The dark figures moved forward—it turned out to be David Clark and Mr. Brooks, and they even had bicycles with them. Brian Clark felt a warmth in his heart and hurried over. “Dad, Uncle Brooks, what are you doing here?”

　　“How could we not come? We waited and waited, but you never showed up. Your mom insisted I go to the railway to ask, and that’s when I found out the train was delayed. Old Brooks and I talked it over—there were no buses at this hour, so we just decided to wait here… What did you buy, why is it packed in a box?”

　　“I bought two pots of flowers for my mom to plant.”

　　“Huh?”

　　David Clark gaped and patted him on the shoulder. “Such a filial son!”

　　Immediately, the two fathers carried the two kids back home, chatting along the way about what they’d seen in the capital and the interview process. When they heard they should keep the train tickets, they all chuckled knowingly.

　　The street was very quiet, the streetlights not very bright, so dark that not even a dog was around.

　　About half an hour later, the two families parted ways at an intersection. David Clark turned again and finally saw that familiar alley. But unlike before, several houses had their lights on tonight, and a crowd was gathered, arguing noisily.

　　“Squeak!”

　　David Clark braced his thigh and stopped at the entrance to the alley, watching. “Isn’t that Old Smith’s house? What happened?”

　　“What’s going on?”

　　Leaning on his dad’s back, Brian Clark was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open, but was startled awake by someone shouting, “Molester!” “Molester!”

　　Molester???

　　Oh, if you’re talking about that, I’m not sleepy anymore!

　　He eagerly squeezed forward and saw a middle-aged man, shirtless, half-collapsed on the ground, his face bruised and swollen from a beating, surrounded by people pointing and gossiping. A young man was cursing loudly: “Usually you act all proper, but at your age you do something like this? You’re a criminal! You pervert!”

　　At the same time, a delicate female voice came from the courtyard, “Wuwuwu… stop talking, it’s so embarrassing… wuwu…”

　　Brian Clark asked around and found out that Old Smith was a carpenter, somewhat well-known in the neighborhood, also living in the communal courtyard. He was over forty, had never married, and supposedly had never even touched a woman—always honest and well-behaved.

　　But just now, this honest man had snuck into the house across the way with a pair of scissors and cut the waistband of the young wife’s pants—while she was sleeping on the kang, with her pants still on her butt.

　　“As the saying goes, ‘Alas, this old man is uneducated, but a single ‘damn’ gets me through the world!’”

　　Brian Clark was amazed—this kind of move was truly out of the ordinary, a textbook case of hooliganism!

　　Father and son craned their necks to watch the commotion for a while, only leaving reluctantly when the police arrived. He stole a glance into the courtyard: the woman, thinly dressed, was crying prettily, while the carpenter hung his head, silent the whole time.

　　He couldn’t help but sigh inwardly, chalking it up to the changing times, with human nature being ever more unrestrained.

　　……

　　That night.

　　Brian Clark lay on the small bed in the outer room. Though his body was exhausted, he just couldn’t fall asleep.

　　After more than a month here, he had experienced both the refreshing simplicity and the rough wildness of this era.

　　Farmers, petty urbanites, workers, intellectuals, even upper-level leaders—all seemed like a jar of flies kept in the dark for too long. At the first glimmer of light, they were both restless and fearful.

　　Take Andrew Brooks, for example. Signing up for Dream of the Red Chamber might have taken all her courage for a lifetime—she had to play Lin Daiyu. But for him, it was just a passing interest at this stage.

　　If he remembered correctly, the preparations for Dream of the Red Chamber would last more than a year. The first training class at Yuanmingyuan wouldn’t start until next April, and filming would officially begin in September.

　　It was only June now, so there was nearly a year of free time.

　　What to do?

　　Getting a regular job was out of the question, and doing gigs was impossible too—he didn’t want to run around with a performing troupe, which had no technical content at all.

　　Speaking of reform and opening up, the process started in the countryside, then moved to the cities.

　　At present, the countryside was transitioning from the era of collective farming to the household responsibility system. Some farmers’ lives had improved significantly, with obvious results, and the focus of reform was shifting to the towns.

　　Those factories and enterprises were still mainly state-owned. Individual businesses, small vendors, and workshops were now recognized, but the state’s attitude toward private enterprises remained ambiguous.

　　The central policy was “not to encourage, not to publicize, and not to rush to ban”—in other words, tacit permission, but no encouragement.

　　In reality, private businesses had a tough time throughout the 1980s, only starting to boom in the early 1990s. At this time, the most lucrative profession was that of the scalper!

　　Because soon, the state would introduce a very crucial policy: the dual-track pricing system.

　　The so-called dual-track system meant that both unified pricing and market pricing coexisted. The same product was divided into planned and non-planned categories—sold at a lower price within the plan, and at market price outside the plan.

　　This created plenty of room for scalpers to operate. Cement, steel, TVs, sewing machines, petroleum—anything could be resold, leading to the rise of China’s first batch of privileged capitalists.

　　Scalpers were either officials themselves or had official connections. You needed a strong background and wide connections, or you couldn’t make it.