Xu Huiqing didn’t dwell on the matter of address, instead asking Zhou Huaijin, “By the way, Little Comrade Zhou, what about that move-in deep cleaning I asked you about at noon…”
Although she had already done a cursory sweep of the house, it was still too dirty to look at. Not to mention, the dust under the bed alone—she couldn’t lift the bed to clean it by herself, and then there was the kitchen and bathroom.
The toilet was so filthy she didn’t dare sit on it. She had lived in a small town in the nineties, and before 2005, she’d never seen any powerful stain removers like toilet cleaner or toilet bowl cleaner.
She felt that without some serious elbow grease, the toilet simply couldn’t be made clean.
Zhou Huaijin had just reached his doorstep and hadn’t even gone in yet. Hearing her question, he nodded and said, “Alright.”
Xu Huiqing locked her door, holding Xiaoxi with one hand and bending down to pick up the garbage by the door.
Zhou Huaijin swiftly picked up the garbage on the ground. “Let me take that.”
The three of them then promptly headed downstairs.
As they walked, Zhou Huaijin said, “I’ve never heard of that kind of move-in deep cleaning, but our compound has a cleaning auntie. If you think the place is too hard to clean, just give her some money and she’ll help you out. I’ll also patch up your floorboards later while I’m at it.”
If it were just him, a single adult man, and a woman living alone, it would still be awkward even in the early evening. But with a cleaning auntie present, it would be fine.
Walking beside him, Xu Huiqing smiled gratefully. “Thank you so much, Little Comrade Zhou! Thank goodness for good officers like you who serve the people…”
Before she could finish, Zhou Huaijin quickly cut in, “Don’t put me on a pedestal! We’re just neighbors. Everyone gives a shout if they need something.”
Xu Huiqing laughed. “Then let me treat you to dinner!”
The two went downstairs and found the cleaning auntie sitting in the shade at the bus stop just outside the compound’s bus terminal. She was around forty or fifty. Hearing that there was money to be made cleaning, she was quite willing. But Xu Huiqing saw that the auntie was empty-handed with nothing on her, and figured she wouldn’t be able to clean well without tools. So she told the auntie to head up first while she went to buy some cleaning supplies.
Seeing her holding a child and figuring she’d be carrying things on the way back, Zhou Huaijin had nothing else to do, so he said, “I’ll go with you.”
Xu Huiqing was used to buying things at a supermarket, but there were no supermarkets around the compound now, only small shops.
Stepping out of the compound’s main gate near the bus terminal led to another bustling scene.
It was rush hour, with buses returning to the terminal one after another. The roadside was full of pedestrians, cyclists, and hawkers. The street across the road was lined with all sorts of restaurants.
Seventy or eighty meters ahead, a variety of shops dazzled the eye, and the foot traffic grew even denser. Numerous street vendors were setting up their stalls, each stall already crowded with passersby.
Seeing these stalls, Xu Huiqing felt she needed to buy this and that. For example, the blanket she’d brought was now being used as a mattress pad—shouldn’t she buy another blanket to cover herself with? Even though it was summer, she at least needed a light throw.
Because of her past experience losing her child, she didn’t dare hand Xiaoxi to anyone else, and Xiaoxi herself would cry if anyone else held her.
So Xu Huiqing held her as she stopped at a bedding stall and bought another cotton blanket, a large towel blanket, and a mosquito net. Zhou Huaijin helped carry them.
She saw a stall selling slippers and bought two pairs, then clothes hangers, soap, laundry detergent, a toilet brush… When she spotted a place selling light bulbs, she bought several high-wattage bulbs. In the end, on the way back, she walked ahead holding the child while Zhou Huaijin’s hands were full of bags.
If Xu Huiqing hadn’t felt too embarrassed, she would have kept buying.
Right ahead was a food market with vendors selling watermelon and lychee. Xu Huiqing saw roast duck and immediately asked the owner for a whole duck, but Zhou Huaijin stopped her.
She was just one woman with a child; clearly she couldn’t finish a whole duck. Given that she’d mentioned treating him to dinner, he knew who the duck was for, so he directly told the vendor, “Half a roast duck.”
Then he said to Xu Huiqing, “I saw you don’t have a refrigerator in your kitchen today. In this heat, buying too much will just spoil if you can’t finish it.”
Nearby was a shop selling cold dishes. Xu Huiqing wanted to buy some, but Zhou Huaijin nixed that too. However, when she bought some jujube paste cakes, he didn’t stop her.
With one hand holding Xiaoxi, Xu Huiqing carried things in the other.
Zhou Huaijin was already laden with bags; she really didn’t have the nerve to make him carry more.
Zhou Huaijin simply took the watermelon from her, leaving her to carry the half roast duck and lychee.
The night market wrapped around Yinshan Residential Area in a circular arc. The side next to the compound was bustling, but across the road, construction was underway. It was nearly six o’clock, and the clanging and banging from the worksite continued nonstop.
Xu Huiqing looked up curiously at the construction crew across the way and asked Zhou Huaijin, “What are they building over there?”
As he led her toward the far end of the night market, Zhou Huaijin explained, “They’re planning to build a commodity market here, to bring all the night market goods inside to sell.”
“A food market?” Her arm was getting sore from holding Xiaoxi, so she switched hands.
Pointing to a large area ahead, he said, “It should be a comprehensive commodity wholesale market. This spot and the big stretch across the road have all been zoned for the market, to integrate the whole area.”
