Chapter 90: Night 6 of 014
When Lin Zitong first arrived at Fukasen Road, she knew that Xie Zeyi had been assigned to escort cruise ships to the South China Sea. That day, when she came to look for Chu Wang, she, for Miss Lin San's sake, gave Xie Zeyi some very pertinent advice.
"Most students studying in England preferred reading to political activity, unlike those studying in France," he said. "Most French students worked part-time to study. Those who went abroad around the May Fourth Movement, in particular, became embroiled in debates over various ideologies in France, a country rife with European thought. Almost all of them had their own political affiliations. Of the more than a thousand students studying in France, there was hardly a single 'uneducated' one. Among them emerged a group of radical writers, including the Left League, now wanted by the Songhu Garrison Command. Of these thousand, over thirty appeared on the ship about to reach the South China Sea. So, Mr. Xie, do you know how many 'red students' and wanted criminals there were among them? If Mr. Xie doesn't understand Jiangxi's current status, consider the case of the Kuomintang's Tianjin Municipal Party Committee, which was busted in the British Concession in Tianjin in the 16th year of the Republic of China."
Three years earlier, in November, the British authorities in the Tianjin British Concession, despite protests from the Guangzhou Nationalist Government, extradited 15 arrested Kuomintang members to the Fengtian-led Beiyang government, sparking resentment in the South. The following year, after the Northern Expedition was successful, a propaganda team from the Central Military and Political School conducted anti-British propaganda in the open space between the Chinese area and the British Concession in front of the Jianghan Customs, demanding the abolition of unequal treaties. The day after the British Concession was reclaimed, the British Minister to China ordered the withdrawal of the Volunteer Army and Marines, and the withdrawal of the British police that afternoon. On January 5th, 200,000 demonstrators surrounded the police station, forcing all British-owned businesses to close. All expatriates in the British Concession left Hankou aboard warships and merchant ships. On February 19th, the British Minister's representatives signed the "Agreement on the Repossession of the Hankou British Concession." In March, the Hankou Municipal Council was dissolved.
Before leaving, he added, "Mr. Xie, over the past century, the British consuls in Shanghai have always been extremely intelligent. They have given you full authority for this assignment, and I believe they have also given you appropriate advice, right?"
Lin Zitong is right.
Whether it was Hu Xiami who tried to sail into Shanghai a hundred years ago, Baful who bought the quagmire land against all odds more than eighty years ago, or Aliguo who expanded the concession area from 820 mu to 2,820 mu after the "Qingpu Incident" and obtained the sovereignty of Shanghai Customs after the Battle of Nicheng... This country has experienced the Small Knife Society and the Taiping Rebellion; the May 30th Incident and the April 12th Incident, and has gone through changes of dynasties and warlords' melee. They can still gain a firm foothold in this Far East city of international trade. How can the British not be smart?
Just look at the world map and you will see that for more than a century, the British have simply taken their intelligence to the extreme.
Otherwise, Jurcha wouldn't have told him, "The research institute is just a sinecure. It was like that before, and it's like that now."
This statement is more of a warning than a suggestion. Even advice given may not be carried out by everyone; the reason he was given the task was to honor him, believing that he would be able to handle the relations among the three countries with ease.
The Japanese fleet was nurtured by the Royal Navy. Seven years after the Washington Treaty, Japanese light cruisers gradually surpassed their predecessors, even reaching their peak. But in the South China Sea, who better understood the combined power of British colonial territories in Southeast Asia and the Royal Navy and Army than him?
The previous cruise ship naturally left the other two cruise ships far behind, allowing the geologists and French communists on board to enter the heart of China along the land route without being noticed.
This time, the other two warships were on guard; extraditing him into Chinese territory would be far more difficult than last time. While not impossible, he still needed to weigh the pros and cons.
China was no longer the feudal Qing dynasty, and Britain's position was no longer comparable to Japan's. If they had continued to bring that shipload of teachers and students into China, there was no guarantee that the British Concession in Shanghai would not repeat the fate of Hankou, allowing the covetous Japan, the United States, and France to reap the benefits.
If Britain is ultimately defeated and forced to withdraw from the concessions, and all the unequal treaties between China and Britain are abolished, is this really what they want?
The second time he sailed the warship into the South China Sea, near Penang, he found the cruise ship from Marseille under the guidance of the Victoria Peak Observatory. He brought a team of navy and translators on board to replenish supplies and calm the emotions of the geologists on board.
As he was about to disembark, a tall, handsome young man suddenly approached him and greeted him in authentic English, asking, "Mr. Xie, do you remember me?"
He has a severe case of prosopagnosia. After thinking it over, he replied in English, "I'm so sorry."
The young man didn't get angry. He smiled slightly and said, "You borrowed a lighter from me on the boat leaving the island." Then he took out a very delicate mechanical lighter from his vest pocket. "Perhaps you don't remember."
He hardly recognizes people, but he has been coveting this mechanical lighter for a long time, so how could he forget it?
After staring at it for a while, he suddenly felt like he'd been on the boat for too long and had a bit of stomach acid. He said in Chinese, which he hadn't been able to correct for a thousand years, "You can speak Chinese to me."
