0079 88 Pei Family Ancestral Precepts
Before four in the morning, after the person in his arms had stopped breathing, Zhou Xiye closed his eyes.
She was very tired, and neither of them wanted to take a shower.
Pei Zhiyu was clearly happy; a faint smile played on his lips even as he slept. Just as Zhou Xiye was drifting off to sleep, something suddenly went wrong, and he abruptly woke up. Staring at the pitch-black ceiling, his fingers ran through Pei Zhiyu's hair.
After an unknown amount of time, Zhou Xiye gently pushed Pei Zhiyu away, picked up his phone and bag from the coffee table, casually put on some clothes, and tiptoed into the bathroom.
"Click—" She lit a cigarette; the nicotine sobered her up.
The phone screen showed 4:07. The night was deep, and the tranquility in my heart was too noisy.
She hadn't even taken a few puffs of her cigarette when her phone vibrated. Thinking it was just a ringtone, she flipped it over and saw it was Ye Rouxin calling. Just as she'd hoped, Zhou Xiye tossed her hair and answered the call.
Congratulations! I heard you got married yesterday, Beijing time.
Zhou Xiye looked at the cigarette between them, the long cigarette butt, "Yeah, that's right, it was registered yesterday."
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end. "I've prepared a big gift for you."
"Didn't you say you were going to give me something? A Panama Bank account? I still prefer money," Zhou Xiye said with a light laugh, raising his hand to light a cigarette, the ash melting in the water.
Ye Rouxin paused, then coughed lightly, "I think you'll like this gift even more."
Zhou Xiye frowned. "You're not investigating something in Panama, are you? Is it about the Ye family?"
Ye Rouxin laughed, her tone finally becoming irreverent, "Not only that, how are you going to thank me?"
Zhou Xiye thought for a moment, "I don't know."
There was a soft chuckle on the other end, but the next words were gentle. "When I woke up just now, I had no idea where I was. Was I in America, Mexico, or Panama? I thought about it for a long time." Ye Rouxin suddenly changed the subject, and Zhou Xiye listened quietly.
This pattern was all too common between the two—Ye Rouxin often called Zhou Xiye to discuss literature.
For example:
Do you like summer?
Zhou Xiye always responded to Ye Rouxin in a rough but romantic way: "I don't like it. I hate the sticky sweat on my body after making love."
Ye Rouxin paused, this was an experience he had never had before, "You can do it with the air conditioning on."
You don't understand.
Ye Rouxin smiled and lay on the soft bed, feeling as if she were on a cloud.
“Zhou Xiye, if you’ve been to enough countries, you’ll find that summer is different in every place. Summer in France… Have you read ‘The Wandering Star’? It says, ‘The sun scorches the grass, even the stones in the river seem to be on fire, and the mountains appear so distant against the deep blue sky.’”
"I've never read it, nor have I ever been there."
"Summer in Greece is all about bikini-clad beauties on the Aegean coast."
Do asexual people prefer men or women?
Ye Rouxin laughed, the laughter coming from her throat. "Sometimes, you have to admit that a woman's body is a gift from the Creator. From this perspective, I am heterosexual."
Whatever
"You're very familiar with summer in China: watermelons, iced sodas in the push-pull freezers on the street, and men's big bellies."
"It's disgusting... Compared to a man's big belly, I prefer a late-night food stall where I can play cards with my friends."
Ye Rouxin sighed, "I've never eaten at a street food stall before."
"Then come find me, and I'll take you to eat."
Ye Rouxin put down her phone, bought a plane ticket and flew back to China. After adjusting to the time difference at Zhou Xiye's house, she received news that Zhou Xiye was going on a business trip.
"Whatever, go ahead!"
Zhou Xiye packed his things, "Wait for me to come back. I know which street food stalls are the best."
Ye Rouxin's hair was messy. Zhou Xiye stood up and touched it again, making it even messier. Ye Rouxin smiled, leaned back on the sofa, and the orange sunlight from the window shone on Zhou Xiye's back and her stray hairs.
How long are you going to be gone?
"Less than a week, very soon, wait for me to come back," Zhou Xiye said, holding shampoo in his hand, turning to look at Ye Rouxin.
"good."
