackled wild horse, and uprooted trees kept washing along the surface.

Only about twenty members of the flood-response team had made it to the embankment. The team leader in a red flood-response vest was taking roll and growing more agitated by the minute: “This is all who showed up? The people nowadays have no sense of duty?”

“There’s nothing wrong with our sense of duty!” one team member pushed back. “It’s our wallets that are the problem. Half the people on our rescue team are out working in other cities — they can’t get back in time!”

Fortunately, more and more family members kept arriving to help, and the shortage of hands was soon resolved. Everyone pitched in digging earth and filling sandbags, working up a good head of steam. The water level below the embankment was also slowly rising. When it reached the one-meter mark, the team leader, worried about a possible breach, sent all the family members away.

Xiao Man was not a team member and had no life jacket. He negotiated with an older worker on the flood-response team: “Uncle, take off that life jacket and give it to me — you’re getting on in years, go home now.”

“I can’t leave — where there’s flood and fire, there’s no mercy. You young folks have no experience and are liable to act recklessly,” the old worker refused.

While the two of them were still arguing, they suddenly heard someone crying for help. Everyone looked toward the sound and saw that a concrete bridge in the distance had broken into three sections. A person on the remains of the bridge was trapped between two surging currents on either side. The team members sprinted toward the bridgehead, and Xiao Man ran over with his spade as well. When he got close enough to see, the person calling for help was none other than Big Stick Xu.

“Big Stick Xu! What in blazes were you wandering around in the rain for?” The team leader was so frantic he was pacing in circles, cursing. “Well done — the Dragon King will be coming for you any minute now!”

A rushing current separated the rescue team from the broken bridge, and there was no way to cross it on foot. They tried tying a swimming ring to a rope and throwing it over, but no matter how many times they threw, it couldn’t reach the other side. No one knew how much longer the broken bridge could hold — once the flood crest arrived, Big Stick Xu would be finished off along with the bridge.

The seconds ticked by, the water crept ever closer to the level of the bridge deck, and Big Stick Xu was so terrified he could barely stand. More frightening than death itself was watching it come for you second by second. “Heaven have mercy on me! I’ll do good deeds and accumulate virtue from now on!” he wailed.

Xiao Man looked at the heating pipes running parallel alongside the bridge, and a sudden idea came to him. He shouted: “Tie the rope around my waist! I’ll cross over on those heating pipes!”

“You can’t do it — there’s no way you’ll make it!” the team members all shook their heads. “Those pipes are round and smooth — even a cat would slip.”

“Let me try! I could walk them fine when I was little.” Xiao Man had walked along those heating pipes since he was small — throughout all of Xi Tie Cheng, only a motherless child like him had been wild enough to do something like that.

With Xiao Man insisting, everyone tied two ropes around his waist, and the old worker he had just been arguing with took off his life jacket and fastened it on Xiao Man. “Walk slow, walk steady — don’t be reckless!”

Xiao Man stepped onto the heating pipe and tried a couple of steps, feeling that his old sense of balance was still there. Walking and reciting his childhood chant, he went: “I’m Cresse, here to buy groceries — five cents for potatoes, one yuan for greens! Won’t sell for one yuan — then kicks and punches!” One meter, two meters, three meters, four meters, five meters… everyone held their breath in suspense.

A person of great skill fears nothing. Xiao Man made it across without incident. He jumped down onto the deck of the broken bridge and quickly twisted the ropes in his hands into a double loop, fitting one section around Big Stick Xu’s thighs and another under his armpits.

“You’re…” Big Stick Xu thought Xiao Man’s face looked familiar.

“Less talking — I’m your ancestor!” Xiao Man gave Big Stick Xu a slap. “Get in the loops fast — if you don’t cooperate, I’ll let you drown!”

Then Xiao Man fed the ropes over the heating pipe in a loop, so that Big Stick Xu was suspended from the pipe like a human pulley. The team members on the far bank would pull one meter, and Xiao Man on this side would feed out one meter in turn — the combined force of both sides dragged Big Stick Xu hand over hand through the air above the rushing current, inching closer to the bank. “One, two, three!” the team members made a final concentrated effort and hauled Big Stick Xu all the way to safety.

