Chapter 17: Aunt and the Tailor Part 3
"How can that be?" Xue Zhenzhen shook her head. "I heard that your aunt laughed at that and said, 'You think I'm just an object, my sister's dowry, right?' Later, Mrs. Lin was so angry that she immediately consulted my grandfather and even consulted a fortune teller. She calculated that Mrs. Ge's horoscope was unlucky for my uncle, which was very bad luck."
"...Didn't you calculate your horoscope when you got engaged?"
Lin Chuwang sincerely believed that promoting science was necessary. A family's kinship was entirely determined by a fortuneteller's words, who could make a black thing white, a dead thing alive. It's no wonder, then, that in the early 18th century, European missionaries encountered many setbacks in their missionary work on this continent. They resorted to a different approach, using the guise of running schools to spread their doctrines and indoctrinating children from the very beginning.
"It was Madam Lin who originally wrote to my family, hoping to find a good match for Mrs. Ge. Everyone thought it was a good match and agreed immediately, entirely based on my grandmother's personal wishes. My grandfather always believed that my uncle would have a great career and wasn't really convinced of the match. My grandmother fell ill and passed away before my uncle could return from his studies, leaving the marriage even more uncertain. Then, Mrs. Lin arrived with a fortune teller. My second mother, your grandmother, and the fortune teller met in a room, and after conferring, they all looked sad. They said Mrs. Ge 'wasn't blessed with a husband,' or else her husband would 'die in a foreign land.'"
Chu Wang curled his lips and sighed.
This kind of thing was too bizarre for someone of her generation, like a fairy tale. She almost wanted to open a class, organize these feudal women, and promote science to them.
"When everyone was worried, your grandmother suddenly said, 'Since it's a marriage between the Qiao and Lin families, my eldest daughter is the legitimate daughter, well-mannered, and even studied in Japan. How can my youngest daughter compare? I'll marry her to you.' The fortune teller calculated your aunt and uncle's birth dates and horoscopes on the spot, and they said they were auspicious and auspicious, promising a smooth marriage. So the marriage was finalized. I don't know if my uncle knew about it at the time, but they carried Mrs. Qiao to the Qiao family in a sedan chair, clearly forcing Mrs. Ge to become their concubine. Mrs. Ge refused. That night, it was a violent storm, and she wanted to find the Qiao family to cause trouble, but your father tied her up and beat her. I heard that your mother cried all night outside your father's door in the wind and rain, begging him to release your aunt. She was already ill and weak, so when she gave birth to you, she couldn't hold back her bleeding, and that's how..."
Lin Chuwang was shocked by this story and asked in amazement, "What happened next?"
Xue Zhenzhen couldn't help but smile. "Your aunt is quite temperamental, actually. My uncle had just arrived in Hong Kong, and he had to build connections everywhere. One of them was an important figure, named Ge, a British overseas Chinese with numerous businesses in Hong Kong, Macau, and Shanghai. My uncle was just one step away from currying favor with this Mr. Ge. And then, somehow, within two weeks, your aunt married this sixty-something old man, Ge, as his mistress. Old man Ge had a wife in the countryside of Guangzhou. She'd smoked too much opium and wasn't very useful anymore, but she was his first wife after all, so he couldn't bear to leave her. After your aunt married and came to Hong Kong, she drugged Old Man Ge with something that made him completely infatuated. No matter what was going on outside or at home, he would only agree if your aunt gave him the nod of approval, otherwise he would refuse. No matter how my uncle tried to curry favor with Old Man Ge, he would just say: I won't help."
Lin Chuwang couldn't help but feel a little happy.
"After many twists and turns, many years passed, and only after Old Man Ge passed away did my uncle finally gain a foothold in Hong Kong. If it weren't for Old Man Ge, I'm afraid my uncle's family would be in a very different situation now."
Lin Chuwang nodded. "Yes." Perhaps the Xie family's old man would be willing to marry Sister Ma Ling.
"I didn't expect that just a few years after marrying Mr. Ge, the old man passed away. His first wife back home also died a year later. They had only one daughter, who was more than ten years older than your aunt and had already married. Almost most of Mr. Ge's assets throughout his life ended up in the hands of your aunt. It's said that your aunt was angry at the time, but she never thought that she would become a rich woman?" Xue Zhenzhen looked at the huge garden outside the window and said with envy.
"She deliberately built her house next to the Qiao Mansion. I wonder what she was thinking," Lin Chuwang said, stunned. She felt that her aunt's deeds were worth posting on Tianya Gossip. She had even thought of the names: "Talking About My Weird Parents" and "My Legendary Counterattack Life."
Xue Zhenzhen curled her lips and sighed, "But I also heard it from someone. There are so many people talking, and rumors spread, so the truth may be a little distorted."
