Chapter 4

Chapter 5

By early 1990, my personal savings had nearly reached ten thousand yuan, and I had moved up to second grade. After carefully thinking over the major events at home and abroad over these years, I reluctantly passed up several money-making opportunities, such as reselling rat poison. I knew that in October this year, Professor Qian Tianbai would send China's first internet email and register its first top-level domain, CN. The internet age would drag its feet over the next ten years, then swiftly conquer everything, becoming an inseparable whole with China's new generation.

China and the Soviet Union had reestablished diplomatic relations in 1989. In 1991, the Soviet Union would collapse, and afterward, traders would flood toward the Sino-Soviet border. That was money I couldn't make either. In my current state, I would surely have my money stolen and then get sold off myself.

The rise of Zhongguancun didn't have much to do with me either. What could I do?

At the thought of Zhongguancun, my eyes lit up!

Damn, why hadn't I thought of it sooner? I'd learned computer repair at an internet café, and I'd seen every sort of ancient machine. With skilled people still so scarce, surely I could make a little money with my technical skills?

Once I had made that decision, my mind settled. My target was the golden age of PC assembly from 1993 to 1995. Making pocket change wasn't the answer. With that goal in mind, I considered learning a little about computers during elementary school, so I would have a plausible explanation if I later displayed any startling technical abilities.

Zhang Xiaotong told her family she wanted to study computers and took me along. I sat in the computer classroom at the Children's Palace, drowsily listening to knowledge that would soon become obsolete while secretly reviewing C on my own. I had always lacked that little bit of talent when it came to technology, so I didn't intend to master it. Knowing enough to get by would do.

Classes at the Children's Palace met once a week and cost five yuan a session, which was expensive in 1990. Still, having a computer to use at all in 1990 was already pretty good. The computers the Children's Palace used for its public classes still had monochrome monitors and practically no memory. Looking at those computers made me want to cry. Wasn't this like making someone who had flown a plane go back to driving a horse-drawn carriage?

Zhang Xiaotong found the lessons fascinating. I told her that one day there would be computers that fit into a schoolbag, but she didn't believe me. In fact, the forerunner of the laptop had appeared back in 1985: Toshiba's T1100. But that didn't really count. It wasn't until 1991 that Toshiba introduced the first true laptop with a color LCD screen. Over the next few years, IBM gradually overtook it and became synonymous with top-end business laptops.

These were all things that had yet to happen but inevitably would. I needed to distinguish them from developments I could control, so I could respond more easily.

There were plenty of world events in 1990. The Black president Mandela regained his freedom, Germany reunified following the fall of the Berlin Wall the year before, and Iraq sent troops into Kuwait... Of course, more importantly, the families who had been living together were finally splitting up. My family moved to the suburbs, while my eldest and second uncles each moved into decent employee housing complexes, leaving just our family in the old house. Zhang Xiaotong still came to play with me every day, without so much as a glance at the other younger boys and girls. With fewer adult eyes around us, it was easier to do whatever we pleased. I began teaching Zhang Xiaotong French, emphasizing that this was the so-called language of the aristocracy in the future. To become a successful woman, she would at least need to be able to recite a few passages of French lyrics and novels.

The period from 1990 to 1991 was when domestic book censorship was at its most lenient. While taking Zhang Xiaotong to the library, I also made sure to take her around the secondhand book stalls. Viewed through my perspective from more than a decade later, many of the used books then were so cheap they might as well have been free. Soon, the space beneath my little bed was piled full of old books again...

One day, I was leafing through "Rebecca," a book with some erotic descriptions that shared its title with a famous novel, when Zhang Xiaotong suddenly asked me very seriously, "What do you think is the point of reading all these books?"

I put down "Rebecca." The book had reached a scene where several people were beginning to take off a female star's underwear. Descriptions at that level could no longer tempt me, but the sight of Zhang Xiaotong's snowy-white calves beneath her little skirt still sent my thoughts wandering for a moment.

Zhang Xiaotong was no longer a clueless little girl. Seeing my gaze drift over her legs, she naturally knew I wasn't thinking anything good. She gave me a fierce eye roll. "I asked you a question... Your head's full of dirty thoughts..."

Her scolding made me blush. Judging by our appearance, we were only a few years old. Anyone hearing this conversation would surely go mad.

"How many books have you read by now?" I asked Zhang Xiaotong. "Do you think it's a lot or a little?"

Sitting on the bed, Zhang Xiaotong tilted her head and deliberately stretched her calves over onto my legs. "Not a small number, but not that many either, I suppose..."

I glanced at Zhang Xiaotong. Aren't you tempting me into a crime? You're my cousin, even if we're only distantly related...

"Do you think you understand more now than you used to, or less?"

Zhang Xiaotong smiled slyly. "Are you using Socratic dialogue on me?"

