Chapter 55: Mr. Xie and Mr. Huang Part 4
Mr. Huang and Qiao Maling were found in the balcony compartment of the top-floor glass terrace cafe.
It looked like Mr. Huang had only just found Qiao Maling. As soon as the three of them stepped into the Terrace Café, they heard Mr. Huang's full-throated roar:
"——What kind of person is Xie Zeyi? He's always busy serving your aunt. They're only fifteen years apart in age, and you say they don't have any relationship. Do you think I, Mark Huang, don't understand the trivialities of men and women?"
Zhenzhen and Chu Wang were both worried about Xie Zeyi.
Chu Wang raised his head and glanced at Xie Zeyi. "It seems we came at the wrong time?"
"Hmm? No, it's just the right time."
Xie Zeyi sat quietly in the corner with the other two, his expression unwavering, as if Huang Mark wasn't scolding him. Zhenzhen pulled a newspaper from the nearby pile and unfolded it, completely shielding herself and Chu Wang. "I've seen movies where it's disguised like this, isn't it?"
Xie Zeyi took the newspaper away calmly. The two girls behind the newspaper watched him fold the newspaper over and over again and put it back to its original place.
Qiao Ma Ling laughed from a distance, "You're so powerful, are you going to act tough in front of him? Why are you being mean to me? When Xie Zeyi's father was down and out, it was Auntie who came to his rescue. Now that his father has established himself in Hong Kong, he naturally remembers Auntie's kindness. Auntie is considerate and tactful. Whenever Sir Xie has any social gatherings, he always sends people to the Ge Mansion to show his support to Mrs. Ge. They've been friends for so many years, and even their eldest son, Xie Zeyi, grew up in the Ge Mansion's entertainment scene. Who in Hong Kong doesn't know that Mrs. Ge and Sir Xie went from friends to lovers? Now that Xie Zeyi has graduated from school, Mrs. Ge is still helping Sir Xie raise his son."
Huang Mark laughed for a long time, and the two children hiding there were a little scared.
Qiao Maling asked, "What are you crazy about?"
Huang Mark stopped laughing and his voice became more gloomy: "Are you good at defending him, huh?"
"You still have the nerve to talk about me? Why didn't you tell me about your wild woman?
"What the hell kind of woman am I raising?!"
Qiao Maling must have been holding it in for years. When people are furious, they can be surprisingly calm. She then sneered, "You're keeping that French woman in Vietnam. Do you think I'm blind?"
Huang Mark thought he'd hidden it well, but once his cover was exposed, he was like a balloon, inflated beyond belief, his arrogance instantly extinguished. He argued vigorously, "Her mother is ill. We spent all our savings to send her to school, and the whole family depends on her. But because her father heard about me and her, he had her beaten up, and now she can't even go out and see anyone. What's her fault? If I don't take care of her, how can she and her mother survive?"
"Take care of her? Huang Mark, if you take care of her, do you really need to be so eager to return to Vietnam that you keep running to that wild woman every few days?"
"Look at yourself. When you were promised to me, the matchmaker said you were a very virtuous woman in Hong Kong. Huh? How can you be considered virtuous now?"
"Don't blame me," Qiao Maling laughed even though they had fallen out. "If you hadn't been hanging out with that woman, would your father have found you a marriage? That woman's slutty mother hangs out with wild men every other day and is so filthy that she has to go to the police station. God knows if her daughter has contracted a dirty disease? You made her so dirty that she can't have children. Dirty people think you're just as dirty as them—"
“——Snap!”
Huang Mark slapped him so loudly that the whole world seemed to stop.
Chu Wang hurried to his feet as Qiao Maling lunged at Mr. Huang, ready to fight him to the death. She grabbed him by the collar, and everyone thought she was going to slap him back. In a flash, Qiao Maling let go of Mr. Huang. In the process, she pulled out the Chinese-made imitation Browning hidden in Mr. Huang's coat pocket—a familiar hiding spot for her. Her face was pale, and years of disguise and endurance had reached their limit. The muzzle of the gun was pointed directly at Mr. Huang's head, causing him to raise his hands in panic.
