Chapter 112: 036 Ah Zheng Part 3
On the morning of April 3rd, before dawn, the Municipal Council's Japanese Arrest Division, sensing a dire situation, prepared a cruise ship under cover of darkness and quietly sailed from the Huangpu River, where the French and International Settlements met. The Japanese scientists aboard were unexpectedly intercepted by over 20 students from Aurora University and National Chengchi University lurking at the docks. The fugitive Japanese guard, realizing the situation was dire, requested the Concession authorities to arrest over a dozen of the students to ensure the ship's safe departure.
Two days later, hundreds of university students flocked to the Municipal Council's hearing room to demand their release. Shanghai, in conjunction with several newspapers in Beijing and Tianjin, widely publicized the colonial atrocities, sparking widespread outrage in both Beijing and Shanghai. Lin Zitong, one of the officers of the 25th Division dispatched to Shanghai, also arrived early that morning.
Chu Wang had been changing her dressings and eating on schedule for the past few days, and she had also been picking up bits of gossip from Xie Zeyi. He spoke with the same casual understatement as a story, and she listened calmly. Perhaps her body was desperate to recover, so she slept an unusual amount. Apart from taking her medicine and eating, she barely spoke to Xie Zeyi, let alone with other visitors.
She half-dazedly heard Xie Zeyi talking to a familiar baritone outside the door, and then he left. When Xie Zeyi returned, she softly asked, "Is Lin Zitong here?"
"Not knowing you were awake, he said he was going to visit another friend and would be back soon."
After hearing this, she thought for a while, "Miss Xu is here too?"
"Um."
"I want to go see her, too."
"You're still a patient yourself."
Xie Zeyi had just flatly refused, but when he saw the eager look in her eyes, after three seconds of staring at him, he turned around, stopped Lily, and asked, "Can you take her for a walk around the hospital?"
"She's been feeling much better these past two days," Lily glanced at her, thought for a moment, and said, "Just don't leave the hospital."
When she heard that she couldn't leave the hospital, she sighed "Ah..." with regret.
Xie Zeyi and Lily both turned to look at her, and asked in English and Chinese respectively, "Where else do you want to go?"
"I want to... go home and get some things." she said in English.
"Can't he get it for you?" Lily asked.
She looked at Xie Zeyi, feeling a little embarrassed to speak. In those days, underwear had not yet become popular in the Far East. Women all used "breast bandages" or still wore belly bands, and most of them had sagging breasts or flat chests. Twenty-seven years ago, she was still in the early stages of development, and then the idea of natural breasts suddenly became popular. She felt strange, so she privately commissioned Mr. Saumur to make many bras for her. After he returned to France, he would occasionally send some to her, which finally prevented her from having flat chests or sagging breasts. After being sent to the hospital that day, although Mary and Lily took off their coats and changed into clean linen hospital gowns, and wiped her body or changed her outer clothes every two days, her underwear was not touched. Therefore, even though she felt better today, she also realized that she was emitting a foul odor from the inside out, like stinky tofu.
Xie Zeyi's attitude softened. He stared at her and asked in Chinese, "Where are the things?"
She thought about the size and shape of the bra, looked up at the sky and said, "Forget it, it's not particularly urgent..."
Lily smiled and said, "Ever since Mrs. Hogg moved in, Mr. Hogg has renovated the patio garden for her. It's really beautiful now. She hasn't seen it since she moved in, has she? If she has time, she can go for a walk there. It will make her feel much better."
Chu Wang asked, "Is he the Mr. Hogg who brought his wife from Guangzhou after Shanghai opened its port and bought her eighty acres of land on the Bund for a garden?"
Lily smiled and said, "Yeah, I really envy Mrs. Hogg."
When seeing Lily's silly smile, Chu Wang also sighed: It's all about money. The romance that can be recorded in history is all built on money.
She had been lying there for almost a week without moving. Just as she stood up to get out of bed, her legs gave way and she nearly fell. Xie Zeyi quickly stepped forward and scooped her up into his arms, preventing her from falling headfirst.
Lily smiled lightly, then quickly turned around and left with the medical records.
"My head is injured, why are my legs and feet not working anymore?" She was a little confused and pushed Xie Zeyi, "Let me get down and walk for a few steps."
"Sure?"
"Sure."
Xie Zeyi put her down on the ground and kept staring at her.
She took two steps, but her legs still felt a little weak, so she had to hold on to Xie Zeyi's sleeve tightly. He took two steps, and she took two steps too.
Xie Zeyi couldn't help but smile, "Where do you want to go first?"
"Miss Xu's place."
She dragged his sleeve along, taking small steps for a while. She felt a little better, and her legs regained some feeling. She wasn't walking too fast, but she wasn't going to trip on cotton and fall. It was just a little awkward for Xie Zeyi, such a tall person, to walk slowly to accommodate her short, half-crippled legs.
Her room was on the third floor, and Ms. Xu was on the second. When they arrived at her room, another fierce-looking elderly nurse from the Aid Society told them, "Someone's visiting her. She needs to rest. Please come back tomorrow."
Chu Wang wanted to ask, "Is the injury serious?" But the old lady turned around and left without any courtesy, leaving the two of them with a complete rejection.
When she looked depressed, Xie Zeyi smiled and said, "I'll go out and take a look."
After saying that, he immediately strode out of the ward corridor, leaving her behind with a confused look on her face, leaning against the wall and staring at his quickly receding back.
After a few minutes, he returned with a smile, carried her out of the ward, and walked through the silent blue and white corridors of the Red Cross Hospital, where doctors and nurses were coming and going. With everyone looking back curiously, he finally put her down outside the garden on the first floor.
