Chapter 104: Night 28
"Brother Lin, the steward: I am deeply grateful for the invitation from Mr. Silin to establish a relationship with Qin Jin. I have taught you that this is the most important thing to do. However, this child has not yet settled down in Shanghai since leaving last year. He is lazy and willful, which has brought shame to me. If I were to rashly entrust a huge fortune to him, I would be deeply afraid that he would waste his youth. I have heard that Mr. Zheng Xinnong's sixth son is also a man of outstanding character and learning, and is already a leader among today's overseas students. I also heard that Brother Lin entrusted his second daughter to the Zheng family early on. I hope you will reconsider this and avoid regrets later. I would be very grateful.
If you agree, I will be deeply grateful.
I pay my respects to you.
March 30th Night
Although Yan Sang likes the third girl more, Si Ying also understands that the second girl who knows how to advance and retreat and has deep scheming can be more helpful to his future. If he can't make up his mind, he might as well give Lin Yu a try to see which daughter he is willing to leave to Yan Sang to suffer together, which will show his sincerity.
Although neither Lin Yu nor he currently holds any official position, the early merger of Shanghai University and the School of Political Science and Law established their private interests as inseparable. Lin Yu's eldest son, a direct descendant of the Whampoa Military Academy, enjoyed a prominent position in Nanjing; having invested heavily in Northeast China two years earlier, Lin Yu's position in Chinese education has long surpassed his. If the Si family currently possesses any advantage over the Lin family, it is that the Northeast's influence throughout China and East Asia, which spanned the country and East Asia, remains intact, and they retain numerous insider connections that no one else possesses.
For example, Zheng Yimin, who studied in Japan, worked as a secretary in the administrative department of the pro-Japanese government after returning to China. However, there are actually rumors that Zheng Yimin holds another important position in the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions, and may be more likely to be an anti-Japanese faction.
For example, the third girl who almost broke up with Lin Yu made great achievements in the research institute that built roads across the border in Hongkou.
He didn't mention the Lin family's third daughter in his letter, not because he didn't like her. Her father had personally ruined her reputation, so there was no reason for him to propose marriage to her on his son's behalf. He couldn't, and didn't have the right to, bring it up; unless Lin Yu himself had the eloquence and the nerve to propose it: solemnly re-promise the third daughter, with whom he had almost broken off relations, to Yan Sang.
Lin Yu understood the inextricable interests of the Silin and Silin families, and he had to make a choice. If it was the second daughter, after the engagement, he would send them both to the United States to study together, and he would continue to place his complete trust in Lin Yu. If it was the third daughter, Yan Sang might have to sacrifice her future and ideals, and share in the restrictions on her life and freedom. Therefore, for the sake of his two children's future, he would have to bow to Nanjing, and wholeheartedly submit to the Nanjing government along with the remaining power he had cultivated over the years, along with the Northeast.
——
At the Lin Mansion, Yunyan stood before the dressing mirror, trying on the new dresses she'd had made by the tailor since returning home. This was her first social dance since returning home, and she remembered her disappointment at the Shanghai Grand Hotel and didn't want to repeat it. Furthermore, the guests invited this time included distinguished white British ladies who had returned from the same ship as her, whom she had met while studying in England with her father, as well as overseas Chinese ladies whose elders had established themselves in the UK as businesspeople and who had been raised in England. She didn't want to lose out to them.
From dresses to long evening gowns, silk and satin, conservatively fitted necklines that pulled the neck high, trendy backless dresses with slits that seemed to reach the very end of the spine... She tried them on, liking each one, yet each one just a little less than perfect. She wore one, held another in her hand, and yelled upstairs, "Mom!" Then she fretted, "Which one should I wear?"
But she didn't respond for a long time.
Upstairs, Zhou had been uneasy for most of the day after receiving the letter. She had been pretending to be nice in front of her daughter for a long time in the morning. Finally, Lin Yu came back from school in the afternoon, and she finally had someone to talk to.
"I told you Yan Sang wouldn't amount to anything in the future, but you just gave in to her!"
"Who accommodates her more?" Lin Yu laughed.
Zhou was furious. "When we were in France and England, you talked on the phone every day. The mail carrier chased her from the school gate to the door of her house. The mailbox at home was cleaned once a week. There are so many young and handsome students studying abroad. Why wait until now if you don't take this opportunity to find the most outstanding one?"