"Let me tell you something else," Xue Zhenzhen blinked. "Last night, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I secretly overheard Zhao Ma telling a maid that the house on Barton Road as your sister's dowry wasn't actually Mr. Xie's idea, but your aunt gave it to her. But for some reason, she refuses to admit that she gave it to her. What do you think she did?"
Lin Chuwang was stunned, unable to process the thought for a moment, and could only shake her head. She couldn't help but picture those charming eyes, slanted into her temples, watching her through the cigarette, or in the shadows of the lawn. She wondered how many wolves and tigers those eyes had seen, and what they were thinking as they looked at her now.
"You can't think of anything, right?" Xue Zhenzhen was a little angry, her voice becoming shrill. "How come you don't know anything? Really, I've told you so much gossip, and you don't have anything new to say, and you can't even say a word."
After she said this, her eyes couldn't help but glance at something outside the window. She said "Hey", pushed open the door and walked to the balcony.
Chu Wang shouted "Oh no!", but it was too late to stop Xue Zhenzhen.
Xue Zhenzhen picked up the empty Coca-Cola bottle, her eyes drawn to the letter underneath. She set the bottle down and unfolded the letter. Chu Wang reached out to grab it, but he couldn't, so he could only watch as she lifted the letter to read.
Sister Ma Ling's letter has been taken away. This is the paper left by Feng Xin. I don't know how many days ago it was placed here. It has been wrinkled by wind and rain, but the words are still barely legible.
Xue Zhenzhen frowned and looked at him for a long while: "I... repair... give it to you... what do you mean?"
Chu Wang took a look at her hand and saw a line of words written in English on it: "Ribs: I have repaired the fence for you. See you again if we have the chance. Yours sincerely, Zoe."
Only then did she look up at the rose hedge: the big hole behind the jar had indeed been patched up with new wooden strips and vines.
Chu Wang breathed a sigh of relief, then came to his senses and said angrily in his heart: Who the hell is the ribs?
——
The second floor of the other house housed guest rooms. One of the rooms housed Mr. Saumur, while a utility room was used as a sewing room. Mrs. Qiao was very arrogant about Michelle and her daughter. She said that since Mr. Qiao had not informed her in advance (about the concubine), she was not to blame for not having a room prepared for them.
So Michelle and her daughter stayed in another guest room temporarily.
Children are naturally curious. The sudden arrival of three foreign visitors to the house excited the two little girls. Every day after ballet class, they would hold up their skirts and stroll around the second floor next door. They couldn't help but glance at them during meals. After English lessons, they had even more reason to harass Mr. Saumur, under the pretext of practicing their English pronunciation.
Lin Chuwang was deeply dissatisfied with this: "Why would you practice English with a Frenchman? You should practice with Chinese people instead of French people!"
Yunyan was the most active. These days, aside from morning dances, afternoon English lessons, and three meals a day, Chu Wang barely saw his sister. Xue Zhenzhen saw this and expressed disdain for her "unworldly" country lifestyle. But Zhenzhen couldn't resist her own curiosity about the British royal tailor, her aunt's white concubine, and their mixed-race baby. She insisted on dragging Chu Wang along to the next building to study the room full of foreigners, to bolster her courage.
She had once vowed to "never listen to French people speaking English again in her life", but now she has inexplicably broken her vow.
At first, Chu Wang just watched Zhenzhen teasing the child, but the conversation between Yunyan and Mr. Somir challenged her bottom line more than once.
"Hello Mr. Somir, I am Yun Yanlin." Ten times.
"Mr. Saumur, nice to meet you." Mr. Saumur had to put down his cutting tools and shake hands with her seven times.
"Would you like an apple/orange/banana/pear?"
Although Chu Wang could clearly feel that after eating three or four apples and bananas a day, Mr. Somier might want to drink some coconut milk or try durian, Lin Yunyan did not give him the opportunity to eat other fruits because she did not know the words for those fruits.
——"What are you doing now?"——"I'm... uh... tsk."
Mr. Saumur might have meant to say 'tailor,' but he could only say 'cut.' Perhaps he wanted to use a more technical verb, but he didn't know the English for that either. So this conversation repeated itself no less than ten times.
One day during afternoon tea time, Lin Yunyan said, "Mr. Somir, it's time to eat (afternoon tea cake - Yunyan can't say it)."
Mr. Saumier had just finished the fifth banana she handed him. After hearing what she said, he finally asked in horror, "What are you eating?! I don't want to eat anymore..."
Lin Chuwang finally broke down.
The author has something to say: The progress bar can be accelerated after starting school.
I really love the babies like Blue Fatty, Flowers Bloom and Fall, Good Time tonight, etc. who actively leave messages tt
Little did I know that leaving comments is the driving force behind my adding more chapters.
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