Chapter 8383
It was the first time for Grandpa Jiang to experience the feeling of taking a bath in a bathhouse. All the old dirt on his body was rubbed off by Jiang Baitong and King Kong. He felt as if he had lost ten pounds and felt relaxed all over.
The same thing happened to Jiang Bai. There was a bathhouse in Shuibu Town, but Jiang Bai had never been there. Tong Jingang, on the other hand, often went there to take a bath. Seeing that Jiang Bai's grandfather was not familiar with the bathhouse, he took two people with him. The two of them made Grandpa Jiang lie on the warm leather bed and rubbed his whole body. Grandpa Jiang was thin, with not much meat on his body, just skin. Tong Jingang was scared when he rubbed Grandpa Jiang's back.
Then the two people rub each other.
Jiang Bai's skin is whiter than his face. Tong Jingang is obviously a city kid and Jiang Bai is a country kid, but Tong Jingang plays basketball and once he gets tanned, he can't get white again. Jiang Bai used to swim in the river outdoors when he was a child. He got tanned for a summer and covered himself in a winter, but his skin turned white again.
Jiang Bai is white, thin and tall, while Tong Jingang is black, thick and strong. The two of them lie on the black leather bed and rub against each other, forming a sharp contrast.
Because of his white skin, Tong Jingang was also very strong. He turned his skin red after rubbing it with the bath towel. Seeing this, Tong Jingang screamed: "Oh my god, your skin is too tender! I haven't even used any strength yet!"
Jiang Bai also shouted: "Can you be a little gentler? Do you think you are removing the hair from a pig?"
Maybe it was because he had money that gave him confidence and he could have enough food and clothes, Jiang Bai was obviously much more lively than before, which made Grandpa Jiang laugh a lot.
Jiang Ning also washed thoroughly from head to toe. When their hair was dry, they came out feeling refreshed and relaxed.
It was still early and the school gate had not yet been closed. He and Jiang Bai had been busy selling clothes to make money this year and had not had a good time. Tong Jingang suggested going to the ice rink to skate.
The skating rink and the dance hall are the favorite places for young people in the city nowadays, but the dance hall is more for adults, while the skating rink is a place that children also like to go.
Jiang Bai has always been law-abiding and never does anything out of line. He also doesn't like going to those messy places and is even more unwilling to take his sister to such places. Tong Jingang then suggested going to the movies.
"I just came back from watching a movie and wanted to have dinner. There is a roast duck restaurant next to the cinema. The roast duck is so delicious. I can buy one and eat it with Grandpa Jiang!"
Tong Jingang thought that Jiang Bai, his friend from the countryside, had never seen a movie, and wanted to take him to the cinema to see the world. In fact, Jiangjia Village had its own cinema, and during the Chinese New Year, the cinema in Jiangjia Village had shown "The East is Red" and "Mom, Love Me Again".
Although Jiang Bai and Jiang Ning had never been to the village cinema to watch movies because they had no money to buy tickets, they had watched many free open-air movies. When they were young, they often went to the cinema to play because the owner of the cinema was their uncle from the third room.
The most popular movie in cinemas right now is the recently released "Young and Dangerous", starring Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan and others. After watching the movie, Tong Jingang was still immersed in the brotherhood between Chen Haonan and Shan Ji. He hooked his arm around Jiang Bo's neck with boiling blood, feeling that the brotherhood between him and Jiang Bo was the same as that between Chen Haonan and Shan Ji.
He was very playful, and after watching the movie, he couldn't help wanting to go to the skating rink. He hooked his arm around Jiang Bai's neck and acted coquettishly: "Go, go, go, Baizi, Baizi, Baizi, just accompany your brother to play for a while~"
Jiang Ning couldn't stand the coquetry of a tough guy like Tong Jingang, but Jiang Bai resisted his coquetry attack calmly, opened his hand and said, "If you want to go, go by yourself."
"Hey, what's the point of me going alone if you don't go?" Tong Jingang followed Jiang Bai closely.
Jiang Bai walked straight to the roast duck restaurant.
It was Tong Jingang who bought it last time. Friends should always be reciprocal. In the past, he had no money and always took advantage of the food that Tong Jingang brought him. Now that he has money, he doesn't let Tong Jingang buy anything.
