Chapter 149 Sikong Xiaoqing's feelings were mixed as she came to ask for the manuscript.
It took Sikong Xiaoqing a long time to suppress the urge to rush out and find 'I am a cat'. This author lived up to his pen name. Not only did the article look like it was written by a cat, but even the way he kept the reader in suspense was exactly like a cat reincarnated... Could this really be an article written by a cat that has become a spirit?
Having read many strange tales and heard countless stories of mountain spirits and monsters, Sikong Xiaoqing blinked, setting aside her own odd thoughts, and told her assistant to take the money and immediately urge the author to finish the manuscript—Sikong Xiaoqing knew that the author was experiencing writer's block just to sell the story for a high price, but she didn't care. Money was the last thing she needed, and if it didn't comply with the editorial department's rules, she could just subsidize it privately.
Perhaps she could recruit this writer? There's nothing much to do sitting here, and it's quite difficult to find a few stories that suit her taste. Life will only become more boring after she gets married... The concept of commissioned writing hasn't appeared yet, but Sikong Xiaoqing has already mastered all sorts of tricks used by rich older sisters without any instruction.
Don't ask her how she can be sure the author has a draft. This cat who is very good at writing out of ideas simply wrote at the end of the article that the story is finished. Of course, if it's a cash-on-manuscript transaction, the original text would be much more euphemistic, but that's the gist of it.
While Sikong Xiaoqing was pondering how to privately adopt 'I am a cat,' her assistant had already hurriedly boarded a rickshaw and headed straight for the Yao family. This pseudonym was intended to be semi-public; she wasn't going to publish it directly as a small fish because she was afraid Pi Xiukang would discover her potential to write more and try various methods to urge her to submit her work.
However, Yao Xiaoyu's little schemes had nothing to do with her assistant. The young lady had dedicated staff for all aspects, and the assistant was only responsible for the editorial department. Sikong Xiaoqing, except for special circumstances, only came to sit for a symbolic visit on the tenth day of the month, but she was paid a full month's salary. The assistant felt guilty taking it. She finally had a field trip to make her presence known, so she had to complete it well.
Her job was easy, well-paid, and close to home. Most importantly, there were no barriers to entry. If the young lady's servants hadn't fought tooth and nail for this job and annoyed the Sikong family, how could she, an outsider, have gotten such a good deal?
To put it bluntly, every time the assistant receives his wages, he feels as if his ancestors have kowtowed countless times for this job.
The assistant acted quickly, and the rickshaw ran into no trouble, but the assistant still couldn't get the manuscript from Yao Xiaoyu.
"You've gone out?!"
The helper confirmed it again, and the Yao family nodded silently. Yao Xiaoyu had left with Tao Xiaoxiao early in the morning and hadn't returned yet, so she probably wouldn't be back until evening.
"Do you know where she went?"
The assistant was genuinely anxious; many people were eyeing her position, and it was rare for the young lady to be asked to do something so difficult...
"have no idea."
They knew before, but after that slap, Yao Xiaoyu's relationship with the Yao family cooled. Zhou Chunhua and the others asked her a few times when she went out, and Yao Xiaoyu would say a few words at first, but after they felt that the two of them were wasting money, Yao Xiaoyu became completely silent about where to go.
Unable to apologize, the Yao family elders tried to soften their stance several times, but Yao Xiaoyu refused. They comforted themselves that if they didn't ask, they wouldn't feel the pain, and they lost the will to continue speaking. After all, with Tao Xiaoxiao by her side, Yao Xiaoyu wouldn't suffer any loss.
The assistant looked at the somewhat embarrassed Yao family members in front of him, wanted to say something but ultimately didn't, took a step back in his mind, and spoke again:
"I'll hand over the money to you, but can I take the manuscript with me first?"
The Yao family still shook their heads and refused—not to mention that their main income now comes from copying books by Yao Xiaoyu, they couldn't stand in Yao Xiaoyu's way.
The assistant had no other choice and couldn't go back empty-handed, so he sent a message to Sikong Xiaoqing, ordered some food at a nearby shop, and sat down, preparing to wait until nightfall.
Two young women like them wouldn't stay out all night, would they?
It was relatively cool today, but my assistant was anxious. Large beads of sweat were pouring down her forehead. Fortunately, my assistant doesn't have the habit of applying makeup in the summer, otherwise, with this kind of excessive sweating that even moisturizing wouldn't be enough, her whole face would be unsightly.
While the assistants ate their noodles one by one while waiting for the author, Yao Xiaoyu was having a lively conversation with Ye Junshu.
Pi Xiukang was always quick to act, but Yao Xiaoyu had high standards. She wanted to find people who had actually lived abroad in this era, and not the kind who were ignorant of the realities of daily life. Whether or not they were willing to meet was a two-way choice. Pi Xiukang searched all over Shanghai but only found a handful of them.
In a seller's market, buyers have no choice. Yao Xiaoyu, touching her empty notebook that she had specially set aside, could only grit her teeth and stomp her feet, playing different personas in front of different people to collect as much information as possible. After a few days, she felt like she was about to have a mental breakdown, and her requirements for the people she talked to had been reduced to just being able to speak Chinese.
