sinovels Chapter 34 Register
Chapter 34 Register
Ah-Guang wiped a dead wrench clean and put it back on the shelf in the old parts warehouse.
He salvaged this wrench from a pile of scrap heaps. Most of the teeth were worn down, but Qiu Changhai said he would keep it so that new employees could practice with it when the service station got busier.
Ah Guang pulled out the register from the drawer, turned to the page he was most recently writing on, and added a note after the wrench: "Master Fang has reviewed it. Temporarily stored in the old parts warehouse."
This register has been used for over a year; the cover is worn and frayed, and the corners are taped back together in several places.
Tucked inside the notebook was a photo cut out from the provincial competition briefing. It was taken on the day of the team competition. The four people were standing in front of the repaired old boat. Lao Fang had his hand on A Hai's shoulder, Lin Xiu'e was holding up the certificate, and Ding Haisheng had a rare smile on his face.
Ah-Guang couldn't bear to put this photo under the glass plate, so he kept it in the register and saw it every day when he opened it.
Zhou Haisheng squatted down next to him and arranged the old bearings that had been dismantled that day on the shelf according to their inner diameter, attaching white tape labels to each one.
He turned around, checked the registration book for the number, and told A-Guang that the filter tools that Hong Xiaobing had handed over last week had not yet been registered in the warehouse.
Ah Guang flipped to the first few pages of the notebook and found Hong Xiaobing's record from that day.
That day, Hong Xiaobing took leave to go back to Hongjia Island, leaving the tools on the stone block at the entrance of the shed. When he returned, he checked and found nothing missing, but the inventory registration was incomplete.
Ah Guang filled in the missing line, made a note in the remarks column, and noted that this batch of wrenches and socket heads is now placed on shelf number two, together with the old parts that were removed from the scrapped diesel engine last month.
Zhou Haisheng squatted down and watched him finish writing, then asked how the service station managed old documents when it didn't have a registration book.
Ah Guang put his pen on the edge of the register and said that when he first came here, there were no such rules. The old parts shelves were piled up, some of them were good and some were unusable. It all depended on Master Fang and Master Qiu remembering them.
Later, when there was too much work for the masters to keep track of, they asked him to write it down in a notebook.
When he first took over, the characters were messy and the numbering was often wrong. He only learned his lesson after being scolded by Master Qiu a few times.
Ah Guang closed the register and put it back in the drawer. He then took out the first register that Ah Hai had used years ago and handed it to Zhou Haisheng.
The plastic cover of the register was worn white, but the two cranes on the cover were still clearly visible.
Turning to the first page, you see Ahai's handwriting: three gears, five bearings, and two rudder sticks. The characters are written neatly, stroke by stroke.
Zhou Haisheng flipped through the book from beginning to end and then back again, saying that Hai-ge's handwriting was really good, like it was printed.
Ah Guang said he wrote it using a ruler as a guide. When he first arrived, he practiced calligraphy under the lamp every night after work for more than half a year.
"Later, he handed me this register and said, 'Ah Guang, from now on you will be in charge of the old parts warehouse. You have to remember the details even better than I do.'"
Ah-Guang put the first registration book back at the very back of the drawer, stacking it together with the others.
From the first book to the sixth, from a small plastic-covered notebook to a thick stack, from a ship repair shop to a service station, from three people to more than a dozen people.
He closed the drawer and glanced out the window at a newly arrived official boat awaiting repair in the stone trough. The stern cable was wrapped around the stake several times. In the afternoon, when Ahai and Hong Xiaobing were inspecting the engine room, they discovered that the cold water pipes needed to be replaced.
Another entry will be added to the register. Tomorrow, after the old pipe that was dug out from the bottom of rack number three passes the pressure test, it will also be recorded.
"I thought, even if these registers are worn out one day, as long as there's still one person left, they'll know we were here."
There were people walking around outside the door.
Jiang Haiping walked out of the workshop, carrying an empty cup to the kitchen to refill his water bottle. He stopped at the entrance of the old parts warehouse, looked at the two people squatting in front of the shelves, and said that the cold water pipe of the official ship that Ahai had found out in the afternoon needed to be replaced with a rigid pipe with a flange. There was also an old pipe that had been removed last year on the old parts shelf, and he asked Aguang to take a look at it later.
Ah Guang said that the pipe is on the bottom of rack number three, and the serial number is still there. Ah Hai even measured the dimensions before going to Yantai last week, and it is usable.
Jiang Haiping responded, took a couple of steps toward the kitchen with the cup in his hand, then turned back and reminded him to remember to test the pressure first, as the gasket on the old pipe might have aged after being stored for half a year.
Zhou Haisheng had already squeezed over and was flipping through the old gasket box on the shelf.
Old Sun came today too.
He sat on a stone stool at the entrance of the old parts warehouse, with an old boat plank placed behind him by Hong Xiaobing, and a jar of tea in his hand.
He said that the spring fishing season hadn't started yet, and the fishing boats at the dock were all making preparations. He had nothing to do, so he came to the service station to sit for a while.
A-Guang asked him if he wanted to look through old photos of the service station when it was first established, photos taken by the county government.
Old Sun waved his hand, pointed to the registration book in Ah Guang's hand, and said to show it to him.
Ah Guang handed over the sixth registration book.
Old Sun took it and flipped through it from beginning to end, examining each page very carefully.
He stopped when he turned to one of the pages, pointed to a line of text and said he recognized the boat. It was Old Zhou's sampan. Last spring, three planks on the bottom of the boat were replaced. The grooves were cut by Master Qiu and the seams were sewn by Lin Xiu'e.
He returned the register to Ah Guang, saying that the register would be a treasure in the future.
Ah Guang said that everything at the service station is now top-notch.
Lin Xiu'e walked over from the stone trough, carrying a basin of freshly mixed tung oil putty on the windowsill. She heard Old Sun's words but didn't say anything. She just looked down at her chisel.
The chisel handle was worn smooth and shiny, the dull sheen of the blade was still there, and her name was written on it.
She recalled the year she first came to the ship repair shop, when Qiu Changhai made her chisel grooves on scrap slabs. If she messed it up, she had to start over, until her fingers were covered in blisters.
Those blisters broke and healed, then rubbed against the skin again, eventually forming this hard callus.
This chisel, like that register, is proof that she was here.
When he finished work in the evening, A-Guang closed the windows of the old parts warehouse, wrapped it tightly with plastic sheeting, and locked the doors and windows.
He stood in front of the loquat tree for a while. The few green fruits had turned a bit more yellow than they had a couple of days ago, and they would be ready to be picked soon.
He silently made a mental note that when the loquats ripened, he would pick them and share them with everyone, and dry the rest into loquat preserves to make a drink in the winter.
This matter doesn't need to be written in the register, but he felt it should be recorded.
The service station was quiet at night, but Ah Guang was still squatting in the warehouse, flipping through notebooks by the light.
His register was updated every day, with one more line each day than yesterday, and one more line each day than today, just like the loquats in the yard, growing slowly day by day.
The waves gently lapped against the stone trough, one after another, without rushing.
The moonlight shone on the row of wooden signs at the gate of the courtyard: "The same work tomorrow, the same few people tomorrow."
There are still many blank pages in the register, enough to last for many years.