On the afternoon Zhou Xiye left, Ye Rouxin laid out a bed on her balcony, basking in the sun, listening to music, with a bottle of Zhou Xiye's favorite cola beside her.
Oh, right, and her chilled watermelon too.
The sound of children's voices drifted in from outside the window screen. Ye Rouxin was holding a book, "The Kite Runner," and reading it word by word.
At night, the food stalls downstairs come out.
When Zhou Pei returned home and saw him, his face remained expressionless. Ye Rouxin didn't seem to care either. After finishing the last bite of watermelon, she asked Zhou Pei, "Which barbecue place is good?"
Zhou Pei casually remarked, grabbed his clothes, and left home.
Before leaving home, I wanted to dress up carefully, but then I thought about how Zhou Xiye would mock me, so I took out a pair of flip-flops from the shoe cabinet, put on a white Gucci shirt over my vest, and went downstairs with my keys.
The barbecue tasted good, but the meat was not.
Ye Rouxin picked at her mistakes and ate nearly a hundred yuan worth of barbecue.
At night, his stomach burned, and he vomited and had diarrhea.
Strangely, he enjoyed the pain of vomiting. He sent his experience to Zhou Xiye, who replied, "It's normal. Eating like this will upset your stomach."
Ye Rouxin laughed heartily, and only when dawn was breaking did he finally fall asleep, clutching his blanket.
I was woken up by the cicadas' chirping, and the sunlight on the blankets was very warm.
Looking at everything before her, Ye Rouxin felt completely satisfied.
When Zhou Xiye returned from his business trip, Ye Rouxin had already left.
She asked him why he didn't wait for her to come back, and Ye Rouxin just pursed her lips and said, "I have important things to do."
Unfortunately, he never said that it was his favorite summer.
What did Shakespeare say?
The long summer never fades.
Only she understood her wild and unruly nature.
The day after Ye Rouxin learned of her marriage registration, he marveled at Zhou Xiye's passion for power. After downing a glass of wine, he lay down on the sofa and took a nap. Halfway through his sleep, Ye Rouxin suddenly woke up, unsure whether he was in China or America. He picked up his phone and called Zhou Xiye.
At four in the morning, she actually answered the call.
"I want to try making love. Shall we turn on the air conditioning?"
Zhou Xiye cursed, "I just got married..."
"Marriage is a blank slate for you. This summer, I'll take you to Hawaii, and we'll do it there, okay?"
For some reason, Zhou Xiye sensed the sadness in his words, but it only lasted for a moment. She stubbed out her cigarette and said, "Okay, we'll talk about it later."
Ye Rouxin laughed heartily, and after a couple of seconds, he cleared his throat, "The gift should arrive at your place soon. See if you like it."
"Can I exchange it for money if I don't like it?"
Ye Rouxin held her phone between her face and shoulder, shrugged, and said, "Yes, as many as you like."
The phone call was interrupted by a knock on the door, and Zhou Xiye remembered that she had to go to learn the Pei family's ancestral precepts at 4:30.
When Ye Rouxin found out, she laughed wildly and said, "Let me tell you, you've really gotten yourself into big trouble. You don't know, the Ye family isn't a prestigious family, but they have a whole set of family rules. I think the Pei family's rules are comparable to the Bible, and they even have to divide them into the Old Testament and the New Testament. You'd better memorize them."
Amid Ye Rouxin's teasing, Zhou Xiye hung up the phone.
Footsteps echoed around the bend in the corridor, as the inky sky enveloped the earth.
The butler, dressed in a dignified black suit, walked ahead, with Zhou Xiye following behind in a suit. After walking for a long time, the butler finally stopped. Zhou Xiye looked at the red lanterns hanging in the pavilion swaying in the wind and suddenly thought of the movie "Raise the Red Lantern." He wondered if he himself would eventually become unlike himself because of Xiao Chui.
"Young Madam, this is the Pei family's ancestral hall. Someone inside will teach you the ancestral precepts. Please come in."
The housekeeper opened the door, and she went inside.
Two rows of bookshelves were filled with books. As we walked deeper into the ancestral hall, a middle-aged man in a Zhongshan suit knelt down to pay his respects before standing up.
"Please kneel down and offer incense first," the middle-aged man gestured.
