Chapter 113: 037 Ah Zheng Part 4
Lin Zitong walked towards her.
Xie Zeyi waved to him, making it a point of acquaintance. Then he said to the two of them, "I'm going to take a walk with Mrs. Hogg. You two can chat."
Lin Zitong smiled at him gratefully.
Xie Zeyi walked away, and Chu Wang asked, "Is Miss Xu okay?"
Lin Zitong said, "She doesn't care much about her appearance. For so many years, she has never realized how beautiful she is. So this injury is not too bad for her."
She thought for a moment, "But in the future, when we're talking about marriage... I think I'll know."
Lin Zitong smiled for a moment but didn't respond. Then she continued, "I heard you declined the Si family's marriage proposal." Then she looked in the direction where Xie Zeyi was walking away and said with a smile, "Do you have any other options?"
"If you don't have a better choice, can't you just decline?" She also laughed. "Besides, I'm not the better one."
"That's good," Lin Zitong said, visibly relieved. "Shanghai has been quite unstable lately. If things get out of hand, I'm afraid it will be no less severe than the two previous incidents. Regardless of which side wins in the end, Mr. Xie's current situation won't be a good outcome. In the best-case scenario, he'll probably have no choice but to return to England."
She looked towards the other end of the corridor. Mrs. Hogg had returned by herself, while Xie Zeyi was talking to a man in a black military uniform at the other end of the corridor.
Seeing that she looked unhappy, Lin Zitong immediately changed the subject, "You're more insightful than Yunyan. She went on a hunger strike last week after returning from Huamao and has been crying her heart out ever since. She keeps saying nonsense like she always thinks she will marry Yan Sang."
Chu Wang tilted his head, feeling a little amused. "Then, how did her engagement finally come about?"
"Father and Mrs. Zhou took her to visit the Lin residence once, after Uncle Si came to visit you in the hospital," Lin Zitong mentioned the word "Mrs. Zhou" with a slightly sarcastic smile on her face, "It was truly a great shame and humiliation. Seeing Yunyan was too heartbroken, Mrs. Zhou seemed to try to fight for her again. She said to Mrs. Si in a casual chat, 'The Lin family can't lose the Si family.' Yan Sang immediately said in front of everyone, ruthlessly: 'If the Si family can't lose the Lin family, if Miss Lin is willing to wait another twenty years, perhaps she can ask Yan Bo if she is willing to marry you.'"
Chu Wang couldn't help but smile.
"Yan Bo was also present. After Yan Sang finished speaking, he slammed the door and left, leaving everyone stunned." Lin Zitong glanced at her and continued with a wry smile: "Yan Bo then said: 'Twenty years? I may not plan to get married in thirty years. Can Sister Lin wait until then?'"
Chu Wang laughed for a while, then turned to look at him: "I've already been kicked out of the house. As the eldest brother, how come you seem so happy to have such a big person left home?"
Lin Zitong looked over with a smile, "Is there?"
Chu Wang also stopped and laughed, "You're talking about something as if it were some great joy, with a hint of scorn in your eyes as if you were looking down on everyone."
The two of them giggled like fools in the garden.
After laughing, Lin Zitong continued, "Do you know that father and several students from Uncle Si's school were arrested by the concession authorities, and that hundreds of students who subsequently rioted were shot and wounded?"
She nodded, "I heard."
"Uncle Si rejected my father's proposal for a peaceful settlement and wrote a letter of protest to Nanjing overnight, demanding that 'the highest military authorities organize a People's Court to judge the officers and soldiers directly responsible for this atrocity and immediately release the detained students.' He also asked the Minister of Education, the President of Jinan University, and seven others to jointly send the letter to the Central Party Committee and the Shanghai Political Branch. The letter was also published in today's Commercial Daily."
She thought for a moment and asked, "What happens next? Do we still need to protect the interests of the concession?"
"It's not easy for the Commander either. This is the only government recognized by the Chinese government right now, yet even his own son has defected to Jiangxi." He sighed softly, "I don't have much time left. So I took advantage of the little free time I had to come and see you and her."
As soon as he finished speaking, a lieutenant came running over from a distance.
"This is my adjutant."
