N-M Chapter 48 Summer
Chapter 48 Summer
Once the start of summer is over, the weather on Moon Island gets hotter day by day.
The sea breeze changes from cool to warm, then slowly turns into hot, moist steam that feels sticky on the skin.
The privet on the rocky beach turned from light green to dark green, and the clumps of privet squeezed into the cracks in the rocks, shining brightly in the sun.
The loquat trees in the service station courtyard are starting to turn from green to yellow. The oldest tree is the largest, with the most fruit hanging on its branches. Some of the sun-facing fruits have already turned a light orange color.
Every day after watering the trees, Ah Guang would look up and circle around them, saying that there were more fruits this year than last year, and the biggest ones would be ready to be picked in a few days.
Jiang Haibo has been coming to the service station for over a month.
He recognized all the commonly used old parts in the old parts warehouse that were placed on the lower shelf. He could memorize the numbers and storage locations of each of the bearings, gears, steering wheels, and water pump impellers.
When I entered the warehouse in the morning, I first wiped the shelves with a rag, and then checked them one by one against the numbers in Ah Guang's register, muttering to myself that shelf number two on the third floor was a gear and shelf number one on the fourth floor was a steering wheel.
His fingers had faint traces of engine oil, and his fingernails were stained with a light gray layer, just like when Hong Xiaobing first arrived.
Ah Guang said these are the marks of a craftsman, and they can't be washed off.
Jiang Haibo looked down at his hands and said, "Then keep them."
Ah-Guang pulled out several wooden boxes from the bottom shelf, containing blank labels and old number plates left over from the earliest batch of registration books at the service station.
He picked out the usable items and handed them to Jiang Haibo, saying that he would be responsible for labeling and numbering all the new old items that arrived from now on.
The seawater in the stone trough was scalding hot from the sun, and the barnacles at the bottom of the boat grew faster than in spring.
Fishermen started hauling barnacles onto their boats every few days. The barnacle shells they scooped up were piled on the rocky beach, and when they were dried in the sun, the fishy smell could waft all the way to the workshop entrance.
Qiu Changhai squatted by the stone trough, turning a walnut in his hand. The bottom of the sampan in front of him was covered with a dense layer of barnacles.
He used the chisel to chip away at the wood, straightening up after a while, punching his lower back with his fist, and then bending down again to continue chipping.
Lin Xiu'e squatted beside him, sewing the hemp fibers evenly and smoothing out the tung oil putty.
After Qiu Changhai finished removing a piece of rotten wood, he looked at the seam she had twisted and said that hemp fibers dry quickly in the summer, so they should be soaked in water for a while before twisting. They should be soaked thoroughly before stuffing, otherwise the hemp fibers will shrink in the seam after being twisted tightly, and then water will leak out.
Lin Xiu'e responded, keeping these words in mind, and continued to sew the next seam.
Old Chen arrived in his sampan as soon as the service station opened in the morning.
The barnacles on the bottom of the boat were cleaned, but the main engine started emitting black smoke again.
Old Fang took Hong Xiaobing aboard the ship to check, and found that the fuel injectors were clogged again.
Old Chen squatted by the dock and stammered for a while before admitting that he had secretly added inferior diesel fuel from a private oil dealer.
Old Fang removed the fuel injector and threw it into the cleaning fluid basin. He squatted down in front of Old Chen and said in a low but clear voice, "Old Chen, how many times have I told you? You might save a few cents on cheap diesel, but repairing the fuel injector will cost you several dollars."
Your brother-in-law was also at the last training course; you two brothers attended the diesel quality class together, so why can't you remember it?
Old Chen squatted down, took off his straw hat, and held it in his hand, saying that he had really remembered it this time.
Old Fang didn't say anything more. He stood up, dusted off his pants, and told Hong Xiaobing to put the cleaned fuel injectors back in and test the machine again.
The main unit roared to life, and the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe was so faint as to be almost invisible.
After testing the machine, Old Chen pushed the sampan to the dock and tied it up. Then he pulled out a bulging snakeskin bag from the bottom of the boat, which contained fresh potatoes he had dug from his own field, still covered in mud.
He placed the snakeskin bag at the entrance of the kitchen, said something about getting some extra food for the service station, and hurriedly pushed the boat away.
