Chapter Ninety: Bathing

After entering the pool, Chen Liang made straight for the far right-hand corner, where a water pipe stood. It led to the boiler room and was used to draw hot water.

He picked up an iron bar lying beside the pipe and began hammering on it with dull, ringing blows.

After several strikes, shaking the pipe violently, he tossed the bar back where it had been.

A moment later, a rumbling rush of water sounded inside the pipe.

He lowered himself into the pool until only his head remained above the surface, then rested his head on a towel and leaned back against the pool’s edge, eyes closed, his expression one of pure satisfaction and ease.

As the hot water loosened every muscle in his body, Chen Liang felt himself slowly unwind. If there were only one word for it, it would be this: bliss.

He soaked for a while, nearly drifting off to sleep, when, with a splash, Foolish Chu plopped down beside him.

Foolish Chu scooped water over himself, then lay back just like Chen Liang. “Damn, that water’s hot enough to scald a dead pig.”

“Liangzi, I’ve got to say, you ran off way too fast. I just went back to get something, and you were gone without a trace!”

His rare good mood was spoiled by Foolish Chu’s interruption. Chen Liang shot him a glance, then looked at the muddy pellets churning in the pool and felt his enjoyment fade.

These public bathhouses had to keep the same water heated for an entire day before changing it, so if you wanted clean water, you had to come first thing in the morning.

Once it was past noon, every bathhouse was the same—full of floating filth.

Feeling he had soaked enough, and unwilling to deal with Foolish Chu’s chatter, Chen Liang stood up out of the pool. His whole body was red from the heat, like a boiled shrimp.

This was the old bathhouse men of the capital loved so much: the scalding bath. Supposedly it promoted circulation, dispersed bruises, and drove out cold. As for whether any of that was true, well, let each wise man judge for himself. In any case, it was a folk remedy with not the slightest scientific basis.

Red as a shrimp, Chen Liang spotted an attendant with some free time and lay down on the wooden rubbing bed reserved for scrubbing. “Comrade, use some real force. If it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t feel good.”

The scrub attendant took the towel Chen Liang handed over, wound it around his hands in a few quick motions, then clapped his palms together. “Comrade, don’t worry. Old Zhang here has only this last bit of strength left, but I’ll scrub you nice and comfortable for sure.”

The attendant had his own towel, too, but Chen Liang, this fussy little bastard, liked to keep himself clean and refused to use one that had scrubbed other people.

Lying there and letting the attendant work him over, he was just like a little lamb stripped of its hide. Before long, great clumps of grime were rolling off Chen Liang’s body.

Maybe some friends from the south had never experienced having their whole body scrubbed by a bathhouse attendant while lying on a bed, but truth be told, it was genuinely comfortable.

Especially after being soaked through in hot water like pig bristles being scalded, then scrubbed to the point where thick balls of grime came rolling off the body—just looking at it made a person feel indescribably content.

And after the scrubbing, when you went to rinse yourself clean, that instant of refreshment and relief gave one the feeling of being entirely reborn.

Old Zhang was exactly as he had claimed: when scrubbing Chen Liang, he put every ounce of strength into it, rubbing him until it was almost blissful agony.

By the time he reached the inner thighs, the attendant glanced at the fearsome monster there and couldn’t help cursing inwardly at the brute.

After the whole body had been scrubbed clean, Old Zhang patted Chen Liang and removed the towel from his hands, motioning for him to go rinse off quickly.

So Chen Liang strode off, his end swaying, and stood beneath an empty showerhead. He turned on the cold water first, then the hot, balancing the temperature until it was just right, and then he happily washed himself from head to toe with soap, feeling as if he had shed two pounds.

After that, in high spirits, Chen Liang wrapped the soap in a towel and went to the lounge.

He chose an empty recliner, set the towel aside, found a clean teapot, scalded it thoroughly inside and out with boiling water, then took out the fine tea Foolish Chu had forced on him and poured it in.

Called fine tea, it was really just a small packet of tea dregs. In later years it would be something even dogs would scorn, but in those days it had a grand, upscale name: premium broken tea. For most people, it was the kind of thing they wanted to buy but couldn’t.

Why? Because to buy tea, you needed a tea coupon. Most people got only one coupon a year, and only a fool would be willing to spend money drinking broken tea.

He took a satisfying sip. Chen Liang couldn’t really tell how many kinds of tea were blended in it, but the flavor was still pretty good.

After a bath, a scrub, and then a blissful cup of hot tea—what kind of life could compare? Not even an immortal’s.

In his past life, Chen Liang had been a southerner, and the place in a bathhouse he cared about most was the private room on the second floor. As for the rest, he had never given them much thought.

But after adapting to local customs, it seemed that soaking in a bathhouse wasn’t any worse than a sauna or a massage parlor. In fact, it was rather wonderful.

By the time he finished his tea, Foolish Chu had also swaggered out of the washroom. Seeing Chen Liang sprawled in the recliner like the character for big, he strode over.

Foolish Chu didn’t mind that Chen Liang had already drunk from the cup; he picked it up and downed a cup for himself, then flopped into the recliner beside Chen Liang and sprawled out the same way.

Once a person relaxed, sleep came easily, and with the steam radiating from the heated bathhouse radiators, Chen Liang drifted drowsily from noon until evening.

That sweet, satisfying sleep left him feeling refreshed when he woke. He nudged awake Foolish Chu, who was dozing in the chair next to him, then went to have his hair wrung out, wash his face, and finally let the pedicure attendant trim his toenails.

After all that was done, Chen Liang went back in for another rinse. When he came out, he dried himself with the towel, exchanged the small wooden tag tied to his wrist for the little bamboo basket hanging from the ceiling, and put on a fresh, crisp set of clothes.

Passing the full-length mirror in the changing room, Chen Liang glanced at the handsome fellow reflected inside and looked utterly intoxicated. Damn it, he had once again been dazzled by his own good looks.

Then Foolish Chu ruined his good mood. Glancing at the shoe-last face in the mirror, Chen Liang immediately felt a touch of annoyance.

“Let’s go. What are you standing around here admiring yourself for? Look at that lecherous grin on your face—I knew you were up to something bad again!”

Damn your grandmother. I’m thinking about how to sleep with your wife.

Silently rolling his eyes at Foolish Chu, Chen Liang thought that this bastard really had the emotional intelligence of a brick. Keep running your mouth at me like that, and you’ll deserve it when some man steals your crystal later on.