Zhou Xiye squinted at the sacrificial plaques, all of which belonged to the Pei family. She turned to the middle-aged man with an incredulous expression, "These are all members of the Pei family, why should I kneel and worship them?"
"Once you marry into the Pei family, you become a member of the Pei family."
Zhou Xiye scoffed, "Who made that rule?"
The middle-aged man smiled and slowly said, "In ordinary families, a woman follows her husband wherever he goes, let alone the Pei family. Now that you've married into the family, you're a member of the Pei family."
Zhou Xiye wanted to burst out laughing, but it wasn't appropriate to do so in front of the memorial archway. He put his hands on his hips and spread his legs, "I don't understand. What's wrong with the Pei family? Are ordinary people a level below the Pei family? 'Marry a chicken, follow the chicken; marry a dog, follow the dog,' so tell me, is the Pei family a chicken or a dog?"
The middle-aged man's smile froze. "Now that you are a member of the Pei family, it is the Pei family's custom to worship our ancestors."
Zhou Xiye nodded and said, word by word, "A woman's knees are worth gold—I never kneel; that's my rule."
The middle-aged man's face darkened. "Young Madam, please don't push your luck."
"Call me Ms. Zhou, or Miss Zhou. I dare not accept the title of 'Young Madam.' I have never felt that I have been overstepping my bounds. Times are changing, and ideas should also change. Do you think that worshipping these dead people will uphold the family tradition of kneeling for centuries? Do you think that kneeling to them will allow me to inherit their family tradition? People who don't know the situation will think that the Pei family is still performing rituals in the ancestral hall."
"Smack—"
Two thick volumes of family rules still sat on the rosewood table. "This child is beyond redemption. Miss Zhou, you should kneel and copy these rules before leaving the ancestral hall."
Zhou Xiye frowned as he looked at the family rules in front of him, wondering what was going on, when the door was locked from the outside.
Since she was already there, Zhou Xiye decided to make the best of it. She picked up a book of family rules and began to read it. The complexity of understanding it reminded her of her high school Chinese class. She twisted her neck, put the book down, and slowly yawned.
The ancestral hall wasn't cold; in fact, it was rather warm. Drowsiness seeped out from the classical Chinese texts, and Zhou Xiye casually found a spot, leaned against the wall, and fell asleep.
When Pei Zhiyu woke up, he learned that Zhou Xiye had been locked in the ancestral hall copying ancestral precepts because he had talked back to his uncle. "What?" He was surprised for a moment, then hurriedly walked towards the ancestral hall.
The uncle muttered to himself, "This little girl is hard to discipline. She's entered the Pei family and still doesn't know her place, talking about her own rules... Zhiyu, you have to teach her a lesson."
Pei Zhiyu said coldly, "Uncle, please don't force her to do these things. Just tell me if anything happens in the future, and I will pass it on."
“Look, there’s a rule in the Pei family’s family precepts: ‘Even the closest of relatives can be husband and wife.’ You two need to have a boundary…”
As they spoke, the two arrived at the entrance of the ancestral hall. "I understand. I'll trouble you, Uncle, to open the door. I apologize to you on behalf of Xi Ye."
His uncle glared at him, but before he could speak, hurried footsteps came from behind him.
"Didn't I say we couldn't run? What are you doing?"
The butler came over and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "It's terrible, young master, the young mistress has run away."
Yes, Zhou Xiye took the only copy of the Pei family's ancestral precepts and ran away by scaling the wall.
Although the process wasn't very smooth, we managed to get out eventually.
Sitting in the car, Zhou Xiye fanned himself with the Pei family's ancestral teachings. When he arrived at the office, Ai Jianshe walked towards him.
"Oh, Xiao Zhou's here? Have you eaten?"
Zhou Xiye loosened his tie, paid the bill, closed the door, and then walked over to Ai Jianshe. "Good morning, Teacher Ai. I haven't eaten yet, want to eat together?"
"Okay, what would you like to eat?"
Zhou Xiye thought for a moment, "The douzhi shop at the entrance will do."
"You like to drink douzhi (fermented mung bean juice)?"
Zhou Xiye quickly shook her head, "I don't like it."
"Then why are you still drinking?"
Zhou Xiye smiled and said, "You look like someone who likes to drink soy milk."
Ai Jianshe sighed, "Never mind, let's go, let's get some jianbing guozi."
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