roccoschili Chapter 6: Hidden Compartment
Chapter 6: Hidden Compartment
Cheng Xiaojin sat in the rented room all night, clutching that lump of iron, without even daring to turn off the light.
He looked at the padlock drawing on the wall countless times, and the more he looked, the more uneasy he felt.
As dawn broke, he couldn't sit still any longer. He stuffed the metal lump into his backpack, went out, and rode his bicycle straight to Master Ma's courtyard house.
There weren't many people in the alley at five in the morning, except for a few stray cats that darted over the wall, their eyes darting around in the darkness.
Cheng Xiaojin locked his bicycle at the alley entrance, ran all the way to Master Ma's house, and took a picture as soon as he raised his hand.
"Master Ma, Master Ma, it's me, Cheng Xiaojin."
The door opened, and Aunt Zhang, Ma's wife, poked half her head out, her face showing signs of morning grumpiness.
"Xiao Jin, are you crazy? It's not even dawn yet."
"Auntie, it's urgent, really urgent."
"Your Uncle Ma is practicing Tai Chi in the backyard, go in yourself."
When Cheng Xiaojin squeezed into the courtyard, Grandpa Ma was standing under the locust tree, arms outstretched, eyes closed, breathing heavily.
Cheng Xiaojin stood to the side for two minutes, but couldn't hold back any longer.
"Master Ma, something's happened."
Master Ma didn't open his eyes.
"What could possibly make you come all this way so early in the morning?"
"Someone ransacked my house."
Master Ma opened his eyes, put away his stance, walked to the stone table, sat down, picked up the thermos, and poured himself a cup of tea.
Explain it more clearly.
Cheng Xiaojin slammed his backpack on the stone table and went over to recount the whole story, from Fatty Sun's men stalking him at the market, to handing out business cards, to Fatty Sun personally coming to collect the goods yesterday, and finally to finding that the house had been disturbed and that a padlock cross had been drawn on the wall when he got home.
Master Ma held his teacup but didn't drink it, and remained silent for a long while after listening.
"Did you bring the things?"
Cheng Xiaojin unzipped his backpack, took out the metal lump, and rubbed his fingertips on the rust.
"I was afraid that my shabby house would be stolen sooner or later, so I specially wrapped it in three layers of old newspapers and stuffed it inside."
Master Ma looked at the lump of iron, then at Cheng Xiaojin.
Did you lock the door when you left yesterday?
"It's locked, and they even put semi-transparent tape on the door seam. The tape will definitely break if someone pushes the door."
"The tape broke?"
"It broke, but someone put it back on and pasted it on the wall next to me, clearly to show it to me."
Master Ma put down his teacup and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.
"I know Sun Bingde."
Cheng Xiaojin perked up and shifted his position forward.
"Do you know him?"
"I wouldn't say I know him, but he's been working in Panjiayuan for twenty years, how could I not know him?"
Grandpa Ma stood up, put his hands behind his back, and paced around the courtyard a few times, his cloth shoes making a soft sound as they stepped on the bluestone slabs.
"You think he's just a local bully who rips off street vendors in Panjiayuan?"
Cheng Xiaojin was stunned.
"Isn't that right? I heard Tieguai Li say before that he made a living by buying low and selling high, stealing goods from street vendors."
"If he were just a local bully, would he bother sending people to ransack your dilapidated house?"
Cheng Xiaojin didn't respond, her fingers picking at the bits of moss in the cracks of the stone table.
Master Ma turned around and looked at him.
"Sun Bingde is connected to a network that specializes in smuggling obscure and unpopular cultural relics from China to Southeast Asia."
Master Ma paused, then tapped the metal lump on the table with his fingertip.
"There is a group of Chinese collectors over there who don't collect porcelain or calligraphy and paintings, but specialize in collecting old iron and stone artifacts related to feng shui and talismans."
"These things aren't worth much in the domestic market, and customs doesn't really keep an eye on them, but once they get there, the price increases tenfold or more."
Cheng Xiaojin was stunned, his eyes wide open.
"Trading cultural relics? Isn't that illegal?"
Master Ma glanced at him, picked up his teacup, and blew on the floating leaves.
"You've been hanging around Panjiayuan for so many years, and you still find this kind of thing novel?"
"The law is the law, but ironware is not on the national first-class protected list. Customs focuses on bronzeware and calligraphy and paintings. Who would bother with a lump of rusty iron? Sun Bingde and his team took advantage of this loophole."