On the far side, only Xiao Man remained on the broken bridge. His palms were raw and soaked with sweat, and the bridge deck was now swaying and close to collapse. He quickly stepped back onto the pipe to walk back. The team members on the far bank were too tense to breathe, listening only to the splashing of the current below the bridge.

“I’m Cresse, here to buy groceries…” Xiao Man resumed his balance chant. When he walked steadily back onto the bank, the team members rushed forward to embrace him. Big Stick Xu, who had barely escaped the Dragon King’s grasp, pushed through the crowd and dropped to his knees in front of Xiao Man with a resounding thud, crying: “Thank you, ancestor! Thank you, Cresse!”

This was the worst disaster year in Xi Tie Cheng’s history as a factory. In addition to the flooding, the heavy rain had also triggered mudslides and landslides that leveled and buried a number of factory buildings. When Xiao Man and his fellow workers rushed to the nitration workshop, they found the brick-and-concrete building already crushed under the earth and rock. It took a great effort to dig out the horizontal screw centrifuge from under a man’s-height of debris, only to find that the drum inside had been snapped. Xiao Man wanted to keep digging to uncover the reactor vessel, but his fellow workers held him back — if the drum could be crushed through, the reactor was certainly written off too.

“Why didn’t they build the factory buildings farther from the base of the mountain?” Xiao Man asked his senior colleague Da Shi, setting down his pickaxe.

“There was no choice — in this narrow valley, the base of the mountain is the valley floor,” said Da Shi. “If a rampaging bull flood catches you on the valley floor, that’s even more terrifying.”

“What’s a rampaging bull flood?”

“A mudslide — that’s what the locals call it.”

“And what do they call a landslide?” Xiao Man asked.

“I think they call it ‘mountain collapse’…” Da Shi thought for a moment and corrected himself: “No, that’s not right — it’s ‘mountain skinning.'”

Beyond the production area, the residential district of the factory compound was also inundated. Those flooded out of their ground-floor homes were temporarily housed in the children’s school. Xiao Man’s home was soaked by seeping floodwater too, and he shouldered his bedding and moved into his old Year 3 classroom. The power was out throughout the factory that night. After feeling his way through a bag of instant noodles in the dark, Xiao Man was just about to push four desks together to sleep on when the beam of a flashlight appeared outside the classroom — it was Master Ding, who had come especially to invite him home to stay.

Xiao Man could not refuse Master Ding, so he followed him back. Inside, his wife had lit a candle on the dining table and brought out a basin of freshly washed dipping vegetables. “These are what your master grew in the factory compound — lucky we harvested them early, otherwise they would have been buried in the mudslide.”

His wife picked up a slice of heart-of-beauty radish for Xiao Man to taste first. As he chewed, Xiao Man thought back to the days when he had followed Master Ding to the hillside workshop to learn how to grow vegetables.

Master Ding produced a bottle of “Frontier Baijiu,” sat down, and said: “With liquor and vegetables, we can take our time and drink slowly, you and I. You’ve been running yourself ragged these past few days — rest now.”

“It’s a shame we only managed to dig out the centrifuge. When everyone saw the drum was broken, they stopped digging,” Xiao Man reported the disaster situation to his master. “Da Shi says the workshop is definitely done for — gone in the blink of an eye.”

“The force of all that earth and rock is no less than a rammer,” Master Ding nodded. “Never mind the powered and electronic equipment — just the static vessels like the towers, tanks, and reactors will certainly all be written off. In the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, the factory suffered landslides then too, burying several workshops.”

“Was there a problem with the site selection in the first place? Why build the factory buildings in the bottom of a narrow valley?”

“The guiding principle for building third-tier defense factories was: ‘lean against the mountains, scatter the buildings, go underground.'”

“Master, the way things look, I’m afraid the factory really might not survive this time.”

“We’ll see. If there’s no rebuilding plan after this flood, then it’s time for shutdown and reassignment.”

