1992: Starting with the Second Generation of Shipowners

Chapter 68 The Warehouse of Old Items Before the Storm

After the notice for the special inspection was issued, the service station continued to operate as usual on the surface, but Jiang Haiping remained on edge.

After the two unfamiliar faces left that noon, he rechecked the refurbished water pump register.

Before locking the register in the drawer, he flipped through the earliest pages, back when the service station had just started its refurbishment business.

The first refurbished water pump was bought by Old Chen's brother-in-law. After the warranty expired, he even brought engine oil to the station to replace the gasket once.

The page was worn and frayed from being turned so many times, but the model number and the date of the follow-up visit were still clearly visible.

Jiang Haiping pushed the registration book further into the drawer and locked it.

Ding Haifeng has been working in the used parts warehouse for a while now.

Hong Xiaobing instructed him to start by cleaning the water pump casing, then disassemble and assemble the impeller, and finally register and store it independently, following the standard procedures for training apprentices at the service station.

Ah Shun lent Ding Haifeng his vernier calipers and taught him how to measure the impeller's inner diameter and thickness. After measuring, he recorded the data in the register.

Ding Haifeng traced the characters slowly, and they weren't very beautiful, but he put effort into every stroke and didn't make any corrections.

Hong Xiaobing secretly flipped through his registration page and found that after he finished tracing it, he wrote it again next to it with a pencil. The pencil writing was neater, as if he had practiced it several times.

That morning, Ah Guang came from the dock carrying a newly arrived old water pump impeller and saw Ding Haifeng squatting at the entrance of the old parts warehouse, wiping the old, clumsy wrench with cotton yarn.

This wrench was made when Lao Fang first came to the service station. There's a blurry "Fang" character stamped on the back, and most of the teeth are worn down, so it doesn't slip when tightening bolts.

Ding Haifeng placed it in the most convenient spot on the old parts warehouse workbench, and wiped it clean with cotton yarn every day after use before putting it back, never letting it get covered in sand or seawater.

Ah Guang placed the old water pump impeller next to the shelf, squatted down and glanced at the water pump that Ding Haifeng was dismantling. He asked him if the gasket of that water pump had been replaced. Ding Haifeng said it had been replaced.

The old gaskets were marked after being removed and placed in a special disposal box. When he went to the old parts warehouse to pick up the new gaskets, Hong Xiaobing had already checked the model number.

Ah Guang said that many of the newly arrived old water pump impellers came from scrapped ships of the aquatic product company, and the models were mixed, so it was important to check the serial numbers when registering them.

Ding Haifeng put down the wrench and came over to help him move the impeller onto the shelf, checking the model number as he did so.

The verification voices were very low, but after the move was completed, the labels on the third shelf were already arranged in numerical order, exactly the same as the original zoning of the batch of water pump impellers in the old parts warehouse.

At noon, Hong Xiaobing and Ashun went to the dock to help Lao Chen push the boat into the raft, leaving Ding Haifeng alone in the old parts warehouse.

He moved the most rusty old water pump impellers from the bottom shelf to the worktable, measured them with calipers, registered them in the warehouse, and then put the impellers back on the shelf in numerical order.

After finishing, he straightened up and flipped through the register, stopping at one of the pages. That page recorded the first batch of old water pump impellers that were salvaged from a scrapped ship the year the service station opened.

The number is preceded by the date of receipt, and next to it is a note drawn by Master Fang below the number: Every old part used for refurbishment must know where it came from and where it is going.

He closed the register and took out a piece of paper that had been folded several times from his pocket.

When unfolded, it shows a registration form drawn in pencil, with the same format as the registration book, except that the columns are empty.

He filled in the model number and serial number of the old water pump impellers from that morning, then erased them with an eraser and filled them in again, repeating this process several times.

Later, he learned from the line written by Ah Guang on the title page of the register and wrote a small line at the bottom of his own paper: Every old item must know where it came from and where it is going.

After finishing writing, he folded the paper back up and put it back in his pocket, then squatted down to continue cleaning the casing of the next old water pump.

Outside the window, the walnuts that had been sitting empty on the stone bench for quite some time were now stuffed into a pocket.

Qiu Changhai was squatting by the raft, touching the old seams of Old Zhou's sampan.

Lin Xiu'e stood to the side holding a basin of freshly mixed tung oil putty. The hemp fibers were freshly torn that morning, of uniform length, and covered with a damp cloth.

She watched as Qiu Changhai finished feeling the seam, drew a positioning line at the corner with a stone pencil, placed the tung oil ash basin in a convenient spot for him, and then arranged the hemp fiber and blunt chisel.

After finishing these tasks, she glanced back at the old parts warehouse, where she could see Ding Haifeng squatting in front of the worktable through the window.

She turned her gaze away, squatted down next to Qiu Changhai, and took out her chisel to prepare to carve the groove.

In the afternoon, Jiang Haiping reorganized the archived materials for the refurbished water pumps, arranging all the handover records and warranty follow-ups by date.

The only two fishing boats from Hongjiadao that had not yet arrived at their destination had their owner's signature section temporarily empty.

He put the file folder into the drawer and then took out the registration information of the two unfamiliar faces from last time.

Standing at the workshop entrance, I asked Lao Fang if there was any news about private repair shops in the county recently.

Old Fang, with a cigarette between his fingers, thought for a long time before saying that the provincial government had compiled statistics during a survey last year.

Only three private repair shops in this area have records of used parts; the rest are temporary repair shops without registration.

Jiang Haiping then asked if the two unfamiliar faces might be from a newly established repair shop on Hongjia Island.

Old Fang said that Hongjiadao is only one ferry ride from the service station. When Ding Fugui used to set up boats, some people followed him to learn, but they didn't have registration books or warranty periods.

Ding Haisheng was practicing overhead welding in the welding area for the upcoming skills competition, and A Guang squatted down next to him to hand him welding rods.

Ding Haisheng marks each weld at a fixed angle on his welding training record, saying he has already reached the tolerance level required for the provincial competition.

Jiang Haiping stood at the workshop entrance and looked at his record sheet, asking who would arrange the adjustment of the welding area after the competition. Ding Haisheng said that A-Guang was already drawing up the new welding area layout, preparing to re-equip the fire extinguishers and sand buckets after the competition.

Jiang Haiping didn't ask any further questions, but he knew in his heart that the two men had been preparing for the service station's equipment upgrade.

As darkness fell, the sea was dyed orange-red by the sunset. The boats in the stone troughs rocked gently, and the small flags on the masts fluttered in the evening breeze.

Ah Shun moved all the newly arrived batch of old water pump impellers onto the shelves, and Hong Xiaobing finished writing the last entry in the register for today's arrivals and departures.

Ding Haifeng was squatting in front of the worktable, carefully tracing the last column of data on his paper. He had been tracing this paper repeatedly for more than a day, and every column had eraser marks.

Hong Xiaobing peeked over and Ding Haifeng folded the paper and put it in his pocket, saying that he hadn't finished writing it yet.

Hong Xiaobing didn't ask any further questions; he simply put the old sealing gasket he had removed into a special disposal box.

Outside the courtyard gate, the walnuts on the stone stool clicked softly once more.

The day of the provincial inspection was drawing ever closer, but the two boats that were supposed to be "coming soon" from Hongjia Island still hadn't docked.

Jiang Haiping stood up from the workshop entrance and glanced at the light still on in the old parts warehouse.

The documents were put away, but the file with the shipowner's signature blank was still on the table.