dkrc Chapter 42 Old Things
Chapter 42 Old Things
After the cold wave passed, Moon Island enjoyed several sunny days.
The sun warmed the rocky beach, the ice in the stone troughs had long since melted away, and the seawater had turned back to its grayish-blue color.
Ah Guang untied the straw rope wrapped around the loquat tree and put it in the old parts warehouse, made a note of it in the register, and then went to check on the newly transplanted seedlings behind the kitchen.
Several leaves were frostbitten, their edges turning yellow and curling up. He used small scissors to carefully cut off the frostbitten parts, and then watered the leaves.
The service station has returned to its usual busy schedule.
Several fishing boats awaiting repair were leaning against the stone trough. The diesel engine in the workshop sputtered intermittently. Ahai and Hong Xiaobing squatted next to the gearbox, measuring the bearing clearance with vernier calipers. Ding Haisheng squatted in the welding area of the new workshop, welding a hull plate of a transport ship.
Old Fang took the torque wrench off the wall, wiped the dial, and then hung it back up.
Qiu Changhai sat by the stone trough, twirling a walnut in his hand. In front of him, the bottom of the old Zhou family's sampan had three rotten planks. He used a chisel to chip away at the trough, straightening up and then slowly bending down again.
In the afternoon, Wang Cunzhi came by on his motorcycle to deliver the newly printed ship repair technical manual from the province. He also mentioned the year-end evaluation and asked the service station to prepare the materials in advance.
Jiang Haiping responded, put the manual into the drawer, and continued to look through the inventory list that A-Guang had just delivered.
After dark, the service station staff gradually left. Ah Hai and Ah Guang were the last to leave, closing the windows of the used parts warehouse and tucking the plastic sheeting in tightly.
Jiang Haiping sat at the workshop workbench, with several items he had dug out of the old parts warehouse spread out in front of him.
A plastic-covered register, the image of two cranes on the cover is still clearly visible, but the corners are taped shut in several places.
The first page of the notebook reads "three gears, five bearings, and two rudder posts," written with a ruler in hand, each stroke deliberate.
This is the first registration book at the service station, written by Ahai. The cover is worn white, and the corners are taped shut with transparent tape in several places.
Jiang Haiping had flipped through this register before, but had never looked at it carefully from beginning to end.
There wasn't anything urgent to do tonight, so he spread the register on the table and started flipping through it from the first page.
The first page records the inventory of used parts in the first few days after the service station opened.
At that time, the ship repair site consisted of only three dilapidated stone houses. Old Fang brought an old 6135 diesel engine from the factory and placed it on the edge of the courtyard wall. Ah Hai squatted on the reef and wrote these words with chalk, which he later copied into his notebook.
Back then, the service station wasn't called a service station; it was called a boat repair shop. They only had three thousand yuan in their account, and they earned a few dozen yuan for repairing a boat.
Jiang Haiping touched the line of text with his finger. The ink from the ballpoint pen had faded a bit, but each stroke was still legible.
He continued flipping through the pages.
The register contained a lot of miscellaneous records, including the entry and exit of old items, ship repair records, and tool requisitions, all mixed together.
One page read, "Old Chen's main engine is shaking, the piston ring of the second cylinder is broken, replace it with a new one," and next to it, there was a circle drawn in pencil with "repaired" written inside the circle.
Turning to the next page, there is a note that reads "Lin Xiu'e's sewing training board, pine wood, provincial competition selection".
The page was frayed from being turned over, and there were a few dried tung oil residues on it. It felt hard and uneven to the touch.
When Lin Xiue first learned to sew, Qiu Changhai made her chisel grooves on scrap boards. If she messed it up, she had to start over, until her fingers were covered in blisters.
Those blisters broke and healed, then rubbed against the skin again, eventually forming this hard callus.
This register records not only old items and boats, but also the routes taken by everyone at the service station.
He turned to the middle and found a page that had been torn in half. The remaining half of the page read, "Ding Haisheng Welder Examination, Overhead Welding".
Upon turning it over, there were words on the back, a line of small characters written by Lao Fang in a fountain pen: "Adjust the current by five amps, and the weld formation will be excellent."
When Ding Haisheng first came to the service station, he would squat in the pile of scrap plates every day to practice overhead welding, and he wouldn't dodge when molten iron dripped down and burned holes in his gloves.
Old Fang didn't say it, but he wrote down Ding Haisheng's evaluation of every test board in his notebook.
Next to it was a line of even smaller text, written by Ding Haisheng himself: "Reduce the current of the vertical seam by ten amps, and there will be no edge bite on the back."
The two people's handwriting was placed side by side; one was messy, and the other was neat.
Turning the page further, there was a photo pasted on one of the pages.
The photo shows three people standing in front of a new ship. On the left is Lao Fang, whose hair is still black, and he is holding a large wrench.
On the right is Qiu Changhai, standing ramrod straight, holding a chisel in his hand.
In the middle is Master Chen, wearing glasses, twirling two walnuts in his hands.
The back of the photo reads, "A souvenir of the launch of a new ship at Binhai Shipyard in 1965."
There was a small hole in the corner of the photo, left by a thumbtack, which was a mark from when Qiu Changhai used to pin it to the tool wall.
Later, when the service station was officially opened, he took the photo down and put it in this registration book.
He picked up the photo and looked at it under the light for a while.
The photo shows the last slipway before it was demolished. It failed the safety assessment and the iron frame rusted through. It was demolished last year.
The old slipway has been demolished, but the photos remain.
He put the photo back into the register and continued flipping through the pages.
The following pages record events after the service station was officially established.
Records of the provincial inspection, maintenance ledgers for the first batch of official vessels, and details of the major repair costs after the salvage of Hong Chuandong's sunken ship.
Turning to the last few pages, he saw a line that read: "First place in the provincial team competition, Binhai County Moon Island Ship Service Station."
The date is this autumn.
This register lasted for three years, from the first page to the last.
He closed the register and wiped the dust off the cover with cotton gauze.
The plastic sheeting was worn white, and the edges of the two cranes' wings were almost worn smooth, but the words were still there.
He put the register in the drawer, stacking it together with the other registers behind it.
From the first book to the sixth, from a small plastic-covered notebook to a thick stack, from a ship repair shop to a service station, from three people to more than a dozen people.
The straw ropes on the loquat tree outside the window have been untied, and the newly sprouted tender leaves gleam with a dark green light under the moonlight.
The waves gently lapped against the stone trough, one after another, without rushing.
Another government vessel is coming for maintenance tomorrow, and the list of candidates for the next training course has also been received.
He closed the drawer and turned off the workshop lights.
The sound of the waves came from the rocky beach, even and steady.