Lin Xiu'e came out of the kitchen, squatted down and examined the potatoes in the bag. They were not big, but the skin was smooth and there were no wormholes.
She picked out a few large ones and put them in a bamboo basket, saying that she would stew potatoes and pork ribs for lunch. The potatoes from Old Chen's family were grown in sandy soil and were sweeter than those bought in town.
At the dock, a young fisherman from Hongjia Island, named Hong Ashun, came to deliver fish. He stood there for a long time, staring at the disassembled gearbox in the workshop.
Jiang Haibo was squatting at the warehouse entrance weighing gaskets. Seeing that he looked familiar, he took the initiative to greet him.
Ah Shun was from the same village as Hong Xiaobing. He had worked odd jobs with the old fishermen on the island for several years and had long heard that he could learn a trade at the Moon Island Service Station, but he had never dared to ask.
Jiang Haibo led him into the workshop and showed him around. There were iron hooks hanging under the overhead crane, disassembled gearboxes on the worktable, and wrenches arranged neatly by model on the tool wall.
Ah Shun stood in front of the tool wall for a long time, carefully looking at each wrench on the wall, his eyes filled with a mixture of curiosity and restraint.
Old Fang came out of the cabin to get a wrench and saw him standing there for a long time without leaving. He asked him if he wanted to learn.
Ah Shun's voice wasn't loud: "I want to learn, but I'm afraid I won't learn it well."
Old Fang walked to the stone trough, turned on the tap to rinse the machine oil off his handle, and said that for the first three months, he would provide meals but not pay wages, just like everyone else. If you could work, you could stay.
Ah Shun responded and said he would come tomorrow.
Hong Xiaobing was wiping the wrench with cotton yarn when he heard this and looked up at Ashun.
I brought over the fuel injectors that I had just cleaned and showed them to me, explaining that the sealing surface of the fuel injectors should not be scratched with hard objects, otherwise the pressure would drop.
Ah Shun took the nozzle, twirled it in his hand for a while, and then carefully put it back on the tray, saying that he should come tomorrow and bring his notebook and pen.
In the afternoon, Jiang Haiping and Lao Fang disassembled and inspected several water pumps that had been brought in by the county aquatic products company and were awaiting refurbishment.
These water pumps had been running in seawater for too long, and the gap between the impeller and the pump casing had been worn wide by silt.
Lao Fang said that some machines could still be used after replacing the gasket, but two machines had such worn impellers that they had to be scrapped.
Jiang Haibo, who was squatting down next to Jiang Haiping to register the pump casing data, said softly that this pump casing is the same as the copper alloy shift fork in the old parts warehouse. It can't be used anymore, but it is useful to take it apart and give it to new people to practice on.
Old Fang turned to look at Jiang Haibo's fingernails, which were stained gray with engine oil, and said, "That's right, that makes sense."
In the evening, Lin Xiu'e brought out a pot of mackerel soup from the kitchen. The mackerel was brought down from the Ping An ship by Lin's father that morning. She cut it into sections and put it in the pot with ginger slices and scallion segments, simmering it until the soup turned milky white.
Ah-Guang was squatting under the loquat tree repairing a fence. The tide had washed away a corner of the broken seashells, and he was arranging them neatly one by one.
Jiang Haibo squatted down next to him with a bowl of soup and said that these loquat trees in the yard have been there ever since they were planted, and although the service station staff have changed batch after batch, these trees have always remained.
Ah Guang said that Master Fang once said that loquats grow slowly, but live a long time.
After finishing work, Jiang Haiping sat at the workshop entrance and opened the standardized maintenance file that Ahai had newly copied.
The pilot program of this system implemented by the province has yielded good results, with an independent file being created for each official vessel after maintenance.
He closed the file, called Ah Hai over, and told him that tomorrow Jiang Haibo would start learning to recognize high-pressure oil pipe joints, and the register in the old parts warehouse would be officially handed over to Jiang Haibo for management, so Ah Guang could free up his time to practice welding.
Ahai nodded and said he would take him on the ship first thing tomorrow morning.
It was completely dark. The fishing boats waiting to be repaired in the stone trough rocked gently, and the green loquats on the trees gleamed faintly in the moonlight.
Ah Shun is coming tomorrow, and the service station will have another new employee.
Jiang Haiping stood on the reef for a while, the waves gently lapping against the stone trough, one after another, without rushing.