Chapter 84: Smoke from the Kitchen Part 8
Miss Xu asked them to take Miss Shen to the hospital first. Chu Wang remembered that he had asked Xie Zeyi to come to Fuzhou Road in advance, so he stayed with Miss Xu.
Everyone had come dressed to the nines today, making a grand entrance, but by the time the party was over, they looked like they'd been banished to the cold palace, each one looking dirtier than the other. Zhenzhen and Miss Shen, the most glamorous, were the most miserable: one's face was covered in bruises and bruises, her lip scraped; the other's elegant cheongsam was torn to shreds, and even though she was covered by her coat, her calves, which the coat couldn't cover, were still stained with blood.
She refused to leave, her voice filled with sobs in the cold wind, crying for her father to come and take her home, and no matter how much she was dragged, she wouldn't leave. Before tonight, she was truly furious with her; after tonight, she felt guilty and heartbroken, and she coaxed and tricked her into getting in the car and going to the hospital.
The grocery store was still open and the Xu family's driver was waiting nearby.
The two of them sat in the light, and Chu Wang asked, "Why don't you leave?"
She played with her nails. Her nails were crystal clear, unpainted, and neatly manicured. "I called the police."
"Is it useful?"
"No, but I just want people to know they're useless." She smiled at her, "So I called my friends at the newspaper to come over."
Chu Wang was startled at first, but then he smiled knowingly, "You've known for a long time that things aren't peaceful around Lu Jue."
"Do you know how much trouble has happened in that alley next to Lu Jue? It's far more than just Shen Yueying. There are also cases of concubines of certain officials involved." She looked up and smiled at her. "I want to expose this matter so that people can see how many underhanded things Nanjing did to curry favor with the Japanese. If it weren't for the pretext of inviting a friend, my father wouldn't have let me out. But by some strange coincidence, the two of them went out on their own. Shen Yueying had someone wait at the other end of the alley and called Zhenzhen out, intending to beat her up and teach her a lesson. But Zhenzhen was so clever, Shen Yueying backfired and ended up losing her own life." Then Miss Xu stared at her and said, "I really didn't mean to plot against them."
Chu Wang stared into her eyes for a while, "You want to plot against me."
"Miss Third, I admire you," Miss Xu said with her eyes lowered. "You are the most suitable candidate."
Chu Wang sneered, "Thank you for your appreciation."
"If you had come, I would have had someone guard you from a distance, and things would never have ended like this."
She laughed. "So you blame me?"
"I dare not."
If you don't agree, there's no need to talk too much.
The newspaper reporter and Lin Zitong arrived at almost the same time. He stepped out of the car and rushed over, his eyes first landing on Chu Wang's face, which was covered with dark blue fingerprints. "Who's in trouble?"
"The one who was in the accident is lying in the hospital." Seeing Lin Zitong's tired face, she raised her chin towards Miss Xu again, "Others came here to ridicule you, there is no need at all."
Miss Xu's face darkened and she turned away.
Lin Zitong smiled nonchalantly, "In her eyes, I'm just a bourgeois who plays records and an incompetent officer who loves belt romance."
Miss Xu asked back, "Isn't it?"
He remained silent, with a smile on his face, and continued to systematically direct the sergeant to patrol the scene in the alley.
Soon, the Municipal Council car arrived. She saw it from a distance, like a car drifting down Akina Mountain, crashing into Fuzhou Road. It braked suddenly, startling everyone outside the grocery store. They thought it was a drunk driving under the influence, trying to take risks.
The car door slammed shut, and Xie Zeyi stormed down from above. Dressed in a black military uniform, his entire body pale and dismal, he seemed to carry the aura of a demon from the abyss. Even from seven or eight meters away, one could feel a chill running down one's spine.
He approached her and before she could speak, he asked with suppressed anger, "Did I ever tell you not to go out before I come back?"
"Yes." Then he added, "But when it comes to matters of life and death, there's no time to wait for your timely arrival."
She raised her head a little stubbornly and looked at him. Under the light, the two purple finger marks on her fair little face were a little shocking.
