Chapter 132

Su Chunjun went upstairs to sleep after a hearty breakfast, accompanied by his fiancée.

Yang Yuyan stood in Su Chunjun’s four-walled room, feeling particularly sorry for him. Obviously, they are now a family, but he still lives here alone, with nothing, not even a toilet or washroom.

Su Chunjun sat on the bed, holding her hand and said, “Sit down and let’s have a chat.”

As soon as he spoke, Shi Wuwei stood in the doorway with a pot of hot water, clearing his throat, “Ahem, Zhang Ma asked me to send it up, so you can drink it if you’re thirsty. Also, let me call Yan Yan to go down. If you want to talk, let’s talk as brothers.”

The light bulb stood in the doorway and laughed, Su Chunjun had no choice but to let go of his fiancée’s soft little hand.

Yang Yuyan smiled and stood up, “Then you master brothers can chat.”

She could see that Shi Wuwei really had something to talk to Su Chunjun about.

She could let her fiancé out for now.

When she returned to the Zhu family, Zhang Ma and Yang Yucan were both in the kitchen, apparently Yang Yucan was already trying to take over some of the chores, Zhang Ma was furious, in her opinion the kitchen was her domain, and it was obviously a bit of an offense to her self-esteem as a servant in the Zhu family.

She went to Zhu Yanshu to chat, wanting to try to ask if she could give Su Chunjun the empty room on this floor of the Zhu family home, so that the two of them could live closer to each other.

However, she felt that mentioning this matter directly as soon as they met was unlikely to succeed, and it was best to take a detour first.

So she knocked on the door and walked in and the first thing she talked about was the housework in the house.

“Sis said that the two of us should do it, she’s helping Zhang Ma right now, but Zhang Ma doesn’t want to appreciate it at all.” Yang Yuyan said as she sat on Zhu Yanshu’s soft Simmons king-sized bed, crossing her legs.

The best-looking bed in the house is Zhu Yanshu’s bed, which seems to have been specially ordered from the UK as a dowry, and even the mattress and curtains are from the UK, which are hand-woven in lace by British women workers.

But now above is the traditional hundred flowers through the butterfly pattern of pink satin cool quilt.

Yang Yuyan sat on the bed and shook it, like a child.

Zhu Yanshu said in disgust: “How old are you and still so childish? You all don’t know Zhang Ma, she is very proud of herself for being able to take care of the three of us, if you tell her that you can do everything on your own, and you don’t need her anymore, she will die of sadness.”

Yang Yuyan recalled that Zhang Ma’s most justified complaint against them was “The three women don’t do anything, but let me do it!” When she said this, her voice was the loudest.

Zhu Yanshu was right. Household chores were what Zhang Ma was most proud of, and it was also the one thing that the Zhu family’s mother and daughter couldn’t compare to her.

Outside, Zhang Ma was loudly complaining about Yang Yu Cicada: ”Big sister, are you here to help me or to harm me! Without you I would have been done long ago!”

Zhu Yanshu involuntarily lowered her voice and said to Yang Yuyan: “Don’t follow your sister’s example, your sister has good intentions, but her brain is too straight, it’s hard for her to think about things, and she does bad things out of good intentions. You can persuade her to save her energy.”

Yang Yuyan didn’t want to do housework and agreed to it.

“Then what are we going to do when Mr. Shi goes out?” She asked Zhu Yanshu.

Zhu Yanshu made a surprised face: “He’s still going out?”

Yang Yuyan was even more surprised, “Isn’t he going out to study abroad? When did he say he’s not going?”

Zhu Yanshu sighed, disliking this daughter for not being smart enough: “It’s so chaotic out there now, and the emperor was poisoned to death by the Japanese, so he can’t go out, so stay at home.”

Yang Yuyan said, “The emperor is not dead.”

She is now almost certain that the emperor should still be alive, this news of the emperor’s death, must be some people who have the intention to put out to stir up the water with.

Zhu Yan Shu asked her in return, “Your teacher Su didn’t say that the emperor is still alive either. Did he just go up and tell you that?”

How dare Yang Yuyan say that she was a prophet? She could only say, “I guessed. It is said that if the emperor dies, there will be a vision in the sky, and there has been no solar or lunar eclipse recently, so the emperor must not be dead.” The latter is just nonsense.