"Yun Yan doesn't like them all. I think those two cunning ones are no match for the son that Si Ying has brought up. As a father, I still prefer Yan Sang."
"What's his future? There are so many Oxford PhDs chasing her, but he didn't study hard and was nearly expelled from school several times." Zhou recalled something. "The younger one is far behind, and hasn't the older one been doing well in recent years? The relationship between Nanjing and Japan is on the rise, and he insists on being a loyal minister of a bandit family. If he continues like this, won't he bring us into trouble too?"
Lin Yu was displeased: "Don't mention women's opinions anymore." He had classes to teach in the afternoon, so he put on his coat and hurried out.
Zhou sat in her study, reading Si Ying's letter over and over again. She savored the words, "Excellent in both character and learning," and then, remembering that Zheng Yimin had studied in Japan, she began to sense something. Unfortunately, she had few friends in Shanghai and couldn't ask around. She sat dejectedly on the sofa for a while, then thought of her eldest son, who was working in Nanjing.
She hadn't seen him since returning to China, never came to pick him up, and never called the Lin Mansion. When she asked about Lin Yu, he said, "He's highly regarded, so of course he's very busy."
Is she busy, or is she still resentful of her as the mother who gave birth to her but failed to raise her?
She had seen the photos Yun Yan brought to Europe, from the age of five or six to eighteen. Now that he was an officer, he must be even taller and more handsome than in the photos.
If he usually refuses to pay attention to me, then he won't be annoyed when I ask him, his brother, about his sister's marriage, right?
With this thought in mind, she eagerly picked up the phone and dialed the four-digit number she'd memorized by heart. After a moment, a gentle baritone voice echoed on the other end. After a "Hello," she was unsure what to say, so she asked, "Excuse me, where does Mr. Zheng Yimin work?"
The voice on the other end grew colder: "Mr. Zheng is a secretary at the Executive Yuan. What's going on?"
Zhou's heart was pounding, and she almost cried out: "Zitong..."
"Mrs. Zhou," the cold voice almost immediately interrupted her grieving, "I ask you not to interfere in my second sister's marriage."
"Zitong——"
The other end hung up immediately.
Holding the receiver, Zhou pounded the sofa several times in frustration. Why couldn't she? She was Yunyan's biological mother and the mistress of the Lin Mansion. She was Mrs. Lin, not some Madam Zhou!
"Mother?"
Yunyan called her twice from below, but no one answered. He simply smiled and shouted, "Mrs. Lin!"
When she heard this, Yun Yan, wearing a purple matte silk sleeveless cheongsam, came up the stairs gracefully. She leaned over and asked, "Mrs. Lin, who has upset you again?"
Zhou turned her face away, wiped her eyelids, turned back and smiled: "Of course not!"
"I called you for a long time but you didn't respond," Yun Yan leaned on the railing and turned around twice, "Does this dress look good?"
Zhou curled her lips and shook her head, "I don't have much flesh to begin with, so this outfit makes me look too thin, especially not in high heels."
"Which one should I change to?"
"Since this is a Western ceremony, we must wear cheongsams. Among the several I made a few days ago, there's one in ginger crepe..."
Yunyan listened to her the most, and as soon as she saw her, all Zhou's depression disappeared.
If we fulfill the third girl's wish and let her marry into the declining Si family, then Yan will be allowed to marry into a better family. Wouldn't that be the best of both worlds?
While she went downstairs to change, Zhou hurriedly dug out the Zheng family's phone number. When she came back up, she thought for a moment and then put the number under the sofa cushion. As she showed off her cheongsam, she asked, "If there were a young man more talented than Young Master Si, whose family was also aristocratic, and who was also your childhood sweetheart, would you be willing to marry him?"
Yun Yan shook his head, "No."
Zhou frowned and asked, "Why?"
Yun Yan, wearing a Duoyun cheongsam and barefoot, tapped a few steps on the stairs, her eyes moving with the movement. "I don't know why, but I've always had a feeling since I was a child that I must marry Brother Yan Sang. How could I marry someone else?"
Zhou thought: Okay, then I'll just act based on her expression when she comes back tonight.
Although it's often said that it's better for girls to marry later, in her opinion, those who marry later are usually from poor families and need the girls to go out to study and support the family. What man doesn't like young people? After all the girls are married, they are the ones left over.
