Chapter 341: Under the Banyan Tree
It was impossible to count on Dongfang for this kind of thing, so Okamoto had to go himself.
He first went to the General Staff’s Political Department to look for the soldier who played the erhu.
The General Staff’s Political Department had frequent dealings with Dongfang Ke and Okamoto Shin due to military songs, military music, and mass choirs, so they were old acquaintances. Hearing that they were going to set up a professional artistic group, Zhang Bolin personally inquired and instructed someone to look up the files.
Although Dongfang Ke hadn’t asked for the soldier’s name, he still remembered the location of his post and the approximate date and time. So Okamoto quickly got a definite result.
The soldier who played the erhu was named Wang Qisuo, a corporal in the Garrison Battalion. He was a Shandong immigrant who had come to Lingao during Operation Engine. He came from a military household in Dengzhou and had smuggled salt.
Although the Garrison Battalion generally only recruited “tested” naturalized citizens, the new immigrants who came to Lingao during Operation Engine obviously did not fit this rule. But Wang Qisuo’s resume was very impressive: he was saved by Lu Wenyuan when he was seriously injured and near death. After recovering, he joined the village militia. During the entire Operation Engine, he cooperated with the Shandong detachment on many combat missions, performed very well, and received meritorious service awards multiple times. He was a backbone member of the Qimu Island village militia. After Operation Engine ended, the personnel of the Qimu Island village militia underwent a major adjustment. Except for a few who remained in the team, most were transferred to Lingao, Taiwan, and Jeju Island for training. After he came to Lingao, he was assigned to the expanding Garrison Battalion.
After joining the Garrison Battalion, Wang Qisuo performed well in all aspects and soon became a corporal. But he was not particularly outstanding. The battalion commander, Li Yiyang, had some impression of him—Wang Qisuo played the erhu very well. He often played it to relieve boredom in his spare time and was considered an “artistic backbone” in the battalion.
Now Okamoto said he wanted to transfer him to the cultural troupe. Li Yiyang had no objection. Wang Qisuo was not a particularly important standard-bearer or top soldier. The Garrison Battalion wouldn’t miss him.
He then had a talk with Wang Qisuo. Wang Qisuo was a young man with regular features and spoke Mandarin passably. He was asked to play a few pieces, and his skill was indeed excellent—in the later world, he could have easily joined a municipal-level artistic group.
Hearing that he was going to the cultural troupe, Wang Qisuo blinked, seeming not to understand.
“You want me to play the fiddle for a theater troupe?”
“Not a theater troupe, a cultural troupe…” Okamoto Shin had a hard time explaining. In fact, given the content they were planning, calling it a theater troupe wasn’t wrong. He thought for a moment. “An orchestra, a musician. Do you understand?”
Wang Qisuo was reluctant. After all, in this era, being a musician was not a glorious profession. Professional musicians were either part of a theater troupe or belonged to the official “music bureau,” basically the status of a lowly person—in society, actors, pimps, and musicians were all mentioned in the same breath. He stammered that he didn’t want to be a musician and that he was “fine” in the Garrison Battalion.
Seeing that he couldn’t be persuaded for the time being, Okamoto Shin proposed to register him as “amateur personnel.” He would be temporarily seconded for performances but would normally remain in the army with his military status unchanged. Only then did Wang Qisuo agree.
It wasn’t impossible to forcibly transfer him to the cultural troupe, but a forced melon is not sweet. Besides, the old concepts accumulated over many years were not so easily eliminated. This was an important reason why he was eager to set up a professional artistic group: nothing has a stronger communication power than art, and nothing can have a huge influence on public opinion and concepts like art.
Since Lin Ming knew that there were colleagues lurking locally, he had not sent out any more secret signs. He absolutely did not want his journey to find his sister-in-law to turn into “serving the country with utmost loyalty”—in his eyes, that was a suicide mission.
But he couldn’t think of what to do next. He could only take it one step at a time and wait for his sister-in-law to contact him. With her ability, it shouldn’t be a problem for her to know where he was.
He continued to pass the days at Haixing Store, going to work and getting off work. Every few days, he would go out with Wang Xinglong for a drink and a bite to eat. Occasionally, Wang Jinchun would also go—despite being a woman, she could drink a lot. The days passed like this. In the blink of an eye, more than a month had passed. But there was still no news from his sister-in-law. Lin Ming had been in Lingao for quite some time, and he was getting anxious knowing she was here but unable to contact her.
One day after work, he took a shower, changed into wooden clogs, and slowly walked towards the alley entrance. At the intersection of several alleys stood a large banyan tree. Under the tree were stone slabs and some stone tables and chairs for people to rest. In the evening, clerks from nearby shops often gathered here to drink tea, chat, and play chess, making it a place for leisure and gathering. To relax and gather information, Lin Ming often came here to sit and chat with people.
