Chapter 8: The Dandy and the Lady (Part 1)
Chu Wang had indeed chosen the right girl. After she finished her bath, he dried her hair, made the bed, and poured her a cup of hot milk. Then, Die'er closed the door for her without a word and went downstairs.
The room still smelled of new furniture. She opened the balcony window and was about to lie down on the bed to try to fall asleep when she heard a noise outside.
There were women laughing, and there were men laughing; there were people talking seriously, and there were people talking casually; English was mixed with Cantonese, and there was some French interspersed in it. Chu Wang could barely understand it - most of it was flirting.
She got dressed and looked out the window. The card game over there had probably just ended, and the group, still not satisfied, were clamoring to have some drinks and a barbecue in the garden. A cello was brought out, and a mixed-race girl began playing. At the back of the garden, a few people, glasses of red wine, huddled together in a chaotic manner, swaying gently to the tune. There were several white lounge chairs in the garden, but only one was occupied, surrounded by a group of men and women—wasn't it her aunt?
They had turned on the lights in the yard, so Chu Wang was in the dark while they were in the light. But in the dim light, Chu Wang still couldn't see clearly, she only vaguely felt that her aunt's dress seemed a little cold in the night.
Lying on the balcony and looking out for a while, Chu Wang couldn't help but sway with the melodious sound. At this moment, a man and a woman suddenly started chasing each other. As they chased each other, they ran to the fence. Suddenly, the woman noticed Chu Wang on the balcony, stopped, screamed, and said in Portuguese: "There's a little girl upstairs."
The woman's voice was shrill, immediately drawing the attention of everyone on the lawn. Chu Wang, who was enjoying himself openly on his balcony, wasn't in a hurry. He smiled and waved at the woman. Most white people are very approachable; if you smile at them, they smile back. As the smiles grew, everyone on the lawn began to smile at Chu Wang.
Chu Wang couldn't help but sigh. These foreigners sometimes look serious during the day, but they start to party at night. It's the same no matter what era it is. It's not enough to party alone, it's only when you're in a group that it's considered partying. In short, it's just—silly partying.
But suddenly, she saw her aunt looking over at her. Her expression was invisible, but she could sense she'd been watching from the shadows for a long time. Being secretly observed wasn't a pleasant feeling, like a prey being stalked by a bird of prey. Chu Wang suddenly felt a chill and returned to her room, locking the door and windows tightly. She thought to herself, when she found the chance, she'd ask her aunt to move to another room. Even the stairwell wouldn't be a problem...
——
The next day at seven o'clock, Chu Wang was dragged from bed by Die'er, unwillingly. From the moment he dressed, brushed his teeth, and washed his face to the moment he sat down at the dining table, Chu Wang was in a semi-coma. Dinner was served promptly at seven-fifteen: mushroom eggs, fried sausage, and a slice of buttered bread, along with half a cup of hot milk and half a cup of fresh orange juice.
The three of them had many complaints in their hearts, such as Zhenzhen's "glutinous rice, four-happiness dumplings and soup dumplings", Yunyan's "tofu buns", and Chu Wang's "soy milk, fried dough sticks and pot stickers" that he had silently recited a thousand times in his mind. Of course, they could only think about it.
This wasn't the most annoying thing. The annoying thing was that there were no chopsticks, only a knife, fork, and spoon. Yunyan and Zhenzhen looked at each other for a long time, and finally, under Qiao Maling's guidance, they ate breakfast with slightly trembling hands.
What's even more annoying is that Chu Wang, who obviously knows how to use these three eating utensils, has to hide his incompetence and pretend to eat breakfast with a slightly trembling hand.
At eight o'clock, the first person to arrive was a dance teacher.
The teacher's race was mixed many times. As far as Ma Ling knew, she knew six: English, German, French, Spanish, Indian, and Chinese. Chinese ancestry was very rare. Watching her speak broken Mandarin and introduce herself as "Shao," Lin Chuwang felt a strange and subtle feeling.
I thought the first class would be a test for us, but the teacher was quite gentle. He just taught them a few movements and steps repeatedly and told them to come for inspection tomorrow. The morning passed quickly.
After lunch, the tailors came to the door. Three tailors, three rulers, measured the three steamed pork with rice flour from head to toe, and then left like a gust of wind.
Zhenzhen looked unhappy: "You came here to measure right after eating, without even waiting for digestion. I don't know what size the waist of the clothes will be."
Chu Wang: "If you measure it on an empty stomach, you might not even have to eat for a day after you put on your future clothes."
Yun Yan: "...You didn't even ask me what kind of fabric or style I like. Will it look good?"
This went on non-stop until the afternoon, when Qiao Maling began teaching them English starting with phonetic symbols.
