Chapter 62: Good News from the Stationery Factory

Su Wan looked at the grid in the table, suddenly mustered her courage, and said, "Sister Su Yao, I want to learn how to identify medicinal herbs from you, so I can help you process Radix Isatidis in the future." Su Yao paused as she was tying the Radix Isatidis bundles. The sunlight swept past her ear, casting a golden glow on the tips of her hair. "Wait until you've memorized the data first," she replied.

As the sun set, Su Wan walked home holding her notebook, her steps much lighter than when she had arrived. Passing Old Zhou's vegetable plot, she heard him chatting with someone: "That Su Wan girl is like a completely different person. She's busy at the pharmaceutical factory until dark every day—guess she's finally figured things out." She didn't look back, holding her notebook even tighter.

Back home, she carefully placed the notebook into the wooden chest at the head of her bed, right beneath a washed-faint blue cotton shirt. Her mother leaned over to take a look. "What are you recording in here? Even more meticulous than your dad's ledger." Su Wan smiled without a word, feeling as though she carried a newly shelled peanut in her chest—fragrant and crisp.

Lying in bed at night, Su Wan tossed and turned, unable to sleep. She simply got up and read her notebook by the moonlight. The densely packed handwriting gleamed with a faint blue under the moonlight. Every page was completely filled, and even the margins were adorned with tiny sketches of Radix Isatidis. Touching those characters, she suddenly realized that the feeling of making amends was so solid and reassuring—far more secure than clutching stolen seeds.

Early the next morning, Su Wan arrived even earlier, bringing a piece of fabric she had embroidered herself. On it, a crooked stalk of Radix Isatidis was stitched. "Sister Su Yao, this is for you. Put it under your notebook to keep out the dampness." She placed the cloth on the table and scurried away toward the fields, not daring to look at Su Yao's expression.

Su Yao picked up the cloth. The stitches were uneven and some colors were mismatched, but the care put into it was evident. She laid the cloth flat on the table, placed Su Wan's notebook on top, and suddenly smiled. This girl had finally found a proper path in life.

In the greenhouse, Su Wan squatted down to count the leaves. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the foliage, illuminating her serious face like a dusting of gold powder. In the distant Radix Isatidis fields, the wind rustled the leaves with a soft "swish," sounding as though it were gently applauding for the girl who was slowly changing for the better.

At the break of dawn, Lu Yuxuan squatted in the corner of the workshop's earthen courtyard, weighing a newly pressed pencil box in his hand. The sharp edges of the tin plate had burrs, and before he knew it, a fine cut opened up on his finger. He rubbed it a couple of times with sandpaper, and beads of blood fell alongside the iron filings.

The pain made him gasp, but he had no time to bandage it: two hundred boxes had been packed overnight, and they had to catch the tractor into town today.

"You're sending this crooked-nosed junk to the department store?" Old Wang from next door pinched his tobacco pipe, grinding a blob of spit into the dirt with his shoe sole. "If they throw it back in your face later, don't ruin the reputation of our village-run factory."

Yuxuan didn't look up, straightening the "crooked rocket" stamped on the box lid. "People laughed at Xingchen's first batch of tomato seedlings, calling them bean sprouts, but how did that turn out in the end?"

To print this "Rocket Carrying Tomatoes" pattern, he had led two junior workers through seven rounds of ink-mixing, his fingers wrapped layer upon layer in adhesive tape from the knife blades. Having finally scraped together two hundred boxes, stuffed them into sacks, and tied them tightly, the floorboards of the tractor let out a heavy "clunk" as the boxes were loaded, vibrating deep into his anxious heart.

His father, Old Man Lu, chased after him, handing over a crumpled paper packet. "Twenty yuan, saved up from repairing water pumps. In case it bombs in your hands, don't lose heart."

Yuxuan pushed the money back. "If they really don't sell, I'll haul them home as tin toys for Suishui, so you don't have to spend your savings." Though he spoke lightly, his heart was beating wildly: the night before, the moment he closed his eyes, he dreamed of the manager smashing the boxes right into his face.

The tractor chugged along forty miles of dirt road, bumping him until his backside went numb. School was just letting out at the county middle school entrance, and a sea of blue cotton uniforms surged forth. Some children were carrying tin stationery boxes reading "Study Hard," making his eyes ache with envy. "When will I ever get to hold our village's rocket boxes?"

The three-story red-brick building of the county department store boasted gleaming glass display windows. Yuxuan wandered around the entrance with his wooden box for ages, simply not daring to lift his foot—the box felt as heavy as a lead weight.

The security guard couldn't bear to watch any longer. "Here to make a delivery? The stationery section is on the second floor, right at the end of the hall."

