GCR Chapter 7

In the end, Gao Chang still sold the very fake Ming Dynasty purple clay teapot back to the Taoist master, whose authenticity was uncertain, for 25 yuan, plus eleven fake copper coins as a gift. Originally, there were supposed to be twelve, but earlier, at a shop by the intersection, one of the shop assistants miscounted and let one fake coin slip through. Don’t know if the guy would be scolded by his boss for this mistake.

After selling these items, Gao Chang wasn’t without thoughts of picking up bargains and striking it rich. There were so many things on this street that if Rhubarb taps into its powerful inherited memory to find a few hidden treasures, they would strike it rich.

But unfortunately, although Rhubarb, this guy, had a head full of memories, it couldn’t apply them flexibly, nor did it fully understand modern standards for antique appraisal. The two of them wandered around that street for half a day and finally gave up. It seemed that finding a bargain isn’t as easy as it seems after all.

He went to the train station to buy a ticket for that afternoon. Since there was still plenty of time before the train departed, Gao Chang went to a nearby KFC and bought a family bucket. This stuff is serious junk food. Gao Chang had eaten it a few times in his past life when on dates with the campus belle. After that, he remained single and only ate it once on a whim. But that time, he ate too much and upset his stomach, spending the whole night in the bathroom. After that, he never went back.

This time, he bought it just to let Rhubarb try something new. After all, those things from underground were all found by Rhubarb, so he deserves some credit. Plus, Rhubarb looks like a local rural dog, probably never had the chance to taste anything like this before. One couldn’t deny that this chain store really knows how to make junk food. The fried chicken wings were tender on the inside and crispy on the outside, with a great flavor. For those who didn’t eat this kind of food often, it was quite appealing.

“How is it? Tastes pretty good, right?” Since KFC didn’t allow pets inside, Gao Chang had no choice but to buy the food and sit outside with Rhubarb at the train station plaza to eat.

“Delicious!” Rhubarb thought it had definitely chosen the right wife. Usually, it was always the dog clan taking care of their wives; it had never heard of a wife taking care of his husband. Not only was its wife incredibly capable of making money, but he would even bring it to the big city to eat such delicious food.

“Then you should find more treasures in the future, and I’ll bring you here again next time.” Gao Chang flipped the lid off his Coke cup and tossed it into the trash bin. A grown man drinking through a straw? Even if others didn’t find it awkward, he himself felt uncomfortable.

“Mm! Leave it to me!”

Holding his Coke cup in his hand, Gao Chang glanced at the little dog beside him, who had nearly buried its head in the pile of chicken, its hind legs spread apart, looking almost like a pig eating. Gao Chang couldn’t help but sigh silently in his heart. This was the guy he would be living with for the rest of his life. Ah, how depressing the reality was.

After one man and one dog returned to the village, they continued to live their lives as before. Only Grandma Gao knew that Gao Chang had gone to the big city, sold a few ancient artifacts unearthed from the ground, and earned some money. This old lady’s love for Gao Chang was almost blind. Or rather, she blindly believed that her grandson was unique and would one day possess a brilliance beyond anyone’s imagination.

Gao Chang took Grandma Gao to the dental clinic in their town to get a set of dentures. During that time, the old lady was quite happy and had a much better appetite, and she often wanted to try some foods she hadn’t had in a long time, like melon seeds and peanuts. Every night before bed, she would carefully remove her dentures, clean them thoroughly, and soak them in a cup of water, treating them like a precious treasure.

And so, in that autumn, Grandma Gao passed away. Just like in Gao Chang’s previous life, the events unfolded exactly the same. Grandma Gao, who would get up early every day, did not get up that morning. When Gao Chang walked into her room, he found that the old lady had already passed away in her sleep, her expression very peaceful.

Gao Chang doesn’t remember how he reacted in his past life. It seemed like he was a bit dazed during those days, and his memory was quite hazy. This time, Gao Chang was more awake. He wiped the tears from his face and knocked on the door of Auntie Ah[mfn](阿, Ah) a common affectionate or familiar way to refer to someone named Shan [/mfn] Shan next door. Auntie Ah Shan and Uncle Ah Shan lived next door to Gao Chang, in the first room of the north-facing side of the Sanheyuan courtyard. Usually, she often chatted with Grandma Gao. Now that Grandma Gao had passed away, Gao Chang went to find her.

“What’s the matter? So early in the morning…” Auntie Ah Shan’s only son had already gone out to work, and with no children left at home, she had taken to waking up later in the mornings. At that moment, she stepped out to open the door, wearing a floral jacket underneath and a Dacron shirt draped over her shoulders, clearly just getting out of bed.

“My grandma passed away.” Gao Chang lowered his head. Although his grandma had already died once in his previous life, he still felt sorrow deep in his chest. He was twenty-eight now, no longer the helpless young boy who used to feel lost and uncertain about the future, but even now, he couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

“What?”

