Chapter 37: Transmigrating Again?

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...Human beings are truly the most complicated creatures. During the long years of resistance against the Japanese, I saw many soldiers fight bravely in one battle, even going willingly to their deaths.

Yet after surviving by sheer luck, recovering from their wounds, and returning to their units, they would grow timid and cowardly again when ordered back to the front. Some even wanted to desert.

Whenever I encountered such a situation, I never punished them too harshly.

Because when I traveled through time for the second time, I had experienced those same complicated emotions. But once I was truly placed in the trenches, and my brothers-in-arms fell one after another beside me, I recovered quickly...

...Excerpted from Hu Biao's collected diaries, Nonsense...

Time passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, Hu Biao's street stall had been operating for twenty-five days. During that period, the young man who had once completely given up on life had changed considerably.

For example, every morning he ran nearly ten kilometers, half of it as a weighted cross-country run. By the time he finished, he was no longer gasping for breath.

After returning to his rented room and putting his things down, he could still do fifty push-ups and a hundred sit-ups.

Some faint muscle had begun to show on his arms and lower abdomen.

Now that his finances had improved, he had finally stopped using laundry detergent to bathe. Instead, he used Bee Flower shampoo and Magic City sulfur soap. These domestic products were somewhat unfashionable, but they worked unbelievably well.

But the greatest change was in the state of his little stall.

It was not that business had deteriorated with time. On the contrary, it had become almost frighteningly good.

That morning, after waking up, Hu Biao loaded at least three times as many ingredients onto his tricycle as he had on his first day of business. Yet he did not hang several simple folding tables on the vehicle as he had at the beginning.

Instead, he hung one stack of tall plastic stools and another stack of short plastic stools on either side.

Why? Because those few tables were nowhere near enough for the huge number of customers. It was better to let people use the tall stools as tables and sit on the short ones while eating their noodles.

Even under such miserable dining conditions, his customers seemed to have no complaints.

If they were even slightly slow, they often could not claim one of those makeshift tables consisting of a tall stool and a short stool. They had no choice but to eat standing up or take their food away.

Just as Hu Biao was pedaling his tricycle out to begin business, he ran into the landlord returning home.

The old man, who was around sixty-seven or sixty-eight, immediately greeted him with a smile. “Heading out to set up your stall again, Biao?”

To be honest, the landlord was a decent man. Seeing how disciplined Hu Biao was about setting up his stall and exercising every day—and, most importantly, how well his business was doing—he had even decided to introduce his niece to him.

His niece was three years older than Hu Biao, had been divorced twice, and had a child. Her looks and figure were also somewhat difficult to describe.

Although Hu Biao declined, he still appreciated the landlord's kindness.

Come on! What kind of era was this? Apart from those fellows who had firmly decided never to look for a partner, anyone else who managed to find a living, breathing female girlfriend could already consider it a remarkable achievement.

The only problem was that the old landlord always liked to call him “Biao.”

Every time Hu Biao heard it, he could not help thinking of an unfortunate word.

When he arrived at the spot, just as expected, more than twenty familiar—or entirely unfamiliar—customers were already waiting in line.

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Meanwhile, several mobile stalls had already begun operating on both sides of his location.

There was nothing to be done about it. Hu Biao's stall was simply too popular. Many customers who were too lazy to wait in line, or who had failed to get food from him, would conveniently eat at those other stalls instead.

After exchanging cheerful greetings with the other vendors and customers, Hu Biao stopped his vehicle and set down the stools.

He washed his hands carefully and got to work. He had no intention of arranging the stools himself. A qualified customer would take a stool and find a place to set it up.

Looking at the schoolgirl at the front of the line, he said, “Another roujiamo, no chili, right?”

“Yes. But today I want lean meat only. The fatty meat tastes good, but after eating it for half a month, I've gained two pounds.”

The girl wore a troubled expression as she complained, but she did not forget to take out her phone and scan the payment code for eleven yuan.

There was no mistake. Whenever Hu Biao sold food to students, he charged one yuan less, whether they were buying oil-splashed noodles or roujiamo.

It was simply his small way of caring for the next generation.