Yuxuan huffed and puffed up the concrete stairs, and the moment his head cleared the landing, he was blocked by an auntie in a blue cotton tunic inside the counter. "Charging in blindly where?"

He hurriedly set down the box and popped open the lid. "Lu Family Village Stationery Factory, delivering samples."

The auntie scraped her fingernail across the rocket's tail. "Oh, whose donkey cart printed this?" Despite her biting remark, she turned and shouted, "Old Li, come out and take a look!"

Manager Li adjusted his glasses, turning the box over and over. "A rocket printing tomatoes? Novel. Try twenty first; if they don't sell, we'll return them, but you cover the freight. Deal?"

"Deal, deal, deal!" Yuxuan nodded eagerly, handing over a cigarette box paper scrap with the village committee's phone number written on it, while muttering to himself that selling even half of them would be a stroke of pure luck.

At noon that day, he spent six cents on two meat buns to fill his stomach, clutching the remaining one yuan until it sweated, ultimately unable to bring himself to buy the eight-yuan-and-fifty-cent powdered milk.

At dawn the next day, Accountant Wang kicked open the workshop door. "Yuxuan! The department store is on the phone!"

He dropped his pliers with a loud "clank" and ran barefoot all the way to the village office.

"The twenty are all sold out! Send another three hundred, arrive by this afternoon!" Manager Li yelled from the other end. "Parents are asking if we can print 'Lu Family Village Space Tomatoes' on the boxes—figure something out, quick!"

Yuxuan froze for a moment, then leapt up and banged his head against the doorframe. "Everyone listen up—three hundred boxes, must be packed before noon!"

The workshop instantly dissolved into a frenzy: Old Wang tucked his tobacco pipe into his waistband, and the women grabbed tin plates and ropes, their hands flying so fast they seemed to blur. Yuxuan worked the punch press himself, beads of sweat dropping onto the iron plate and turning into white mist with a sizzle—nobody mentioned overtime pay, but none of them dared stop working.

By dusk, the three hundred boxes were delivered, and Manager Li slapped another red-stamped order into his hand: five hundred boxes, with a thick stack of large-denomination banknotes given as a deposit. Yuxuan's fingertips were slick with sweat—this was the first time in his life he had ever held so much money. That night when he got home, he slapped the order onto the table. "Mom, look at this!"

Su Yao was weighing Radix Isatidis, and her hand shook so much the scale weight almost dropped on her foot. Lu Zhanye narrowed his eyes at the string of zeros and grinned broadly. "Kid, you're stronger than your old man was back in the day."

Yuxuan pulled four cans of powdered milk from his canvas bag, a chubby doll printed on the sides. "First profit—Xingchen, Shihui, Suimiao, and Qingmiao get one each, and the rest is for Dad to build up his strength." Shihui carried Suimiao into the room. "Is this really sweet powdered milk?"

"Brew it up!" Before Yuxuan's voice faded, the two girls had already darted into the kitchen, pulling the bellows until it roared.

Xingchen wiped her hands and stepped closer. "Brother, let's print the tomato growth cycle on the next batch of boxes—from sprouting to fruiting, so kids don't fail to recognize the seedlings."

"Done! I'll draw it tomorrow."

Lu Zhanye tapped the wall of the tin box. "Make the tin a bit thicker next time so it doesn't cut hands."

"Will do! Even if it costs more."

Su Yao chimed in, "Why not apply for a trademark? 'Space Kid'—sounds festive."

Yuxuan scratched the paper with a pencil stub. "We can also make tomato-shaped erasers and greenhouse notebooks, and bundle them into a set!"

Erzhuzi walked in shortly after. "Save ten for me, my boy's been nagging for one."

At the dinner table, Yuxuan focused on shoveling rice into his mouth, barely touching any side dishes. "Mom, once we save enough money, let's expand the workshop so all the women in the village can come work here instead of crouching in the fields picking cotton bolls in the dead of winter."

Lu Zhanye put down his bowl. "Talk to the Party secretary first and get your paperwork in order before you start bragging."

Yuxuan murmured assent, his mental abacus already calculating down to every primary school in the county—so that whenever the children pulled out their pencil boxes, they would catch sight of their village's crooked rocket and red tomatoes.

Outside the window, the moon hung over the treetops, and scraps of scrap tin piled up like a small mountain in the corner of the yard. Yuxuan lay down with the order form as a pillow, the clanking of the machinery echoing in his mind—noisy, yet reassuring. He had to wake up early tomorrow; turning over, he tucked the blueprints against his chest and drifted into a deep sleep.