This requirement might sound like asking someone on a blind date to "eat, take a shower, and know to run home when it rains," but it's actually the most profound lesson Yao Xiaoyu learned from being brutally beaten by reality.
While a strong Western accent is certainly annoying, and constantly praising the West is unpleasant to hear, with proper guidance, one can always extract some information. However, the person Yao Xiaoyu spoke with last time spoke a mix of Chinese and English. It wasn't a chaotic language system of alternating between Chinese and English, but rather a way of speaking that resembled "I am an important person in a foreign country."
That's not really a problem—the issue is that his English is a mix of Japanese and Indian, and Yao Xiaoyu simply can't understand it!
After painstakingly deducing the meaning of a word, Yao Xiaoyu was then looked at with pampering eyes and asked to explain its meaning in a bunch of incomprehensible English. After experiencing this situation, she felt incredibly strong for simply asking the other person to speak Chinese.
I don’t know what kind of constitution she has. Pi Xiukang arranged for her to meet people from different countries. When Yao Xiaoyu had nothing to do, she calculated that she was only missing a German to make up the Eight-Nation Alliance. During the conversations, the person she learned the most about foreign countries from was not the students who had studied abroad for the Boxer Indemnity, but Yu Pandeng, who was rowing a boat at sea. [1]
It was only because of Yu Pandeng that Yao Xiaoyu wasn't completely disappointed with the people Pi Xiukang had brought. She clung to the hope that perhaps the next one would be another being like Yu Pandeng, capable of understanding human speech, only to be disappointed time and time again.
Compared to the typical international students who follow the established path, Yu Pandeng's story is almost legendary. For the first ten years or so, she was just an ordinary girl from Guangdong, even her name was Pandeng—in their area, boys are called "Xiangdeng," and this name is the local equivalent of Zhaodi. [2]
When she reached menstruation and was of marriageable age in the eyes of adults, Yu Pandeng returned from the market one day to find out that she had been betrothed to a boy from a similar family background. After that, Yu Pandeng disappeared, and people said that she had been abducted.
“Human trafficking is rampant in our area, but I left on my own.”
Yu Pandeng—oh, no, she's changed her name to Yu Deng now. She's no longer the lamp her parents prayed for; she's her own light, illuminating the path ahead.
Yu Deng felt a connection with Yao Xiaoyu, and since she was leaving in a few days, she didn't hesitate to tell Yao Xiaoyu the truth: she had gone to sea under the pretense of going to the market, intending to make a living elsewhere, but she encountered a storm and got lost. After experiencing Yu Deng's sea voyage, she realized that her destination was a little different from what she had expected—she had planned to go to another place, but ended up being swept away to a foreign country.
Weren't you scared when you were on the ship?
Yao Xiaoyu asked with some curiosity, "Everyone says that those who live by the sea live off the sea, but fishing by boat is basically a man's job. Most women only do auxiliary work such as repairing fishing nets. There's even a set of rules that say women will have bad luck if they go on the boat." Yao Xiaoyu scoffed at this, "Turning the illegal possession of the means of production into so-called rules is an old tradition."
However, there are always exceptions. Apart from a very small number of women who have no choice but to make a living by boat at sea, there is another group of people whose entire families live on the water their whole lives: the Tanka people.
The Tanka people are known as the gypsies of the sea by foreigners. Although some of them marry people from the mainland, most of them are still married to people from the sea. They live on boats and spend their entire lives on the water. When their children reach marriageable age, they will place plants on the bow of the boat. Generally, women will place flowers and men will place grass. It is normal for their daughters to know how to sail, fish, and swim.
But according to Yu Deng, she was from a land-dwelling family and had been doing jobs like mending nets for the past ten years or so. If there was anything related to water, it was beachcombing. How could a girl who didn't even know how to hold an oar dare to go out to sea to make a living?
"Don't be afraid,"
Yu Deng answered quickly. Yao Xiaoyu had expected to hear reasons like that she had secretly practiced in the water, but Yu Deng said instead:
“I cast divination blocks in front of the goddess Mazu to ask if I could go to sea, and nine positive results came out.”
A single, seemingly casual remark sent a chill down Yao Xiaoyu's spine. As a novelist, she had some understanding of traditional culture and had even seen interpretations of divination by tossing divination blocks in short videos. But it was only through this understanding that she realized how terrifying the odds were. In an era where feudal superstition still held sway, it was no wonder that Yu Deng had plunged headlong into the sea with such a result.
Yu Deng admired Yao Xiaoyu's shocked expression, and his heart was bursting with joy. It's only good when foreigners make a fool of themselves. The Nine Holy Grails must be explained to those who understand them so that they can get a satisfactory response.
She didn't think too much when she went out to sea. Besides the courage she had gained from the blessing of Mazu, another major reason was that she didn't want to live the life of nine steaming and nine drying. She was very skilled at this, but the thought of having to do it for the rest of her life made her shudder.
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The author has something to say: [1] The Boxer Indemnity began in 1908.
[2] Incense lamp: from Li Bihua's "The Woman Who Eats Braised Goose".
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