DBTHDCAR Chapter 6

Translator: dapotaturs
Release Date: 03/18/2024
Edited Date: 06/25/2025
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Ning Xiaobei woke up, pleasantly surprised to find himself still in the year 1996.

It seemed that sleep didn’t trigger the transition between the two worlds; the sleeping pills for “that world” turned out to be a wasted purchase.

After spending two days in the hospital and undergoing a comprehensive medical exam, the doctor confirmed that Ning Xiaobei had fully recovered his health and finally approved his discharge.

During those two days, Xiaobei had completely adapted to his identity as a primary school student and gradually began to remember the names of his long-lost neighbors and classmates.

He faintly felt like he was now a 30-year-old old ghost hiding in the body of a child. A strange sense of delight stirred in his heart.

He began to understand the mentality of those old folks in future internet novels who underwent “rebirth through possession”; the feeling of controlling the future direction of the world was simply too good.

“Dad, aren’t we going home?” Sitting on the top bar of the black-framed “28-style” bicycle, Xiaobei looked up at Ning Jianguo’s stubbled chin and curiously asked.

“Let’s eat first, and then we’ll go home. I’ll take you to have a good meal first to dispel any bad luck.” Ning Jianguo had both hands on the handlebars, happily bumping his son’s head with his chin.

“Today, let’s splurge a bit and go to Small Shaoxing for San Huang Chicken. Your grandma already took the bus there herself. After we finish the meal, we’ll take Grandma back home, and then I’ll take you to the factory to take a refreshing hot bath.”

Stone-gate old houses¹石库门 shíkùmén (stone gate buildings): A traditional Shanghai architectural style of residential housing, combining Western and Chinese elements. didn’t have bathrooms, so when the Ning family needed to bathe, they would heat water and pour it into a large wooden tub. Then they would close the doors and windows between the front and back rooms and bathe in the living room. The old house was made of wood and was drafty, making it easy to catch a cold.

Fortunately, the shoe factory where Ning Jianguo worked had a large bathhouse, so both Xiaobei and Grandma Ning could enjoy the benefits provided to employees’ families and take a bath there.

In the summer, things were much simpler.

Like all the men in the alley, father and son stood at the doorway in their shorts. They would lather soap on their heads and bodies to create foam, then rinse each other off with a hose, considering their bath done.

On hot evenings, this scene played out in every alley in Shanghai. Men bathed on their own, paying no mind to neighbors passing by, whether they were young girls or old ladies, who were accustomed to such sights and didn’t spare them a glance.

“The doctor said you can’t catch a chill with your condition. Starting today, Dad will take you to the factory to bathe every day. We won’t be taking cold showers anymore.”

After dinner, Ning Jianguo placed the towels and soap needed for bathing in the basket of the bicycle and pedaled toward the shoe factory with Ning Xiaobei.

This time, Ning Xiaobei couldn’t sit on the top bar and had to sit on the rear rack of the bike instead.

The ride back from the hospital had nearly split his backside in four. It was pure torture. He couldn’t believe how he’d managed that as a kid.

The Traffic Law stipulated that one had to be at least twelve years old to ride a bicycle alone, so Ning Xiaobei decided that once he turned twelve next year, he would pester his dad to buy him a {Phoenix} brand bike and finally escape from this suffering.

Ning Jianguo pedaled the bike wheels swiftly, while Ning Xiaobei felt the cool evening breeze brushing past his ears, making him squint with pleasure.

“Hold on tight, we’re going downhill!”

To reach the Third Shoe Factory from Jiande Lane, they had to cross the Suzhou River, which meant going over a bridge. Every time Ning Xiaobei went to the factory as a child, the most enjoyable part was this section of the journey—the descent from the bridge.

As they passed the central part of the bridge, Ning Jianguo, like the others descending from the bridge, lightly hooked his foot on the pedal, allowing the momentum to swiftly carry the bicycle wheels downwards.

Ning Xiaobei clung tightly to Ning Jianguo, feeling as though he had sprouted wings under his armpits and was about to take flight.

“Having fun, huh?”

Feeling the warmth of his son’s body behind him, sticking to his back like a little heater, Ning Jianguo wiped away a bead of sweat with the back of his hand and asked cheerfully.

“Very much! Let’s do it again on the way back home.”

The long-lost simple joy made Ning Xiaobei’s mood soar, more so than signing ten big contracts could ever do.

After crossing the bridge and turning left, they rode down a street and arrived at the Third Shoe Factory where Ning Jianguo worked.

This was an industrial district. Next to the shoe factory was a clothing and hat factory, and across the river were wool and cotton textile mills, all built along the Suzhou River. The clothing factories operated in three shifts, and it was currently the shift change period in the afternoon. Groups of stylish young male and female workers walked past the front of the factory.

In those passionate times, young workers were the vanguard of the era.