Before he arrived, he heard the melodious sound of an erhu—for the past few days, a young man who played the erhu would come to play under the tree every evening. He didn’t talk much, played for half an hour or an hour, and then left. People said he was a new clerk from a nearby shop. Lin Ming didn’t pay much attention.
He walked around under the banyan tree. He came here often. Although he couldn’t name the people gathered under the tree, they were all familiar faces. A few old gentlemen were playing chess, some were playing cards, and the quiet ones were reading newspapers and magazines by themselves. Some were drinking tea, some were smoking, and with the melodious sound of the erhu, it was a scene of leisure, peace, and tranquility.
Lin Ming found a place and sat down. A newsboy came over to solicit business. This newsboy was rather special. He didn’t mainly “sell” but “rented.” Besides the Lingao Times, he also had various magazines published in Lingao. For a few cents, you could read as much as you wanted. It was very suitable for the consumption level of ordinary shop assistants.
Since coming here with Wang Xinglong, Lin Ming had made it a habit to rent a newspaper to read every day. He knew the importance of the Lingao Times—it was even more important than the court gazette. But as a clerk, showing too much interest in the gazette would be too conspicuous. Renting it to read seemed much more normal.
However, he soon found that he was overthinking it. The Lingao Times was widely circulated locally and had a very high penetration rate among the literate population. Even illiterate people often asked literate people to read some of the newspaper’s headlines and content. There were also such “newspaper readers” under this banyan tree.
Lin Ming took a copy of the Lingao Times. Originally, he only read the newspaper to keep track of the short-hairs’ movements, just as he read the court gazette to keep track of the court’s and officialdom’s trends. Gradually, he came to enjoy reading this newspaper. Although he was not used to the short-hairs’ writing style, the various news reports in the newspaper were much more vivid and interesting than the dry memorials and official documents in the court gazette.
From the newspaper, he learned about the Australians’ activities throughout Qiongzhou Prefecture: how many immigrants they had settled, how much wasteland they had reclaimed, which factory had started production, what new policies they were promoting… The newspaper explained everything clearly and vividly.
Reading the court gazette, of course, also told you what major events were happening in the world, but in terms of being vivid, interesting, and clear, it couldn’t compare to the newspaper. It felt as if the short-hairs ran the newspaper and wrote articles in a way that they were afraid the common people wouldn’t understand, trying their best to break things down and explain them in detail. Although it seemed trivial to Lin Ming, it gave people a sense of being there.
Lin Ming was reading an article about Sino-Japanese trade. The article took up more than half a page, starting from the trade in the Song Dynasty, all the way to the pirate Wang Zhi of this dynasty, and then to the rise of the Zheng family.
Lin Ming knew a little about the business with the Japanese. He had also heard of figures like Wang Zhi. As for Zheng Zhilong, his name was even more well-known. However, he had never seen such a detailed and comprehensive discussion of Sino-Japanese trade. In particular, the detailed description of Japanese history in the article gave him a sense of novelty. You should know that the Great Ming had never clearly understood Japan’s political system—of course, the court had never cared to know about these foreign barbarians.
Lin Ming found it novel and was reading carefully when he suddenly heard someone ask, “Do you have the last issue of Zhiyin?”
As soon as the voice entered his ears, Lin Ming couldn’t help but shudder: it was Li Yongxun’s voice! He didn’t dare to show too much surprise. He covered his face with the newspaper and carefully moved his gaze upwards. His heart was pounding wildly. It really was her!
He saw his sister-in-law wearing a Ming-style woman’s dress today, holding a bundle in her hand, looking no different from the other women here. She was talking to the newsboy and picking something from his stall. Seeing his gaze, she gave him a signal.
Lin Ming understood. He stood up, returned the newspaper to the vendor, and exchanged it for another. In the instant he returned the newspaper, he felt something being stuffed into his palm. He quickly grasped it, chose another magazine, and went back to flipping through it as if nothing had happened.
Li Yongxun bought a copy of Zhiyin and left on her own. Lin Ming carefully opened the slip of paper under the cover of the magazine. On the thin slip of paper was written only one address: Dongmen Market Cinema.
Lin Ming knew this place. It was a theater that specialized in showing Australian movies. Few people who came to Lingao had not seen an “Australian movie.” It was almost a must-do item on the “Lingao tour.” Lin Ming had also gone with Wang Xinglong—he had originally thought it was just the “pulling Australian films” that were common on the streets of Guangzhou, but he didn’t expect it to be a dark room with a large white cloth hanging inside. Just as he was puzzled, the dark room suddenly lit up. With the whistle of a steam whistle, a train appeared on the wall, puffing white steam and roaring towards him. Lin Ming screamed, rolled off the table and chairs, and scrambled to escape.
Before he had run a few steps, he was pulled back by Wang Xinglong, accompanied by a burst of laughter from the surroundings. Only then did Lin Ming realize that what he had seen was just a “movie.” The train was just a shadow on the screen.
However, the realism of this light and shadow was completely incomparable to any shadow play or “Australian film” he had ever seen—it was almost exactly like the real thing!