It was probably Chinese New Year and everyone was willing to spend money on food. There was a queue in front of the roast duck restaurant. There were many food stalls around, stretching from the square next to the cinema to both sides of the road in front of the cinema. There were stalls selling toys, balloons, goldfish and rabbits. It was a lively scene all the way.
Tong Jingang now had money in his pocket, so he couldn't hold back and bought three skewers of authentic Xinjiang lamb. The lamb skewers were very big, and were strung on iron skewers and roasted in a fire barrel. They were sprinkled with cumin and chili powder, and were very fragrant.
You can buy five small lamb skewers on bamboo skewers for one dollar, but these large lamb skewers on iron skewers cost one dollar each. Jiang Bai, who had just come back from buying roast duck, was heartbroken. The braised pork in the cafeteria only cost eight taels of meal tickets, but a skewer of lamb costs one dollar?
But the mutton was real mutton, and it was really delicious. After Tong Jingang finished eating the mutton skewers, he wanted to eat stinky tofu. Jiang Bai just watched Tong Jingang numbly as he ate this and that. In the end, the three of them each held a candied haws and ate it.
It was probably Chinese New Year, and the food sold at these snack stalls was twice as expensive as usual. Jiang Bai took the candied haws handed over by Tong Jingang and said as he ate it, "Don't buy it for me next time. We have plenty of this stuff in the mountains, and I've been tired of it since I was a child."
A wild hawthorn tree can produce many hawthorn berries, which are too numerous to be picked. However, wild hawthorn berries are small and mostly sour. Not only people like to eat hawthorn berries, but insects also like to eat them. Therefore, wild hawthorn berries are prone to infestation by insects. Often, when you take a bite, you will find that the berries are full of insects.
However, there would be no problem if such fruit worms were eaten, it would just be disgusting. Jiang Bai, who was a bit of a germaphobe, had never liked eating this thing since he was a child. He handed it to Jiang Ning and asked if she wanted to eat it. Jiang Ning even had a bunch in her hand.
Tong Jingang opened his mouth and bit the candied haws in Jiang Bai's hand, biting off a piece: "Hey, this thing is just for the New Year's atmosphere, who eats this thing normally?" Tong Jingang patted Jiang Bai's boring shoulder and waved the candied haws in his hand: "Just feel the New Year's atmosphere."
At Tong Jingang's age, making friends is purely based on whether they get along well or not. He doesn't have the thoughts about life and friends that he would have after he's in his thirties or forties. At this time, he just vaguely feels that Jiang Bai lives a too self-disciplined and too hard life, so he wants to take him to eat and play something different to make him happier.
1996 was destined to be a lively year.
First, the release of "Young and Dangerous" at the beginning of the year made the movie popular all over the country and the box office continued to rise.
The release of "The Legend of Xiang Shuai" at the end of last year also made the ratings of this TV series soar. Everyone knows Chu Liuxiang, Hu Tiehua, and the king of thieves Sikong Zhaixing.
Last year, the ratings brought by the hit TV series "Justice Bao" at the Z Province TV Station were all snatched up by TV stations that bought the mainland broadcasting rights for this TV series. Station Director Li was so anxious that he had blisters on the corners of his mouth. Especially since the TV station in the neighboring province also started an entertainment variety show called "Home Alone", inviting some children to the show every week. They didn't know where they invited those little adult-like children from, but every week the audience was amused by the children's childish words and the ratings kept rising.
On the contrary, their TV station's originally high ratings are almost falling.
While Director Li urged the TV station staff to find ways to create programs to increase the ratings of the station's programs, he also urged the crew of "Judge Bao" to hurry up and shoot their own drama while the popularity of the first part of "Judge Bao" had not completely passed. If it was too late, the popularity of "Judge Bao" would have been replaced by new TV dramas. Who would still remember "Bao"?
The crew of "Justice Bao" took only two days off on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, and then hurriedly resumed the filming and production of the TV series at the urging of Director Li.
After each day’s shooting, the film will be handed over to the post-production editor for editing and dubbing.
Previously, "Justice Bao" was broadcasted with two episodes a day. The TV series is shot quickly, but the post-production editing and dubbing take time. If it is to be shot and broadcast at the same time, at least twenty episodes must be left in the front to ensure that there are no gaps in the subsequent broadcasts. Moreover, their scripts are all adapted from the plot of "The Song Dynasty", and they cannot disrupt the shooting like some crews with mature scripts. For example, in "The Legend of Zhen Huan", the scenes of the emperor and all the concubines sleeping together were shot on the same day.