“My grandma died,” Gao Chang repeated.

“Oh no, his father[mfn](他爸, tā bà) is a way of addressing someone’s father[/mfn]! Hurry and get up, Grandma Gao has passed…” Aunt Ah Shan went into the house and exchanged a few words with her husband, then asked Gao Chang to go home and wait, while she headed to the village chief’s house.

What came next didn’t require Gao Chang to worry too much. The villagers wouldn’t really let a child handle the funeral arrangements by themselves. After all, their village already had a ready-made funeral band, and they could easily bring in a master of ceremonies to oversee the arrangements. The people helping out were all the villagers from their own village. Even the expenses for the funeral would be covered by the village, as if it were a matter of course.

Of course, these people still didn’t treat Gao Chang very kindly. However, Gao Chang was no longer the seventeen-year-old version of himself anymore. After living for twenty-eight years, he had gained some understanding of the ways of the world. Although the people in this village treated him indifferently and looked down on him but they undeniably saw him as part of the village, and his family’s affairs were naturally regarded as village matters.

This realization made Gao Chang want these people to survive when the apocalypse arrived, or rather, at least help a few more live a little longer.

After Grandma Gao passed away, only Gao Chang was left in the Gao family. Although that dog clan descendant said it could transform into a human in the future, Gao Chang felt that day might not come anytime soon.

That autumn, Gao Chang began digging a tunnel in his room. The entrance was hidden beneath a cabinet in his bedroom, but the main tunnel extended into Grandma Gao’s former room. After all, not many people entered that room, so there was less concern about a collapse.

Whenever Gao Chang had free time, he would bring back a few bricks from outside. Sometimes, he picked them up from abandoned houses, and other times, he stole them from construction sites where new homes were being built. He had money, but he didn’t want to go through the trouble of transporting building materials to his home openly. After all, if his underground tunnel wasn’t secret enough, no matter how many supplies he stored inside, it would all be for nothing.

The excavated soil was scattered in the bamboo grove behind the house. Sometimes, it ended up in their vegetable garden. Anyway, the bamboo forest is so large that it’s not easy for people to notice even if a bit more soil is added.

Rhubarb also has another use, that is, it knows quite a bit about crude herbal medicine. It can treat colds, reduce fevers, relieve heatstroke, and reduce inflammation. Gao Chang grew a bit of everything, planting them next to their chicken coop. Most herbal medicines don’t smell very good, and chickens and ducks don’t like to eat them much.

He also planted a few honey locust trees, which would come in handy when all the soap and laundry detergent he hoarded are used up. He added one star anise and one cinnamon tree as well. Life will definitely be tough in the future. There would be no place to buy seasonings anymore. MSG and the like? Just forget it. But things like star anise and cinnamon, he can grow himself.

After graduating from high school, Gao Chang didn’t continue his studies. In fact, by his senior year, he had already stopped attending classes regularly. The teachers at his school were aware of his family’s circumstances, and since Gao Chang’s grades weren’t particularly outstanding, they didn’t press him too hard. As long as he sat for all his graduation exams, they didn’t interfere further. After graduation, he still received his diploma.

From then on, Gao Chang was completely reduced to a gangster in the eyes of the villagers, with no skills or education. He neither took the college entrance exam nor did he leave to apprentice or work; instead, he spent all day loitering around the village. When money was tight, he would go to the senior activity center to play mahjong and win some cash.

Sometimes Gao Chang would leave the village and go to the big city. Every time he came back, he would bring some things with him. The villagers would speculate about what Gao Chang was doing in the city. Some absurdly said he was a gigolo, going to the city to find rich older women, the kind with serious money. One ‘session’ and he could live off it for ages. Others even more absurdly said he went to the city to rob people. Nowadays, there are many rich people in the city who draped themselves in gold and silver. So they said Gao Chang was snatching gold chains and phones to resell on the black market.

Gao Chang doesn’t care what others think of him. He has always only cared about two things: cultivation and stockpiling supplies.

He was as diligent as a little mouse, and bit by bit he dug out a large basement in their house, and also laid bricks around the basement, which helped a little with reinforcement and prevented flooding. The first thing he started stockpiling was table salt, since it doesn’t spoil easily. Compared to salt, it seemed that table salt’s packaging wasn’t as easy to preserve, so Gao Chang bought a few small clay jars. When he brought the table salt home, he would open the bags one by one, pour the salt into the pots, and seal them with wax.

Things like rock sugar and honey were also stockpiled in generous amounts. The honey was bought from a beekeeper in the neighboring village, absolutely pure and additive-free. As a man, Gao Chang doesn’t actually have a strong liking for sweets. It’s just that the months he spent in the apocalypse in his past life taught him that his current aversion to sweets is simply because life is good and he lacks nothing. When the real tough times come, even a man would find it hard to resist the temptation of a single piece of rock sugar.

