Chapter 20: Tong Huatou and the Letter from Germany
Watching Yunyan's tears well up and Xue Zhenzhen's newfound respect, Chu Wang spent the entire night in remorse. Her six-month-long facade of innocence seemed to falter slightly on this day, and she succeeded in deepening Yunyan's hostility towards her (although it was already considerable to begin with). Yunyan wasn't a particularly competitive person, but her hostility towards Lin Chuwang was particularly intense, all because of a marriage proposal.
But this marriage was almost Chu Wang's lifeline. Was she going to give it up to someone else? Impossible.
Chu Wang secretly felt lucky that he did not overshadow Miss Xue. A mere fifty-nine would not destroy the lazy and unambitious image she had created in front of Xue Zhenzhen for a long time.
She had intended to confess to her aunt at the dinner table the next day that she had only relied on a bit of luck and would probably never learn again, so she thought it would be better to try again next year. However, Mrs. Qiao had gone out early that morning to play golf with a government official's wife, and Chu Wang's all-night calculations were in vain.
She had originally thought that starting school early wouldn't be beneficial. Starting a year later would not only significantly reduce the chances of a direct conflict with Zhenzhen and Yunyan, but would also allow her to further her sewing skills. Unexpectedly, an incident that afternoon completely overturned all her plans.
That afternoon, Chu Wang had just finished his first simple vest, earning praise from Mrs. Ruan and Dier. Mr. Saumier went to the post office and returned with a full load. He pulled a letter from a pile of parcels and handed it to Lin Chu Wang.
From Berlin, Germany.
In fact, if Mrs. Qiao hadn't left early in the morning, the letter wouldn't have been left at the post office, but would have been taken back to the Yau Ma Tei tailor shop by Mr. Saumier, a man with a white aura. Otherwise, the letter would have most likely fallen into Lin Yunyan's hands first, and Chu Wang would never have seen the eloquent and moving new-style love letter that Si Yansang had sent back months earlier, which was sent by Lin Yunyan.
It also comes with her photo.
In the Eastern Continent at this time, going to a photo studio to take pictures was not a luxury that ordinary people could afford - at least Chu Wang did not have the financial ability to do so.
Therefore, either Yunyan received secret subsidies from her father or Mrs. Qiao, or Mrs. Qiao personally took her to the photo studio to take photos, and personally sent the letter with the photos attached to Germany for her.
In his letter, Si Yansang asked why he had not received a reply from his third sister, but had received one from his second sister instead. In the letter, he also pointed out directly that he wanted to know about Lin Chuwang's recent situation, not Lin Yunyan's.
Of course, she didn't have the funds to send a reply, and her aunt and father wouldn't provide it for her. So, she was left to be such a rude person who didn't know how to reply, while her sister enthusiastically tried to make up for her sister's mistake and put her face to her - but Mr. Si didn't appreciate it and sent the letter back unopened.
Chu Wang sat on the table next to the stage with the letter in his hand, and was amused by this ridiculous thing.
Mr. Saumier asked with great concern if she needed any help, but Chu Wang shook her head helplessly. She certainly couldn't tell Mr. Saumier, "My biggest problem is money." Mr. Saumier had already treated her well enough, not only not charging her tuition, not caring about her frequent troublemaking, but also constantly buying her little trinkets to cheer her up. She couldn't possibly be ungrateful and ask Mr. Saumier for more than he deserved.
Chu Wang simply expressed her sadness at only being able to come to Yau Ma Tei three days a week—on Wednesdays when she didn't have classes, Friday afternoons, and Saturdays—and not being able to see Mr. and Mrs. Ruan every day. She thanked Mrs. Ruan again for the small school bag she had specially sewn for her. Then, smiling and waving the letter in her hand, she said, "I have to work twice as hard to get the same rights as others. It's a bit heavy to think about it."
Mr. Saumier said solemnly, "Then work harder and become someone whose rights are higher than theirs."
——
Chu Wang simply stuffed Yun Yan's "repatriated" regulated verse poem into the mailbox outside the Qiao Mansion and didn't ask about it again. Even so, his aunt and Yun Yan behaved as usual, and there was no sign of frustration.
Mrs. Qiao, however, did manage to secure Yunyan's admission to the girls' school with some effort. In her letter to Peking, she exaggerated the event, demonstrating the dedication she had put into nurturing her daughter. Three days later, Lin Yu replied. Even though Chu Wang could only partially understand the vernacular, he could discern from that fragment the father's unconcealed disappointment in his second daughter. He then added a few words of praise to Chu Wang at the end of the letter, saying, "The third daughter is a promising talent and a blessing to the Lin family."
Two days before school started, all three of them had their school uniforms delivered to their homes. This very fashionable uniform, like a significant milestone in Yunyan and Xue Zhenzhen's lives, was so eager to try it on that they couldn't bear to take it off.
Chu Wang looked at the sailor suit and couldn't help but feel mixed emotions.
She had only one strange thought in her mind: Do I, an old lady, finally have a legitimate reason to act young?!
That evening, a hairdresser arrived to cut the three of them's long hair into a boyish bob. Xue Zhenzhen seemed to have long wanted to shed that cumbersome locks, and her steps became lighter after the cut. For Yunyan, the haircut felt like torture. She repeatedly struggled to escape from the sofa, only to be forced back onto it by Ma Ling and Mrs. Qiao. Finally, she stared tearfully at the pile of hair for a long moment, mourning. Perhaps this talented woman composed another poem in her mind.
Lin Chuwang was cheering inwardly: I’m really going to start pretending to be young! !