When Lin Chuwang was taking the IELTS, she learned to speak American accents by watching American TV shows for convenience. Later, when she went to the UK, she regretted it deeply: the London accent sounded cute on girls and incredibly sexy on boys, and it simply couldn't compare to the American accent. But she didn't have the time or anyone to teach her how to speak it.
Speaking of this, Lin Chuwang couldn't help but admire the English education of wealthy Hong Kong families at that time: they hired British teachers to teach from the beginning, and the pronunciation was one-on-one, with pure British accent.
So this afternoon, Lin Chuwang finally calmed down for the first time in her 25 years of life and started learning British pronunciation from the beginning like a beginner, so she was particularly serious about it.
Midway through, Lin Chuwang exclaimed, "Sister Qiao, your pronunciation is so nice." Qiao Ma Ling lowered her head and blushed, saying, "My previous teacher was Scottish, and her pronunciation wasn't good enough. I've heard better ones with a very pure Oxford accent. It would be great if you had a chance to hear it too."
The three girls all asked where they could hear it.
Qiao Maling changed the subject.
As a result, a few days later, Lin Chuwang accidentally heard this "pure Oxford accent".
——
Ever since I was caught watching my aunt's garden party from afar on the balcony that night, gardeners started coming over one after another and tinkering downstairs in her building starting the next day.
During the days when the gardener was tinkering under her balcony, there were no gatherings in my aunt's garden.
Three days later, when Lin Chuwang woke up early in the morning and looked down at the balcony, he was shocked.
Below her balcony, a man-high fence was planted thickly with red roses. Like a wall of enchanting beauty, the row of roses stretched across the lawn slope just outside her balcony, at eye level. This prevented those on the other side from descending, and those sitting on the lawn beyond could only vaguely see what was happening behind her balcony. But Lin Chuwang could clearly see everything in the garden.
It was as if someone had built a wall outside the castle as high as the princess's windowsill just to protect her: people outside couldn't climb in, but the princess could clearly see every blade of grass and tree outside.
Thinking of this, Lin Chuwang couldn't help but feel that he liked his aunt even more.
That night, after practicing body shape all day and taking a clean shower, Lin Chuwang sat at the desk in front of the window, correcting his pronunciation over and over again, and the laughter from the other side of the fence floated over from not far away.
My aunt's garden party today was quite formal. She seemed to have invited a church choir to come over, playing the accordion, and a group of girls in white dresses sang along to the music. When they sang "Edelweiss," I heard my aunt shouting, "Why did you let him in? Stop him!"
Lin Chuwang looked towards his aunt. He saw three or four of her maids rushing to the garden gate to stop a tall, broad man, but how could they stop him? The man entered the yard. His aunt helplessly spread her hands and said, "If you ask me for someone, I don't have any."
The man had his back to her, but his voice came over steadily, "Aren't you right here?"
The voice was very gentle and sexy, exactly the gentle and sexy Oxford accent that Lin Chuwang knew.
Although his face couldn't be seen clearly, judging by his mannerisms, the man was no older than twenty. Yet, he casually and casually exchanged playful banter with his aunt, which piqued Lin Chuwang's interest.
My aunt's face flashed with a cold, then hot, sneer. "Looking for me? That's not what you said last week. You were supposed to ask me out, but you used me as a pretext to date my sister's precious niece! The people I invited today are all respectable people from the church. You better leave now and don't mess with me."
The man's gaze suddenly turned, and he spotted someone among the group of girls in white dresses. Lin Chuwang also followed his gaze: Who else could it be but her cousin Qiao Maling!
The man saw Qiao Maling and, without a care in the world, pushed through the crowd. Qiao Maling also noticed and hurriedly pushed through the crowd to escape. Like a wolf, it had spotted its prey in the flock of white sheep and it chased the helpless lamb through the flock.
As they chased each other, the two disappeared from sight. Lin Chuwang couldn't help but wonder, judging by the man's pace, he could have caught up with her cousin in just ten steps, but why did they chase each other for half the lawn?
After the two disappeared from her sight, Lin Chuwang lowered her head and continued to practice pronunciation. When she reached the word "flirt", Lin Chuwang couldn't help but smile knowingly: Maybe they are flirting!
By this time, the sky had darkened and the noise on the lawn had become even louder. It was night time and most of the people had drunk a lot of wine and were so tense during the day that they were now letting out their best.
To the accompaniment of piano and organ music, Lin Chuwang suddenly heard a man and a woman whispering downstairs. The man said, "Your English is better than when I first met you." The woman said, "Not really. My younger sister came over recently, and my mother asked me to teach her, and I've been practicing on my own. My third sister said my pronunciation was good—I said, compared to someone else, I'm far behind."