Xie Zeyi reached out and lifted her chin, "Who did it?"
She felt pain and slapped his dirty hands away, saying angrily, "Who else could it be? The inspector from your International Settlement." Then she turned around and said, "What are you worried about? I'm not the victim. The bruises will disappear in a couple of days. Mrs. Ge won't blame you."
Xie Zeyi was rarely choked by someone, and for a moment he was both angry and amused. After realizing she was fine and his anger subsided, he realized that his tone and attitude had been too harsh.
Seeing someone flashing a light and taking photos in the alley, he turned around and asked again, "Who is that, Inspector?"
"A major."
He thought for a moment, "Do you want to call the police at the Municipal Council?"
She laughed sarcastically, "You don't accept cases other than those involving British, American, and stateless individuals."
He bent down and stared at her, narrowing his eyes slightly. "You enjoy extraterritoriality. As one of the victims, you suffered minor injuries. You have the right to state your case from beginning to end." He paused. "I haven't tried it, so I don't know the chances of success. But do you want to give it a try?"
Her eyes lit up and she nodded quickly.
He tilted his head in the direction of the parking lot and asked, "Let's go?"
"Walk."
——
As she filed a case at the Municipal Council and followed the procedures, she realized the cumbersome Western bureaucracy was already taking root. The criminal case examiner, holding the Treaty of Tianjin and the Shanghai Yangjingbang Trial Regulations, double-checked her English case summary and shook his head. "I'm sorry, miss. This doesn't qualify as a criminal case against the British."
Chu Wang pointed at the bruises on his face and added fuel to the fire, "He beat me up! Hard! Is this how a lady should be treated?"
The prosecutor expressed indignation at her injuries, but still said with regret: "This is still a verbal dispute and can only be considered a civil matter."
Xie Zeyi frowned and asked, "Why can it only be considered a civil matter?"
The Inquisitor, whose military rank was lower than Xie Zeyi's, had no choice but to offer gentle advice, pointing to Article 16 of the Tianjin Treaty: "Criminal cases between Chinese and British shall be decided impartially by the Consul and the Chinese magistrates jointly; cases involving purely Chinese individuals shall be handled solely by the Chinese magistrates. Where the main victims are Chinese, the Municipal Council shall remain outside its jurisdiction."
Xie Zeyi slammed the table in front of him and stared at him for a while.
Then he smiled and said, "This lady is very important. Please do me a favor."
The examiner looked at Xie Zeyi, then at Chu Wang, and asked curiously, "How important is it?"
Chu Wangna was surprised: "Why do you even ask this?"
The prosecutor said seriously, "Of course. This is related to the seriousness of the case."
The assistant examiner, a young man, sitting next to him kindly reminded the dull examiner, "The lieutenant seems to be pursuing this lady. The whole Municipal Council knows about this."
The examiner touched his head and asked Xie Zeyi: "Really?"
Xie Zeyi nodded, and said sincerely, "Would you like to think about it again?"
The examiner suddenly realized, "If that's the case, then I must reconsider this case." He immediately stamped the review column with a red stamp and stood up. "I will immediately hand the list to the director. Lieutenant, ma'am, please wait outside."
Chu Wang's head was full of black lines.
There were two other cases before her: one in which a Chinese textile worker broke into a British merchant's house and stole jewelry; and another in which a British merchant's wife discovered her husband had a lover in China and brought her men to the house and beat the Chinese widow to death.
As soon as I entered the waiting room, I saw the weaver's family, the widow's mother, and her children sitting on one side. The lights on that side were broken, and at first I thought they were refugees from somewhere else. Then I saw two Asian faces approaching, one dressed in British clothes, and they both looked at me eagerly for help.
In stark contrast to the thin and short Chinese crowd, on the other side, the wives of British businessmen, decked out in jewels and with big breasts and hips, and the wife of the man who had beaten her husband's mistress to death, all shared a common hatred for the enemy and stared at her viciously. It seemed that they hated all the Chinese involved in the case, and they hated all Chinese people as well.