Hu Biao had originally thought that today would once again be an ordinary day in which he made a modest profit of seventeen or eighteen hundred yuan.

But shortly after eight that evening, right when business was at its busiest, someone suddenly shouted, “Bad news! The city enforcement officers are here!”

At once, the many vendors in the alley began rapidly moving their mobile stalls.

The ten-yuan daily sanitation fee they paid did not protect them from having their vehicles confiscated and being fined if they were caught by the city enforcement officers.

Hu Biao sprang into action. He abandoned even the stools and instinctively pedaled his tricycle away.

The difference was that dozens of people were running behind his pedal tricycle.

As they ran, several of them shouted:

“Boss Hu, will you come back after the officers leave? If you are coming back, I'll keep waiting here!”

“Boss Hu, say where you're moving to! I'll take a shortcut and meet you there!”

Thus, among all the fleeing vendors, Hu Biao's tricycle stood out like a firefly in the darkness—or a rat dropping in a bowl of rice.

The captain of the enforcement team on duty that day saw this and immediately cursed at his fellow officers.

“That arrogant bastard! Chase him down. We absolutely have to catch that kid!”

Two hours later, Hu Biao stared at the notice in his hand. It stated that he would have to pay two thousand yuan before he could redeem his tricycle.

Feeling somewhat helpless, he thought that continuing to run a street stall was not a long-term solution. It seemed he should find a proper storefront and open a shop.

*******

After persevering for some time, Hu Biao now possessed considerable initiative and execution. He was no longer trapped in the endless cycle of putting things off until tomorrow.

The very next morning, he found a suitable storefront.

Behind the place where he set up his stall was a row of shops, and one of them had been displaying a sign reading “Prosperous Shop for Sublease” for quite some time.

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The shop had originally sold braised chicken with rice, but for some unknown reason, the business had gone under after operating for only a little more than a month. The kitchen equipment, tables, and chairs were being transferred along with the lease. Not only were they all usable, but they were also ninety percent new.

The interior decoration was perfectly serviceable as well. Hu Biao would not even need to change it before opening for business.

The original owner was eager to transfer the shop, so with both sides willing, the sublease was settled very quickly.

Before Hu Biao could officially open, however, he still had several important matters to handle:

He needed to apply for a sole proprietorship business license, a health certificate, and various permits.

Since Hu Biao spent eight hundred yuan to hire a company specializing in handling such procedures, none of this proved troublesome. Everything would probably be completed within three to five days.

The only minor complication was that he needed to choose a name for the shop when applying for the business license.

When the young woman handling the paperwork asked him about it, a name suddenly appeared in Hu Biao's mind. Without much thought, he said, “Let's call it Moonlit Pavilion.”

What was this guy thinking? The name of a small noodle shop sounded just like that of some grand restaurant.

The clerk silently mocked him inwardly, but aloud she simply replied, “All right.”

After leaving the agency, Hu Biao found an advertising company to make a new sign.

It was the simplest and cheapest kind: a printed vinyl banner pasted over the old braised-chicken-and-rice sign.

Thus, the following morning, employees from the advertising company arrived and installed it with ease.

That very evening, a woman whose appearance was virtually identical to that of Anne from the Songhu battlefield happened to drive past his shop.

Two cars ahead of her had been involved in a minor collision, leaving the woman—who was also named Anne—stuck there in traffic.

Bored and annoyed, Anne gazed toward the roadside. When she saw the brand-new Moonlit Pavilion sign, her eyes lit up.

It seemed that the sign alone held an extraordinary allure for her.

Although Anne usually dined at upscale hotels—not exclusively, perhaps, but she virtually never visited places like this humble little eatery—a thought suddenly arose in her mind, growing stronger and stronger by the second.

“In a few days, I absolutely have to find time to come here for a meal.”

Hu Biao naturally knew nothing about this.

Even if he had known that such a familiar-looking, beautiful young woman intended to visit his little shop, he probably would not have thought much of it.

At present, he had a far more urgent matter to deal with—something that required his immediate attention.

It was all because, at a certain moment, an inexplicable intuition suddenly surfaced in his heart:

Tonight, he would once again be transported to the battlefield of the War of Resistance Against Japan...

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