“If the factory goes under — what will you do next, Master?”

“I’ve heard that when a factory goes bankrupt, workers can choose an early internal retirement or a buyout. Your master’s wife and I have talked it over — if the factory goes, we’ll take the early internal retirement.”

“Internal retirement?”

“Yes. Once I’ve sorted out the early retirement paperwork, I’ll go back to the farm in Heilongjiang.” Master Ding took a sip of liquor and exhaled with a satisfied sound. “In the blink of an eye, thirty or forty years have passed. I left the farm to enlist, then went to the front lines to fight Vietnam, then was demobilized to Liaoxi to work as a factory worker, and now I’m going back home to the farm on early retirement. This whole life has traced a great big circle.”

“Is the farm doing well?”

“The Great Northern Wilderness farms are not bad — plowing, sowing, and autumn harvest all done with agricultural machinery.” Master Ding put down his cup and spread open his own hands for Xiao Man to see. “These hands of mine have swung a hoe, carried a machine gun, gripped wrenches and pliers — and now, at the end of it all, it seems they’re going to be driving a combine harvester.”

“These hands also pulled me out of the water once,” Xiao Man said with a smile.

“Thank goodness I pulled you out. If there’d been no you to take the blame for me, these hands would have ended up in handcuffs,” Master Ding laughed heartily.

“It wouldn’t have come to handcuffs — at most a detention of ten days or two weeks,” Xiao Man also laughed. “By the way, that deputy mayor who was going to have you arrested — he ended up in the psychiatric hospital himself later on.”

“Really? Am I hearing this right?”

“Really. That deputy mayor later developed mental problems of his own. I used to smoke and chat with him all the time when I was in the psychiatric hospital.”

“He went mad? He was hospitalized?”

“Yes — stayed for half a year. Just before he was discharged, he wrote me a few words: ‘there is wisdom in confusion.'”

“What a magnificent irony!” Master Ding sighed with feeling. “In this life, thirty years the river flows east, thirty years the river flows west — until the very end, no one can say what kind of fate awaits them.”

After the flood receded, Xi Tie Cheng was a scene of devastation, the factory town and its surroundings for ten li in every direction reduced to a wasteland of mud. The iron bars and parallel bars of the residential compound were draped in the bedding of every household, set out to dry. People scattered lime into the pools of standing water, large and small, to prevent mosquito breeding. Some households lit dried mugwort leaves in their courtyards to drive away insects, and the neighborhood drifted with the acrid mingling of smoke and disinfectant.

Xiao Man scraped the mud off the floors of his room and re-coated the four walls with fresh whitewash. Once the roads reopened, he caught a ride back to the flower shop in the city. Chunchun saw that he had grown thinner, and made him a plate of stir-fried pork slices. Xiao Man ate while recounting the stories of the flood in Xi Tie Cheng.

“Even if the factory goes under, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing — better than being half-dead in a mountain valley,” Chunchun said, placing another slice of pork in his bowl.

“The logic is right, but I still can’t bear it — that’s the place I grew up,” Xiao Man said, shaking his head.

“In every respect — food, clothing, housing, transport — the city is better than a mountain valley. The people of Xi Tie Cheng should have come out and made their way here sooner.”

“For people our age it’s manageable,” Xiao Man said, shaking his head, “but plenty of people are over forty, with aging parents above and young children below. How do you expect them to start over from scratch?”

When the flower shop was quiet, Xiao Man would keep track of developments at the factory on the Xi Tie Cheng Factory Forum.

The forum never produced any news of a rebuilding plan, but it was full of photographs of the disaster damage. Many people posted about the factory’s future, with most feeling that there was no hope for it — yet no one wanted to see Xi Tie Cheng simply abandoned. This debate went on until autumn, when someone posted a draft “Employee Redistribution and Resettlement Survey Form,” claiming that the factory would be broken up and relocated the following year, and that Xi Tie Cheng would be abandoned the next summer.