Zhenzhen almost screamed, but Chu Wang covered her mouth with his hand.
On the other side, Xie Zeyi pushed open the compartment door at some point, and through the glass, he seemed to fall from the sky and grabbed Qiao Maling's gun with one hand.
With a slight push, the gun was in his hand. Qiao Maling seemed to have lost her last bit of support, tears streaming down her face. She sat down on the ground exhausted, sobbing. Her sobs were intermittent, mixed with the sound of wind and rain, and were extremely sad.
Xie Zeyi glanced over at Chu Wang, and she immediately understood. Together with Zhenzhen, they helped her sit down on a chair. Chu Wang looked at the dejected young woman, Qiao Maling, and his mind somehow flashed back to the wedding ceremony where the priest had asked, "Mr. Huang, are you willing to marry this woman? To marry her, to love her, to care for her, to respect her, to accept her, and to be faithful to her forever, for sickness and health, and for any other reason?"
At that time, Huang Mark was nervous and spoke out of turn. His face flushed and he said with high spirits, "oui, jeleveux."
Xie Zeyi, holding the gun in his hand, looked at Huang Mark with a smile and said very appropriately, "You promised to be loyal until death in front of the priest. How could you break your promise so quickly?"
Huang Mark sneered, "Oh. Mr. Xie, you're here to defend your ex-lover, aren't you?"
"Oh, no," Xie Zeyi pointed at Zhenzhen and Chu Wang not far away, and said, "I'm just passing by with the kids."
Huang Mark felt humiliated. He ruffled his hair, frowned, and asked angrily, "If you're not here to cheer on your ex-lover, then what's your business?!"
"Everyone has a first love, right, Mr. Huang?" Xie Zeyi laughed shamelessly. "She and I were not meant to be together, and you and the Vietnamese girl were not meant to be together—sorry, I just overheard a few words, it was completely unintentional—Mrs. Huang ended up with you after all, and her connection with me ended there. Now I stand before you and speak, but I am just a stranger, a spectator who can't say much but has to speak the truth. As a woman, she was able to cut the Gordian knot decisively, so why can't Mr. Huang do the same?"
Huang Mark stared at him and laughed dryly. "Have you ever been married? What do you know?"
"I've never been married," he chuckled to himself, then continued, "Mr. Huang. You and I come from similar families. We were brought up completely accepting of foreign ways. But when we grew up, when it came to family and marriage, we had to strictly adhere to Chinese ways. I've always hated Chinese marriages, and I think you do too—binding two strangers together for life in the name of marriage. It's nominally a 'match made in heaven,' but in reality it's skipping romance and going straight to marriage. If two people can't stand it, over time, they become worse than enemies."
Huang Mark straightened his disheveled shirt and suit, apparently listening carefully. However, out of a modicum of respect for his former rival, he listened with a touch of provocation and disdain.
Xie Zeyi wasn't annoyed, and continued to expound on the profound truth he'd come up with from who knows where. "Once you accept something, you have to stick to it to the end—because you've compromised everything about China. To use the Chinese saying I recently learned, it's like, 'You've given up,' or 'A gentleman's word is as good as a whip.'"
Listening to Xie Zeyi scratching his head and speaking in an orderly manner, the originally serious atmosphere became as if a melodramatic 8 o'clock drama had suddenly been interrupted by a Melatonin advertisement. Chu Wang couldn't help laughing.
Xie Zeyi had always been thick-skinned. He then proceeded to speak seriously, "Who wouldn't want to be treated wholeheartedly? Otherwise, it would be unfair to them and harmful to you, hurting both you and others. Of course, this is something I've figured out over the years. I don't know if it makes sense, but perhaps you can think about it carefully. I don't think Mrs. Huang is unreasonable. If you discuss things with her, she's not unwilling to consider your best interests."
