Chapter 282

Near the end of winter, the school was closed, and Principal Tang was happy to post notices in the school, telling everyone the time of the holiday, and let the only remaining students in the school to go around every day to create a false image that there are still many students in the school to paralyze the Japanese.

Japan’s New Year and China’s New Year in the time is overlap, customs are similar, and Japan has always been poor, on the New Year’s meal is not too much luxury.

Zhu Yuyan spent a lot of energy on the Japanese students during this period of time, and learned that they only planned to make two special meals for the New Year.

One was rice cake, which they were going to make themselves.

The other is a fish cake with white meat that is placed in a bowl of New Year’s noodles.

Both the Japanese teacher and the Japanese students thought that, being in a foreign country, the New Year would be perfect as long as they had these two foods.

What’s so difficult about that?

Zhu Yuyan immediately expressed her willingness to work with the Japanese students for the New Year.

Zhu Yuyan went to the kitchen and borrowed the rice cake utensils from the school. The Japanese students also went to the Japanese Chamber of Commerce to buy the rice they needed.

Zhu Yuyan dressed up as a Japanese girl and followed along without being noticed. And because the Japanese students surrounded her in the middle, and was even taken for a Japanese noble lady.

…… The Japanese were not surprised that the noble lady walked alone to buy rice.

Zhu Yuyan personally received the half bag of rice are a little bit weak. What kind of young lady wouldn’t even take a car.

However, Japanese students are really poor. Japanese teachers are also really poor. The Japanese official called what Yamamoto came a few times, but he did not give these Japanese students and Japanese teachers a penny.

The money to buy rice is the Japanese teacher and Japanese students according to the head of the share to put together, poor let a person pity, let a person can not believe that they are with the mission to come.

I can’t believe they came here with a mission. They really asked people to work for them for nothing.

After buying rice, washing it and steaming it, the Japanese male students stood in the courtyard in the middle of winter wearing only a bib and shouted and started hammering rice cakes, and Mr. Sakai, who was so old, tied up the sleeves of his kimono, held a basin of water and added water to the rice cakes in rhythm.

All the Japanese students gathered around and watched, thinking that this scene was very New Year’s Eve.

Zhu Yuyan thought that the Japanese people were quite happy, and that there was a way to live in poverty.

The rice cakes were all spread out under the window in the sunshine, and it looked like they were cut into dozens or hundreds of pieces, but according to the headcount of students and teachers, each person had two pieces at most.

As for the fish cake, this also need to use a special kind of sea fish.

Now there are no more people sailing small boats to fish at the pier, all the fishermen in the coastal area have been arrested, and all the boats have been confiscated.

The wharf was now completely under Japanese control.

The Japanese soldiers would double-check even the Japanese students.

Zhu Yuyan wanted to go along to the pier to take a look at the situation, but Mr. Sakai stopped her.

Mr. Sakai said, “None of the girls should go. Yanji, you shouldn’t go either, those soldiers aren’t like the men you’ve seen before, they’re all demons.”

Zhu Yuyan was surprised that Sakai-sensei, a Japanese man, yet he seemed to have no good feelings towards Japanese soldiers.

Sakai-sensei took her hand and whispered, “Don’t go. Soldiers of any country, even against their own nationals, will not be harmless tigers, you are very much like a Japanese schoolgirl, but that won’t protect you.”

Sakai-sensei, fearing that his schoolgirls would sneak off to the docks, made it a point to tell several stories of flower girls in class.

Flower Maidens were not Geisha, they were prostitutes who were sold in by their parents or husbands and lived in the railings.

Sensei Sakai: “I lived right behind Flower Street, and when the army was assembling and about to leave, the soldiers would come to Flower Street in a long line that was as long as a river, and they would wait in line until early in the morning before dispersing.”

“All the prostitutes had to keep picking up customers, they couldn’t escape or hide, it was very painful.” Sakai-sensei shook his head and sighed.

Even the owner of the brothel didn’t dare to offend these soldiers and didn’t dare to not open the door, even if the owner’s heart ached for the flower girls and was worried that they would get hurt from taking on too many clients, he didn’t dare to get rid of these soldiers.

Mr. Sakai said, “Whether they were young prostitutes or older prostitutes, there was no way for them to avoid them. The nights would be extraordinarily long during that time.”

War turns men into beasts, into madmen.

Sakai-sensei warned again and again, “Don’t go to the docks, don’t go to those places where soldiers gather.”

In the end it was the Japanese male students who made several trips to the docks to get the fish they wanted.

The fish were not wasted at all.

The flesh of the fish was shaved off to make fish cakes, the entrails were made into pickles, and the heads, tails, and bones of the fish were deep-fried into tempura and adorned on plates as if they were a marvelous dish, to the delight of the teachers who ate that day.

The big New Year’s meal was noodles in a clear soup with scallions, rice cakes, and fish cakes.

The Japanese student and teacher insisted that the noodle soup was kozo, she was not understanding why soup with soy sauce and seaweed could be called kozo.

Anyway, the Japanese were satisfied with the piled up noodle bowls and thought it was a great meal.

Zhu Yuyan, who had been invited, also thought the meal was slightly more generous than the table at the Little Red House, but that was because the Japanese could go to the pier to buy fish, and they could also buy white rice and white flour.

Little Red House only had sweet potatoes to eat.

She still thought that the sweet potato cakes made by Prof. Dai’s own hands tasted better.

Little Red House was in a mess.

Zhang Ma was busy packing everything, and the old lady didn’t even want to leave a piece of cloth behind.

She said, “What will you take to mend your torn clothes when you’re outside? Do you think there are still tailor stores open out there?”

Of course there are no tailor stores out there. There are no stores of any kind.

Many of the streets were as empty as cemeteries, and there was not a trace of human habitation.