Lin Chuwang couldn't help but realize, isn't this her cousin Qiao Maling and her Oxford accent?
But why did my cousin bring the man downstairs even though she knew she was upstairs?
Lin Chuwang looked outside and discovered that the rose garden fence had been torn open to reveal a small hole, just big enough for one person to get through unscathed. The hole was blocked with a large jar, so no one else would try to push the jar open and get in.
So to sum up, the elder sister brought the man behind the rose garden for three reasons: first, the rose garden separated the inside from the lawn, and the fence separated this place from her own home, so it would not be noticed by other people and it was very hidden and safe; second, Chu Wang had recently pretended to be an English beginner and had hidden his incompetence too well, which made Qiao Maling believe that with her third sister's English level, she would definitely not be able to understand their conversation.
"If you had heard me speak German, you wouldn't say that," he said in an Oxford accent.
Qiao Maling chuckled, "I didn't know you could speak German?"
After a moment's silence, the man said in an Oxford accent, "Only those who are afraid of being understood will speak in German."
Qiao Ma Ling asked, "For someone like you, what else is there that you dare not say?"
Suddenly, neither of them spoke for a long time.
Lin Chuwang pricked up his ears and suddenly didn't dare to speak. He thought, could these two have kissed each other? They haven't spoken for so long.
She thought again, is it not good for her to eavesdrop here?
Then she thought again, they came to her house on their own and insisted on talking right under her wall. She was not a pure Buddhist, so she might as well listen to them and not tell anyone else.
Oxford accent: "For example, this sentence."
Then the London accent murmured something in German.
Lin Chuwang understood what he said and couldn't help but sigh twice, thinking, "Are you guys filming the first furnace of agarwood shavings?! Are you shameless enough to torture someone else's dog downstairs?!"
Qiao Maling didn't understand German, so she asked, "Are you scolding me?"
Lin Chuwang couldn't help but chuckle internally. German was so cold and rigid. While other languages used "dear" with such tenderness, the German "honey" sounded like an insult to a fool. "I love you" also sounded rather harsh to someone unfamiliar with it.
The Oxford accent was silent for a moment, then he gently asked in English, "Do you think my tone sounds like I'm scolding you?"
The first sentence "ichliebedich" doesn't sound like a love word, but the second sentence is a very high-end and classy love word.
Qiao Maling didn't say anything, but Lin Chuwang felt that her face must have blushed.
The Oxford accent continued, "I don't have the courage to tell you again in English."
There was another sound of footsteps downstairs. It was Qiao Maling running away, and Oxford Accent chased after her.
Qiao Ma Ling didn't dare to look back at him, "You don't have the courage, you coward."
Oxford accent: "But you don't love me."
Qiao Ma Ling: "Don't force me."
Oxford accent: "You don't love me... How can I marry a woman who doesn't love me?"
Qiao Ma Ling: "...You forced me to love you, and my mother forced me not to have any contact with you. Now that it's like this, you still force me. Zoe, look at me."
Suddenly, Qiao Maling squatted on the ground and burst into tears.
The London accent just stood tall and big beside her, standing quietly, without saying anything, without comforting, just standing there.
After crying, Qiao Maling stood up and ran out of the flower garden in two or three steps.
Oxford accented people followed slowly behind, but they didn't fall behind.
After running a few steps, Qiao Maling cried again, "Don't follow me."
After Qiao Maling ran away, Oxford Tongue stood quietly in the flower garden and did not really follow her.
Only after Qiao Maling disappeared from his sight did he slowly walk out of the flower garden and leave.
The author has something to say: After the roses appeared, it was probably like this, written in the style of an elementary school student, so just bear with it:
The rose bush was relatively close to Lin Chuwang. Because of some binocular stereoscopic imaging and the pinhole imaging principle of the nearby rose bush, Lin Chuwang's field of vision was much wider than that of people looking from a distance.
In addition: The names of the three brothers and sisters come from Ding Zhi Wan Zhong in Yong Feng:
"...plant hazelnut trees, sit on tung trees, zelkova trees, and lacquer trees, and cut zithers and qins. Climb up to the sky and look out over Chu. Look out over Chu and the hall, Jingshan and Jing. Descend to observe the mulberry trees. The divination says it will be auspicious, and the end will be good..."
Also: "The First Incense Burner" is probably my favorite Eileen Chang book, because even a little imagination brings Edison Chen and Stephy Tang's faces to mind. I'd also like to recommend the 1984 version of "A Sentimental Life" starring Leslie Cheung and Sheung Tin-ngor. In it, Leslie Cheung portrayed the role of Qiao Qiqiao so well.
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