“Engineer Ning²“Ning Gong” would mean “Worker Ning”. In Chinese culture, it’s common to use “工” (gong) after someone’s name as a suffix to denote their profession or occupation. Engineer was used to specify Ning Jianguo’s profession instead of Worker., is your son feeling better?”

“Xiaobei, it’s been a long time. Call me Uncle.”

As soon as they entered the factory gates, Ning Jianguo’s colleagues crowded around. Before Ning Xiaobei started primary school, he had stayed in the factory’s daycare and was often brought into the workshop by Ning Jianguo to play, so most people here knew him.

Ning Xiaobei hopped off the bike, holding Ning Jianguo’s hand, obediently addressing the people.

He called out “Uncle,” “Auntie,” “Big Brother,” and “Big Sister” without the slightest hesitation. His voice was still high-pitched from not hitting puberty yet, and with his pale face, post-illness frailty, and the tape still on his hand from the IV drip, he looked so pitiful and well-behaved that it tugged at everyone’s heartstrings.

A few of the female workers with children immediately went into maternal mode, hugging him and rubbing his head, stuffing candy and cookies into his hands.

“Auntie, IV drips don’t hurt, really. It’s okay even if Dad didn’t stay with me—the nurses were there to take care of me.”

Ning Xiaobei blinked and said.

“Xiaobei is such a good child. If my little brat at home could be half as obedient as Xiaobei, I would die content.”

One of the parents said through gritted teeth.

After saying goodbye to everyone, Ning Jianguo carried the washbasin in one hand and held his son’s hand in the other as they headed toward the bathhouse next to the boiler room. He looked down and asked. “Xiaobei, why were you so obedient today? You didn’t even need Dad to remind you before calling people.”

His son had always been reserved and shy since childhood, and he was most afraid of being bombarded with questions by adults. Today’s unusually confident behavior caught him off guard.

“I…”

Ning Xiaobei, who was busy munching on animal crackers with his head down, suddenly broke into a cold sweat.

Oh no!

With a mature personality formed over thirty years, Xiaobei’s mental age was technically older than his father’s. Years of being battered by society had molded him into someone who knew exactly how to navigate adult interactions.

Just now, he had behaved too maturely, only focusing on recognizing people, completely forgetting that he used to be a shy child who overwhelmed people with his introversion.

Faced with his father’s question, Ning Xiaobei was tongue-tied and couldn’t come up with an answer for a long time.

“They say children become more sensible after experiencing a serious illness, and it seems like it’s true.”

Without waiting for Ning Xiaobei to come up with an excuse, Ning Jianguo had already found a reason himself.

He patted Ning Xiaobei’s head and sighed, “But Dad would rather you be immature than have another serious illness.”

“Dad…”

Ning Xiaobei’s nose tingled, feeling the urge to cry again.

Maybe it was because his body had become smaller—no matter how mature his mind was, his tear ducts were completely out of control. Every little emotion stirred tears, which was pretty embarrassing.

“Engineer Ning, Engineer Ning is here.”

As the father and son walked through the central garden of the factory, a figure suddenly darted out and blocked their path.

“Isn’t this Old Ma? Do you need something from me?”

The garden was dimly lit, with dense shadows from the trees. Ning Jianguo stared for a moment before recognizing the person as their former colleague, Ma Zhiguo, from the same workshop.

“Hello, Uncle Ma.”

Not only did Ning Jianguo recognize him, but Ning Xiaobei also did.

Seeing the man in front of him, wearing a gaudy floral shirt, hair slicked back, and slightly hunched back, a surge of inexplicable anger rose in Ning Xiaobei’s chest.

Truly, enemies meet on a narrow road.

Ning Xiaobei doesn’t have many particularly vivid memories from his elementary school days, but this Old Ma in front of him is an exception.

Despite being only in his forties now, Ma Zhiguo had already been on extended medical leave from the factory for seven or eight years.

In 1988, when Ning Xiaobei was only three years old, a major hepatitis outbreak swept through Shanghai, affecting nearly 300,000 people.

To keep his son safe, Ning Jianguo had sent him back to Grandma Ning’s family in Suzhou for a few months until the situation settled.

Ma Zhiguo had caught hepatitis A from eating contaminated shellfish during that time, and ever since, he had milked his ‘sick leave’ status, never returning to work but still collecting a salary.

In “that world,” Ning Xiaobei didn’t learn the truth until the shoe factory closed and restructured. It turned out Old Ma’s illness had long since been cured. In the early 1990s, when the trend of starting private businesses was rising, Ma also started his own business, jumped into private seafood trading and made a small fortune. While being a “10,000 yuan household³“万元户” – a wealthy family in 1980s-90s China, having 10,000 yuan in savings was a symbol of success,” he continued to enjoy the benefits of a state-owned enterprise worker, having the best of both worlds.

But whether he got rich or not had nothing to do with Ning Xiaobei. The reason why he was so deeply affected by this Old Ma was because he snatched the welfare housing that originally belonged to the Ning family!

