Summer vacation was in full swing, and grandparents had become the main force in childcare. The grandmothers’ specialty was taking the little ones to the mall to cool off. They’d find an open area with a large TV, and the old and young would sit down in rows. The TV played old cartoons on a loop.
A film like Godzilla vs. Kong held no appeal for them. The children lost interest after a couple of glances, and the elderly had no idea who the monsters were fighting, much less why. The kids much preferred watching Princess Elsa from Frozen sing her enchanting songs. When the beautiful Elsa danced, the children became exceptionally well-behaved.
The claw machines, marble shooters, and goldfish-scooping games hidden under the stairs—these “small gambles for pleasure” that required money to purchase joy—you couldn’t expect to pry a single coin from the grandmothers’ pockets. Even if they now lived comfortable lives, frugality remained one of their most important principles.
The grandmothers’ most cost-effective pastime was to coax the children to sleep on a bench in the mall. After breakfast, they’d wake up from a nap, and several hours would have passed with ease.
A hair accessory shop had cleared out a third of its large space to set up racks for trendy womenswear, all of which seemed to be refreshing, flowing, plain-colored dresses. On the first floor, all the dress shops had their prices clearly marked, from 78 to 148 yuan. As long as you walked in, you could always find a size that fit.
Be it scorching summer or severe winter, whenever it was uncomfortable to be outdoors, more elderly people would choose to go to the parent-child training area on the third floor. On weekdays, the various training classrooms on this floor had few customers. Perhaps to save on electricity, the number of lights installed on the third floor was estimated to be less than a third of those on the first, making it feel dim upon arrival.
The favorite game of the seniors cooling off was “Fight the Landlord.” Two grannies and one grandpa would make up a game, with several others gathering around to chat. Sleeping on the massage chairs was also a good option. Although the chair backs were covered in hard bumps when you didn’t pay, resolutely prodding the lower backs of the freeloading customers, what did a little hardness matter to elderly folks who had spent half their lives sleeping on wooden planks? On this most hidden floor of the mall, the rule was: if you can lie down, never sit.
As for the elementary school children, if they had any spare time after finishing their homework, their families would bring them to the third floor. Here, there were special classrooms for dancing, singing, calligraphy, chess, martial arts, painting, and English. A pretty young teacher would patiently calculate the tuition fees for the parents: “Buying an extra quarter’s worth of classes will bring a leap-forward improvement in your child’s skills. Don’t let a few meager course fees delay your child’s natural talent.”
Besides the children whose weekends were packed with learning, the aimless youth also needed to kill their abundant time. Right next to the martial arts school was a 24-hour billiards hall, always ready to welcome the bored. Across from the billiards hall was a 24-hour e-sports cafe, and across from that was a 24-hour foot massage parlor. Young couples on a date, not wanting to spend a cent, could also find a bench behind a pillar on the third floor to lean on in secret.
By the time he went out for breakfast, it was already past eleven in the morning. On hot summer days, combining breakfast and lunch was just barely enough to satisfy a sluggish stomach.
Tian Meili, after having her brunch, was strolling through the mall to aid digestion. Her phone chimed with a text message from the bank that managed her pension. She had inexplicably received five hundred yuan. Could it be the “cooling fee” bonus from her former employer? Tian Meili’s already cheerful mood was lifted another few notches on this pleasant afternoon.
At dinner, Lin Song had intended to bring up a fresh topic. He had recently been pondering some matters he considered rather complex, wanting to use them, much like a game of chess, to activate his gradually stiffening brain cells.
Evidently, initiating a topic that required complex logical reasoning was an unwise move. Unsurprisingly, Lin Song was berated for “scratching an itch through a boot”—a criticism that had followed him for over thirty years. His high school Chinese teacher had once used this idiom to describe an off-topic essay he had written, and had even used that essay in class as a negative example of composition.
With the conversation so mismatched, Lin Song dared not lose his temper at the dinner table. He was facing a ten-thousand-ren cliff of solid granite. He calmly issued himself a “warning”: what temper did he even have left? He was nothing more than a bicycle tire with its valve core removed.
The words of Judge Raghunath from the movie Awaara echoed in his ears again: “A judge’s son will always be a judge, and a thief’s son will always be a thief.” This classic line incisively outlines the contours of society—a so-called civilized society is, first and foremost, a society of order.