Chapter 2: Have I Really Traveled Through Time?

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Duan Chengliang arrived in Beijing and attended school for several years, experiencing the warmth of family life for the first time in his life. However, his aunt, who had been bedridden for years, only survived two or three more years despite his careful care by her bedside. After she passed away, his eldest uncle became silent and withdrawn.

In 1956, when Duan Chengliang graduated from middle school and was preparing to apply for high school, the rolling mill factory had just begun implementing a public-private partnership, and its management was somewhat chaotic. Safety production was not strictly enforced, and an accident occurred in the forging workshop where his eldest uncle was crushed to death by falling steel. Given his uncle’s skill level, his wage grade would have been at least a level six for a skilled worker, but he never even got to have his wage graded before he died.

Considering the practical circumstances, Duan Chengliang stopped pursuing his studies and took over his uncle’s job at the rolling mill factory.

Normally, he would have started as an apprentice in the forging workshop, working his way up from apprentice to official worker over two or three years—progressing from level one to level two and so forth, with wages gradually increasing as skills improved.

But he was persuaded by Liu Haizhong, the second uncle of the courtyard and a skilled forger, to transfer to the coal yard at the rolling mill factory and work as a loader and unloader.

Liu Haizhong said to Duan Chengliang at the time, “Being a forger is tough. Swinging a big hammer, standing by the furnace through all seasons—spring, summer, autumn, winter. If you don’t have a strong body, not everyone can endure that hardship. And it’s dangerous too—look what happened to your uncle, don’t you understand? Plus, forging requires three years of apprenticeship. The first year pays 18 yuan, the second year 20, the third year 22, and only in the fourth year can you take the exam for official status and wage grading. A level one worker earns 30.5 yuan. It takes another two or three years to advance to level two, then you enter the normal skill-based wage assessment system. Look around our factory—there are hundreds in the forging workshop, mostly level one or two workers in their twenties or thirties. But if you go to the coal yard as a loader, you start directly as a permanent worker with an iron rice bowl—24 yuan the first year, 32 the second. Think about which is better.”

Duan Chengliang, timid and young, inexperienced and without his family’s guidance, and aware of his own weak physique, was easily persuaded to become a loader in the coal yard.

Of course, his personality had been shaped by his original family environment. Imagine, among four brothers, he was second, unloved by father or mother. He never had priority on food or clothes, and it was always his responsibility to do the chores. He had long been accustomed to a life of grievances and compromises.

His biological parents ran a blacksmith shop in Huairou, a craft passed down in the Duan family. That was why his eldest uncle could work as a skilled forger in the rolling mill factory.

However, Duan Chengliang was born prematurely, and his mother suffered greatly during his birth, causing her to dislike him deeply. Coupled with his subsequent malnutrition and weak body, he was clearly not fit for blacksmith work.

Therefore, when his eldest uncle suggested adopting him as a son, his biological parents promptly sent him to the city.

Since then, they had hardly seen each other.

Of course, these were all memories of the past, now just fleeting clouds long gone and facts set in stone. There was no point in dwelling on them.

As the newly time-traveled Duan Chengliang, he could only sigh occasionally, fully aware there was no need for regrets or overthinking. There’s no cure for regret; it’s better to adjust one’s mindset and health as soon as possible and live well from now on.

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This is what you call, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Of course, some people and some matters still needed to be settled once things became clearer. After all, the death of his eldest uncle and his work situation felt too complicated to be simple.

Duan Chengliang took off his half-soaked cotton shoes, hooked them with two hooks, and hung them on either side of the stove to dry slowly using the heat from the coal furnace.

He then lifted the fire cover on the coal stove, scooped out the ashes, and added two lumps of coal.

After a while, the fire blazed up, soon warming the kang bed-stove comfortably.

Suddenly, he noticed that the hook used to tend the fire had been used so long its bend was almost gone, now rather straight—no wonder it felt awkward when he scooped out the ashes earlier.

He placed the fire hook directly over the stove fire to heat it red-hot, planning to hammer it back into shape later.

He jumped onto the kang, reached into a bamboo basket hanging from the beam, took out two steamed buns made from a coarse wheat blend, and placed them by the stove to roast slowly over the fire. When the buns turned golden brown and fragrant, they would be his dinner, eaten with hot water.

After filling an enamel mug with hot water from a thermos on the table, he returned to the stove and saw the fire hook glowing red.

He sipped the hot water, set the cup on the kang table, then went to the drawer to find the house hammer and returned to the stove.

Several smooth river stones lay by the stove, sometimes used to support pots when cooking or boiling porridge.

He used one of these stones to brace the heated fire hook to hammer it back into shape, first restoring its curve, then hammering its end into a right angle. He then set it aside to cool naturally—job done.

As he tossed the reshaped fire hook onto the floor beside him and reached for the golden buns, a sudden dizziness swept over him before his consciousness cleared.

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He found himself in a familiar scene.

Damn. Wasn’t this the blacksmith shop of the old smith he had once visited in his rickety van, the one who specialized in making Tang dynasty swords?

Had he really time-traveled? Or had he returned here? Could it all have been a dream?

He examined his surroundings carefully—this was indeed the old smith’s blacksmith shop.

Duan Chengliang recalled clearly that the old smith had once told him over drinks that this shop was specially built as part of an intangible cultural heritage application, perfectly restoring a typical blacksmith’s shop from the 1950s and 1960s.

At the time, he said the shop featured a carefully constructed clay-brick smithing furnace. Although the old smith now used an electric blower for work, the shop also had the traditional hand-operated wooden bellows.

The forging tools were authentic as well—the hammer, anvil, and various other blacksmith tools, all traditional and complete for all sorts of tasks.

However, the old smith was getting old and could no longer swing the heavy hammer, relying on modern technology for forging. So the shop was also equipped with a 15-kilogram air hammer.

If memory served, the blacksmith shop consisted of two rooms.

The larger room, about thirty square meters, housed the forging furnace and served as the old smith’s workshop.

The smaller room, around fifteen or sixteen square meters, was his sleeping and resting quarters.

Behind the shop was a courtyard where he grew vegetables, raised chickens, and had built a kitchen.