She nodded to the adjutant. Only then did she realize that Lin Zitong's rank was already major.
The adjutant said a few words in his ear in a panic. Lin Zitong immediately said goodbye to her and left quickly.
Xie Zeyi was still talking beneath the golden-red honeysuckle at the far end of the corridor. Someone called her English name from behind, and she turned her gaze toward the courtyard—two teams of girls from the Rescue Society, dressed in gray cloth, were singing in front of the roses below. Lily came from behind the roses, holding gauze, medicine, and shampoo.
Lily smiled and said, "The sun is shining brightly today, and the wound on your head seems to have healed. It's a good opportunity to wash your hair now."
In the center of the garden, within the large rose bushes, stood two faded copper lotus pots. The green paint had faded to a mottled copper-red, which had rusted to a faint bluish-green. A hot water pipe had been run from there, and once it was turned on, the rumble of hot water filling roared from the ward building into the garden.
Lily untied the gauze on her head and let her lie on the recliner and wash her hair with her face up. On the day she was sent to the hospital, her hair had been twisted to make it easier to apply medicine. Now it was only ear-length, the same length as the girls in the rescue group in the yard.
As the warm water with a hint of rust flowed through her short hair, she heard Mrs. Hogg say to Lily in English in her ear, "What a pity for such beautiful long hair."
Lily ruffled her hair. "It should have been shaved even shorter, but we felt bad about it then." She raised her chin toward the singing girl in the center of the garden. "Don't all young girls cut their hair this short these days? It's been bandaged up for so long and can't be washed, and it's rainy season. If you don't cut it short, you'll get lice."
Mrs. Hogg complained stubbornly, "It doesn't look good. Girls should have long hair."
The head nurse laughed and said, "No one else's boyfriend has ever said it's ugly."
She interrupted helplessly: "You misunderstood, I am not his girlfriend."
Everyone laughed.
"No?" Lily and the head nurse exchanged a smile. "If not, you looked horrible when he brought you to the hospital that day. We were so scared we wouldn't hesitate, afraid he'd turn the hospital upside down."
Was that too much? She recalled Xie Zeyi's usual gentlemanly smile, one that never took anything personally. She couldn't imagine what it would look like if his face was so bad it almost blew up the hospital. So she said, "My aunt entrusted me to him. He was probably afraid he wouldn't be able to face her if I didn't take good care of me."
"Really?" The head nurse squinted at me, covering her mouth with her hands and laughing. "When they disinfected and applied the medicine to you, you were sweating profusely from the pain. You weren't quite conscious at that point. And when he kissed your cheek, he kept telling you, 'It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt'... It looked like he was in much more pain than you were."
The head nurse and Lily giggled.
Mrs. Hogg sighed, "Young love is wonderful."
“…”
If the head nurse hadn't mentioned it, she'd almost forgotten what happened in Xie Zeyi's arms before she passed out at the horse ranch. She'd been so pent up with anger at the time, so focused on expressing it, she'd completely forgotten about the kiss. When she calmed down and recalled the scene, she felt that Xie Zeyi had been incredibly gentle that day at the ranch, and the atmosphere had become somewhat tender and affectionate.
She felt it necessary to have a good talk with Xie Zeyi.
Not far away, the Rescue Society girls were practicing a newly learned prayer song, their tunes scattered and fragmented. She turned her head to watch as the short-haired girls in gray linen dresses chased each other, humming a short tune. She felt Lily's hand leave her hair for a moment, replaced by a pair of more gentle hands.
When she came to her senses, Lily and the head nurse had already left and were watching her and Mrs. Hogg from afar in the corridor, smiling.
She looked up, and when she did, she met Xie Zeyi's eyes. With his back to the afternoon sun, his pupils were hidden behind his eyelashes, like a deep pool in a forest cave, dark and lifeless. His lashes were thin and dense, a shade lighter than his pupils. A teardrop mole, hidden beneath his right eyelid, amidst the lashes, made his eyes instantly captivating.
Just one glance, in that instant, everything in the world became quiet.