After finishing his lecture, Xie Zeyi immediately tossed the gun back to Huang Mark and said, "I carry this thing with me, supposedly for self-defense. But there aren't many opportunities to actually use it. It's more likely to go off accidentally, which is actually inconvenient."
After he finished speaking, he didn't look at Huang Mark again, leaving the man standing behind the glass window with a gloomy expression.
Xie Zeyi walked into the room, stood in front of Qiao Maling, said only "Mr. Huang is waiting for you", and waved to the other two.
Chu Wang and Zhen Zhen also observed the situation and belatedly realized what was happening. They walked down the stairs. On the way, they met two marine police officers on the boat. They seemed to have heard the commotion and asked, "What's going on upstairs?"
Xie Zeyi replied politely: "It's nothing, just a couple arguing."
The water police let out a sudden realization and then dispersed.
Having watched Xie Zeyi's veteran intervening skills throughout the fight, she truly admired him beyond words. She asked, "Mr. Xie, when you mentioned 'gun' at the end, were you referring to Mr. Huang's defensiveness and Sister Ma Ling's impulsiveness?"
Xie Zeyi exclaimed, "What does metonymy mean?"
“…Just pretend I didn’t say anything.”
Xie Zeyi continued to ask questions without hesitation, "I've been studying Chinese diligently recently. Please give me some guidance. Miss Xue?" Seeing that Zhenzhen ignored her, she looked at Chu Wang: "Miss Lin?"
"Uh..." Chu Wang scratched his head, recalling Xie Zeyi's many wonderful qualities, and asked, "Mr. Xie, do you know what 'pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger' means? It's a very good metaphor for this situation."
Xie Zeyi was exposed. He narrowed his eyes slightly, pulled up the corner of his mouth, and looked up into the distance with a half-smile. "You know, my Chinese is not very good."
Throughout history, the two most effective ways to strike up a conversation with someone are to borrow a book or to ask, "I don't understand this question, can you explain it to me?" To get to know someone, it's best to first humble yourself and belittle your knowledge; this is the most effective tactic. Chu Wang had witnessed Xie Zeyi's ability to find conversation out of nothing, even on the way to pick her up at the Jardine Wharf in Shanghai the day before yesterday. Xie Zeyi naturally had no other thoughts about a little brat like her, simply for fun, and simply looking for something to talk about. While he may not be good at anything else, he's a master at making awkward conversation. He's probably the first person in history to use his skill in making awkward conversation with a child, and to do so with such mastery and innocence.
But then she could understand why, during the meal, he had gone against his usual considerate and polite demeanor and given Mark Huang every hurdle. It wasn't that he was truly concerned about Mrs. Huang, but rather, based on his childhood sense of gentlemanly respect for the weak, he felt that Mr. Huang's treatment of his wife was abominable and unmanly, and that it was simply a cold, mocking response.
——
Chu Wang did not see the scene in the top-floor cafe that night. Although Qiao Maling still looked sullen and awkward the next morning, they soon became a sweet couple again.
Maybe there is really no overnight hatred between husband and wife.
However, Mrs. Qiao's attitude towards Mrs. Ge is indeed very remarkable. According to Xue Zhenzhen's gossip: Mrs. Qiao was naturally very happy to see her daughter and son-in-law reconciled and their family was happy and harmonious. She secretly advised Mrs. Ge -
"Why shouldn't she be involved in her niece's affairs? She was the one who suggested this marriage on Ma Ling's behalf."
Zhenzhen portrayed Mrs. Qiao's harsh character to the ninety percent, with vividness and color, and with her pretty face, she made the maids and old women in the next room laugh. Mrs. Ge, on the other hand, was not surprised as she was trimming her nails and said with a smile, "She thinks she has benefited from me in every way, probably thinking that I am a soft persimmon that can be bullied. Does she really think she has benefited? A good businessman will do his job to the ninety percent for the sake of his reputation. If I am not happy, no one in the world can get any benefit from me. I will take care of all the profits, and I can still have a good reputation for being generous and understanding. Good things take time - we will just have to wait and see."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