Xu Huiqing looked at the large market area, nodded, and said nothing, just continued following Zhou Huaijin forward.
The path ahead grew darker, with no streetlamps.
Zhou Huaijin pointed to the iron fence of the compound and explained, “See this fence? This building is Building Eight. Follow this road forward, and you’ll reach the street where we had lunch at Ping’an Restaurant.”
They walked on and circled around, unexpectedly going from the front gate of the compound all the way to the back gate.
Upstairs, the Cleaning Auntie was sitting on the steps at the entrance of the building unit. Seeing them return, she stood up, bracing her knees, and said, “I thought you’d be back quick after buying things. What took so long? I’ve been sitting here over half an hour!”
She had cleaning rags, bags, and other tools in hand and followed them upstairs.
The hallway had lights, but they were very dim.
Once inside, they turned on the lights. The Cleaning Auntie first looked around to see just how filthy a place could be that someone would pay ten yuan to have her clean it. But when she saw the rooms that Xu Huiqing had already swept, she muttered, “This is pretty clean, isn’t it?”
Xu Huiqing opened the bathroom door to show her.
Probably influenced by her first impression of a fairly clean apartment, the Cleaning Auntie felt she’d gotten off easy. Without another word, she rolled up her sleeves and got to work.
Xu Huiqing didn’t stay idle either. She held a flashlight while Zhou Huaijin replaced the bulb with a hundred-watt one.
As soon as the bulb was changed, the whole room brightened up. Then Xu Huiqing asked him to replace the bulbs in the bedroom and kitchen as well.
The original bulbs were only about twenty or thirty watts, making the light very dim.
The Cleaning Auntie, probably assuming Xu Huiqing was Zhou Huaijin’s girlfriend, said to her, “Why do you need such a big bulb? You can see just fine with less. If every room is this bright, think how much that’ll cost on the electric bill! Who can afford that? You two need to be thrifty when running a household!”
She then turned to Zhou Huaijin. “And you, Officer Little Zhou, with the cleaning—can’t a man like you do some cleaning? It’s not that hard!”
The rooms had already been mostly cleaned by Xu Huiqing earlier that day. Now they just needed to clean under the bed and cabinet. Before starting, Xu Huiqing had especially spread a sheet over the bed to keep off dust.
Zhou Huaijin and Xu Huiqing lifted the bed together, and the auntie pushed the broom underneath, sweeping with vigor.
After clearing the dust from under the bed and cabinet, Xu Huiqing felt her earlier cleaning had been for nothing—the bed, chairs, and cabinets were covered with another layer of dust.
Once sweeping was done, they started mopping. This time Xu Huiqing didn’t help; she washed her hands and went to look after Xiaoxi, afraid something might happen if the child was left alone in the living room.
While lifting the bed, Zhou Huaijin also examined the floorboards that needed repair.
The Cleaning Auntie worked swiftly and meticulously, wiping down many places Xu Huiqing had missed earlier, one by one.
She was about to use her own rag, but Xu Huiqing, worried her rag might have been used on the toilet, quickly handed over the rag she’d used during the day. The Cleaning Auntie, realizing from the thorough cleaning and the fact that she’d been specially hired, that this was a fastidious person, became even more meticulous.
When the whole place was finally cleaned, Xu Huiqing breathed a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, the auntie was stuffing the dust and debris from under the bed into garbage bags, muttering, “No wonder you couldn’t clean it alone. This is years and years of accumulated grime. Good heavens, I’ve never seen such filth!”
She no longer thought of Xu Huiqing, this young wife, as lazy or pretentious.
After the room was cleaned, Xu Huiqing put Xiaoxi down in the room and turned on the fan only there.
The living room was too dusty, and the fan would just blow dust everywhere.
She washed Xiaoxi’s hands, took the new sheet that had been shielding the bed from dust outside the window to shake off the dust, and spread it back on. She sat Xiaoxi on this dust-proof sheet and gave her a jujube paste cake to eat. Soon, when cleaning was done, all the new bedding would need washing, and Xiaoxi would need a bath too. If any crumbs from the cake got on the sheet, they would all wash off together later and wouldn’t affect sleeping on the bed at night.
The auntie went upstairs first to clean the loft.
Earlier, Xu Huiqing had only cleaned the lower floor; the terrace and loft hadn’t been touched at all—they were completely untouched, in a state of total neglect.
Speaking of the loft, Xu Huiqing remembered something. She asked Zhou Huaijin, who had gone home and come back with materials to repair the floor, “Little Comrade Zhou, the loft upstairs still leaks. Do you know any roofers?”
Zhou Huaijin stirred whatever was in his hands as he went upstairs to look at the loft. After carefully examining the leaky spot, he jumped straight from the terrace of Room 701 to that of Room 702 and brought over some vermilion glazed tiles and cement.
These were leftover materials from his earlier renovations, piled on the terrace.
Since he was already helping so much, he might as well replace the few damaged tiles on the roof. Xu Huiqing asked how much the tiles and materials cost, wanting to pay him, but how could he accept money for just a few tiles?
He refused payment, so Xu Huiqing resolved to treat Officer Little Zhou to several more big meals; otherwise, she’d be too deeply indebted.
She wasn’t afraid of owing favors; she was afraid of not owing favors.
Relationships between people begin with owing favors and then reciprocating.
Thinking of the massive commodity wholesale market she’d just seen under construction, Xu Huiqing felt there would be plenty more times she’d need to call in favors in the future!