My Fish Pond Has One Very Loyal Customer novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Pink Carbon

Lu Qing did not sit down.

He reached into his jacket and took out the pink paper, folded in four, and shook it open.

"I have the carbon," he said.

"A carbon isn't a register," said Wenjie, pleasantly, from his chair.

"No. It's a receipt." Lu Qing held it up so the hall could see the pink.

"My grandfather taught me. The village register eats paper, so keep the copy."

A few people laughed, because it was true.

"Uncle Qian, would you read what it says at the bottom?"

Qian Lixin's damp forehead had gone damper.

"I can't from here."

"Then I'll bring it up."

Lu Qing walked down the aisle between the folding chairs, with a hundred people turning their heads to follow.

He laid the paper on the table beside the red ink.

Qian Lixin looked at it and did not pick it up.

"Read it," said Aunt Fen, from the front row. "Go on, Lixin. Out loud. I want to hear it."

"This isn't the place."

"It's exactly the place. Your hall, your stamp, your people."

Qian Lixin picked up the paper and held it out at arm's length.

"Qingxi Village Committee," he read, in a small voice.

"Contract transfer, Fish Pond Number Two. From the late holder to his grandson Lu Qing. Received Thursday."

He stopped.

"Go on," said Aunt Fen.

"Stamped and signed. Qian Lixin."

The hall was so quiet that a chair creaked at the back.

"I was standing behind him in the queue," said Aunt Fen, to the room.

"I was buying a stamp for my pension form. I watched Lixin do it, and I watched him blow on the ink."

"He told Little Qing he'd copy it into the ledger after lunch."

She turned her head slowly.

"Did you copy it in after lunch, Lixin?"

"I may," said Qian Lixin, "have been busy."

"Busy with whom?"

The fish seller's newspaper had slid off his knee, and nobody looked at it.

Wenjie rose from his chair, and the smile was still on his face, and it had stopped reaching anything.

"There's clearly been a clerical error," he said. "Mr. Qian is a busy man. These things happen."

"They do," said Lu Qing. "They happen to the same people every time, and not by accident."

"Mr. Lu, I'm only here to help."

"Then help Uncle Qian write the entry in the ledger. Now. While we're all here."

Nobody moved.

Qian Lixin dipped a pen in the ink with a hand that shook so hard it left a blot, and wrote.

He wrote for a full minute.

Then he blew on it, and held the ledger up and turned it around so the front row could see.

"The pond is Lu Qing's," he said hoarsely. "It's entered. I'm sorry, boy. It's in the book."

A woman at the back began to clap, and then the brothers from the end house did, and then half the room.

Aunt Fen clapped with both hands above her head, grinning.

The Pond System said, with great dignity, "I would like to point out that I was never worried."

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