In order to save money, many crews concentrate on shooting the same scenes, which can also save a lot of money on renting venues.
They haven't written the subsequent scripts yet, so they can only shoot in the order of the cases.
At that time, the famous Hengdian Film and Television City had not yet been built, and their filming location was in an ancient town not far from the provincial capital.
There are many ancient towns in Province Z, many of which are still inhabited by local aborigines. In order to shoot the second part of "Judge Bao", Director Li even contacted the local government, because a lot of extras were needed during the filming, and the local government and residents needed to cooperate with the performance.
In addition to the fixed government office scenes and Kaifeng street scenes, when it comes to the next case, they have to move to the next ancient town and go to different ancient towns to take the scenes for the next case.
It just so happened that they had more than 40 episodes of films released after the release of "Justice Bao". If they broadcast two episodes a day, it would last for more than 20 days. Then they would re-broadcast "Justice Bao" to bring back some popularity, and the second part of "Justice Bao" they shot could be released.
After all, Qin Shumin is a formal employee of the TV station and one of their own. Director Li also thought that if he could make Qin famous, after the TV series was over, she would also be popular enough to become a program host on their station and boost the ratings of other programs on their station.
Qin Shumin does not have her own show yet, so she especially cherishes this opportunity. She has to be the female lead, playing the role in her favorite book, and at the same time be a screenwriter, writing her own emotional scenes that suit her. She enjoys acting, but is too busy. Others can go back to rest after they finish acting, but she has to discuss with the chief screenwriter how to combine the emotional scenes with the detective scenes. After all, she lacks experience as a screenwriter, so she just does whatever the station needs her to do. So she takes her two interns with her and writes scripts every day, which is very stressful.
She didn't even go home on New Year's Eve, but was still writing a script in the room they rented in the small town.
Fortunately, her opponent actor was very handsome in real life. He was so handsome that he didn't need to wear any makeup at all. With his bare face and put on costume, he was a living Zhan Zhao, which made her both happy and painful.
The good thing is that it is really fun to shoot emotional scenes with handsome actors, but the painful thing is that she is responsible for thinking of the emotional plot and lines.
Director Li was afraid that there would be too few cases in the later period, so he called the publishing house and asked when the third volume of "The Great Song" would be on the market. It was too slow to just collect the content serialized in "Wuxia", so he also had to find someone to write the script for the later period in advance. Anyway, he had the original book, so he just had to write it according to the cases of "The Great Song" and add dialogues.
The first and second volumes of "The Great Song" sold very well, and the publishing house wanted to publish the third volume as soon as possible, so they called "Wuxia" magazine and asked them to increase the number of words in "The Great Song" every week. For example, if they could publish 25,000 words a week, they could publish 100,000 words a month. In one and a half months, they would have enough words to publish a book.
If they work quickly, they can get the third volume of the plan published in two months.
Little did he know that Wang Yong was also having a headache.
He clearly felt the change in social atmosphere brought about by the release of "Young and Dangerous", especially since Guangzhou itself was under construction. The entire city was changing with each passing day. The scale was bigger, the profits were more, and naturally there were more disputes. There were a lot of thieves and pickpockets at the station, and there were also biker gangs on the road who specialized in riding bicycles to snatch bags of lone people and then run away.
A few days ago, they heard about a gang fight involving hundreds of people at a construction site not far from him. It seemed that the fight was about the transportation of waste materials from the construction site.
The waste materials and transportation generated by those large projects are enough to support a transportation team. When there is cake and profit, naturally people will come to grab it.
Wang Yong was not worried about Guangzhou City, he was worried about Jiang Ning who was far away in Wucheng.
It was a deep and dark alley that he, a man, felt a little scared walking in during the day, let alone Jiang Ning, a little girl?
He was afraid that Jiang Ning would be dragged into some alley, and the more he thought about it, the more worried he became. After returning to Guangzhou for two months and getting a job, he wanted to go to Wucheng again.
He was really worried if he didn't go to accompany Jiang Ning.
He also sent an email to Jiang Ning, asking her not to go to the Internet cafe to write: "We have enough manuscripts stored here now, so you don't have to worry about missing any manuscripts. You can also write your manuscripts by hand and send them over."
The mailbox of No. 1 Middle School is right at the main gate of the school. After writing, put the letter in an envelope and then put it in the green mailbox at the main gate of the school.
