Chapter 46

With the television people gone, all five of them lay on the sofa and none of them wanted to move. A whole day at full stretch, racking their brains for answers, and once the excitement drained there was only tiredness. Li Tieshi and Song Qiulan had given out two hours earlier and gone home to rest, and Chen Shanxing had left in the afternoon while it was still light.

His strength returning a little, Li Quan sat up and let out a long breath. "Being on television isn't for ordinary people. It's exhausting."

Chen Ying agreed. "It is. Harder work than a full day of heavy scrap. Just as well it's the once — I couldn't do it twice."

He laughed at that. "Once is doing well. Do you want to be on more? I asked the television people — the one with the camera said it should broadcast in a week. The city affairs programme on the current-affairs channel. We're not missing our first time on television."

Li Lan watched her siblings nod with anticipation, and felt some sympathy for them. To be that unspoilt. Both had been interviewed today, and having watched them do it she had one feeling: anticipation — for the expressions on their faces when they were grown and remembered this. Those would be worth seeing.

The programme was going out on the third day of the new year, and her parents worked it out: since the grandparents were spending it with them and everyone else would be coming to pay new year visits anyway, they'd skip the rounds and host at home, and make a celebration of it.

So on the second day Li Quan drove over and collected the flat-screen television that Chen Leshan's electrical shop used for advertising — seventy inches, taking up the better part of a wall.

From ten on the third morning nobody's feet touched the floor. Her parents finished lunch and started on dinner; the three children weren't idle either. Eldest uncle and aunt, second and third uncles, aunts and uncles by marriage, and assorted cousins — from ten o'clock the three of them cycled continuously between meeting relatives, keeping them company, fetching fruit and cleaning up. The red envelopes, admittedly, came in exceptionally well.

The morning was mostly her mother's side. After a small gathering at midday the afternoon built steadily: her grandparents were collected after lunch, and then the aunts who worked away, and the uncle who worked out of town and rarely came home, all arrived at the third floor in turn.

From ten in the morning to five in the afternoon the three children's faces were nearly set in place, Li Lan's especially, since she had to meet people and keep them talking. Li Cheng and Li Jingyu were cheerfully happy to use fetching fruit as an excuse to get out for air.

The programme was at half six, and by six the front room was talking and watching television and waiting. A trailer appeared, and the room erupted. "There it is, there — oh, it's only the trailer." At which the several dozen people present, seeing the trailer was barely fifteen seconds long, sighed in unison.

On the sofa her parents sat either side of the grandparents, laughing and talking with everyone, in high spirits. "What's the hurry? Half past six, we said. It's six o'clock, there's half an hour yet."

Li Lan looked round at twenty or thirty people: her grandparents at the centre as the most senior, twenty-odd of her mother's relatives on one side and a dozen of her father's on the other.

She'd always known there were a lot of them, but new year visits and gatherings were normally spread out and it never registered. Together in one place they were an enormous number, and sixty square metres of front room was packed. More people meant more noise and a great deal more eating; nobody had had dinner yet and the floor had been cleared of shells and peel more times than anyone had counted.

At half six the programme began, and the noisy room fell gradually quiet. Something nobody normally watched was extraordinarily compelling tonight.

Whatever had been agreed between the education department and the station, the programme had made a feature of it, and seeing herself in the middle of the screen holding the reading pose the crew had asked for, with four large characters beside her about a poor family's pride, Li Lan covered her face. She couldn't look.

Nobody else felt that way. Recognising the settings, they were full of praise.

"That's our front room."

"Quan, Yingzi — I'd no idea you two could talk like that."

"Father, Mother, you spoke to the section chief?"

And when the final montage arrived with its voiceover and its music, several of her more emotional aunts had wet eyes. "Beautifully done. I hadn't realised how hard it was for you two those years. Thank goodness it's behind you."

Unlike the moved faces around them, the four who had been interviewed laughed awkwardly and, when nobody was looking, glanced at each other in shared confusion. Is that what we said? I don't remember putting it that well.