Zhu Yanshu smiled and hit her, “You smart ass! Don’t talk nonsense outside.”

She is very happy to find that Yang Yuyan did not go crazy when she heard the news like young people do nowadays, but she doesn’t want her to be too bold to go around talking nonsense, don’t know what is the scourge of Yang Xiu? Just know it yourself, don’t yell.

Zhang Ma finally finished her work in the kitchen with Yang Yucan, took off her sleeves and came in to look for Zhu Yanshu.

Zhang Ma: “Mistress, just now Missy was kind enough to help me with my work, but I said this is not what a young lady like her should be doing. In the past, she wanted to marry that Ma guy, but now she doesn’t necessarily still want to marry him, right?”

Zhu Yanshu pretended not to hear, pulling Zhang Maa and saying, “I’ll talk to her later, so that she doesn’t mess things up for you. Zhang Ma, I think Yan Yan is like her grandfather, the most similar in our family.”

Now the only person who can accompany Zhu Yanshu to talk about her parents is Zhang Ma, so Zhang Ma stops complaining for the time being and turns to accompany Zhu Yanshu to reminisce about her parents.

After thinking carefully, Zhang Ma slapped her thigh and said, “That’s not true? The old master was a sweet-talking and shrewd person who talked about people and ghosts. He was the last in the family, but he studied abroad for the longest time, and when he came back, the old lady didn’t even remember this youngest son, but he coaxed her back in less than three days, and the previous few young masters weren’t as good at coaxing people as the old master.”

Let Zhang Ma say, the Zhu family’s old master coaxed everyone he met. The old lady coaxed the old lady when she was alive, was the old lady’s favorite son, the old lady was afraid that he suffered after she went, quietly moved all the private rooms to him.

Sure enough, after the old lady went, Zhu family immediately divided. The biggest brother in front of him can be his father, he did not know how to coax, the most fierce oldest and the oldest three, the youngest brother are quite gentle, although the business is not divided into him – he also said in the division of the family do not want business, do not want to store, as long as the money.

Thus, several older brothers left even the Zhu family building to him.

Zhu Yanshu smiled and said, “My father said that was because the Zhu Family Building couldn’t be moved and split.” Zhu family building is still the old man built, the building built by his own father, Zhu family several sons are not good to wait for their father to die and sell the Zhu family building, so they left it to their little brother who refused to go.

“My father did not listen to the emperor, he said to me, the emperor is dead or alive with us have nothing to do, that are by the adults to manage the big things, we are just a small people, only care about their own food and clothing on the line, if there is still spare capacity, to help the widows, widowers and orphans. I remember my father also taught me a children’s song, what not to repair bridges and roads …….”

Zhang Ma sang, “Don’t build bridges, don’t build roads, don’t covet relatives, don’t associate with relatives …….”

Zhu Yan Shu laughed.

Zhang Ma said, “This is something your father made up to coax you, I’ve never heard this song in the Zhu family.”

However, Zhu Elder did, he never thought of Zhu Yanshu marrying a big official’s son and linking up with the officials and gentry.

Zhu Yanshu sighed, “Yan Yan doesn’t believe it either, the emperor died and she’s like nothing.”

Zhang Ma said, “As the old saying goes, it’s a head born with a backbone. Luckily she is a girl, if she was a kid, you would be in more trouble.”

Zhu Yanshu dragged Zhang Ma around, so Zhang Ma forgot about Yang Yuchan’s trouble and her anger subsided.

On the other end, Yang Yuyan also complied with the order to persuade Yang Yucan.

She said, “My mom said that Mr. Shi can’t get out of the house, so he’ll still be doing the chores in our house from now on, so ah, sis, you won’t have to work so hard from now on.”

Yang Yuchan: “Mom said that? What should we do? Mr. Shi came to our house to study abroad, he’s been working so hard, if he can’t get out of here, how sad he’ll be!”

Yang Yuyan didn’t expect Yang Yucan to be able to quickly find another bull’s-eye to drill into, and couldn’t help but admire her great ability to spot problems.

“Then you persuade him, comfort him, it’s not like he can’t get out forever, it’s a little messy for a while, he’ll go out again when it’s not messy.” Yang Yuyan said irresponsibly.

Yang Yuchan fretted, “How can I persuade him? If I were me I would definitely die of sadness.”

