Chapter Thirty: So, Does That Mean the True Golden Finger of

After returning home that evening, Li Shixin went straight to his room. The moment he lay down on the bed, the effects of the Peak Chewing Gum dissipated instantly.

What followed was an overwhelming wave of fatigue and soreness!

Though two pieces of Peak Chewing Gum had brought him double the joy, once the effects wore off, the pain was compounded as well!

He tossed and turned on the bed for over an hour before finally rummaging through his bag to find two slow-release ibuprofen tablets, which he swallowed down. Only then did Li Shixin experience a sliver of relief and was able to drift into sleep.

The combination of his rejuvenation and exhaustion made him sleep unusually soundly that night.

The next morning.

Li Shixin was startled to find that the alarm clock by his bedside was already showing half past nine!

He remembered that when he returned the previous night, the old men downstairs were still listening to the national weather forecast on Central People's Radio—it couldn't have been later than eight o'clock then.

Had he really slept for nearly twelve hours straight?

Rubbing his sore arms in bed, Li Shixin got up.

There was no one at home. At this hour, Zhang Ying must have already gone to her studio. After wandering around the house, he finally spotted a note on the dining table.

“Old man, if it hadn’t been for your snoring all night, I might have called 120 out of fright! Breakfast is in the pot. I wasn’t sure how your appetite would be this morning, so I made you rice porridge and steamed egg custard.”

Looking at the neat handwriting, Li Shixin stroked his stubbly white beard with a sigh.

“This girl really does know how to care for others.”

He ate breakfast slowly, savoring every bite, then headed into the bathroom.

As the showerhead rained down streams of misty water, Li Shixin carefully examined his body.

Alas...

He skipped over a certain sagging area and focused on the rest.

His skin was dry and loose, and perhaps due to aging bones, his back was slightly hunched. The muscles on his arms and legs had atrophied.

Fortunately, this body had decent foundations; even with a bit of a stoop, he still stood close to one meter eighty. After yesterday’s rejuvenation, the face that was once breathtakingly handsome in youth now showed much lighter age spots compared to before. Combined with a heart as young as twenty-three, there was a special vitality beneath the traces of age.

“Old man, you’ve got to keep working hard!”

Li Shixin encouraged himself, grabbed the bath mitt, and began to scrub.

Indeed,

Since arriving in Rongdian, this was his first proper shower—he had to give himself a good scrub.

...

Tick, tick, tick.

The wall clock’s second hand moved rhythmically, reminiscent of the measured steps of ceremonial guards.

Wrapped in a bath towel and sitting on the sofa, Li Shixin felt somewhat awkward about his situation.

His actor’s certificate hadn’t come through yet. Zhang Shuo, that unlucky kid, was now out of work and who knew where he was wandering. Having overslept, Li Shixin had also missed the morning rush for extra work at the casting station.

With no one at home and nothing to do, he had—quite unexpectedly—become one of society’s most common figures: an empty-nest elder.

No, this wouldn’t do.

With a burst of energy, Li Shixin sprang up from the sofa, changed into clean clothes, grabbed the spare keys Zhang Ying had hung by the door, and stepped outside.

The meaning of life lies in striving, Li Shixin—don’t allow yourself to sink into idleness; you must pull yourself together!

...

Standing in the small plaza of the community, he exchanged glances with several elderly men and women, half-paralyzed and drooling as they basked in the sun on their lounge chairs. After a while, with nowhere else to go, Li Shixin suddenly remembered an address—Zhang Ying had mentioned the location of her studio during a previous conversation.

That’s it!

Zhang Ying’s studio wasn’t far from home; after leaving the community, crossing a street, and passing through a vegetable market, he arrived.

Strolling through the market, Li Shixin bought some groceries along the way, and after a bit of wandering and asking, he finally found the inconspicuous little storefront known locally as “Props-and-Costumes Street.”

When he entered Dream Props Studio, Zhang Ying was working with two craftsmen.

The store bell jingled unexpectedly, and Zhang Ying, thinking a client had arrived, quickly looked up from her workbench.

“Oh, old... old man? What brings you here?”

Seeing Li Shixin standing at the door, hands behind his back, smiling kindly at her, Zhang Ying grinned, “Did you find the market all right?”

But as Li Shixin approached, Zhang Ying was taken aback. “Wait... old man, you look much more spirited than yesterday!”

How could he not?

You think shaving off a hundred and thirty days of age and scrubbing off the grime of years from your face wouldn’t make a difference?

Li Shixin raised an eyebrow, waved away Zhang Ying’s attempt to help him, and held up the plastic bag in his hand. “Now that I’ve got myself such a good son and daughter, of course I’m radiant! Ying, today your godfather’s making you something delicious—sweet and sour carp, sautéed pork bites, and two vegetable dishes. How about it?”

“Oh,” Zhang Ying feigned grievance, “so much good food, but I’m swamped with work today and can’t make it home for lunch.”

“Then we’ll have it for dinner,” Li Shixin declared, setting the bag down and finally taking a look around Zhang Ying’s studio.

The studio wasn’t large, barely a hundred square meters. Shelves lined every wall, filled with all sorts of odds and ends.

Everywhere he looked there were tools like screwdrivers and electrician’s knives, models of televisions and airplanes, down to badges and buttons—a dazzling array.

He noticed two girls about Zhang Ying’s age working at the bench and, curiosity piqued, asked, “What are you making here?”

“Oh!” Zhang Ying, noticing a trace of disappointment on Li Shixin’s face, hurried to explain, “A period drama crew gave us a rush order—they want us to design and provide some household decorations from the 1970s.”

Li Shixin nodded and approached.

At the workbench, one girl was tinkering with an old radio, the other was using fire to age a printed certificate.

“Miss, what are you doing burning that certificate?”

Without looking up, the girl replied, “Don’t you know? Movie props have to match the period setting to create authenticity and help the audience immerse themselves. If these certificates come fresh off the printer, they’re too shiny and new—they don’t look real. So we have to make them look old, understand?”

Li Shixin glanced over the completed props on the workbench and shook his head with a smile.

“What you’ve made here... it’s not quite right.”

In recent years, as the film and television industry boomed, jobs for costume and props workers had become increasingly lucrative. Especially for prop makers—there’s no shortcut in this trade; it’s all about experience. Besides skill and experience, what this unassuming profession demands most is a prop master’s intuition, ingenuity, and cultural literacy.

Many film crews say that while it’s easy to find actors, a good prop master is worth their weight in gold.

That’s true for crews, and even more so for small studios like Zhang Ying’s, where sometimes the prop master outranks the boss.

“Hey?” As expected, the prop girl wasn’t pleased.

“Old man, do you know anything about making props? If you’re really that bored, just go home and cook—don’t come here and get in our way!”

Oh?

Li Shixin raised his eyebrow.

Young lady, you’re still too inexperienced.