Chapter 245
Ms. Zhu returned to the Zhu family building, after washing up nearly five o’clock before lying down to sleep, by now it was almost dawn. She slept until 1:00 p.m. when she got up. Pushing the door, she saw Mr. Su waiting for her to get up with a cup of coffee in the living room, and there was still movement in the kitchen, which made people think that everyone hadn’t moved out at all, and that everything was still the same as before.
Mr. Su Chunjun turned his head and smiled at her, “Are you up?”
Auntie Ma in the kitchen hears the sound and rushes out, saying, “Second Miss, you’re up, I’ve prepared hot water, so go wash up first, and I’ll bring the rice over to you right away.”
Seeing Auntie Ma, Zhu Yuyan woke up, and hurriedly thanked her politely, not daring to play tricks on her like she did with Auntie Zhang.
In the washroom, there was toothpaste, toothbrush, washbasin, and a pot of hot water.
She mixed it with water to wash her face and brush her teeth, and then she untied her hair and smoothed out her messy hairs with the leftover water on her hands before coming out of the washroom.
Auntie Ma had already prepared breakfast in the dining room.
Su Chunjun was on the phone, holding up the receiver to her with a smile and a wave of her hand, pointing to breakfast for her to eat.
She sat down before seeing what was on the table.
It was much more substantial than the one at Little Red House, with a plate of fried luncheon meat, a bowl of corn soup, a bowl of mashed potatoes, and two poached eggs on the table.
Auntie Ma was waiting in the dining room, and when she sat down, she hurried over to pour milk.
Zhu Yuyan was not used to strangers, and quickly said, “No, no, I can do it myself.”
Auntie Ma said: “I don’t know what you like to eat, so I just made something.”
Zhu Yuyan said sincerely, “It’s already very sumptuous, thank you.”
Su Chunjun came over after the phone call and said, “Auntie Ma, you go out and get busy first, Yan Yan is not used to asking people to wait on her.”
Aunt Ma smiled and said, “Second Miss is considerate. Then Mr. Su, I will go down first, just call me if you need anything. You don’t have to move after eating, I’ll come over to clean up afterward.”
She gently went out.
Su Chunjun: “You eat, I’ll send you back to school afterward.”
Zhu Yuyan looked at the table and tsked: “So sumptuous.”
Su Chunjun: “It’s all American canned food. Mayor Feng’s side gave it to me, and it’s not much, so I didn’t bother to move it to the school, so I’ll make it for you to eat when you come.”
Zhu Yuyan ate this rare and delicious breakfast and asked him, “Mayor Feng is quite close to the Americans?”
Su Chunjun: “To correct you, it’s the Americans who are on good terms with Mayor Feng. Americans are on good terms with everyone.”
American businessmen sell everything, and they want as many customers as possible.
Zhu Yuyan: “Then can we look for Americans to buy grain?”
Su Chunjun smiled and shook his head, “The amount of grain the school can buy is too little for the Americans to look at. They can’t even look at Mayor Feng right now. Do you know who the American businessmen’s favorite customer is right now?” He pointed in the direction of the Japanese Concession.
Zhu Yuyan wordlessly made a mouthful, “Japan?”
Su Chunjun smiled and nodded.
American weapons, American flour, American cotton …… and so on are all being sold to Japan.
Of course, American businessmen do not need Japan to pay money immediately immediately, they have a way to pull out money from Japan.
Zhu Yuyan asked him when he was going to ship the grain, and she said, “I want to go back and talk to the principal first.”
Su Chunjun took out the inventory list and key to the warehouse and pushed it to her, “You should. You go back and tell the principal first, and see if the principal has other arrangements.”
Other arrangements?
Zhu Yuyan made a note of this.
After breakfast, Su Chunjun drove Zhu Yuyan back to school.
There were not many people in Little Red House, only Zhang Ma was there.
Zhang Ma is sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper and listening to the radio, which is singing “…… like that beautiful flowers are blooming all over ……”. Seeing Zhu Yuyan jumping in, Zhang Ma put down the newspaper, took off her old glasses, and stood up. When she saw Zhu Yuyan jumping in, Mrs. Zhang put down her pictorials and took off her presbyopia glasses, stood up and said, “You’re back? Your mom and dad have gone to class, your sister has also gone to class, have you eaten yet? If you have eaten, I won’t need to be busy.”
Zhu Yuyan hurriedly said, “I’ve eaten.”