Yang Yuyan nodded, “Well, if it was you, it would indeed be troublesome.”

Although it was hypothetical, Yang Yuyan was also truly troubled, if the person who wanted to study abroad was Yang Yucicang, then if she now found out that she couldn’t go, everyone in the family would definitely be worried.

Yang Yuyan and Yang Yucan sighed together.

Shi Wuwei, who was about to fret in the future, was talking to Su Chunjun.

He said, “This is a clear ambition on the part of the Japanese, they must have wanted to expand their power out of the Concession for a long time. Now is a good opportunity.”

Su Chunjun nodded, “The mayor knows this, but you know very well that the mayor can’t do anything about it, he has no power at all in his hands.”

The streets were now filled with rumors about the Japanese poisoning the emperor, and the panic was slowly expanding.

The Japanese took this opportunity to pay lip service to the fact that they were out to catch criminals who had done harm to the Japanese, or to protect Japanese expatriates, and they were able to send their troops out to roam the streets openly and honestly.

It is important to realize that before this time, the armies of all countries were only allowed to stay in the Concession and were not allowed to come outside at all.

Although the government was also weak at that time, there was at least a shroud covering it.

Now this shaming cloth was almost ripped off.

Su Chunjun said, “The mayor will likely arrest a large number of people again recently to avoid the worst. You must tell the principal and acting professor that students should never be let out onto the streets these days. Those people in the gendarmerie won’t arrest people fairly and impartially according to the evidence, they’re just coping with the errand, arresting random people in to show they’re doing their job. And the mayor is just trying to cope with the Japanese, he doesn’t care if the ones he takes in are the ones who are really hostile to the Japanese, as long as there are people in prison.”

It was a real mess.

Shi Wuwei sighed.

The Japanese were expanding their power, and this time the murder of the Emperor had obviously given them a good opportunity. It made him wonder if this would be exactly a hoax that the Japanese were directing themselves?

It was quite possible!

The next day, Su Chunjun is even busier, he is now the mayor’s confidant, replacing the still-nosed Ho Chang, traveling between the mayor’s house and the government offices, uploading and sending orders, and in order to make him even more legitimate, he has been given the additional position of a special commissioner.

Things were indeed getting worse in the streets.

Many rogues had run away, and thieves and robbers were becoming more numerous.

Once the emperor died, it seemed that the world was about to be in chaos, and all sorts of brats took advantage of the fact that the adults had no time to worry about them to pop up.

The main door of Zhu Jia Lou was also closed during the day, and would only open if the occupants knocked on the door.

Luckily, Zhang Ma was smart enough to buy a lot of food before, and except for the fresh vegetables and tofu, there was no shortage of other food.

The only three remaining households in the Zhu family building, including the Ma family, were somewhat short of food.

Zhu Yanshu sighed and asked Zhang Ma to sell them some grain at market price.

Zhang Ma was reluctant to do so and complained, “Now that the grain stores outside are closed, they can’t buy it even if they go out! It’s expensive for me!”

Zhu Yanshu said, “They can’t afford it even if it’s expensive. Just don’t give it away for nothing.”

If you give it for free, people will take advantage of it, so it’s best to collect some money.

After taking the money to buy the grain, the three households all felt much more at ease.

To say that they didn’t have any bad intentions would be overestimating the beauty of human nature.

But now the Zhu family is not a house full of women. Not to mention Su Chunjun, a government official who is still well-dressed at the moment and is picked up by a car every day, or Shi Wuwei, a man who is used to farming, no one dares to look down on him.

Not to mention the presence of Ma Tianbao. He now has no way to go out to find work, all rely on the Zhu family to subsidize the food and drink of the family did not starve to death. Although he has a leg that is not very convenient, he is still a young and strong man.

The other three families even if there are some ideas, also all pressed down, but afraid of Zhu family at this time to drive them out.

The street began to have many people secretly hand out leaflets and newspapers, the night Yang’s full of streets, and wrapped in stones thrown into the window to.

The balcony Yang Yuyan frequented was thrown in several times, and after one almost hit her, Zhang Ma forbade her to stand on the balcony and wait for Su Chunjun.

The newspapers and leaflets were of course full of radical articles, which made one’s blood boil, but after sweating and then blowing in the wind, the hairs on one’s body stood up straight.