After Jiang Ning rented a house, he also took the time to write the sequel to "The Great Song Dynasty".
She still chose the time period from six to eight in the morning, which is relatively safer and there are fewer people in the Internet cafe.
I don't know if it was because of the popularity of Young and Dangerous, but Wucheng already had a large number of unemployed young people who usually had nothing to do, hanging around the streets, dating, or stealing bicycles to sell. The atmosphere was not very good to begin with, and the emergence of Young and Dangerous made them suddenly envy the movie atmosphere of Young and Dangerous with its knife-wielding, killing, and brotherhood. So they also followed Young and Dangerous, forming gangs, and would gather together for group fights and slash people with knives.
It’s not so bad for students in closed-management schools like No. 1 Wuzhong Middle School, who are locked up in school every day and unable to go out, so they don’t feel the change in Wucheng’s atmosphere very obviously. But for people like Jiang Ning, who haven’t even entered school yet and have to go to the Internet cafe to type every day, the change is particularly obvious.
In addition to places like dance halls, underground casinos, and ice rinks, the most impetuous and conflict-prone places in Wucheng are Internet cafes.
Fortunately, the people who opened the Internet cafe were all young people with some influence in Wucheng. Because they took the lead in setting up the Internet cafe, they earned the first pot of gold in this hot Internet cafe industry. They also gathered some young gangsters around them. With their power, ordinary people did not dare to cause trouble in the Internet cafe they opened, so the interior of the Internet cafe was relatively stable.
But every time he entered and exited the alley of the Internet cafe, Jiang Ning could visibly find that there were more people wandering in the alley, some smoking, some watching you take out something and pee against the wall in front of you, and some young men and women kissing.
Every time she saw these people, she tried her best not to look sideways and not look at them, but Jiang Ning still noticed the way these people looked at her.
Jiang Ning saw with his own eyes that a young man who was surfing the Internet in the same Internet cafe had a steel pipe hidden in his clothes. The steel pipe was hidden in the inner pocket of his shirt, and there was a hole in the pocket that went straight from the pocket to the hem of his clothes. When he came over to surf the Internet, the hem of his clothes hit the edge of the table, making a crisp sound of "duang". Jiang Ning, who was immersed in his writing, couldn't help but look at him.
The other person was a very young boy with yellow hair, probably about seventeen or eighteen years old, with a circle of black hair just growing above his lips. When he saw her looking at him, he smiled at her rather embarrassedly, and moved the steel pipe hidden in his clothes with his hand and said, "There have been too many fights recently. I dare not go out to play without a steel pipe." He also smiled and comforted Jiang Ning, "But it's okay for you girls, they don't beat girls."
Jiang Ning: ...
Thank you, I was not comforted.
He glanced at the computer page in front of Jiang Ning. This was not the first time he saw her typing here. At first, he was just stunned by her typing speed. Later, he often saw her in the Internet cafe, mostly in the morning. At that time, he was basically still sleeping on the table after staying up all night in the Internet cafe, and then he was awakened by a familiar clicking sound. After one or two times, he remembered this girl with extremely fast typing speed.
After meeting her so many times, he has found a pattern. She comes to play computer for two hours every Saturday and Sunday morning. Now it is probably winter vacation, and he has seen her for two days in a row.
After eating braised pork, green pepper and dried tofu for half a year last year, Jiang Ning's height has obviously increased this year. At least now she no longer looks like a skinny child with no growth at all. Instead, she has grown taller and has put some flesh on her face, looking more like a girl.
Jiang Ning knew that she was born with good looks. In order to avoid trouble, she cut her growing hair into a thick bowl-cut, like a thick watermelon rind covering her head, with thick bangs covering her eyebrows. Every time she entered and exited this long and deep alley, she wrapped half of her face in a gray scarf and wore shabby clothes.
She did not refuse to wear the "new clothes" that Jiang Ma gave her during the Chinese New Year just because she had nice clothes now. Such "new clothes" could save her from a lot of trouble.
In their family, not only are all the Jiang family members tall and strong, but her uncle's family is also tall, otherwise they would not have given birth to someone as tall as Jiang's mother, who is 167 cm tall. So when they grew up, the eldest cousin and the second cousin were also tall. The clothes they wore look very big on her now.