But the city was not empty.

In some of the narrow alleys, at dusk, not too early and not too late, that is, when it was not yet dark and not yet light, people would emerge from the alleys. They come out to pick up garbage, try to buy something, or open a little business to make some money and find some rations for their families.

The people were savvy and had their own unique survival wisdom.

Though no one whatsoever spoke of it as such, a whisper was quietly circulating.

–They said that the Japanese were going to capture people to be strong soldiers and take them to be soldiers.

Zhu Yuyan even made a point of asking Su Chunjun when she heard this rumor, but he said that the Japanese hadn’t come out brightly yet, so they hadn’t begun to arrest the soldiers.

“Maybe they’ll arrest them later, but they haven’t started yet.” He said.

Zhu Yuyan: “But people outside are rumoring that the Japanese are going to catch Ding.”

Prof. Dai solved her puzzle: “It’s not that the people only know when the Japanese start catching, but traditionally, the victors have to replenish their troops locally, and catching the dingdongs is a customary practice. Although the people had never seen the Japanese, they had all experienced war, something that had happened in ancient times.”

Oh, she got it.

It wasn’t that the Japanese were going to start arresting now, but the people had already realized that the Japanese had won the battle, and they guessed from experience that the Japanese were going to start arresting the djinns, so they put out rumors ahead of time – reminding everyone to be careful, ah.

Once again there was a wave of stragglers in the city.

Hundreds of people, in twos and threes, or in families, dragging their families along, holding bundles and pushing carts with old mothers and children still breastfeeding in them, began to flee aimlessly.

Out to sea.

The boats on the docks have become more and more blatant.

In the past, they used to write a contract under false pretenses, saying that they were inviting Chinese people to work at sea. Now this step has been eliminated, handed up is a note, to write your own name, write the amount of money owed, handprints before you are allowed to board the ship.

Because you certainly do not have the money to buy a ticket ah, the shipping company to do a good deed, allowing you to owe the ship fare on board, but also for you to find a job, is not a good man? However, the good man is also in business, so you need to write a note, to pay off the boat fee, and then earn money is your own, you can send back to the family old and young to buy rice and salt to eat.

This kind of note will have a clause, which states that if the person boarded the ship because of the water and soil, dysentery or accidents and other reasons died outside, the shipping company will not compensate for the money. In short, the death would be in vain.

These contractual gimmicks may not be understandable to the common people, who may not be able to read a word, who may not be able to write their own names, and who can only press their handprints, and who certainly cannot read the terms of the contract, but not to the educated people of this city.

A few of the newspapers that closed down due to the government’s crackdown on pornography have secretly opened their doors again and are quietly writing cautionary articles for sale.

Among them were criticisms and rebukes of such contracts.

Professor generation read also applauded, while the ink machine in the school is still confiscated, he also wrote a few small articles, secretly printed, with a few male students on the street to distribute, go out in the dark, only to come back at dawn, as if being a thief.

Ms. Zhu was bold enough to quietly follow along, not two times was found by Zhang Ma.

Zhang mother did not dare to make a noise, wrapped in woolen sweater standing in the small red building back door there and so on, wait until dawn, only to see Professor and Ms. Zhu on behalf of the two hand in hand ran back, like two out of the teenage girl cheating, face red, eyes bright and godly.

Zhang Ma saved a belly scolding all swallowed back, but also for these two people boil ginger water to drink good cold.

Because of this, Zhang Ma for several days said: “quickly go, quickly go, go far away, do not have to worry about them.”

Zhang Ma, who was still a little hesitant to leave, also changed her attitude.

Perhaps it was some kind of foreshadowing that everything went smoothly.

Part of the teachers and their families pretended to be vagrants, followed in the pile of vagrants mixed out of the city.

Those who didn’t go abroad went inland.

Professor Dai pretended to be an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a Russian, grew a chin beard, forged documents and certificates from many countries, bought tickets at the train station, chartered several carriages with US dollars, and succeeded in sending out a portion of the school’s supplies.

The corn at the dock also took the opportunity to get it back. Su Chunjun helped to open the strips and passes. Prof. Dai forged several more passes, British French and Russian. Zhu Yuyan managed to see what a Japanese pass looked like from Mr. Sakai and Mr. Kobayashi, and came back to draw it. Prof. Dai also forged one, and took it with him just in case.

Zhu Yuyan’s kimono making skills learned from Mr. Sakai also came in handy, she made several kimono dresses with Mrs. Zhang, both men’s and women’s styles, and all of them were given to Ms. Zhu to take with her.

Just in case.

It seems that the east wind has arrived, and all that is needed is to set off.

The Japanese students haven’t found out yet, but they won’t be able to hide it for much longer.

Principal Tang thought that in the spring, the Japanese would surely ask all the students to return to school, and that’s when they would realize that most of the students had fled instead of going home for the New Year.

“It has to go.” Principal Tang stood in front of the window of the principal’s office; the tree in front of the window had lost all its leaves, which were still green, and they fell stiffly in the cold wind.

Mrs. Tang called out to him from behind, “Do you think it’s okay for me to dress like this?”

Principal Tang turned around and saw that his cousin was no longer wearing a cheongsam, but had changed into a short jacket made of old cotton, and underneath it was a pair of fat pants, and for the sake of realism, there were a few patches on the clothes.

Mrs. Tang embarrassedly touched a handful of her hair and said, “Alas, dressing like this shows too much age, I’m almost like your mother.”

Principal Tang smiled as he went over and wrapped his arms around Mrs. Tang and said, “Then I’ll call you mom, mom, my son is holding you up.”

Mrs. Tang was so angry that she hit him, how much of the separation was lost to him.

“You bad thing.” Mrs. Tang laughed.