Chapter 11 Why Repair Ships

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Being young and short comes with no rights.

It's one thing to wear a women's uniform, but they won't even let me read "Cruel Desire." Han Yu felt a bit depressed and could only go back to the police station to watch TV.

With no external antenna installed, fiddling with the TV's small antenna for a long time still resulted in static.

Just when he was about to turn off the TV and go to sleep, Xu Sanye came in after a shower, standing in front of the electric fan picking his ears.

"Salted Fish, do you know how to use a scale?"

"Yes, what am I weighing?"

"People say food and fodder go before the troops. When it comes to ship repair, we have to solve the funding issue first, so we plan to make some adjustments. Starting from tomorrow, you will take part in actions against speculation and profiteering."

Catching scalpers was exciting, but Han Yu did not think he was capable, and was stunned for a moment.

Xu Sanye pulled out a chair and sat down, saying, "The Luji has ripened. I'll help you find a few bundles of it tomorrow and get you a beam scale to go sell Luji at Bailong Port."

Luji is a variety of sorghum, also known as broomcorn millet, somewhat resembling small sugarcane.

In Linghai countryside, every household likes to plant a couple of rows on the ridges. The whole plant is green, long leaves running through the entire plant, rustling in the fields when a breeze blows.

When the tip of the panicle turns from green to red, showing a reddish-purple color, it's basically ripe.

Peeling the husk with your mouth, then taking a bite, let the sweet taste spread between lips and teeth, chewing until no more juice is left before willing to spit out the pulp.

As a child at Grandma's place, I often ate it, running to the field with a sickle to cut down a couple of stalks, removing the leaves and panicles in a jiffy, cheerfully dragging the whole stalk back home. Even before a bite was taken, the sweetness would already bring a smile to my face – happiness was that simple back then.

Later, when I went to technical school, Grandma would cut it into sections, tightly tying them into neat little bundles with cloth strips to send to school through someone.

The field across the road has it planted; it's not something rare.

Han Yu asked with perplexity, "Director Xu, will people buy it?"

"It's not about actually selling Luji. You'll use selling Luji as cover to find out who is reselling boat tickets, how exactly they're doing it, and where the tickets come from, especially where they tend to hide the tickets."

"Like little soldier Zhang Ga going undercover!"

"Right, Ga was selling watermelons as a cover, and you'll be selling Luji as cover. You're young and new here; change into different clothing, put on a coolie hat, sit by the roadside hawking, no one will pay attention."

"Okay, I'll give it a try."

"You can definitely do it, I have faith in you."

This was entrusting me with a mission...

Han Yu felt a touch excited and couldn't help but smile, "That means I'm an investigator."

Xu Sanye shook his head: "Only the police at the Criminal Police Team are called investigators, or criminal investigators. The police at the station are mainly responsible for security, although sometimes they do investigate, but they can only be called security officers."

"Is the Criminal Police Team really impressive?"

"They're okay. Our station is small, and so is the Criminal Police Team. There are seven investigators in total, one of whom is a forensic doctor. I used to be the Criminal Police Team Chief, for a full four years."

"Director Xu, you were the Criminal Police Team Chief!"

"What's there to be so surprised about?"

Xu Sanye smiled smugly, crossing his legs: "Now I remember, you graduated from Binjiang Shipping School, you were also part of the transportation system. Your sister and brother-in-law work at the Port Authority, are you familiar with Binjiang Port Police Station?"

"Not really. Before I reported for duty, I had never even been to the police station."

"So, you don't know much about our Police Bureau either."

"I've only met Instructor Zhang and Director Wang."

"You start working at the police station, didn't you ask anyone about the situation therein?"

"I don't have relatives in the county, I only know people from the shipping company. Most of them are on the ship, they know as little about the shore as I do."

"At least you should know about the various departments in the bureau, right?"

Han Yu shook his head with an embarrassed look.

This kid really knows nothing. Xu Sanye felt it was necessary to talk to him, otherwise, who knows what jokes he might make in the future.

"Our Police Bureau is at the Full Department Level. The Bureau Chief and Instructor are at the Director level; the four Deputy Chiefs, the Deputy Instructor, and Wang Xiazhi, the Political Work Office Director, are at the Deputy Director level. The Secretary's Section... it's now called the Office, the Office, Criminal Investigation Team, Security Section, Political Security Section, Preliminary Examination Section, Internal Security Section, Logistics Section, they are all at Standard Stock Level."

"So many sections..."

"There are more than just these; there is also the Communications Section, which specializes in installing internal telephone lines and radio transceivers."

Xu Sanye reached to turn off the TV, continuing: "The Traffic Police Team, the Detention Center, and all of us police stations are also at Standard Stock Level. Just like us, the Traffic Police Team is a new unit, established just last year."

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Han Yu curiously asked, "How many people are there in our Police Bureau?"

"There are ninety-six official police officers and fifty-three contract police officers. There are quite a few members of the Cooperative Defense Team, but they belong to various towns and can't be included."

Thinking of the upcoming interactions with the Bailong Port Police Station of the Binjiang Police Department, Little Salted Fish couldn't afford to be completely ignorant about them.

Xu Sanye continued, "As for the Binjiang Port Police Station, I don't know much either. All I know is that they were previously called the Binjiang Port Police Station, and it seems they were upgraded to the Binjiang Port Police Department in '83. But they are a bit of an oddity and can't be compared with us."