The atmosphere in the waiting room was extremely unfriendly. Xie Zeyi suggested, "It's still early, why don't we go for a walk outside the Municipal Council?"
She thought about it, nodded, and turned to leave with him.
As she walked out of the Municipal Council gate, she suddenly asked, "What will be the outcome of the Chinese theft case?"
"Do you want to hear the truth?"
"Why else would I ask?"
Xie Zeyi said, "The severity of the situation is that they are forced to do hard labor for the British for periods ranging from ten years to a lifetime."
"Yeah." It seems okay.
After a pause, he added, "But most of them don't survive the first ten years."
She didn't comment, thought for a moment, and then asked, "What about the second case?"
Xie Zeyi sighed.
"You tell me."
"When the British killed Chinese, regardless of the reason, they were often innocent because the Treaty of the Five Ports granted them consular jurisdiction, and they were naturally biased. When Chinese killed British, it was always the Chinese's fault, and sometimes local officials would send someone to the consul's house to apologize repeatedly. If they didn't curry favor with him, over time, the British consul would demand even more unequal benefits from the Chinese government."
As she listened, the grievances she had accumulated over what she had seen and heard that day began to build up in her heart, and at that moment, her tears flowed uncontrollably.
Xie Zeyi stopped, stared at her, and asked with a smile, "Why are you crying?"
She cried even harder: "You won't understand."
"About what."
She pointed to the ground and said, "Our own country." She took two steps outside, turned back, and tears fell from her eyes. "Our own country!"
这种感觉，就好像小时候别的小朋友闯进你家抢你的玩具，还被揍得头破血流；你哭着向父母寻求援助，但是他们好像不怎么疼爱你。他们舔着脸，当着你的面低声下气的讨好肇事者，告诉他们自己教子无方，是你错了，还叫你向他们磕头认错。
As she cried, a look of disbelief and sneer crossed her face. Her eyes seemed to be asking you, "This story is too outrageous. I don't believe it. Do you believe it?"
Xie Zeyi stood beside her with his hands in his pockets and listened quietly.
"Foreigners slapped us, and our own police helped them beat up their own people, on our own land! Why?" Her eyes were red, and her voice was choked. She turned her head and stared at him, saying, "You have an entire country behind you protecting you. And we have... nothing behind us."
She thought of the Chinese inspector who was like a running dog, the major, and the extremely hateful "extraterritoriality"; and today, in order to seek justice, on her own land, she actually had to seek help from the "Treaty of Tianjin", which showed China's century-long history of humiliation.
She hated it so much. She hated every powerful country on this piece of land, hated her own country that was so subservient and incompetent, hated herself for not having a golden finger that could be opened wide, not having full chakra, not being able to explode her clothes, not having a Pegasus Meteor Fist that could allow her to punch a major and kick a non-commissioned officer, tear up all kinds of unequal treaties with her bare hands, and then flatten the concessions with one foot, telling all the foreigners who occupied China to go back home.
She was too incompetent and could do so little, so at this moment she could only stand on the street with tears and snot streaming down her face.
Xie Zeyi kept staring at her. For a moment, her expression changed rapidly, and she couldn't help laughing. "Look at you, how do you look like a lady from a wealthy family?"
After saying that, he didn't mind her ugly crying. He stretched out his hand and tucked her messy hair behind her ears in a very natural manner.
She was crying so hard that she didn't realize his suspicious behavior. "It wasn't like that in the first place."
Xie Zeyi took out a cigarette and was about to light it, but after hearing her answer, he paused and nodded, "Okay. It just so happens that I don't like them that much."
Chu Wang cried ugly, sniffed, and suddenly stared at the cigarette in his hand.
Xie Zeyi understood her look and handed her the lit cigarette, watching her put it in her lips. Before she could take a puff, he stretched out his hand and quickly took the cigarette away.
"Okay," he said, "this stuff, no good if you take more."
Chu Wang was still staring at the cigarette. He ignored her completely, put the cigarette in his mouth and turned away.
