Xiao Feng has always regarded King Kong as her own father, thinking that everyone else has benefited from her and shared her father. She 'Abba!' "Daddy!" It's called very affectionately. Jin initially wanted the children to call him "uncle" (which means "uncle" in Shanghainese), but the other children gradually followed Xiaofeng's call and he accepted it. Only a few big boys like Dalong were too embarrassed to call him that for a while.
King Kong went out and bought some old books for primary school students, including Chinese and arithmetic. He also bought pencils and paper for the children to study. He also bought some old novels, such as Water Margin, Romance of The Three Kingdoms, Three Heroes and Five Gallants, as well as translations of Sherlock Holmes, The Count of Monte Cristo and Jules. Jules Verne's science fiction works, etc.
After dinner, they went to the middle hall (where they ate too) and asked him any questions about their studies. At the end, King Kong or the two dragons read a short story or a joke for everyone under the kerosene lamp (the village has no electricity yet). As the children learned more characters, they took turns to read.
The children's enthusiasm for learning was quite high. Reluctant to use paper, they spread some sand on the floor and wrote with stones or twigs of firewood. When there were few books and many people, they lined up to read books, or four or five people read one book together. The story that King Kong read at night, the next day several people would gather around the book to read.
Those who made great progress in their studies were rewarded with learning to ride a bicycle or a piece of candy. Big boys don't want candies. Learning to ride a bike is too tempting for them. Among the girls, only Erfeng was going to learn to ride a bike at the beginning. After she learned it, some older girls began to learn. The two phoenixes are a bit like boys, going crazy with them all day long.
However, for those who are disobedient, the punishment is neither beating nor going hungry for a meal. (These two measures are the neighbors' educational methods for children, with not allowing them to eat being the most severe!) Instead, they are not allowed to take part in evening activities. The kids are nervous about this punishment. It's so much fun to listen to stories together! So, everyone is obedient. In fact, at this time, it seems that the King Kong is very obedient.
The children of the neighbors and the coachmen also liked to play in their yard. They study together and go home after listening to stories in the evening.
The boys like to learn to ride bikes, but they are a little scared at the beginning. It's not that I'm afraid of hurting myself, but that I'm afraid of breaking the bike. One evening, when Sanlong, Xiaolong and Erfeng came back from outside, they all knelt down in front of Jingang, followed by some of the coachman's children, which startled Jingang.
It turned out that it was Sanlong who had been rewarded to learn to ride a bike that day, but accidentally fell and knocked the handlebars off. The neighbors scared them, saying, "If you break such an expensive thing, your father will kill you!" So they (the two younger ones following behind the car, responsible for the fall) came to apologize.
King Kong hurriedly pulled them up to check if they were injured, saying it didn't matter if the car broke down and that people should not be injured. SAN Long had a few cuts on the back of his hand, and King Kong quickly took out some red medicine water and applied it. King Kong, of course, didn't take the bike as a big deal. If the handlebars were crooked, just twist them and they would be straight.
The children, seeing that not only did they not hit Sanlong and the others, but not even a word of scolding, became more daring to learn to ride. And the neighbors all said to the children, "Your father is so kind to you!"
Wu Feng's "sister head" is so big that she still wets the bed easily and her complexion is a little pale. Other children made fun of her, and she felt a bit sad because of that.
To solve Wufeng's bedwetting problem, King Kong took her to see a traditional Chinese doctor, who prescribed a kidney-tonifying medicine for Xiaofeng. The Chinese medicine took effect slowly, so he bought a broken old alarm clock and a set of clock repair tools and fixed the alarm clock himself. The alarm clock woke Xiaofeng up at a fixed time every night to get up and urinate. With the help of traditional Chinese medicine and the alarm clock, along with nutrition, Xiao Feng got better after two months. Gradually, without the alarm clock, she would get up to urinate on her own when the time came. After half a year, her body was completely normal.
When Jin was fixing the alarm clock, the children were all watching. Especially the big dragon was very eager to learn, so King Kong took the repaired clock apart again and taught it slowly. The Great Dragon was most interested in this kind of thing and would open the back cover of the clock and study its operation whenever he had time.
One Sunday day, King Kong was rarely at home. Suddenly hear Wannan scream in the yard: Come quickly! There's a mouse!
In King Kong's impression, big girls are usually scared half to death when they see "Little Strong". Now that Xiaofeng has met a mouse, of course his father will go out to boost her courage.
When he went out of the room to the backyard, he saw that several boys had already rushed to the yard with bamboo sticks in their hands, and all the children had followed. Wannan said the mouse was hiding behind a small, broken VAT by the wall. The four boys, led by the three dragons, were trained to stand at the four corners and surrounded the place where the mouse was, and the other children formed a circle outside the encirclement. Then the big dragon went over and moved the small broken jar away. A rat, only half a foot long, leapt out and ran towards the dragon. The little dragon hit the rat too early, in front of it. The rat immediately changed direction and ran to the other side of the encirclement, running extremely fast, what is called "running with all one's might."
Here it was the Three Dragons defending, and with a lunge, he struck the rat right in the belly with a powerful slash on Mount Hua. The rat pressed under the stick, squeaking... Let out a loud scream. Another man rushed over at once, and with the same "Power Strike on Mount Hua", he hit the rat on the head precisely. This man is Sanfeng! The mouse immediately fell silent and blood was flowing from its mouth. The whole process could be described as well-trained and well-coordinated!
King Kong felt a bit sick when he saw the dead mouse, mainly because he thought it was dirty. Just as he was about to ask them to take brooms to deal with the dead rat, the three Dragons reached out and grabbed the rat's tail, lifting it up. The rat's blood dripped down its mouth. It's really unhygienic. At least use a pair of tongs to pick up coal balls.