One day Xiao Man was in the shop cutting flowers when Da Xu from the factory office called to say the factory was organizing a donation ceremony, and needed a few customized flower arrangements.

“The factory is almost going broke — why is it still donating money?” Xiao Man asked.

“It’s not donating money out — the veteran workers are donating money to the factory,” Da Xu said over the phone. “Old Auntie Sun from the finance department passed away recently, and her will stipulated that a hundred thousand yuan be donated to the factory for post-disaster rebuilding.”

“Understood. In that case, I won’t charge for the flower arrangements this time — consider it my contribution toward the factory’s rebuilding.”

“Keep business and personal matters separate. Charge your standard rate for the arrangements — this is all official spending.”

“I really can’t take payment for this one. When it comes to something like this, I have to show a little character.”

On the day of the donation ceremony, Xiao Man hired a small van, loaded up the flower arrangements, and drove to the factory offices’ main conference room. This was the place where he had once attended orientation training when he first joined the factory. Stepping inside, Xiao Man saw a banner hanging across the platform at the front reading “Xi Tie Cheng Factory Education Fund Donation Ceremony.” Da Xu was on the platform testing the microphone, and twenty-odd primary school students in uniforms were seated below.

Xiao Man went over and asked Da Xu: “Wasn’t the donation supposed to go toward post-disaster rebuilding?”

“Only just got the accurate news — the factory definitely won’t be rebuilt,” Da Xu said. “All those students are the youngest children of the factory — their parents are either laid off or away working in other cities. Old Auntie Sun’s son said: even if the factory won’t be rebuilt, this money should still be spent on Xi Tie Cheng’s people. So it’s being distributed as an education fund.”

At that moment the factory leadership and Old Auntie Sun’s children and grandchildren walked into the conference room. Da Xu introduced Xiao Man to the group, explaining that the flower arrangements for the ceremony were Xiao Man’s gift.

Xiao Man immediately waved his hands in protest: “Please don’t say that — the little bit I’ve contributed here is not worth mentioning compared to what Old Auntie Sun has done.”

Old Auntie Sun’s son, Da Wu, asked Xiao Man: “I remember you now — weren’t you the one who sang at the factory’s New Year gala?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What a coincidence! Quick, bow to Uncle Xiao Man!” Da Wu at once urged his son to bow. “This is the ‘Dragon Boy’ who was on stage with you back then — almost old enough for high school now.”

Soon the donation ceremony began, and Da Wu took the podium to give his address.

He was halfway through reading from his prepared speech when he suddenly stopped and pulled out a yellowed card from inside his jacket: “I’d like to ask the senior leaders and veteran workers here — does anyone still remember this ticket?”

The old Party secretary stood up from the audience, put on his reading glasses, and examined the ticket carefully: “The ticket still has the slogan ‘Strengthen discipline, revolution shall not fail’ printed on it… could this be a ticket from the relocation special train that brought our factory here?”

“Yes. My mother kept this ticket until the day she died. Thirty-five years ago, it was these confidential special trains that relocated our entire factory to Xi Tie Cheng.” Da Wu set his prepared speech to one side and began recounting memories, his voice breaking with emotion. “I was nine years old that year — I remember it clearly. The special train was a mixed freight and passenger arrangement. Except for taking on water at Siping, it made no stops along the way. Even the railway workers didn’t know that what the train was carrying was the entire staff and possessions of the Northeast Number One Explosives Factory.”

“My mother left a will before she passed, saying she wanted to support the factory’s construction. Every brick and tile in Xi Tie Cheng carries the sweat of those who came before us — two generations of childhood memories are here. Our third-tier defense factory was built at such cost; the founders blazed the trail through hardship, and the descendants must remember what they owe them. Many families here have shared three generations of breath and fate with this factory across sixty years. This is our roots — we truly cannot bear to be uprooted.”

By the end, Da Wu wiped away his tears, clasped his hands together in a bow toward the audience below, and pleaded: “My final words are simply this: I am begging — begging — the factory leadership present here to see if there is any last effort that can be made to preserve our roots, our Xi Tie Cheng Factory.”