Only then did she realize that, aside from that fleeting glimpse of him standing on the balcony when she was a child, she had never truly looked at him. She often heard about his handsomeness from others. She thought about it carefully and concluded that it wasn't so much his striking features as it was a kind of grace and temperament that ran deep in his bones, radiating from him.
After she realized this, she could no longer call him "A Zheng" which she had originally intended to use to tease him. It seemed that no matter how she called these two words, there was something ambiguous in it.
The words in her heart suddenly stopped at her lips. Xie Ze suddenly frightened her with his right finger covered with soap bubbles, which immediately frightened her whole face.
Xie Zeyi stopped teasing her and asked, "Why are you looking at me like that?"
She turned away and thought for a moment, then said, "What did you talk about?"
Xie Zeyi smiled and said, "What does it have to do with you?"
She avoided Xie Zeyi's gaze and looked up at the sky. "Two invaders together, what else can they do besides colluding with each other to bully the people?"
He continued to smile with narrowed eyes, "What does it have to do with you?"
She was a little afraid of his squinting smile recently, but she always felt that when Juercha suddenly came to the hospital for a visit, he would have nothing good to say, so she wanted to find out the truth no matter what, whether it was related to him or to things outside.
A hearty laugh echoed from not far away. Lying on her back, she couldn't see who was coming, but she heard a familiar voice: "Brother Zoe, I've brought everything."
"Miya..."
She was about to stand up and speak when Xie Zeyi pushed her back onto the recliner.
"My head was all covered in soap foam," he said.
Miya laughed again: "Mr. Jiang is waiting for me outside. I'll just say a few words and then leave." She rummaged through the backpack bag for a while, "Besides the things my brother asked me to take, there's also the Piruoji that Zhenzhen asked me to bring to your boss Chang - the blue-eyed Englishman at the banquet sent roses to her house every few days, and waited for her on the road she often went out, scaring her so much that she didn't dare to go out. He knows you like to eat, so even if he's not here, it's enough as long as the food arrives - your new haircut looks nice, I'll go get one some other day. While the sun is strong, you can take a walk in the sun after washing your hair, and it will dry in a while." Miya handed the paper bag to Lily and disappeared in a flash.
He washed her hair with exceptional care, as if he were doing something incredibly laborious, which made her suspect she'd been washing it for almost a century. The aroma of pirouettes wafted from the paper bag, and Mrs. Hogg sighed, "Lao Da Chang is hard to find these days."
"Why?" she asked.
"My husband said it's a real riot out there. Students and businesses are handing out leaflets in protest. First, they were boycotting Japanese goods. After a few students were jailed for the riot, the court heard they had to pay 100 yuan each to release them... Now there are anti-imperialist leaflets on the streets, and businessmen and bankers are joining in. I heard some soldiers will be coming in to organize later. Many non-Chinese shops have been shut down because of the chaos. Lao Da Chang in Zhaofeng Park is one of them. I'm afraid Hot Cross and Sausage Rolls will be almost out of stock..."
"What about the Cheeselin Cafe?"
"Zhangjiagang is not bad either," said Mrs. Hogg.
She looked up at Xie Zeyi. After rinsing her hair, she placed a towel on her head. Xie Zeyi wiped her hair and said, "Ask Miya to take you there in a few days."
"What about you?"
He was silent.
Mrs. Hogg said, "If you want to eat, go early. The later you go, the less chance you'll have. I remember that pho shop my husband and I used to go to in Guangzhou. After moving to Shanghai, I wanted to go back, but my health wasn't so good. I wanted to try it again—there were only one or two in Shanghai, and they didn't taste the same."
She sat up, took the towel from Xie Zeyi's hand, and started wiping herself.
Xie Zeyi stared at her, thought for a moment, and said, "See if the things Miya brought are suitable."
She took the backpack and leaned over to look: inside were two clean pairs of trousers and shirts, two pairs of boxer briefs, a bra binder that was popular in Shanghai today, and two boxes of Mudaishi.
Xie Zeyi turned his back to her and asked, "Is this all?"
Her face felt a little hot, but she didn't say anything.
He added, "If not, I'll go to the Cheeselin Cafe later and come back to get it."
She hummed.
"Go change your clothes and come down quietly. I'll wait for you downstairs."
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