It just so happened that she was wearing a down jacket inside and a bulky old cotton-padded jacket outside, and a large dark gray scarf around her neck, so she would not attract anyone's attention when entering and leaving the Internet cafe.
But her eyes were bright and deep, her eyelashes were as thick and long as crow feathers, her nose was high, and her skin was snow-white. No matter how hard she tried to cover them with a scarf, her dark and bright eyes could not be hidden.
The little yellow-haired kid next to her was still talking: "Are you going home soon? Can I take you there?"
Jiang Ning glanced at him and said coldly, "No need."
The yellow-haired boy immediately explained: "I don't mean anything else, it's just that it's very chaotic outside now, I'll send you out of the alley and come back, I'm from No. 4 Middle School." He scratched his head embarrassedly: "You are also a student of a nearby school, right? Girls from No. 1 Middle School and Wu Middle School basically don't come to the Internet cafe. I guess you are from No. 2 Middle School across from us."
The fourth middle school mainly consists of art students and sports students. It does not pay much attention to study. Most of the students are day students from Wucheng. The worst ones are from the towns below. The richest people in Wucheng are not actually in Wucheng, but concentrated in the three towns below. Because there is a "dam" behind these three towns, they are collectively called the "Three Dams" by the locals. Later, they were called the "Three Bullies" somehow.
The weekend curfew at No. 4 Middle School was not strict, so he could often come to the Internet cafe to play games and surf the Internet all night on Fridays and Saturdays. Although No. 2 Middle School also paid strict attention to study, its management was looser than that of No. 1 Middle School and Wu Middle School, so he thought Jiang Ning was from No. 2 Middle School.
He saw that although this little girl came to the Internet cafe to surf the Internet, she also had the temperament of a good student. She couldn't be from Wuzhong or No. 1 Middle School, so she could only be from No. 2 Middle School across from them.
Anyway, it won't be from their No. 4 Middle School. Whether it is studying music, art, or sports, it is very expensive. Although the students from their No. 4 Middle School may not perform as well as those from No. 1 Middle School and Wuzhong, their family conditions are still good, and the girls will not wear such shabby clothes.
Jiang Ning looked at him and just smiled and nodded, confirming him: "You guessed right."
He immediately scratched his hair and smiled, showing his big white teeth: "Hehe, I knew it."
When Jiang Ning finished writing and closed all the pages to exit the computer, he also quickly turned off the computer and got up to follow him out: "Hey, wait for me, I'll take you there!" He followed Jiang Ning and said, "My name is He Qiaosheng, what's your name?" He said very familiarly: "My father's last name is He, my mother's last name is Qiao, I was born by my parents, so I'm called He Qiaosheng. Do you think my parents were perfunctory in naming me? By the way, you haven't told me your name yet!"
Jiang Ning didn't want to interact with the people of Wucheng. She might not return to Wucheng in the future, so she pulled her scarf higher to cover her nose, leaving only her eyes exposed, and said lightly, "Ma Dongmei."
"Ma Dongmei, what a nice name." He Qiaosheng followed her and entered the long, narrow, dim and damp alley. When the people in the alley saw someone coming in, they looked in their direction, especially at He Qiaosheng's flamboyant yellow hair.
He Qiaosheng was also a little nervous. He put his hands in the inner pockets of his shirt, tightly grasping the steel pipe inside. He followed Jiang Ning and whispered, "Let's go quickly." He also said, "You'd better not come to the Internet cafe alone next time. If you really want to come, just come to No. 4 Middle School to find me. You can just come to our school and find me in the music class."
He whispered, "You look like a high school student. Our security guards will definitely not be able to tell which school you are from. Just say you are from the art class or the music class and come directly to the music class of the second grade to find me. If you are not in the class, then I will practice piano in the piano room of the art building. I see that you come to surf the Internet every Saturday and Sunday morning. It happens that I also go there on Saturdays and Sundays. I will go with you then."
It was not until he walked out of the alley and reached the street opposite the No. 2 Middle School and the No. 4 Middle School that he felt a little relieved, perhaps because he had arrived at a familiar place. He no longer held the steel pipe in his pocket, but put his hands in his trouser pockets, pretending to be very cool.
No. 2 Middle School has always compared itself with No. 1 Middle School and Wu Middle School, and now the senior students have returned to school for classes.
He sent Jiang Ning to the gate of No. 2 Middle School and said to her, "Come in. Next time you go to the Internet cafe, be sure to call me from our school!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