You see, in the 1990s, the housing space per person in Shanghai was only a few square meters. A family of three like the Nings having even half a small building was extremely rare.

More common were cramped, shell-like homes where five to eight people lived in 10-square-meter stone-gate houses. It was just like the comic play 《Seventy Two Tenants》, where three generations of people ate, drank, and lived together in one small house.

So at this time, relying on the power of the labor union, Shanghai built many workers’ new villages to solve the housing problem, funded by the state and factories. Working in a state-owned factory at the time, the biggest benefit was being a formal employee with a position, which meant you could be allocated a house.

As the saying goes,  ⟬Too many monks, too little porridge ⟭ , with so many people in the factory living in poor conditions, how to allocate housing was a big issue.

But no matter what, someone like Ning Jianguo nearly forty, with elderly parent and a young child to take care of, he was surely on the shortlist for allocation.

Moreover, Ning Jianguo had always been ambitious when he was younger, winning several awards for technical excellence, and even obtaining a qualification certificate as a senior engineer last year. So now, coming in and out, his colleagues no longer called him “Little Ning,” but changed to calling him “Engineer Ning.”

In this factory, all the professionals, except for Ning Jianguo, had already been allocated housing.

Ning Xiaobei did a quick calculation and according to the timeline in “that world,” wasn’t this year the last year the factory allocated welfare housing?

It was this very man—Ma Zhiguo, along with his wife and children—who, in “that world”, brought gifts to their home, played the sympathy card, and convinced his dad to give up his spot. His father had said, “I’m still young. I can wait.”

Who could’ve known the factory would go bankrupt the following year? There was no chance to wait.

Thinking of this, Ning Xiaobei suddenly had an idea—

Yes! He wanted to change his dad’s fate, so he would start with this surname Ma!

“Xiaobei is really sensible.”

Oblivious to Ning Xiaobei’s thoughts, Ma Zhiguo smiled at him and pulled out a cigarette to offer Ning Jianguo, who declined with a wave.

“Engineer Ning, I feel a bit awkward to say this, but I was wondering when you might be available. My wife and I are planning to visit your home…”

Just as expected! He really was here for that.

Seeing Old Ma approaching to chat with Dad, Ning Xiaobei decided to take the initiative. He grabbed his arm tightly and said to Ning Jianguo.

“Dad, let’s hurry and shower! I’m so itchy, my whole body itches…”

Unable to bathe in the ward before, Ning Jianguo could only wipe him with a hot towel. Ning Xiaobei felt that the more he scratched, the itchier he got. He wished he could jump into the hot water right now and have a good scrub.

“Don’t scratch, don’t scratch, you’ll break your skin. Alright, alright, let’s go take a bath now.”

Ning Jianguo gave Old Ma a quick nod and grabbed his son’s arm, rushing off toward the bathhouse. Ma Zhiguo, still holding the cigarette he hadn’t managed to give away, forced a smile and stuck it in his own mouth.

“What a pair of fools ⁴“寿头棺材” (shòu tóu guān cái) literally translates to “longevity head coffin.” It is used to imply that someone’s actions or behaviors are so foolish or nonsensical that they might as well be preparing their own coffin. It’s a Shanghainese insult meaning “idiots” or “fools”, just wait and see.”

Seeing the father and son walking away, he turned around, bent down, and pulled out two red gift boxes from the bushes.

A bottle of “Guan Sheng Yuan” Royal Jelly and a set of “Nestlé” Coffee and Creamer set, which was still considered a luxury in this era. These were the standard gifts for pulling strings and asking favors in the ’90s.

Carrying the gift boxes, Old Ma hummed an off-key Huju⁵Huju (沪剧) – local opera genre originating from Shanghai. tune and strolled slowly toward the factory’s office building.

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Author’s Note:

“寿头棺材” (Shòutóu guāncai), Shanghainese dialect: means “idiot” or “fool.” Literally “longevity-head coffin,” a slang insult. We should strongly opposed to the bad culture of gift-giving!

• 1
  石库门 shíkùmén (stone gate buildings): A traditional Shanghai architectural style of residential housing, combining Western and Chinese elements.
• 2
  “Ning Gong” would mean “Worker Ning”. In Chinese culture, it’s common to use “工” (gong) after someone’s name as a suffix to denote their profession or occupation. Engineer was used to specify Ning Jianguo’s profession instead of Worker.
• 3
  “万元户” – a wealthy family in 1980s-90s China, having 10,000 yuan in savings was a symbol of success
• 4
  “寿头棺材” (shòu tóu guān cái) literally translates to “longevity head coffin.” It is used to imply that someone’s actions or behaviors are so foolish or nonsensical that they might as well be preparing their own coffin. It’s a Shanghainese insult meaning “idiots” or “fools”
• 5
  Huju (沪剧) – local opera genre originating from Shanghai.