The hospital building was donated by the Relief Society and completed sixty or seventy years ago. The garden was later donated by Jardine Matheson and Alcock. The foundation was raised by more than a foot to allow for filling and planting. After Mrs. Hogg's hospitalization, Mr. Hogg renovated it again. The entire garden outside the first floor is now more than two feet higher than the foundation of the hospital's ground floor. As the first floor's lighting began to deteriorate, it was no longer used as a ward and became more of a storage room.
Xie Zeyi stood behind the flowerbed, looking up at the wards. His height, including the ground and the flowerbed fence, was nearly two meters eighty, enough to see everything going on in the windows of the second-floor wards.
Chu Wang also climbed up the garden fence to stand beside him, but found that she could only see the wall between the first and second floors. She pulled Xie Zeyi and jumped twice, finally realizing that no matter how much she jumped, it would be useless.
Xie Zeyi looked in quietly for a while, then added fuel to the fire beside her, "Wow."
Chu Wang, whose curiosity was completely aroused, said: "..."
Xie Zeyi turned to look at her, "Do you want to see it?"
She tugged at his sleeve.
"What should I call it?"
"Brother Zeyi..."
Xie Zeyi then smiled, half-knelt down, and patted his folded legs.
The scene before her seemed to overlap with something in her memory, which immediately made her stunned.
"Come up." Xie Zeyi said.
She nodded and climbed onto his shoulders and sat on top of him.
"Hold it steady?"
"It's stable."
Xie Zeyi slowly stood up, and her vision became clearer and clearer.
"Can you see clearly?"
"Be shorter...it's too conspicuous!"
Xie Zeyi squatted down a little, "Like this?"
"Yeah." She held onto the edge of the second-floor bed with both hands, revealing only her eyes and a small portion of her pale head. Miss Xu's bed was right next to the window, and since she was lying down, I couldn't see her clearly. I could only make out the back of Lin Zitong, dressed in military uniform, sitting on the edge of her bed.
Just as I found a comfortable position, I heard Miss Xu's muffled voice: "Don't even think about it. I wouldn't marry you before, and I won't marry you now."
Lin Zitong said, "He's planning your actions with the Federation of Trade Unions. Inciting students and workers to take to the streets, or going out directly armed?"
"None of your business."
"We have nearly two regiments from Shanghai. You don't have enough manpower. If we can incite the Shanghai people to join the protest, the concession authorities won't just sit there and watch."
Miss Xu sneered, "Then what are you doing here? Once they take action, you'll just give the order and have your soldiers shoot at the unarmed workers, students, and citizens, our Chinese warriors?"
Lin Zitong said, "If they fail, your identity will also be in danger. Besides, their chances of winning are slim. I don't want to implicate Uncle Xu and Aunt Xu, your brother and sister-in-law, nephews and nieces. My marriage to you will be your best refuge for the short term. You decide, I won't force you."
After a long silence, Miss Xu's voice became very soft. "You like that girl, right?"
Lin Zitong didn't respond.
"You've always liked girls like these who are a little clever, stubborn, and simple-minded. You can't fool me."
"Isn't it the same for you? If you want to hear about Greece and Rome, the Renaissance, the Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, I can tell you about them too. I'm not necessarily any worse than he is. I also have a little understanding of ancient and modern times, north and south, east and west, romanticism, realism, and naturalism. Besides that, my Japanese is not too bad either. He's engaged, and I'm still single. Please think about it carefully."
“…”
"Besides, when it comes to innocence and stubbornness, who can compare to you from childhood to adulthood?"
After hearing this, even Chu Wang couldn't help but exclaim "Wow!" Hearing her words, Xie Zeyi immediately realized that something was wrong. She looked up, and before Lin Zitong could turn around, Xie Zeyi grabbed her arm and stuffed her into his coat, then ran with her to hide behind the rose bushes.
Lin Zitong opened the window and looked down, only to see a bunch of roses with leaves rustling and falling.
Chu Wang was nearly suffocating from being forced into the chest of Xie Zeyi's coat when suddenly a white-haired old lady, full of energy, came towards them. Chu Wang, huddled inside Xie Zeyi's coat, heard her call out Xie Zeyi's English name in a powerful voice: "Zoetse! Is that you, Zoe! Zoe! I'm your Grandma Hogg. When your father brought your second mother to live in Guangzhou, the little girls who came to play mahjong at night always loved to chase you. Grandma Hogg always remembers your eyes and your adorable little face, little Zoe, but don't you remember Grandma Hogg, Zoe?"
Xie Zeyi's expression grew worse as he listened. Chu Wang simply gave up holding his breath and emerged from his black windbreaker with a shiver, gasping for breath towards the sunlight.
Lin Zitong smiled and shook his head, closed the window, turned around and went out and downstairs.
Grandma Hogg looked at the little girl who had suddenly appeared from his windbreaker. Her bright blue eyes widened, and she burst out laughing. Suddenly, she switched to speaking Chinese with a Cantonese accent: "Such a pretty girl, who hurt you like this? Ah Zheng, you didn't even know to look at her more closely."
Chu Wang touched his head and asked, "Who is Ah Zheng?"
Xie Zeyi said, "Mrs. Hogg, I still remember you. It's my fault for not looking at her carefully."
Grandma Hogg pulled Chu Wang up and looked him up and down, left and right, and sighed, "A Zheng is your brother Zoe. He has been so handsome since he was a child. His parents always call him A Zheng, and now he is getting more and more handsome..."
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