None of them pursued it. What they'd wanted was to be on television, and they were thoroughly satisfied. That evening the flat was full of noise and laughter, and the eating went on until ten.

---

After the third day there wasn't much holiday left, and the stock laid in before the festival was more than half gone, so before they'd had time to enjoy the fame her parents were back to leaving early and returning late for supplies. This time with a surprise, though.

Possibly Tsinghua and Peking carry that much weight, or possibly the programme worked too well — but a fair number of people had seen it, and recognised them while they were buying stock. It had not occurred to either of them that they might be treated as celebrities, and they related it to the children with enormous pleasure.

None of which concerned Li Lan, who was entirely occupied with the calendula she'd brought back from the Shanghai garden. She'd potted the seeds on returning and made time every day to record their progress.

Today she went to check as usual. The garden's seed was good quality; ordinarily calendula takes up to five days to show, and following the shop's germination method it had come up in three, and now stood twenty centimetres — ready to transplant into the vegetable patch at the old courtyard.

"My face — I've got spots." While she was measuring, a wail came from the bathroom. Li Lan ignored it and went on studying the seedlings.

Li Cheng arrived at a run, turned her round and lifted her chin. "Li Lan, look at my face." Li Lan looked. Several large red spots along the jaw.

Li Cheng shook her, agitated. "Yesterday it was a tiny thing and I left it alone, and today they're this big. What do I do?"

She was genuinely frightened. Both of them had always had good skin — plain water and a bit of ordinary moisturiser had been fine. A sudden outbreak had her braced for disaster, terrified of ending up like classmates whose faces were covered in them, which she'd heard couldn't be treated and left marks. She had no intention of looking like that.

Shaken loose, Li Lan offered perfunctory comfort. "It's nothing. You've been eating nothing but rich food for days and you never go down and move about. A few spots is normal. They'll go in a few days."

"Will they?" Li Cheng calmed slightly and looked doubtful.

"Mm." Li Lan nodded, her expression entirely sincere. She had seedlings to transplant and no time to discuss skin. As she remembered it, her sister's skin got rougher later but never broke out, so this was presumably temporary and nothing to worry about.

"All right." Li Cheng decided to wait a couple of days, chiefly because she had no idea what else to do, this being her first outbreak.

Or perhaps she'd go down and buy a face wash. Washing properly might stop them — and she was at high school now, she ought to be using a face wash. She touched her chin and felt a certain urgency, and decided to go down shortly.

So when Li Lan came back with the empty pot she found Li Cheng at the cosmetics counter looking troubled, turning two bottles over and studying them.

She frowned at her sister. "Li Lan, which is better, this one or that one? A lot of people in my dormitory use this one."

But the other was more expensive, which presumably meant better. And perhaps something else again was better still. Half an hour of looking and her eyes had gone; she genuinely couldn't choose.

Li Lan glanced along the shelf, which at that period held mostly face washes and a few toners and lotions, and handed her one. "Use this. An old domestic brand — far better than either of those."

Li Cheng looked at the greenish bottle with some disdain. "Is it? The packaging's so dowdy. And nobody in my dormitory uses it."

"A friend has recommended it to me several times. Everyone says it works. Trust me." A brand the state itself was pushing had to be safer than the alternatives.

She added a full set of toner and lotion. "And stop using that old cream. It's time you had something decent." Li Cheng didn't need anything elaborate yet, but basic hydration was worth doing properly.

Li Cheng held the armful without enthusiasm. "I only want these things on my chin gone."

"Eat some fruit and they'll be gone tomorrow," said Li Lan, without much attention.

---

"Li Lan. They haven't gone and there are two more." The first thing Li Cheng did the next morning was look in the mirror, and finding two additions she rather went to pieces. She'd gone without two pieces of meat yesterday, too.

Li Lan's fingers paused over the keyboard. How had she never noticed how much fuss her sister made? A whole day of it yesterday, and now again?