Yang Yuyan looked at the leaflets with the Japanese blood debts written on them and became more and more uneasy.

She said to Yang Yuchan, “I’m worried that someone might attack the Japanese after reading the leaflets.”

Once the Japanese were attacked, the Japanese ambassador would have a reason to drive the Japanese army into the streets!

It was like a chain reaction.

Japanese people were attacked by hotheads, and the Japanese ambassador protested to the mayor to bring the Japanese army out to arrest the pair of culprits. The mayor, in order to keep the Japanese army from expanding its power, had to give in and take the initiative to arrest the so-called prisoners in the first place.

And most of those taken in were innocent students and other innocent citizens.

But nobody cared whether they were innocent or not.

Because whether they were guilty or not was not the point at all.

Even whether the Japanese were attacked or not was not the point.

Yang Yuyan said, “I now feel more and more that this matter of the Emperor’s murder was a Japanese conspiracy.”

Compared to Yang Yuyan who was just analyzing the state of affairs on the side of reason, Yang Yucan had simply already seen the outcome.

Someone would definitely go and attack the Japanese in this situation.

Because if she wasn’t at home right now, and wasn’t by Yang Yuyan’s side listening to her analysis, she would also be at school with her classmates, discussing how to attack the Japanese, how to take revenge, and how to drive the Japanese away!

In fact, as early as that day when she went to school, she had already heard someone say that she could attack the Japanese civilians on the street to drive the Japanese away.

“The Japanese are immigrating in large numbers, and they want to turn this place into the Eastern Province as well, into their own territory! We must drive them out!”

“We can go and attack them. These Japanese wear kimonos, only the samurai carry swords, most civilians don’t.”

“We could lasso them with sacks and drag them into the alleys and beat them.”

“Do that enough, and the Japanese will think it’s not safe here anymore, and they’ll go back home on their own!”

In one respect, it’s not pointless, and the success rate isn’t even unheard of.

When terrorist attacks reach a certain level, Japanese expatriates will realize that they are not welcome here, that their lives and property are not protected, and surely it is possible to create panic to make them want to go back to Japan.

Being a student body that holds neither the voice nor the power and the military, this is the best they can come up with.

And not all of these leaflets distributed around might be spies with malicious intentions; perhaps a large number of newspapers were distributed by the very students or aspiring youths who came up with this idea!

In order to create an impact in a short period of time, calling on more people to participate in driving out the Japanese is the most effective way.

But she now had Yang Yuyan and Su Chunjun by her side, which made Yang Yucan realize abruptly that the students and aspiring youths were probably stepping into another even more terrible trap.

Everything was a conspiracy.

“What should we do? Is there anything we can do?” Yang Yucan was at her wits’ end, her mind was a mess, she even went to ask her sister who was even younger than her.

Yang Yuyan wrapped her arms around her, she realized that her sister was also shivering, her hands were also cold.

Yang Yuyan quietly said, ”I don’t think there’s anything we can do. Teacher Su, classmate Shi can’t do anything about it. Professor Dai and the school can only do their best to restrain their classmates from going out on the streets and from being captured by the gendarmerie.”

We can’t go and tell everyone that it’s a conspiracy, don’t attack the Japanese, it’s a conspiracy.

No one would believe it.

That’s the saddest thing.

Eighteen days after the news of the Emperor’s murder hit the newspapers, the bodies of two Japanese expatriates were found under a bridge hole. Multiple cases of attacks on Japanese expatriates occurred.

Su Chunjun stood outside the door and looked in sideways.

A Japanese man with two Japanese soldiers stood in front of the mayor fuming.

“I’m going to catch these abominable criminals! This is an insult to the Emperor! I’ll send them back to Japan to be shot!”

The mayor was in a cold sweat and coy.

“Mr. Yamamoto please calm down, I will have the police catch these prisoners within three days, I promise you!”

The Japanese said, “I don’t believe you that you will harbor those prisoners. I am going to let the good soldiers of my Great Japanese Empire catch the prisoners.”

The mayor’s face was waxy and all the flesh was falling off; he had lost a lot of weight in the time he had been eating and sleeping badly.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and kept bending over, though his voice was small, and did not accede to the Japanese request to send soldiers.

“I will get the prisoners, Mr. Yamamoto, I will get them! Please wait a few days, just a few days.”