On the way back to the ancient city, Ye Xiaoming rode along in the car. To avoid an awkward silence, Feng Shijie kept the conversation lively by sharing anecdotes from the city's audiophile circle, reciting one passionate story after another.
Feng Shijie said, "The year I bought my audio equipment, I took 8000 yuan to Beijing. I walked around for seven days, my feet blistered and bleeding, staying in a basement and living on instant noodles. When I brought the audio equipment back, I listened to it for a day and a night without sleeping. At three in the morning, my neighbors upstairs and downstairs were banging on the heating pipes to protest. Back then, my audio setup was the most impressive in the ancient city. But now, just a few years later, any audiophile would look at it and say, 'This pile of junk, throw it out the window!'"
Ouyang Xue asked, "Did you throw it out?"
Feng Shijie replied, "How could I bear to? It's all money. One year, I took 300 yuan to Beijing to buy records. I spent a whole day going around record stores, sweating with the money in my hand, but in the end, I couldn't bring myself to spend it and came back with the money."
Rui Xiaodan said, "Then your travel expenses were wasted."
Ye Xiaoming chimed in, "No way, he hitched rides."
Ouyang Xue asked, "How many years have you been in the city?"
Feng Shijie replied, "I left middle school to learn appliance repair in the city. It's been seventeen or eighteen years. My wife works in a bank, and our child is three years old, staying with my mother-in-law. I run an auto detailing shop on Renmin Road, and I also do some electrical repairs, tire inflation, and patching. It's a modest living, but we get by."
After a while, as the conversation lulled, Feng Shijie found a new topic, "Miss Rui, do you remember the owner of 'Lonely Island Records'?"
Rui Xiaodan said, "Yes, his name is Liu Bing."
Ye Xiaoming added, "He's really upset with you. His business wasn't doing well to begin with, and when you stopped supplying Mr. Ding's records, it got even worse. I don't think he'll last much longer; he'll have to close down eventually, just like me."
Ouyang Xue said, "If his store relies solely on that, it might as well close."
Feng Shijie said, "He never sticks to anything. He used to sell children's clothes, then drove taxis. He dabbles in everything. He likes jazz, but that stuff is too mystical for me."
...
With conversations filling the journey, they soon found themselves entering the city and stopping first at the Venus Hotel. After getting out, Rui Xiaodan quietly told Ouyang Xue, "It's only polite to accept the things in the car. Have someone bring two boxes of wine from the storeroom to put in the car so they don't leave empty-handed."
While Rui Xiaodan and Ouyang Xue were talking, Feng Shijie and Ye Xiaoming carried a bag of dates into the hotel. As they returned to the car for the bag of peanuts, Ouyang Xue had two young men carry two boxes of wine to the car.
Seeing the two boxes of wine, Feng Shijie hurried over, intending to take them out, but Rui Xiaodan stopped him. "Mr. Feng, it's only polite. No need to be formal."
Feng Shijie's face flushed with embarrassment. "I really didn't mean anything by it. The village is just too poor. I wanted someone to point me in the right direction, but people like Mr. Ding are out of our reach."
Rui Xiaodan said, "I'm sorry, but I can't help you."
Feng Shijie apologized, "I'm sorry, it was presumptuous of me. But these two boxes of wine, I must take them out. This is just too embarrassing."
Rui Xiaodan replied, "If you don't take them now, it will be even more embarrassing for me. Between a man's face and a woman's face, which one do you think should be saved?"
Feng Shijie said, "Of course, a woman's face."
Rui Xiaodan said, "Then you'll have to endure a little." She closed the car's back door and continued, "You go ahead. We'll meet at the north gate of Rose Garden. I'll be right there."
With a look of embarrassment, Feng Shijie and Ye Xiaoming drove away.
Watching the car leave, Ouyang Xue laughed, "I didn't expect him to be such an ambitious rural youth."
Rui Xiaodan laughed too, "Give me the car keys. Keep enough peanuts and dates, and load the rest in the car. I'll deliver them to everyone in the team after setting up the audio system. They won't stay fresh for long."
Ouyang Xue suddenly burst out laughing, "Look at the trouble your charm has brought you. There are more and more 'high people' these days, sending beautiful women to use their charms without even reporting their presence."
Rui Xiaodan, self-mockingly, said, "My charm doesn't even work for me, let alone being used by others as a tool."