Faced with a nearly tearful Li Cheng, a rare flicker of sisterly feeling surfaced. "Wait a moment. I think I've got a toner for spots that I brought back from Beijing — you can put it on as a compress."

"Have you?" Li Cheng looked at her with brimming eyes. "Have you used it?"

"I have. I had a few spots when I was in Beijing for the exam, so I bought a bottle at a shopping centre, and they were gone the next day." She said it on the way to their bedroom.

Li Cheng sniffed. "Right. I'll go and wash, you fetch the toner."

In the bedroom Li Lan made a show of opening her case. She had bought no toner; the explanation had been to get her sister off her back. The substance, however, could be arranged.

She opened the shop and found the calendula entry: a biennial of the daisy family, hairy throughout, rich in vitamins — and medicinally, an extract that is antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and calming to the skin.

That was the one.

Opening the detail brought up what she wanted.

[Calendula L1] [Antibacterial and anti-inflammatory — 100 points] [Hydrating — 100 points]

[Calendula L2] [Calendula extract — 100 points] [Menstrual irregularity — 100 points] [Soothing, anti-allergenic — 100 points]

[Calendula L3] [Lowers blood lipids — 100 points] [Strengthens immunity — 100 points]

[Calendula L4] [Calms the nerves — 100 points] [Accelerates healing — 100 points] [Digestive tract tumours — 100 points]

She'd decided to trade for something and let Li Cheng try it. Nearly a year with the shop, and this was the first time she'd bought anything other than attribute points. Thinking about that chin, she settled on the L2 calendula extract.

Having no L2 points, she had to convert first. Since Shanghai her L1 balance was close to seven thousand, and a hundred L1 buys only twenty L2 — so five hundred L1 later she had a hundred L2, and the personal information had changed.

[Host: Li Lan] [Points (L1): 6100 — convert to a higher grade?] [Points (L2): 100] [Attributes: collapsed]

She bought the L2 calendula extract, and nothing obvious happened — except that her head now contained a body of knowledge she hadn't had before: the detailed procedure for making calendula extract.

Except—

Her face darkened. Miscalculation. She had no way whatever of extracting anything. What use was a procedure?

Swallowing the pain of it, she spent another five hundred L1 on a finished bottle of the extract — at which a small bag icon appeared beside the personal information with a "1" beside it, which she assumed was what happened when you bought something physical.

She tapped it, and a clear glass bottle of pale yellow liquid appeared in her hand. Fifty millilitres, which made her feel robbed all over again. Buying finished goods from the shop was plainly the worst value there was; given the chance she'd make it herself from the procedure in her head.

Looking at the collapsed balance and then at the small bottle, Li Lan felt her heart bleed. Every one of those points had been earned a step at a time — and a formula and a fifty-millilitre bottle had wiped out most of a morning's work.

She came out and handed it over reluctantly, and seeing Li Cheng finish washing and go to pat it straight on, stopped her, wincing. "Careful with that, the bottle was expensive. No — I'll pour it for you."

She retrieved it, tipped two drops onto her index finger and started dabbing.

Li Cheng watched with disbelief. "Li Lan, you are unbelievably tight. How expensive can one little bottle be? I'll pay you for it."

Li Lan gave her a look. "Hold still. Pay me — could you afford it?"

Having covered every spot she put the cap back on. "Give it a morning, it should be fine." A cotton-pad compress works best, but she couldn't bring herself to spare it, so dabbing it was — and by the formula, L2 calendula extract took two hours to bring spots down. Everything the system produced had proved first-rate, so she had no doubts.

"Really?" Li Cheng checked the mirror again. "I'll wait the morning, then. Why didn't you get it out yesterday, though? I was in a state."

Li Lan felt slightly guilty. Could she say she'd been too busy transplanting seedlings to pay attention? "Er. It didn't occur to me. And I've got it out now, haven't I?"

Li Cheng wasn't after an answer and hadn't the appetite to press. "Never mind, as long as it works. I'll give it the morning."