"If you don't obey, I won't be able to rest assured and go to the shop."
Mrs. Tao nodded and agreed hurriedly, "Okay, okay, don't stretch your arms. Go quickly and don't delay the work."
Huang Wanzhen felt something was wrong when she saw the interaction between the two. After Tao Luanxiong left, she cautiously asked, "Cousin, what's going on..."
Mrs. Tao smiled and asked Huang Wanzhen to sit down. "I just asked the doctor from Tong Ren Tang to check my pulse. I'm pregnant again. It's only been a little over two months, so it's hard to tell anyone. If you hadn't come here today, I wouldn't have told you."
Mrs. Tao already had two sons, and they were not too young. She had never expected that she would be pregnant again after so many years. However, in this era, people valued having many children and good fortune. Huang Wanzhen smiled and said, "Congratulations."
Mrs. Tao learned from Mrs. Dong Jiang that Huang Wanzhen was divorced. She was so old and didn't even have a child. She was afraid that the matter of having a child in advance would be brought up. Huang Wanzhen was unhappy and quickly changed the subject, "Cousin, how come you have time to come here today?"
When Huang Wanzhen heard Mrs. Tao ask this, she took the opportunity to tell her that she wanted to buy a batch of wool.
Mrs. Tao readily agreed and asked Huang Wanzhen if she wanted any furs. "Your brother-in-law got a large batch of top-quality furs from outside the Great Wall. I'm thinking of shipping some over to your uncle and his family. I don't know if it's cold in Shanghai in the winter, and whether the furs will sell well."
Huang Wanzhen nodded. "It sells well. Shanghai has a lot of rich people and it's cold in the winter, so celebrities love to wear fur."
The two talked about the fur for a while, and then started talking about wool.
"There's a ship that's expected to arrive in Tianjin on the 15th. Your brother-in-law will be there on the 14th. I'll send someone to send you a letter then."
"Hey! Speaking of factories, there are more in the south. Your brother-in-law transports wool to the south every year and then makes yarn from it. If we build a few more wool factories in the north, why would we have to go to so much trouble to transport the wool back and forth?"
Huang Wanzhen continued, "The culture is different. Although the new government has been encouraging women to work, government calls are one thing, but a true change in mentality takes time. The culture in the south is more open than in the north. Many factories there employ female workers. Factory owners are reluctant to stop the machines, so female workers work more than fifteen hours a day, and some even work twenty hours."
"Take our northern home, for example. Most elderly women are conservative and don't want their daughters to work, saying it exposes them to the public. But they also don't want their sons to suffer that hardship."
"Even people from here who want to build a factory will go south to build it."
Mrs. Tao sighed, "Ah, who says it's not true?"
After Huang Wanzhen left, she did not return to Jixiangtang, but went directly to Wangfujing and searched three shops before she found the snow-white, high-quality wool yarn. She weighed a pound of it and returned to Jixiangtang.
It was simply because the Tao family's ship returned so late. Nowadays, ship arrival times aren't as accurate as they were in later times. If something were to happen along the way, a delay of a few days would be common. Furthermore, shipping from Tianjin to Beijing would take time. Huang Wanzhen calculated in her mind, fearing she might miss the gift delivery. She decided it would be best to make other arrangements.
Huang Wanzhen was so busy that she forgot about time. It was not until the evening of the 17th that she remembered that she had to give Mrs. Fan a scarf at the salon the next day. She hurried to find Xiulan and asked, "Is the scarf ready?"
Xiulan smiled and nodded, "It's done." Then she turned and went out, and came back with a cloth bag, "Miss, you bought a lot of wool, I knitted three for you."
Huang Wanzhen asked in surprise, "Three?"
Xiulan opened the cloth bag and took out the pieces one by one. "Yes, look, they are of different patterns. The first one is a plain stitch, the second one is a hand-woven braid, and the third one is a sunflower pattern."
Huang Wanzhen followed her movements, looked at the three scarves, and picked up the plain one, "Men can wear this one too."
Xiulan nodded and picked up the second one, "This twisted one can also be worn by men."
Huang Wanzhen decided to keep the second one and tie it for herself, and asked Xiulan to pack the first and third ones in a paper box, preparing to give one to Mrs. Fan and Mr. Fan respectively.
On the 18th, the weather cooled down a bit. Huang Wanzhen found a thin woolen sweater from the closet, paired it with a tweed skirt, took the paper box containing the scarf, and went to Mr. Fan's salon.
Huang Wanzhen shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Fan and smiled as she handed over the paper box. "The last time I saw you, Mr. and Mrs. Fan, I was so envious and admired you. After listening to your teachings, I'm determined to study hard. Now, I go to school during the day to learn new knowledge, and I also study at night. I've already learned English and French, and I'm preparing to learn a third language. Although I can't compare to you, I believe that as long as I keep learning every day, I will eventually make a big difference."
"I'm so grateful to you, Mr. and Mrs., but I'm so tongue-tied that I don't know how to express my gratitude. It's getting cold, so I've prepared two scarves. I hope you'll accept them."
Mr. Fan took it with a smile, handed it to Mrs. Fan beside him, and shook hands with Huang Wanzhen again, expressing his gratitude. "I heard your story from your wife. You are going to school, earning your own tuition, and helping the world at the same time. You are a very enterprising person."
Huang Wanzhen said seriously, "Sir, the feng shui here is good, and there is a spirit of learning."
Mrs. Fan smiled and said, "If you like it, come more often."
Someone came over to greet Mr. Fan. Mrs. Fan took Huang Wanzhen's hand, went to the sofa next to them, and sat down to talk.
After a while, he personally introduced her to Yin Jialuo, a lecturer in fashion pattern design at Yenching University.
Yin Jialuo was wearing a well-tailored cheongsam. The color of the cheongsam was like the maple leaves in late autumn, a deep and restrained red, which made her figure look even more graceful.
Huang Wanzhen was very surprised because Yin Jialuo did not look like she was in her forties or fifties at all. In this era, hair dyeing was not popular, and due to food intake, many people in their forties and fifties had gray hair. However, Yin Jialuo was not only as slim as a girl, but also had black hair. Her hair was really better than the hair seen in shampoo advertisements in her previous life. From behind, she looked like a little girl of seventeen or eighteen.
At the salon, there was no one with whom Huang Wanzhen could share her feelings freely, so she could only be silently surprised in her heart.
"I've heard several people mention you, and they all praised you. Seeing you today, I can see that you are indeed a beautiful and talented person."
Yin Jialuo smiled, and the frown on his face became more obvious, which brought Huang Wanzhen back to her senses. At the same time, she sighed in her heart that beauty fades with age. No matter how beautiful a woman is, she cannot escape the invasion of time.
Huang Wanzhen seized the opportunity and asked some questions about color matching and problems encountered in designing clothes.
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