Chapter 7: This Freedom Is Simply Too Unrestrained

So, accustomed to relying on navigation apps, Wei Dong immediately bought a map.

His father had fasted today in preparation for surgery tomorrow morning. Seeing the possibility of escaping paralysis lifted the heavy burden Wei Dong had carried for decades, filling him with an unaccustomed joy.

Even if he still didn’t know how to express it.

It seemed as though this life held many possibilities, but he dared not imagine them, nor was he used to dreaming. He’d spent forty years muddled and numb, confined to that tiny security booth. Now, he was much like a nineteen-year-old boy, gazing around in innocent confusion.

He didn’t know what he could do, which is why he felt that following the lead of the wealthiest man would make this life less wasted.

But for now, selling cured meats for profit was the most important task.

The sensation of having money in his pocket to spend was so satisfying.

At a roadside newsstand, he spent fifteen cents for a map of the provincial capital, which even came with a bonus map of the entire country.

Such a bargain!

Curious, he also bought a copy of the national railway passenger schedule for sixty cents.

So extravagant!

With these two items in hand, it felt as though he could press M in an online game and instantly know his bearings.

Greedily, he thumbed through the three-hundred-page timetable, thicker than a finger. Thirty-two yuan would take him to Pingjing! Thirty-seven to Shanghai! He’d never ridden a train before.

Even forty years later, he wouldn’t dare dream of flying.

So he bought a few five-cent newspapers and twenty-cent magazines.

Buy what you want, no need to pinch pennies.

Such audacity!

He could finally pause and take in the era.

But first, he used the excuse of buying papers to ask for the exact location of the dock’s wholesale market, tracing a route on the map with his fingernail as if imitating the habit of a navigation app.

Deliberately, he didn’t take a vehicle, choosing instead to walk three or four miles, passing through the most bustling part of the provincial capital for a better look.

With a hospital diagnosis in his pocket, Wei Dong was confident he wouldn’t be mistaken for a vagrant.

He could stroll through this big city of 1983 with peace of mind.

The provincial capital was indeed different, tall buildings everywhere, lively and bustling even on a summer afternoon.

But to Wei Dong, someone who’d seen towns transform over the next forty years, even later county seats seemed more dazzling than this.

Yet the unique seriousness of this era made him feel that hawking his wares from street to street was a gamble—one misstep and he’d be finished.

So as he approached the dock, he saw riverside streets and alleys exposed or submerged by annual floods, a jumble of brick houses and stilted buildings piled layer upon layer.

It washed away every trace of the city centre’s revolutionary decorum.

He felt he’d come to the right place.

Gone was the ordered grandeur of previous streets, replaced by a riot of eateries, shops, and industrial storefronts.

Many even looked like old Republican-era shops, with wooden planks sliding into door grooves.

It was closer to the freedom of the next twenty or thirty years.

Following directions, he was told to start at the herbal medicine market—that area was the hub for wholesale trade.

A strong scent of herbal medicine led him in, quickly guiding him off the main road and into the market.

A high, empty roof covered the street, forming the marketplace.

The whole street was stacked with burlap sacks full of medicinal herbs, with sales offices, trading companies, and storefronts on either side.

Occasionally, he saw shops selling mountain produce, with furs and such hanging out front.

Wei Dong wondered if his cured meats counted as mountain goods.

Just as he was curiously leaning in to ask questions, he suddenly felt a jolt at his waist. Turning, he saw two children, waist-high, shoving and playing.

He almost looked away, but his security guard’s instinct made him linger—he noticed the kids glancing furtively, shielding each other.

He reached down—sure enough, his ten-plus yuan was missing from his pocket!

Without a word, he lunged, smacking the kids’ heads with his bundle of papers and maps, then grabbed both by the neck. His hands slid down their struggling arms, and he pried his wad of cash from one of their hands.

Back at the elementary school beside the tax bureau, he’d dealt with plenty of mischievous kids, often ridiculed for his disabled hand.

Now his reflexes were exceptionally sharp.

But, as city kids grew more unruly, their parents often grew more unreasonable. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a barrel-shaped woman charging over like a Tiger tank!

Two men followed, faces grim, approaching from a distance.

Wei Dong immediately let go of the children, moved forward, then deliberately sidestepped a few meters.

Sure enough, they moved to block him, the woman aggressively closing in.

He nearly pulled off a one-handed layup like a basketball player, but a simple change of direction sufficed—the sidestep served as a feint, and he returned to his original path, brushing past the middle-aged woman.

Caught off guard, the barrel-shaped woman fell hard, roaring like an American football defender who’d crashed through a wall, “He hit me! He knocked me down! Murder! Help!”

Good grief!

Was there already scam artists here in ’83?

Wei Dong dared not linger, quickening his pace.

Everyone in the herbal market watched with the amusement of seasoned spectators.

He was about to exit the market when, from a side alley, a young woman burst out, breathless but persistent, holding out her hand invitingly: “Looking for a room? Got some fun girls…”

She even managed a flirtatious wink—her features were quite attractive, and her thin floral blouse stretched taut.

But she’d run too fast, the wink was more like a bear rolling its eyes, out of breath and awkward.

A sixty-year-old titanium-alloy straight man, a genuine virgin who regarded such things as nothing, raised his hand to block her, but halfway through, he withdrew.

The feint misled her, and as she leaned in expecting to grab him, she stumbled and crashed to the ground.

She hit so hard she couldn’t even cry out.

Wei Dong was already far ahead.

He dashed out of the herbal market, realizing the road ran parallel to the main street with bus lines; each section was a marketplace. At the intersection, he saw several men running over from the main road.

On the side where the girl had appeared, a child was watching from afar.

This place was free—too free!

He steeled himself and plunged into the next market, not even glancing at the sign.

He found himself surrounded by piles of vegetables and fruit!

Crowds jostled noisily.

If it were a movie by Brother Long, this scene would be an epic fight.

Wei Dong, used to bingeing dramas and videos, felt a surge of excitement, plunging into the throng.

He used the footwork and agility honed on the basketball court to weave quickly through—a fish market, slippery and reeking, then a grain and grocery market, then bedding, then pots and pans and hardware…

Wei Dong moved like a butterfly swimmer, surfacing for air each time, then descending into a new marketplace.

But now, he finally realized—after the city became a municipality, he’d heard that the dock area was the largest small-goods wholesale market along the river in all of eastern Sichuan.

All the small merchants from counties and cities came here for supplies, then shipped them home by boat.

It was the secret to wealth for nearly all self-employed traders in the nineties and 2000s. Tax officials often played cat-and-mouse with them.

Could the seeds already have been planted in the eighties?

Wei Dong, not the sharpest mind, could still see: if he brought up cured meats, sold them, then used the money to buy provincial goods to resell back in his city or county, he could profit coming and going—double the wealth!

Just then, he slowed to scan his surroundings.

Between the hardware and bedding markets, towards the river, there was a stone stairway for unloading boats, crowded with farmers on either side.

Before them lay baskets of all sorts of farm produce.

This was the free market Wei Dong had been searching for!

Hidden in this corner.

But the freedom here was almost excessive.

Like this wild era, where a moment’s carelessness could lead to drowning.