Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

I helped organize the Zhang family’s annual party. Since we would have to pass through Shanghai after departing from Yangcheng Lake on our return trip, I had the sudden idea of taking the Zhang family members to Disneyland.

I had been thinking about how to be a good event organizer the whole time and was at wit's end. We didn’t have a good time while eating at the crab restaurant I had selected (1). Moreover, they ate way too fast, so this activity didn’t really feel like an activity. But it was also difficult for me to explain how long it should take for people to eat crabs or what kind of mood they should be in when eating crabs.

After they finished eating, they were waiting to hear what the next activity would be. The atmosphere was very heavy, which made me feel like they were actually a group of leaders who were testing my ability to receive people. So, I decided to take them to Disneyland.

After I brought them into the theme park, I left them to their own devices. I went and squatted down near the shady jungle restaurant where all the exhausted rough guys had also gathered.

My mentality at the time was: I’ve brought the fresh-out-of-the-jungle Tarzan to the human world. I’ve brought the T-Rex to Columbia City. I have to see what happens and let myself have some fun.

But the truth was that people from the Zhang family understood the ways of the world. Disneyland may have been a relatively unfamiliar place to them, but it didn’t mean that they didn’t know what to do here.

I knew that I would definitely be rejected if I offered to show them around. I also knew that I definitely wouldn’t have to organize next year’s annual party unless they still didn’t have any income by then.

I hoped they could either make enough money to organize annual parties themselves, or make enough money to leave Hangzhou.

After a long time, I fell asleep in that cool, shady place. When I woke up, the fireworks display had just begun and Qianjun Wanma’s clothes were draped over me.

I stood up and found that there was already a different group of people around me. Many children were already asleep at this time and various strollers had been lined up next to me. I cautiously left the area to go and watch the fireworks display.

I saw the people from the Zhang family in the crowd. Little Brother Zhang and Zhang Qianjun Wanma were wearing Mickey Mouse headbands and talking to each other. There was a little girl next to them who was also wearing a headband, but hers was the kind that glowed.

I turned my head to look for their patriarch in the crowd, but couldn’t find him amid the flashing fireworks going off above us.

The end of the Hangzhou Archives’ first annual party was marked by the sound of the theme park’s paging system announcing a missing person.

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TN Notes:

(1) Yangcheng Lake is famous for having crabs.