I lowered my head. Having my trick exposed was embarrassing. "Uh... Let's just take the simplest example. Could you completely understand what your parents said and did before? What about now?"

This time, Zhang Xiaotong thought carefully before nodding firmly. "I couldn't before. Now I can."

I spread my hands, only for one of them to accidentally brush Zhang Xiaotong's ankle, making us both blush. Differences and issues between the sexes only weren't embarrassing when you didn't know about them, and we happened to be two people who did.

To cover my embarrassment, I spoke quickly. "Doesn't that settle it? Reading is just a learning process. The more you learn and the more you know, the easier it is to reach conclusions about what you want and what you don't want. Once you can distinguish right from wrong in everything concerning yourself, you're a mature person. You can take responsibility for yourself and secure more benefits for yourself."

Zhang Xiaotong nodded thoughtfully. "Mm, that makes sense."

Then she put her arms around my head and, her little face flushed, added, "If... if you like touching your older cousin's legs... you can do it when no one's around..."

My cousin's words shocked me so much that my mouth stayed open for ages. Watching Zhang Xiaotong spring up and race away in a flash, I rubbed my nose and thought that it was only because I had been sickly as a child. Otherwise, blood would surely have spurted from my nose...

After that day, Zhang Xiaotong always blushed when she saw me, but I didn't pay it much attention. After all, blushing was something you got used to over time. Human skin was the only thing in the world that grew thicker the more it was worn down. Besides, I was too embarrassed to do anything to my cousin, though all summer I kept seeing her expose her little pale legs, still not fully developed, around me, whether deliberately or otherwise.

Sure enough, after a while Zhang Xiaotong stopped blushing, but at the same time she grew used to being completely casual and unguarded around me... To be honest, she was a very pretty little girl, and from my mental perspective, Zhang Xiaotong at this age could at most be considered a lolita, with an indescribable allure. But it was only an allure, something to feast my eyes on, nothing more.

After our conversation, Zhang Xiaotong worked even harder to seize every moment to learn. In truth, I was somewhat at a loss myself. Learning a great many things didn't necessarily mean you would have a use for them. Still, I held firmly to one belief: learning a little more was always good. The more you knew, the greater your advantage in the struggle for fame and fortune.

In the second half of 1990, Zhang Xiaotong was in fifth grade, while I was in second grade. By then, she had blossomed into a graceful young girl. I reckoned that if this were a decade or so later, even in elementary school, her pursuers would surely be as numerous as fish crossing a river.

Zhang Xiaotong had good grades and performed well at school, so she was elected to the school's Young Pioneers committee. In private, I advised her not to put too much energy into these trivial matters. A person's enthusiasm was limited; for an ordinary person, doing a handful of things was enough to exhaust it. The future would bring countless changes, and the prospects her school offered her now didn't suit her. Zhang Xiaotong did practically everything I told her, and she began holding herself back considerably, making herself less conspicuous.

At school, I was utterly unremarkable, a typical ordinary child. I had gotten to know almost everyone in my class, but I rarely spoke to them. In truth, I didn't even feel like talking. Occasionally, I sneaked a few glances at Zhang Xin, and the exceptionally perceptive Zhang Xiaotong noticed. "Are you interested in that girl in your class?"

"Oh, stop talking nonsense." Faced with something like this, I would resist to the bitter end. "There aren't many girls worth looking at in our class. If I want to see a pretty girl, looking at you is enough. Why would I need to look at anyone in class?"

Zhang Xiaotong gave a cold chuckle, her face plainly saying, "At least you know what's good for you." The sight made me uneasy. This older cousin of mine already had a gift for becoming a captivating woman.

School days were boring. Every day, I walked the same roads and saw the same people, and I even had to pay other people for this life. My only pleasure, and probably the only pleasure I remembered from elementary school, was walking through a park, listening to the old songs over its loudspeakers in the dim morning light and watching the elderly people exercising.

I remembered a celebrity's account of childhood, describing going out to chop firewood in the morning with the phrase "under the stars and moon." The teacher had commented, "'Under the stars and moon' isn't used like that." That teacher had no experience of life. That teacher didn't understand the hardships of poor children.

Or their happiness.

School was the first place that taught people maturity. Going from being sheltered to learning to go to the same place, rain or shine, was itself a form of training for a child.

Then there was communication: communication with classmates, communication with teachers. School was the quickest way to get to know a lot of people.

Yet we had to wait until we grew up to understand these extremely simple truths. That was why a person's life was filled with sighs and regrets, followed by acceptance, and then numbness.

My 1990 passed in days and nights of walking through the park, rain or shine. I looked back and swore not to let myself grow accustomed to it, not to sigh or regret, and not to grow numb.

Having loaded a save, I had to play better than before.