She squatted dejectedly on the side of the road, as dejected as a proletarian worker or peasant who had failed in his struggle.
Suddenly a bottle of Watsons Coca-Cola was placed in front of her.
She looked up and looked at Xie Zeyi with a little surprise.
Xie Zeyi smiled and said, "Drinking this is better than smoking."
Seeing that she was still staring at him, he added, "There's only Coke. You can't buy Coke in Shanghai, so you can't drink it even if you want to."
Then, unceremoniously, he squatted down on the curb beside her, opened the Coke bottle cap for her, and as he handed it to her, he said with a smile, "Do you want to hear my story?"
Without waiting for her to answer, he continued, "When I was in secondary school in London, I went through a very difficult period. I was born and raised in Britain, and until I was fourteen, I didn't really consider myself Chinese. After secondary school, there were suddenly many people with skin colors and names similar to mine in the school. Most of them were Chinese students studying in Britain. Most of them were short and thin, didn't know British customs, and their manners seemed uncultured. Therefore, they were the targets of bullying by my British friends during class breaks. Once, they threw a Chinese student nicknamed 'Looty' into a swamp and teased him, saying, 'Do you know why? Once upon a time, you lost a battle, and we British soldiers went to your Old Summer Palace and brought back your emperor's mother's pet dog to London. We presented it to Queen Victoria and named it Looty.'"
"Both my parents are Chinese, but I grew up in Britain. I don't feel a sense of belonging to either country. I don't consider myself British, nor do I want to be Chinese. But when I heard that statement, for some reason, I felt both confused and angry. I was confused because why did the Opium War result in Queen Victoria getting a dog, rather than Victoria's lover John Brown being given to the Empress Dowager Cixi as a eunuch? History teachers in British secondary schools confidently say: 'The British conquered the continent with guns, viruses, and bacteria.' But doesn't China have germs and steel? How did Britain conquer the world?"
"And the consequence of my anger was that I got into a fight at school. I helped the Chinese beat up the British. They asked me why I did that. I said, do I look like them? My parents are also Chinese. They called me by my English name, Zoe, and said, 'Zoe, they are short and have vulgar manners, you are completely different from them, why are you helping them?'"
"Why should I help them? I didn't understand where the anger at that moment came from, and I didn't understand it for many years. I even doubted myself: Which country do I belong to? Who should I support? Why do people like me exist?"
"That fight was a good one. I was bleeding, and they were worse off than me. I won, and the result of winning was: expulsion from school."
"After returning to Hong Kong, I gradually learned some Chinese and began to understand things. My grandfather was a cunning businessman, helping the British dump opium into China, buying Chinese porcelain and tea at low prices and selling them back to England, profiting on both sides. He also served as an interpreter for Balfour and the Chinese governor, and purchased the original salt marshland for 17,000 taels. From then on, Shanghai was opened as a port, and more than 60 years later, it finally has this vast foreign land. He played an indispensable role. Two generations of the Xie family have served the British like dogs, and my father still wants me to continue to be their dog."
"I don't like being called British. Sometimes I think I'm just like Hong Kong, abandoned by the Qing government: with the mainland at my back, yet completely alienated from all of China, facing the world alone. I hate my Chinese ancestry, I hate China for being weak, without a strong military, and for being utterly corrupt. I'm the one who looks down on China the most, yet I'm also the one who most wants her to become strong."
"I always remember that my Chinese name came first, and my English name came later. My father had many concubines, all of whom gave birth to a multitude of children, but I was the only one with a Chinese name. Ze Yi was the name my mother came up with while at a public hospital in London. The only female name that matched the Chinese phonetic transcription was Zoe. So, growing up, I hated my English name. Later, I realized it was perhaps the wisdom of a traditional Chinese woman. Why Ze Yi, and not Ze Yi? I'm not good at Chinese, but I understood a Chinese proverb early on: 'A wise bird chooses a tree to roost in, a virtuous minister chooses a master to serve.' She knew from the beginning that for me, the future would be easy when I chose Yi, but difficult when I chose Yi. Is that what she meant?" (m.)138TXT
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