King Kong is now up to Xiaofeng (Wunnan) and says to her: Look, don't be afraid! Rats are afraid of people, too! But Mi Feng seemed not to understand what he was saying, and then, along with all the children, shouted rhythmically.
What did they shout? King Kong heard that they were Shouting, "There's meat to eat again!" There's meat again!"
It turns out that beating mice is for eating! It turns out that children are not afraid when they see mice, but hunters are excited when they find their prey! King Kong looked at disgusting dead mice, but in the eyes of the children, it was a feast!
King Kong quickly persuaded them not to eat the mouse, which was unhygienic. He came to ask Da Feng to buy pork to eat. But the children thought it would be a pity not to eat such a big rat.
"The last one was smaller than this one. Didn't we eat it too... Which one last time? It was the one you said was good, last week."
King Kong recalled that on the usual day when there was meat, there was usually a piece of pork the size of a thumb for each person in the evening, or about that many slices and shreds of meat. But last week each person was given only a small piece of meat, but it was very lean, all lean meat. He asked Da Feng why he had bought so little, and Da Feng just smiled and asked if it tasted good. It was good, indeed a little better than usual pork.
King Kong watched the three dragons cut off the mouse's head, limbs and tail, and peel off its skin; Dissect and throw out the innards, and it becomes a square piece of meat.
Eating rat meat this time feels different from last time. But after eating it, I still think it tastes no worse than pork. There was no fat at all and the meat was tender.
King Kong's act of adopting a child soon spread to the factory, and his colleagues expressed their admiration for him. Some of the workers he had taught a while ago were particularly skilled and eager to learn. King Kong was particularly close to them and asked them to take other workers to do some minor technical work. But before, they always thought "Mr. Xu" was a big intellectual, so they were a little "afraid to get close" to him. After learning about his adoption of a child, they thought he really didn't have the AIRS of a "superior man".
One day, two workers who worked with him brought up one thing: they wanted King Kong to be their master. King Kong agreed without a second thought: he had been teaching them all along, and it sounded much better to call him master than to call him Mr. Xu. The two workers were the most studious and skilled under his command.
In the 21st century, anyone in Shanghai can be called "master". King Kong didn't expect that the master-apprentice relationship would be so different in the two times and Spaces. At this time, the master was not called casually, with a bit of the meaning of "once a teacher, always a father." One of them is older than King Kong, and the other is only two years younger than him. And some of them already had their own disciples, so King suddenly became the "master"!
When Vajra learned of this, he felt very embarrassed. But the two apprentices were indeed very nice, so King was glad to have taken them on later. His disciples did not repent for having taken him as their master.
The first one was Tian Jiawang, twenty-nine years old, who had worked in a machinery factory before and was said to be good at lathes and planers, but King Kong saw that he was really good at doing fitter work.
The second was Zhou Yufu, twenty-four years old, with two years of education, who used to be a clerk in a Chinese medicine store. He has good handwriting, whether with a brush or a fountain pen, which can be regarded as a copybook.
After they became King Kong's disciples, they seemed to have a higher status, and it was "legitimate" for them to direct the workers. King Kong also handed over the daily production of the two workshops to them. Anyway, the production processes and systems of the workshops were basically sorted out. He began to investigate the production of chemical machinery in Shanghai himself and wanted to make some chemical machinery with ceramics.
There are no kaolin mines in Shanghai, but there are ceramic factories in Shanghai. King Kong found one whose owner was from Jingdezhen and whose workers were all from Jingdezhen. The Jingdezhen dialect that King Kong learned to speak had a distinct accent, but in Shanghai, it was rare for someone to speak such Jingdezhen dialect. So the boss was very polite to King Kong. This porcelain factory has clay from Jingdezhen (very good kaolin), and from nearby places like Yuyao, Zhejiang (less good quality, relatively much cheaper).
King Kong wanted to see if the conditions in the ceramic factory could make parts for the chemical plant. In King Kong's opinion, the factory's production equipment and processes were far too rudimentary. The earth-washing process is done by foot, the shaping is done by hand, and the kiln temperature is determined by experience and human eyes... In a word, it's all done by hand. The products are mainly bowls, large and small blue-rimmed bowls.
Since bowls don't sell well, earthenware jars are also produced. Poor-quality clay was used to produce vats of all sizes. The most common ones are called "seven-stone jars", with ten dou for one stone, which can hold seven stones of rice? But it didn't sell well either.
King Kong believes that there is a problem with the market positioning of this factory. For high-end products, people buy genuine Jingdezhen ones. For low-end products, there is fierce competition and they have no competitiveness and a limited range of products.
The boss complained to King Kong that business was hard to do. The money for the clay is owed to people, the money for the firewood is owed to people, and the wages of the workers are owed... Who would want to have a VAT taken? The factory is losing money and he wants to sell it, but who's willing to "take the VAT back"?
King Kong took a look and found that the factory was capable of producing small-diameter, low-pressure, corrosion-resistant pipes. With the help of mechanical processing, it can also produce corrosion-resistant valves: this factory can produce ceramic valve cores. But fiberglass is needed to produce high-strength ceramic products.
So when the boss said he would sell the factory if someone was willing to pay two thousand dollars, King Kong was a bit inclined to take over the VAT.
But King Kong didn't say he wanted to take over the factory at the time because he didn't have much money left after buying a new home. He just said he wanted to try making a few tubes with his own porcelain clay at the ceramics factory. And he agreed on the price, which was more than thirty times cheaper than British imported iron pipes!
He had to talk to Manager Wu of the chemical plant before he could start, and Manager Wu was not a frequent visitor.