Zhang Ma then sat back down peacefully, “That’s good. Quickly take your books and go to class.”
Zhu Yuyan went upstairs to get her books, then came back down and said, “I need to go find the principal first.”
Zhang Ma didn’t know if she heard it or not, she was seriously turning the knob on the radio, waving her hand and saying, “Go on, go on.”
Zhu Yuyan then went to knock on Principal Tang’s door first.
Principal Tang was writing a thank-you letter, something like “Thank you for donating XXXX yuan to the school”. Of course, if people didn’t donate, he could also send the letter first to remind others that they forgot to donate money.
This time, the reason was the thirty-first anniversary of the school’s birth.
Zhu Yuyan knocked on the door.
Principal Tang put down his pen and shouted, “Please come in.”
Zhu Yuyan came in with her makeup case and textbooks, bowed and greeted, “Good day, principal.”
“Ouch.” Principal Tang was very happy to see her, and hurriedly got up from behind the desk and walked out to call her, “Come, come, sit, sit, sit.”
Zhu Yuyan was flattered and sat on the sofa.
Principal Tang lovingly said: “Zhu students all the way hard, I want to on behalf of the whole school teachers and students thank you ah.”
Zhu Yuyan stood up and said, “I don’t think so, Mr. Principal, you are too kind.”
Principal Tang: “Sit down, sit down, sit down.” Pulling the person to sit down, looking at her expectantly, “What’s new in the auction? Tell me.”
Zhu Yuyan first will open the makeup box, will be given by the principal of the money out to return him, and then the warehouse of the deposit slip and the key is also taken out, and put on the coffee table.
Principal Tang excited, look at the deposit slip and key: “This is ……”
Zhu Yuyan: “This is the deposit slip of the dock warehouse. I didn’t see what it was with my own eyes, there was only a small bowl of dried corn kernels when I took it. It cost twenty-one thousand dollars in total, along with a fifteen percent handling fee and a twelve percent storage fee.”
That was the dumbest she’d ever been when she handed over the money last night.
–The bank stealing depositors’ property for auction and charging handling and storage fees? It’s so shameless.
But people were just so shameless, so what could they do?
Principal Tang would just say yes: “Fine, fine, fine!”
Zhu Yuyan said, “It’s just that the wharf is now under the control of the Japanese, and although there are also our gendarmes, both sides may not be very talkative. It’s probably quite troublesome to ship these corn back. My fiancé, Mr. Su, who is very warm-hearted and kind and helpful, is willing to help us transport this grain back.”
Second Miss Zhu, who never forgets to brush Su Chunjun’s halo at all times, praises her fiancé without sparing any effort.
Principal Tang smiled and said, “It’s certainly better to have a righteous man like Mr. Su willing to help us. But the biggest contributor here is you, Zhu student.”
Zhu Yuyan: “This is all what I should do.”
By the way, after also showing a little credit for herself, Zhu Zhu said that she did not ask for anything in return for her work, and now she has to rush to class, she loves to study, and studying makes her happy.
Zhu Yuyan hurried to her kimono class with her Japanese teacher.
She was almost an hour late, but Mr. Sakai just gave her a glare and continued the lesson.
Zhu Yuyan was a good girl and sat at the end of the class.
Today’s lesson was about how to wear a kimono in the fall, and the Japanese girls were all listening very carefully, while the Chinese girls were all pretending to be very serious.
Because Zhu Yuyan came too late, the class ended not long after she arrived. Sakai-sensei assigned homework, asking all the female students to draw an autumn flower that could be used on a kimono.
Once class was over, both the Chinese and Japanese students chattered away.
The Japanese female student, Futako, whose belly has grown, doesn’t look any different and still attends class every day, but according to the other Japanese female students, Futako now eats at her back and is rarely with the group.
However, Er Zi was still very lively in class and enjoyed talking to Zhu Yu Yan.
Er Zi squeezed to Zhu Yu Yan’s side and said enthusiastically, “Yan Ji, you are late today, what are you going to draw?”
Zhu Yu Yan: “I was with my fiancé yesterday. I think it’s still cherry blossoms.”
As soon as she said that, as a result, all the Japanese female students around her all said, “Surely it’s going to be cherry blossoms, isn’t it?”
“If Yanji draws cherry blossoms, then I’ll draw cherry blossoms too.”
“Yanji, can I draw cherry blossoms like you?”