She is eighteen now, not young anymore.
If this is his first grand event after returning to China, he will be able to show off his talents at the party. There will definitely be many talented people coming to visit, and Zheng Yimin will not be missing.
If not, then inform Zheng's mother as soon as possible.
She smiled calmly and said, "This one looks good. This one."
——
The Japanese were immersed in the joy of the birth of a new energy source that could save the island nation's scarce resources. Both scientists and officers seemed to have forgotten their promise to evacuate Nanjing.
Early in the morning, from the fifth floor of the research institute, I looked across the Yangjingbang River to Hongkou: the Japanese shops and factories there, the Japanese and Chinese coolies coming in and out, everyone looked the same as usual, with no sign of leaving.
And what is the Chinese Chamber of Commerce celebrating with them?
Although I knew this was the answer from the beginning, when it was about to be revealed, the compassion and anger in my heart were still uncontrollable.
"Damn it!" This Cantonese curse was the only thing she could say to relieve her disdain and anger. After saying that, she quickly left the group of people who were making her feel sarcastic.
She has something more important that she must record all the time.
Because he was excited, his steps were fast and his eyes were shining.
In fact, she had already thought of something extraordinary.
The first electronic computer was invented in 1946. Before that, even the many equations in nuclear physics required a large number of computer workers working day and night to calculate them. With computers, the workload would have been significantly reduced.
But even without computers, some things can be done, albeit more slowly.
For example, most people believe that "earthquakes" are just natural phenomena.
But right behind earthquakes comes weather.
In fact, in addition to being used in the military and for the rapid destruction of infrastructure, directional explosions also have extended functions, such as controlling the climate, inducing earthquakes, artificially creating tsunamis, floods, heavy rains, hail, melting plateau glaciers, and polar glaciers... and even directional cracking of the earth's crust.
It's what's called "explosive aerodynamics."
As long as a class of extremely complex equations are solved and corresponding wind tunnels, water tunnels, blasting holes, water conservancy engineering facilities are built in a certain area... it is possible to realize atmospheric vortices or ocean turbulence with lattice or directional blasting machines.
There is no need to wait for Japan to realize that it should stop this endless nuclear reaction, nor is there any need to wait for an earthquake to occur naturally.
Whenever and wherever she wants.
As soon as she got home, she kept recording the knowledge and inspiration that popped up in her head. Lying in bed, she wrote a bunch of characters on a piece of paper that only she could understand. Soon, she was asleep for most of the afternoon. Even her mother came and went, and she cooked a table full of food, but she didn't wake her.
——
It was almost five o'clock when she fished it out from the pile of manuscript papers for Mia.
"My dear young ladies! I haven't seen you two for months. You've become so haggard and skinny. I was just worried that you might have picked up some of those mainland young ladies' quirks of going to opium dens together. But when I came upstairs and saw you—isn't that a bad thing? You're still healthy with rosy lips and white teeth!"
She didn't know that just minutes before Miya arrived, she'd happened upon Xie Zeyi leaving the house. Before leaving, he'd peeled a bowl of shrimp and brewed a pot of jasmine tea, leaving them on the table. Miya happened to see them. Touching the tea, it was warm and just right for her to eat, and she burst into laughter. She thought: The one downstairs is so passive she's lost several pounds. I hope my brother doesn't spoil the one upstairs to the point of crippling her in the last few months.
Chu Wang emerged from the bed in a daze. She pushed him into the bathroom in a fit of rage. After a hot shower sobered him up a bit, he asked, "Did you see Zhenzhen?"
Miya was furious. "She's even harder to invite than you. I called her ten times, and she finally came out after two. The first time, I said to her, 'At the China-Japan-UK banquet, without you and me, who will support Greater China?' She just said, 'No, no,' and hung up on me. I still didn't believe it, so I called her again: 'If you don't go, and Linzy and I get bullied at the banquet, who will support her?' She thought about it for a full three minutes before reluctantly agreeing. Don't you think she's lacking in loyalty?"
She laughed when she heard it from inside, "Where is she now?"
"She's downstairs, in the car Mr. Jiang sent to pick us up. She's wearing a knee-length cheongsam in electric blue satin with a water-stained pattern today. You'd better not wear the same style as hers."
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