Speaking of school uniforms, the 21st century is filled with youth and hormones, but in the past, all-girls schools were just a place where young girls admired each other. The girls' school had four grades, with a total of less than 50 students. One building served as the classroom, and a smaller building served as the school for girls whose families were not in Hong Kong. Both buildings were located behind the Catholic Church. A seminary, a library, and a piano room were roughly the entirety of the school's furnishings.
The first year's curriculum was primarily English: there was an English class every day, either for writing, grammar, or English-to-Chinese translation. In addition, there were three math classes a week, two geography and science classes a week, two tennis lessons a week, and a theology class before school on Wednesdays and Fridays. As an atheist with no religious beliefs, Chu Wang couldn't help but laugh when he heard that he could listen to Christian sermons alongside his science classes.
Most girls in Hong Kong have English names, or no Chinese names at all. The English teacher (Father Wilson) was nearly overwhelmed by the other girls' difficult-to-pronounce names, so in the second class, he printed out a stack of common names and asked the girls to pick one as their English name. Zhenzhen chose "Leonie," Yunyan "Lina," and Chu Wang kept his previous life's name, "Linzy," which sounds like "Lin Zhi."
Of the twelve girls in the class, five were from Hong Kong, four from Shanghai, including Xue Zhenzhen (the other three were staying at the school), one daughter of a Guangzhou merchant, and two from the Lin family in Shaoxing. The sheer number of girls easily led to a mini-classroom drama, much like the countless WeChat groups in an eight-person university dormitory. The girls in this class were divided into numerous factions: the stay-at-home group, the non-stay-at-home group, the Cantonese-speaking group, the Wu-speaking group, the Hong Kong group, the mainland group, and so on. Xue Zhenzhen, known for her sharp tongue and outgoing demeanor, quickly became a leader among these factions, and Lin Yunyan also gained a number of close friends who shared her romantic and romantic moments. Meanwhile, Lin Chuwang, who had always maintained a low profile in the class, didn't join any factions. Perhaps because she frequently slept in class, was the smallest and spoke the least, and seemed quite ineffective, no one even tried to win her over during the battles.
The only person Chu Wang spoke to for much was the prettiest girl in the class, Xie Miya, a mixed-race girl. She had beautiful golden curls, extremely fair skin, and eyes a beautiful, deep gray-blue beneath long, dense lashes. She sat in front of Lin Chuwang, and whenever she tilted her head to listen to the class, her perfect profile would inadvertently catch his eye. Sometimes, she would stare at that face and lose her focus, always thinking she had seen another very similar face somewhere before, perhaps in some British or American TV series in a past life...
Miya quickly noticed Chu Wang's undisguised admiration. One day in tennis class, the two were paired together. Miya swung at the ball and said with a smile, "Linzi, why do you keep looking at me in class?"
Lin Chuwang, whose name had been mispronounced, struggled to catch her ball, panting: "Because you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, I can't help but look at you a few more times."
Miya chuckled and sent a harder shot, "You talk like some playboy."
Chu Wang failed to catch the ball again. He chuckled, scratched his hair, and sent a particularly gentle ball over: "There is another reason. I always feel that you look familiar, but I can't remember where I have seen you before."
This time, Miya missed the ball. She picked it up, angrily throwing herself over the net. Frowning at Lin Chuwang, she said, "I bet you've seen my famous brother. People always say I look like him—as if that's somehow somehow giving me a huge advantage and making me feel incredibly happy! Please, please, spare me!"
Chu Wang was startled, but he couldn't remember the difficult name. "Your brother is that... eh?"
"Zoe, the famous Mr. Xie Zoe from Hong Kong Island!" Miya rolled her eyes in frustration and said the name like reciting a tongue twister.
Chu Wang thought of this person and compared Miya's appearance to his, confirming that they were undoubtedly brother and sister. The mystery that had lingered for so long was finally solved, and Lin Chu Wang almost burst out laughing.
Miya saw how hard she was trying to hold back her laughter and pretended to hit her with a racket: "You're still laughing! I knew you were going to laugh at me."
Miya, who had already grown well, easily caught up with Lin Chuwang. As they hooked their arms around her neck and started to play around, Miya leaned close to her ear and whispered in a low voice, "Actually, I know about the relationship between my brother and your sister."
Chu Wang looked up at her in surprise, while Miya smiled and hushed, "It's been so hard for me to keep this secret, but I know you know it too, right?!" She then sighed to herself, "Sister Ma Ling is one of the most beautiful girls in Hong Kong. If they were to break away from their families and fall in love, it's not impossible for them to get married. But my father has put so much effort into nurturing him, he cherishes him like a baby and wouldn't give his life's work away to anyone. Just to get him to West Point, he actually managed to get two general-level letters of recommendation for him—one from the Republic of China, one from Britain. He really spent a lot of money."
Chu Wang nodded in understanding: "If it were me, I wouldn't agree either."
Xie Miya tugged at her ear and said, "You little thing, why do you speak so conscientiously? I wonder where you learned that from."
The author has something to say: Mr. Saumier's words are related to his own story.
Also: I would like to collect a book title with more connotation, such as "Past of Hong Kong in the Republic of China" or something like that... something more literary == I am really bad at naming.
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There are suddenly more and more cute people leaving messages. ...
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Why do I see an update, but when I click in, it's still yesterday's chapter? It's because non-contracted authors have to pass the review before they can post. If I post at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, the reviewer will have gone to bed, and I have to wait until he wakes up at 8 o'clock before I can approve it. It's something like this.
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