Chapter Two: Formalities

"Yan Cheng, your home is near Coal Mountain Park, right?"

Seeing Li Yancheng back, Zhou Guotao closed the book in his hands and struck up a conversation with him.

"Yes, on Coal Mountain East Lane."

When the farm work had just eased up, the clinic had been busy for a while. Villagers from the surrounding settlements near Mulin Town would come to have the ailments they had let build up over several months looked at, asking the doctor to prescribe some painkillers and the like.

But it was only busy for that brief stretch. Unless the pain was truly unbearable, no one wanted to make a trip to the hospital for no reason.

For those sent down to provide medical aid, coming here was basically the same as paid leave, except that getting home was inconvenient.

If one wanted to go home for a visit, one had to get up at four in the morning, and even then one still had to check ahead of time whether there was a tractor, or a donkey cart or horse cart, heading to the county seat.

From Mulin Town to Yishun County it was a little over twenty kilometers. If he wanted to return to the city in Beijing, he would have to make it to the county seat before 8:30 in the morning, because that was when there was a bus bound for the city. Miss that departure, and he would not be able to leave today. There was only that one run each day, with a return trip from the city after three in the afternoon.

It was all terribly inconvenient.

"I heard our hospital has already submitted a report to the district, applying to build staff housing. I just don’t know how many buildings they’ll let us put up."

Taking the cigarette Zhou Guotao handed him, Li Yancheng struck a match and lit it before saying, "There’s no land left near our hospital. Even if they build it, it’ll probably be far away, and someone like me, who’s only been here two years, may not even get a unit."

The First Hospital had only been established in the thirteenth year after the founding of the country. With medical staff and employees combined, there were a little over a hundred people. At present, let alone staff housing, there wasn’t even a single two-story building in the entire hospital; everything on the grounds was still single-story.

Li Yancheng held no expectations at all about whether staff housing would be built. Just as he said, even if it were built, it might not be assigned to him.

Besides, the design of apartment buildings in this era was only so-so. The reason ordinary people wanted to move into staff housing was mainly because it was fashionable and more convenient than living in crowded courtyard compounds. At the very least, in the morning they wouldn’t have to line up for the toilet with everyone else from the same alley, and running water could be brought into the home, so there was no need to fight with others for it. In winter, they also would not have to worry about the pipes freezing.

And if the work unit was a little better, it might even provide heating. If that were the case, winter would be far easier to bear.

"Doesn’t matter how far it is. As long as they build it, that’ll be enough." Zhou Guotao was full of hope for the hospital’s staff housing project.

His family was large: he had his wife and four children, six people squeezed into less than twenty square meters, making even the simplest things inconvenient. Of course he hoped to move into a bigger place.

Li Yancheng was different. The house he lived in had been left to him by the old man who had adopted him: the main building of a second-courtyard siheyuan, about forty square meters. The side room beside it also belonged to him, and for now it was used for storing miscellaneous things.

With one large room and one small room, he lived there alone. Even if the hospital later built staff housing, he would still qualify to be assigned a unit, but the hospital certainly would not give one to him, because housing was now being allocated first to those who had no home, or whose living space was especially tight.

"Oh, by the way, Yan Cheng, let me ask you something. Don’t take it the wrong way, all right?"

"No problem, Brother Zhou. Ask away." Li Yancheng shook his head casually. He could roughly guess what Zhou Guotao wanted to ask; if nothing unexpected had happened, it should be about the former wife who had run off.

"That... well, your wife for the sake of argument—since she’s already run off, did you go to the neighborhood office and handle the divorce paperwork?"

Sure enough, it was about her.

The question made Li Yancheng freeze slightly. He hurried to search through the memories in his head, and only then realized, well, this fellow had never even gone to file the divorce papers.

Good thing he had been reminded. Otherwise, this could have become a real pitfall. If someone brought it up later to make trouble for him, saying he had never intended to cut ties with that woman, then by that time even the neighborhood office director, who had already been removed from his post, probably would not be able to explain things for him anymore.

"Thank you, Brother Zhou. If you hadn’t said anything, I would have forgotten all about it. When I go back next month, I’ll handle the paperwork at the neighborhood office."

Li Yancheng thanked him with evident gratitude. This reminder might really have saved his life.

Zhou Guotao waved a hand with a smile. "Hey, no need to thank me. Actually, it wasn’t even something I thought of myself. Your sister-in-law works at the residents’ committee in our neighborhood, and she was the one who told me when I got home that day.

"Your former wife’s family problem is their family problem; it had nothing to do with you in the first place. Since they’ve already run off, you need to cut things off cleanly and not leave anything tangled up, or someday someone will remember and dig up the old score again."

"Yes, yes, yes, Sister-in-law is absolutely right. I really hadn’t thought it through properly before. I was only thinking that once they investigated things clearly, the matter would be over, and I never even considered that there were still formal procedures to handle."

The more he thought about it, the more frightened he became. Li Yancheng felt he could hardly sit still anymore; right now, he only wanted to go back and settle the matter completely, to avoid leaving trouble for the future.

Zhou Guotao saw what he was thinking and said with a smile, "That won’t do today. Later, go ask Director Liu at the clinic to lend you his bicycle. Tomorrow early in the morning, go to the county seat, catch the bus back to the city, and get the paperwork done."

"All right!"

It really had to be handled as soon as possible. If it weren’t for the distance being so great, Li Yancheng would have rushed back already.

"Oh, and Yan Cheng, how’s that neighborhood office director who introduced the match for you doing now?"

"He’s already been removed from his post."

Seeing Zhou Guotao ask about something else, Li Yancheng gathered himself and answered.

He had no experience at all with how to survive in this era. Whatever he did, he would have to be cautious and meticulous, lest one wrong step send him plummeting off a sheer cliff.

"Director Fang was too deeply entangled with the Chen family. When the Chen family left, even the introduction letters they carried had been issued by him."

At this, Li Yancheng sighed. "Sigh, actually, Director Fang had been kept in the dark too. The Chen family must have planned to leave long before; otherwise, they could never have cleared out their home so thoroughly in one go.

"Having Director Fang introduce a match for their daughter was probably just their delaying tactic, and I only happened to run into it."

"Sigh, in such a chaotic environment, it’s always best to be careful no matter what you do."

The importance of restraint and caution ran deep in both their hearts, so they did not continue the topic in depth; they only touched on it lightly and let it go.

The two of them chatted idly like that until it was time to go to the clinic canteen to get lunch. Along the way, two villagers from nearby settlements also came for treatment.

Only after they had collected their meal and returned to the dormitory where the two of them were temporarily staying, sitting down to eat, did Zhou Guotao finally ask the question that had just occurred to him.