In the next few years, Gao Chang even started stockpiling canned food. Sometimes, when he was too lazy to cook, he and Rhubarb would just eat a few cans to get by. The villagers would say that single men just don’t know how to live properly, eating canned food all day long without fearing getting sick. As for staple foods, Gao Chang only started storing some during the last period. In the apocalypse, if he can’t find food on his own, no matter how much he hoards, he’ll still starve eventually.

Naturally, he couldn’t skip buying clothes and pants either. Shoes alone, he filled two entire wardrobes. Whenever he liked a pair of shoes, he would always bring home several pairs at once. Usually, when he returned to the village at night, everyone would already be asleep. He wouldn’t go through the village entrance but would instead take a detour to the back of the village, passing through the bamboo forest to enter his house through the back door. People believed it was haunted and avoided lingering there at night.

But Gao Chang still rarely bought anything in their town. He bought himself a diesel tricycle and would ride it around aimlessly when he had nothing to do, perfectly fitting the image of a good-for-nothing gangster. Of course, he would occasionally do some proper work; if someone from their village needed to go to the hospital, he was always willing to give them a ride, never once mentioning fare. Therefore, over the past two years, for his own convenience, Gao Changn widened the narrow path through the bamboo forest, cutting down quite a few bamboo, but no one objected.

In the blink of an eye, over nine years have passed. Gao Chang, who was once a young gangster, has been upgraded to an old gangster. At twenty-seven, he was still unmarried and unemployed, and in the eyes of the people in the village, he had become the epitome of a failure.

The honey locust and cinnamon trees that were planted back then had already grown lush and full, and even Rhubarb has grown up. Just as Grandma Gao said, after Rhubarb grew up, much of the black fur was shed, replaced by a lot of golden, long fur. However, his nose, ears, neck, and other areas still had plenty of black fur. The color of his coat wasn’t sharply divided; dark gold and black were naturally intermingled, with some areas more golden and others more heavily black.

A few years back, when owning dogs became trendy in town, a local businessman who was doing business outside the town took a liking to Rhubarb and wanted to buy it for a high price. But of course, Gao Chang couldn’t agree. Rhubarb wasn’t really his pet. It was a descendant of the Inugami, and they were even a married couple. No matter how bold Gao Chang was, he never thought of experiencing the power of the Inugami’s curse.

Rhubarb never barks, but the children in the village are still very afraid of it. As long as this guy opens its lips to reveal a whole row of sharp teeth, even the adults are scared, let alone the children.

“Why is there no meat again?” At this moment, Rhubarb was complaining, staring with clear dissatisfaction at the big bowl of rice and vegetables in front of it.

“It’s been two months since we last dug up anything. Where would I get the money to buy meat?” Gao Chang also didn’t like eating vegetables, but it had been a long time since they had found anything. Relying on playing mahjong alone to support Rhubarb’s meat cravings was honestly a bit much. Besides, he needed time to cultivate; he couldn’t just hang around the senior activity center all day. After all, cultivating was more important than eating meat.

“How about we go to that place we went to last time? This time, let’s go at night?”

“Don’t even mention that place again. Haven’t you been chased enough last time? If the villagers find out I was digging up someone’s ancestral tomb, they’d poke holes in my back with their fingers[mfn](戳脊梁骨, Chuō jǐlianggǔ ) idiom that means to be harshly criticized, morally condemned, or shamed behind one’s back, especially in a traditional or close-knit community.[/mfn] for the rest of my life!” Gao Chang felt that Rhubarb’s suggestion was completely unreliable.

“Tch, who told you to run so slowly?” Two-legged humans are so troublesome, they can’t even run half as fast as it can.“Besides, there wasn’t even anything good in their ancestral grave. The spot we want to dig just happens to be near that cemetery, that’s all.”

“That’s still not acceptable.”

“How about we bring out a few cans from the cellar?” The underground cellar was piled high with all sorts of canned goods, and the quantity was quite impressive. Rhubarb’s favorite was the canned luncheon meat. It didn’t particularly like fruits and wasn’t very enthusiastic about fish either.

“Don’t even think about it. Just eat your vegetables.”

“What are you planning to do with all that stuff you’ve stored? Are you preparing to go into seclusion? Let me tell you, that’s pure nonsense from those wuxia novels. Totally unrealistic…”

Rhubarb kept grumbling as he chewed on the greens half-heartedly. After sticking with Gao Chang for all these years, it inevitably got a bit corrupted. In short, it had picked up some bad habits. If Gao Chang now resembled a gangster, then Rhubarb had definitely taken on the air of a gangster dog.