The young man nodded and asked, "Excuse me, do you know Miss Lin San? I see that you seem to be familiar with her aunt."
He answered concisely: "Yes."
"Is it convenient for Mr. Xie to contact her?"
"how?"
"In recent years, communication has been blocked, and I've almost lost touch with her. If you can contact her, I have some very important letters. Could you give them to her for me?"
Looking at the stack of letters, he was silent for a while.
He answered each of these questions concisely and to the point, but fell silent after the last one. The boy thought he had trouble listening to Chinese, so he repeated the question in English.
The Royal Navy lieutenant accompanying him came to his rescue. "It's not difficult to bring it with you. You can send it to anyone through the post office. But the immigration police are keeping a close eye on it, and we're afraid of getting in trouble. All letters have to be inspected first, which means they have to be opened and checked. Is that okay with you?"
The boy smiled and said, "No problem."
An envelope was handed to him. He weighed it briefly and found it quite heavy. After handing the letter to the Royal Navy lieutenant, the young man asked, "If I could find out where she lives, could Mr. Xie take me to meet her after I enter China?"
In English, the words "he" and "she" are very easy to distinguish. After he asked this question in English, the Royal Marines accompanying him laughed. The officers answered the young man before he did, "Whether you can enter the country is still a question, and you're already thinking about your lover?"
He kept asking, "What if it is possible?"
Xie Zeyi stared into the boy's eyes, frowning and silent for a moment. Then he said in Chinese, "I don't have the final say on this. Let me ask the Third Miss and see what she decides. Is that okay?"
——
The time she could stay in Shanghai was only twenty hours. As soon as the cruiser arrived in Shanghai, Bian Jieming came to the dock to pick her up. Hearing that she was home, he drove straight back to Fu Kaisen Road.
It was ten o'clock on Saturday morning when I got home. My Cantonese mother was making lunch. Bian Jieming said she had returned home on Friday night. On the table were the shrimp dumplings, barbecued pork, and jasmine rice slices from that morning, untouched.
He thought she was too tired, so he let her sleep a little longer and asked her mother to put away the breakfast. He also told her to stay here for a while and if she woke up, he should heat up her food and call the Municipal Council to let him know.
I went out for a while, and around 8pm, my mother called the Municipal Council and said, "You've been sleeping all day. Are you sick?"
"I'll come back and take a look."
When I pushed the door open, there was a warm dinner on the table, but it hadn't been eaten yet and had already gone cold.
I opened the refrigerator door and saw breakfast and lunch were both inside, untouched.
With only a few hours left before he left Shanghai, Bian Jieming had already sent a car to the customs office to retrieve the letter. Staring at the closed door at the end of the corridor, he was puzzled: How could this person sleep by the day?
Grandma was still idle in the kitchen, just waiting for her to wake up so that she wouldn't have only leftovers.
I walked to the end of the corridor and knocked on the door, but there was no sound.
He pushed the door open a crack and called out softly, "Third Miss?"
From the dim room came a muffled sound, followed by the sound of someone turning over. He was stunned for a moment: it turned out to be a dream talk.
Even my mother came closer, a little puzzled: "How could you sleep so long?"
He had told her early in the morning to lock the door and windows when she was home alone, and he had given the key to only Bian Jieming, so that he could open the door whenever he came to pick up his mother. In this situation, she must have locked herself in this airtight little room for more than a day, and if she wasn't suffocating, she must have fainted. While he and his mother were still there, he quietly pushed the door open and opened the window for her to get some fresh air. But as soon as the wind blew in, she woke up and called out in a muffled voice, "Thank you, Mr. Xie?"
The voice in her half-asleep state was much softer than when she was awake. When she called him Mr. Xie, it was as if someone was holding a small claw stick and scratching his heart inadvertently.
His eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet, and he couldn't see anything clearly. But in the dim light of the street lamp outside the window, he saw a pair of hazy eyes looking towards him. He should have been more gentle, so as not to disturb her sweet sleep. He wanted to ask her to get up and eat something, fill her stomach and go back to sleep. Suddenly, the room was filled with a small snoring sound again, like a small animal, and even the mother outside the door laughed when she heard it.
"It's really tiring to watch."
He still had the letter in his coat pocket and had some questions for her, but for some reason he didn't want to disturb her sleep. He closed the door for her, said a few words to Amma, and chatted for a while. When he had to leave and locked the window for her, she woke up again.
It's also good to be more alert when you sleep.
I placed the letter on her desk and exchanged a few words with her before leaving. I wondered if she would remember it when she woke up. Before leaving, I told my mother to stay at a nearby hotel for the day and come back more often to give her something to eat when she woke up. I paid her a generous amount of money and then hurried downstairs to leave.
Several fleet and customs vehicles were already waiting at the dock. The customs officer smiled as soon as he saw him and said, "Thank you. I heard those letters were for the lady you're courting?"
"What happened to the letter?"
As soon as he finished asking the question, the customs officers who had checked the contents of the letter all burst into laughter.
The man added, "That's a brilliant, passionate love letter written by a Cambridge student and a famous writer at Granta. Thanks, you're done." (m.)138TXT
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