"Don't ask! First, we drink!" Zhang Luxin smiled cheekily, and gave his wife a glass of red wine.
"Ok! It's all in the wine!" the husband and wife bumped glasses, and downed them in a single gulp.
"Luxin, I haven't tasted your kitchen skills in a long time." The husband and wife looked at each other and smiled, understanding each other without words, "We seldom have this kind of domestic warmth."
"Yufen, I've failed as a husband." Zhang Luxin said remorsefully.
"Don't say that, Luxin. I still hold you in high regard." His wife hardly concealed her feelings.
"Thank you!" Zhang Luxin patted the back of his wife's hand.
After dinner, Zhang Luxin extended his hand to remove the red cloth which was covering the piano, and said to his wife, let me play you a song, "A Night in the Outskirts of Moscow" .
"No! I like hearing you play and sing at the same time," his wife said.
"Ok then!" Zhang Luxin touched the keyboard to try the sound, playing a melodious rhythm gracefully. After playing the prelude, he sang at the top of his voice, and a song that influenced a generation of the old songs of the Soviet Union in the 1950s echoed around the rafters.
His wife, sitting on the sofa, was unable to contain herself, and tears welled in the corners of her eyes. Song after song ensued, and his wife said, mumbling: "Luxin, how about we have one last finale."
Zhang Luxin said stupidly, "What finale?"
"I'll play, and you sing, 'The Steel was Tempered this Way'!"
This warmed Zhang Luxin's heart, and he said, "To know oneself is to love one's wife!"
His wife sat in front of the piano, her delicate hands brushing the keyboard, and she suddenly played a song from the early-to-mid 1970s, which her husband had personally composed, the melody of the "The Song of the Scientific Team" , and Zhang Luxin grasped the piano, looking at his wife with his eyes full of emotion, and with a magnetic tenor, intoned a section from "This is How the Steel was Tempered" : "The autumn rain softly drips its wine on people's faces. In the sky, the grey clouds are dense, they fly low, slow and serious. It's already deep autumn, and all that's left in the forest is bare branches … a small lonely station is hidden in the trees, the small station only has a stone platform for unloading goods, from here, new foundations for a railway head into the woods, and, like ants, people are busy working to lay the foundations …"
In an rainy autumn forest scene, the tableau of Paul Kechagin and his comrades-in-arms building the rail floated across their minds, and in one new breath, Zhang Luxin had set the scene of a book segment of more than 2,000 words. The song ended, and his wife clapped and made a heartfelt inquiry: "Luxin, tell me what is the happy event?"
Zhang Luxin's throat was a little dry: "The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is being built!"
"Truly!" Yufen stared at her husband, stunned.
Zhang Luxin nodded his head: "The railway vice minister, Sun Yongfu is conducting an investigation in Qinghai these days, in two days he will got up the Kunlun Mountains. He is managing the railway's basic construction and plans, and the initial stages of the planning of the Qinghai-Tibet railway are already lined up. The success or failure of the matter of the rail over permafrost on the plateau is something I've researched my entire life, I've finally found myself at a good time to use my skills."
"It's true! Good things take effort, and you've been working hard your entire life: finally, the day you have been waiting for has arrived." Yufen cried tears of joy.
"I need to find an organization to go with," Zhang Luxin said with new sadness, "I'm like a lone goose which has flown alone for most of its life, which can finally join the flock, and find a group to join. Tomorrow, I will hurry to Golmud, and attempt to stop Mr. Sun, and report to him how those of us who deal with permafrost from the Northwest Research Office have spent our last ten, twenty years …"
On the afternoon of the next day, Zhang Luxin got on a train headed west, on a journey of a thousand kilometers in search of Sun Yongfu, the commander in chief of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
That afternoon's reports continued for a very long time, starting with scientific research, and ending with haulage, another report on local government—after waiting a century, there was naturally a lot of things to be said. Zhang Luxin repeatedly looked at his watch, and he was afraid by the time it got to him, it would be time for lunch. "Reserved" or "modest" weren't really words you would use to describe the bookish Zhang Luxin, although he had paid a great price for his timid and lofty nature, however, his innate character still hadn't changed, like a fierce black horse, he prepared for battle, suddenly saying to Sun Yongfu: "Mr. Sun, I'll just speak for half an hour, and talk about the questions about the permafrost which you were most concerned with."
"No problem." Sun Yongfu's face folded into smooth dimples, "take your time, and tell us about your more than thirty years of research, and tell us about the taste of your life as a scientist on the plateau, seeming you scientific researchers have persevered for over thirty years, of course I should listen for a few hours. If you don't finish your report, we won't leave the meeting, and we won't eat lunch!"
"Thank you! I've found the organisation for me."