Er Zi said angrily, “You guys don’t disturb Yan Ji.”
Zhu Yuyan had gotten used to it, not knowing when she had inexplicably become the idol of the Japanese students. The Japanese female students would learn to talk like her, and all of their homework in class would intentionally be written the same way as hers. The Japanese boys would stand in a line to peek at her when she passed by, and I heard that they also called her “Yanji”.
She used to wear her hair in two braids, and the Japanese girls followed suit. Some of them had been in China for almost a year, and some of them had already grown their hair long, so it was very difficult for them to wear two short, short twisted braids.
Influenced by Zhu Yanshu, she would trim her eyebrows into two thin and curved ones, the double-swallow eyebrows in the pictorials, and as a result, all the Japanese schoolgirls also turned out to have the same eyebrows as hers.
She carried an empty powder case given to her by Mr. Su as a portable mirror, and it became fashionable for Japanese schoolgirls to snap off the powder in the case, leaving only the case to look in the mirror.
She usually wrote with a fountain pen, while most of the Japanese students were penniless, they used pencils. As a result, a few Japanese students got fountain pens from somewhere, no ink no way to write also put on the table every day, and the Japanese students around them were still envious of them.
She thought she was so bad-tempered, not at all like Yamato Nadeshiko, and couldn’t understand why the Japanese students admired her.
Later she thought it might be because the Japanese teachers were extraordinarily tolerant of her, even the teachers never scolded her and didn’t get angry no matter what she did, so it was only natural that the Japanese students would think she was some kind of great character.
Mr. Sakai was not surprised to see that after class ended, all the people gathered around the Chinese schoolgirl. She was so pretty, covered in expensive items, and had a haughty personality, just like a true young lady.
She walked over, drove away those students, and said to Zhu Yuyan, “Zhu student, you’re late today, come here, I’ll make up some lessons for you.”
The other students had to go away, leaving only Ms. Sakai and Zhu Yuyan in the classroom.
A few Chinese female students were worried about Zhu Yuyan, so they didn’t go far away and waited in the open space not far from the classroom.
Ms. Sakai was very clear, she said, “We will speak faster, you have to take notes.”
She took out some hairpins, scented pouches, and handkerchiefs, and used them to talk about what kind of pattern a woman wearing a kimono should choose in the fall so as not to be disrespectful, what kind of floral decorations were appropriate for use in the fall, and what kind of floral decorations were appropriate only for the remaining three seasons, and so on.
Finally, Sakai-sensei said, “I happened to hear you say just now that you were planning to draw cherry blossoms?”
She picked up a pen, drew a branch of weeping cherry blossoms on a piece of paper, and handed it to Zhu Yuyan: “Take it, and you can’t go wrong if you draw it according to this.”
Zhu Yuyan has become accustomed to having a small stove, honestly speaking, she can always get good grades in the Japanese class, with the four Japanese teachers’ small stove is inseparable.
She put away the painting and was about to say goodbye when Mr. Sakai said, “Zhu, Japan is very suitable for a woman like you to live. You are a woman who is not willing to be lonely, an intelligent woman, and you will find that you have a much bigger stage in Japan.” She paused and lowered her voice, “In China, a man like your current fiancé is already the best man you can find, but in Japan, you can marry a great aristocrat, a great landowner like Fujiwara or Takeuchi, and when you become a member of a great family like that, you’ll hold great power.” She said deeply, “You should think about it.”
Zhu Yuyan’s ears had become calloused from hearing such words lately.
Since the Japanese teachers probably didn’t know how to seduce her any better, they could only guess from their ideal point of view: promising her a better marriage must be able to impress her.
Kobayashi-sensei had told her about a few famous families in Kyoto, focusing on describing the current generation of young men, and it seemed that each family had a man her age.
Sakai-sensei then described to her again and again how much power there was in marrying into a Japanese noble family, how the luxurious life was secondary to the beautiful gardens, the submissive maids of honor, the beautiful automobiles, and what a wonderful treat it was to go to the opera in such a beautiful automobile accompanied by maids of honor.
Because the description was too detailed, Zhu Yuyan couldn’t help but suspect that Ms. Sakai had either married into a noble family in the past, or that she had wanted to marry into a noble family since she was young.
Zhu Yuyan politely said, “Thank you for your teaching, I will think about it.”
Then she left.
She still had to go back and explain to the people of Little Red Mansion about yesterday’s auction.