Han Yu subconsciously asked, "An oddity?"

Xu Sanye patiently explained, "The structure of the Binjiang Port Police Department is quite unique, somewhat like the security department of a state-owned enterprise. They are under the Ministry of Transport Police, but administratively and in terms of personnel, they are led by the Port Authority, and their salaries are paid by the Port Authority. Operationally, they are part of the Local Police sequence, with jurisdiction limited to the Port District."

Han Yu didn't quite understand and asked, "They are the police department of the Port Authority?"

"Pretty much. Their main responsibility is to maintain public order in the Port District and the order of passenger traffic. They handle the transfer of passenger boats; whenever a passenger boat arrives at the port, they have to take over from the onboard police."

"Don't they solve cases?"

"They do handle cases, but their jurisdiction is only so big, their manpower is limited, and their status within the Port Authority isn't very high either. They don't deal with many criminal cases; otherwise, the City Bureau wouldn't have established a Port District Bureau."

Whether the Binjiang Port Police Department works in a particular way is of no interest to Han Yu. Instead, he is curious about how he went from being a chief of the Criminal Investigation Team to the chief of the Yanjiang Police Station.

But since Xu Sanye didn't bring it up, he couldn't just ask rashly.

Xu Sanye, unaware of what Little Salted Fish was thinking, finished introducing the basic situation of the station. Feeling that as a Director, he should take an interest in his subordinates, he asked Han Yu in detail about his family life, just like Li Weiguo had done the other afternoon.

Han Yu could only respond to each question asked.

After clarifying Little Salted Fish's family situation, Xu Sanye asked, "Your brother is twenty-one and already married. You're five years younger than him. How come there is such a big age gap between you two?"

"Actually... I actually have two older brothers."

"There's another brother?"

Han Yu took a deep breath and spoke gravely, "One year there was a typhoon on the river. The waves were as high as a building, slamming hard onto the boat. The cabin, several meters deep, quickly filled with water.

My dad pushed the throttle to the max, trying to hurry and anchor the boat in a sheltered spot. My mom, my sister, and my eldest brother were desperately bailing water out of the cabin with buckets.

I was very young back then, only five years old. My mom was afraid I'd run around and fall into the river, so she tied me up with a rope. My second brother was two years older than me and could already help cook, so he wasn't tied up. A wave hit, and he was swept away into the river."

He died...

Xu Sanye somewhat regretted asking these questions.

Only those who drift day and night on the water know the cruelty of the rivers. After a moment of silence, Han Yu said indifferently, "Running boats on the river, with water on three sides and heaven on one, you can't escape the winds and waves. When I was young, my mother used to say that every year, a few children born on the river have to be returned to the river."

Xu Sanye regained his composure and asked softly, "Did anyone look for him afterwards?"

Han Yu said helplessly, "The storm was so intense at the time; a slight mishap could have capsized the boat, so searching was impossible. After the wind ceased, we searched for three days and found nothing."

Accidents happen every year on the river, and every family has their own hardships.

Xu Sanye heaved a sigh, looked up, and asked, "Salted Fish, do you know why I am insistent on fixing the boat?"

"Why?"

"On July 11th, nine days after our station was established, Old Li and I were doing a visit along the riverbank when we witnessed an outboard concrete boat capsize in the river. Although we were far away, we could clearly see people on the boat desperately swimming towards the shore."

Xu Sanye bit his lip and continued, "We really wanted to go down and rescue them, but there were no boats nearby at that time, and Old Li and I aren't good swimmers. We could only stand on the shore in desperation, helplessly watching as that person swam and then disappeared."

Han Yu quietly asked, "There should have been more than one person on the boat, right?"

"I don't know; we only saw one."

"What happened afterward?"

"We contacted the Transportation Bureau. Even if we couldn't rescue anyone, we needed to recover the boat so it wouldn't block the waterway and cause other vessels to run aground. Our Linghai Transportation Bureau didn't have a salvage boat, so we could only report to the superior Port Supervision and Waterway Management departments."

Xu Sanye rubbed his thigh and continued, "On the 3rd of this month, someone spotted a floating body in the waters near Zhang Hong Ninth Group in Tangjia Town. By the time we got to Zhang Hong Ninth Group and found a boat, the body had disappeared. We searched all afternoon but never found it."

"It might not be the person who capsized on July 11th."

"I know. I mean, if we had our own boat, we could have saved a life on July 11th, and we could have recovered a body on August 3rd. If that body was a homicide victim, we could have identified the deceased and solved the case, seeking justice for the victim. If it was a drowning death, recovering the body would also console the relatives; after all, it's important to see a body in death as in life."

Xu Sanye spoke very seriously and solemnly, his tone even carrying a hint of guilt.

As someone who stays on land, his concern for the affairs on the river was significant; even without the means, he was creating conditions to intervene.

Han Yu felt that, as someone born on the river, he should do something more, even if not for others, at least for the sake of his family, given that his parents and elder brother and sister-in-law were still operating boats on the river.

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PS: To clarify, at that time, county-level police bureaus typically did not have a Political Commissioner, only an Instructor with the rank of Director. There were also no large Security or Criminal Police teams; only Security Sections and Criminal Investigation Teams existed.