Wang Xudong stopped the car in front of a storefront on the street. It was already nine o'clock in the evening. Most of the shops on this street were closed. Only a few shops selling fried noodles and late night snacks were still open.
That's open for business.
"What did you bring me here to see? How much is there to see here?" Qin Kexin followed Wang Xudong out of the car and asked in confusion.
Wang Xudong did not answer Qin Kexin's words, but walked directly to a door, holding the key in his hand and inserting it into the keyhole of the dilapidated rolling shutter door.
Qin Kexin's eyes widened, then she looked up online and looked at the sign on the facade through the dim light.
I saw a wooden sign above the rolling shutter door, with several calligraphy words "Wang's Leather Shoe Store" written in paint on it. Perhaps because of the age of the plaque, the paint on it was already faintly visible.
"What are you doing? Whose store is this?" Qin Kexin was very surprised how Wang Xudong had the key to this store.
Wang Xudong still didn't answer Qin Kexin's words. He opened the rolling shutter. The rolling shutter made a noisy sound and was pushed to the top by Wang Xudong. It looked like this rolling shutter was very unsafe and there was a possibility of falling from it at any time. Wang Xudong
Skillfully took a square wooden stick from the corner and placed it against the rolling shutter door at the door to prevent the rolling shutter door from falling.
As soon as he opened the door, there was a musty smell inside, which made Qin Kexin cough uncontrollably.
"What kind of place is this?"
Wang Xudong reached out and pressed the switch next to the door, and then an old incandescent lamp came on, illuminating the small room.
Qin Kexin then stared at this small shop, which seemed to be only a dozen square meters in size. There were two wooden glass cabinets placed about one meter from the entrance. This kind of cabinets can only be seen in antique shops.
, its color and degree of wear and tear are enough to show its age. There are still a dozen pairs of leather shoes sparsely placed in the cupboard, for men, women and children, but the styles are very old. Qin Kexin is not familiar with these.
After some research, this style of leather shoes should be a classic style from the 1990s, but now it seems that it is very outdated.
On the right side of the two cabinets, there is an opening for one person to enter and exit. Behind the opening is the work area. There are several equipment for making leather shoes. The only one that can be considered an equipment is the sewing machine.
Most of the rest are manual work tables, with a lot of leather, scissors, hammers and the like. Although Qin Kexin is unfamiliar with these, she has seen them when she was a child. This is a purely handmade leather shoe workshop. Qin Kexin remembers it when she was a child.
At that time, it was popular for everyone to wear leather shoes. Everyone who wore leather shoes would go to leather shoe stores to buy or customize them. At that time, leather shoe stores were all small leather shoe workshops. But I didn’t expect that today, twenty years later,
Qin Kexin could still see a leather shoe workshop like this in the already internationalized Donghai.
After Wang Xudong turned on the light, he walked straight in through the small opening. He seemed to be familiar with everything here. He walked in with ease. When he passed by the sewing machine, he couldn't help but touch the sewing machine with his hand.
It's gray.
"Sit." Wang Xudong found a piece of paper and wiped the chair next to the sewing machine clean, then handed the stool to Qin Kexin.
"Where is this?" Qin Kexin asked Wang Xudong doubtfully.
Wang Xudong sat down on a bamboo armchair by the wall and ignored the dust on it.
After sitting down, he lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly. After taking two puffs, he said, "This is my home."
"Your home?" Qin Kexin was very surprised.
"To be precise, it's my shop."
"My family has been making leather shoes since my grandfather started it. Our family has always lived in this area. My father bought this store in the 1990s. It was very cheap at the time. It was this store that raised me up.
." Wang Xudong said with some emotion as he looked at everything familiar here.
After Wang Xudong said this, Qin Kexin suddenly had feelings for this store and felt that everything here was no longer cold.
"In my childhood memories, my dad seems to have always been busy here wearing a leather jacket and two leather sleeves on his hands, making one pair of leather shoes after another. It felt like there were endless leather shoes to make. At that time,
The leather shoe shop was doing very well, and my father's leather shoe making skills were well-known in this area. Many, many people came here to customize leather shoes, some of them were high-ranking officials. Although my father was very busy at that time, the conditions at home were pretty good when I was a child.
However, since I entered junior high school, the business in the store has become less prosperous, because everyone has become accustomed to buying ready-made leather shoes with more novel styles and more patterns, and more and more people wear sports shoes and other types of shoes.
Now, there are very few people coming here to buy customized handmade leather shoes, and the conditions at home have begun to deteriorate. The most difficult time was when I was in high school, and my family could not even afford the tuition. My father is a craftsman.
He knows nothing but making leather shoes, he is an honest man, and he doesn’t know how to invest in anything. At that time, I always heard him sighing here."
"After graduating from high school, my college entrance examination scores were good, and I could definitely go to a good university. But in the end, I quietly chose to give up and sign up to be a soldier myself, because my family was too poor, and the tuition for high school was all donated by my father.
I had to borrow money from everywhere, let alone the tuition for college. After my dad found out that I gave up going to college and chose to join the army, he took the same stick as that one in this store and beat me hard.
The ground beat me up." Wang Xudong pointed to the stick holding up the rolling shutter at the door.
"There are two sticks like that in the store, used to fix leather shoes. This is the only one left now. The other one was broken when he beat me."
"I have been in the army for eight years and have not come back for eight years. Because there are regulations in the army. As you know, I am in a special force. Let alone coming back, the requirements for communication with my family are very strict. When I came back this year
At that time, my dad was already suffering from a disease, which was caused by a lifetime of fatigue and other reasons. More than a month after I came back, my dad fell ill and was admitted to the hospital. Then, he left after not lasting long in the hospital." Wang Xudong
He smoked a cigarette and spoke slowly, with tears in his eyes when he said this.
"My dad left me two things, one is the dilapidated old house at home, and the other is this small store. All the money I spent on my retirement was spent on my dad's medical treatment. In order to bury my dad, I gave up the house at home.
I sold it and bought a nice cemetery for my dad. But I have never sold this small shop. Even if I starve to death, I can't sell it. This is the last thing my dad left me." Wang Xudong said again.
I picked up a pair of half-finished leather shoes and stroked them. They were covered with dust. (To be continued)