Cheng Xiaojin gripped the backpack straps tightly with her fingers.
"So, he's definitely going to get his hands on this thing?"
"He not only wants to get his hands on it, but he also needs to figure out where it came from and its value."
Master Ma placed the teacup on the table with a soft click.
"Your performance yesterday has already shown him that this piece of iron is not scrap metal; you know its weight."
Master Ma walked up to Cheng Xiaojin and extended his hand.
"Leave the things with me."
Cheng Xiaojin looked up at him.
"Will it be alright if I stay here with you?"
"Don't you know what kind of status my house holds in this circle?"
Cheng Xiaojin certainly knew.
In the underground world of Panjiayuan, there's an unwritten rule about Master Ma's courtyard house: if someone leaves their belongings with Master Ma, it's like they're insured, and no one dares to touch them.
These rules weren't established by fists; they were upheld by Mr. Ma's decades of connections and reputation.
If Fatty Sun were to act arrogantly and extend his reach into Master Ma's courtyard, he would be making an enemy of the entire antique circle in Beijing.
"OK."
Cheng Xiaojin handed over the lump of iron.
Master Ma took it, weighed it in his hand, and then turned and went into the main room.
Cheng Xiaojin followed behind, watching as Master Ma walked to a row of rosewood bookshelves against the wall. He reached out and fumbled around on the back panel of the bookshelves for a few moments. With a soft click, a hidden compartment popped open on the back panel, just big enough to fit a fist-sized object.
Master Ma placed the iron lump inside, closed the hidden compartment, and it fit perfectly, looking exactly like an ordinary cabinet back panel from the outside.
"This hidden compartment was made by your grandfather. It's been thirty years, and no one but me knows about it."
Cheng Xiaojin was stunned.
"My grandfather?"
"When your grandfather was young, his carpentry skills were unparalleled. You couldn't find another carpenter like him in Panjiayuan with his mortise and tenon joints."
Master Ma patted the counter and turned to look at him.
"But you probably don't know these things. He left early and didn't have time to teach you."
Cheng Xiaojin didn't speak, staring at the cabinet for a while with her head down, then lightly traced the wood grain on the cabinet surface with her fingertip.
The two walked back to the courtyard and sat down. Cheng Xiaojin leaned forward on the stone bench opposite them.
"Master Ma, what should I do now? I can't keep hiding from Fatty Sun forever."
"Hide? Where can you hide? That stall is your livelihood. What will you eat if you don't set up your stall?"
"So, we'll just have to tough it out?"
Master Ma glanced at him.
"Can you handle it?"
Cheng Xiaojin opened his mouth but didn't say anything, instead grinding a small pebble on the ground with his foot.
Master Ma picked up his teacup, took a sip, and sighed as he put it down.
"You're just like your father when he was young, a complete coward."
Cheng Xiaojin straightened his back immediately.
"How did I chicken out?"
"If you're not a coward, why did you come here so early in the morning with all that stuff? Couldn't you have hidden it yourself? Couldn't you have carried it yourself? Your first reaction to something is to ask for help. What else is that but being a coward?"
Cheng Xiaojin was so speechless that he couldn't say a word, and his face turned bright red.
Master Ma looked at him with a complicated expression.
"Sigh... your dad stopped backing down later."
It paused for two seconds.
"And then that was it..."
Cheng Xiaojin sat on the stone bench, hands on his knees, head down, saying nothing.
The courtyard was quiet for a long time, with only the sound of thrushes flapping their wings in their cages.
Master Ma took out a small notebook with worn-out edges from his pocket, flipped through a few pages, tore off a slip of paper, and handed it over.
A mobile phone number was written on it.
"Go find this person; he can help you resolve Fatty Sun's matter."
Cheng Xiaojin took the note and looked at it. The numbers were crooked and there was a small cane drawn next to it.
"Master Ma, who is this?"
"Someone you know."
Cheng Xiaojin turned the note over, and on the blank back, Master Ma wrote a few words in pencil.
Tieguai Li, a serious worker.
Cheng Xiaojin looked up and put the note on the table.
"Iron-Crutch Li? What help could a clock repairman like him possibly give me? Am I supposed to have him take apart all the clocks at Fatty Sun's house?"
Master Ma slammed his teacup on the table, spilling half a cup of tea.
"You think all he can do is fix clocks?"