Chapter 302
Zhu Yanshu straightened her back, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and put the last pile of books into the box.
She put her two hands behind her waist to help her waist straighten up, and let out a long sigh.
Ideal is a difficult road, every step on it makes one want to regret.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t regretted throwing herself into the ideal. But the days of losing her ideals had been enough for her for more than twenty years, and compared to the hard work on the road of ideals, it was still the days without ideals that were more difficult.
One was still breathing, and no one wanted to be the walking dead.
She kicked the book case into the room next to the hall. This was supposed to be the room between the two halls used for temporary rest for the gentlemen and ladies, and now it was piled high with luggage and books hastily carried over from the Wish House.
She’d thought they’d been roughing it up a bit, but now it seemed like too much.
When the day came to go, it would be impossible to take dozens of boxes with her, and she would have to throw down almost half of them.
She sat on the boxes and thought, thinking that she could throw away all her clothes, but she should bring as many books as possible.
These books can only be bought in the big city, after leaving here, it is difficult to buy books. These books can’t be missing any more, because if they are missing, there is no place to make up for them.
Zhang Ma went out to hire people, on behalf of the professor went to pick up Principal Tang’s family.
Zhu Yanshu would have liked to be a little more diligent, after all, she is now a wife again, do other people’s wives, or should be to fulfill the responsibility of a good wife.
So, she originally wanted to pack the luggage first, then clean the outside, and finally cook a meal, so that she would appear to be very capable.
But now that she had just packed her bags, she was about to surrender.
As for the cleaning and cooking, she would wait for Zhang Ma to come back with the people.
At this time, the doorbell rang.
Zhu Yanshu immediately stood up, put the possibly messy hair together again, wipe the sweat on the face, and then take out a small mirror to see if there are any bad places, in the end, still took out the powder box to make up a powder, and then apply a little bit of lipstick to sip it, and then hurriedly walked out, called: “Coming, coming, coming.”
She opened the door, unexpectedly, outside the door is neither Zhang Ma, nor on behalf of the professor, but a begging woman.
This woman was as thin as a ghost, but still could tell that she should look pretty, her eyes were deep-set, but in such a deep winter but only wearing a single coat, wrapped in an old scarf.
When she saw Zhu Yanshu, she immediately bent down and knelt on the ground and kowtowed.
She kowtowed one, and then another.
She kowtowed several times.
She said, “Kind lady, give me two dollars so that I can buy a mouth to eat, I have not eaten a bite for half a month.”
Zhu Yanshu was startled, thought for a moment, and said, “You stand at the bottom, don’t go up the steps. I’ll go look for it, you wait.”
With that, she closed the door.
The world was bad, and she could not be careless. But again, this woman was really pitiful.
Zhu Yanshu went to get a dollar, wrapped half a box of crackers, thinking that she didn’t want the clothes anyway, and found another coat, holding these many things before going to open the door again, but this woman had already disappeared.
Zhu Yanshu thought she couldn’t wait to leave, holding things outside the door for a while, and then went to the street to look around, did not find the talent lost back.
When Zhang Ma came back with someone, she even told Zhang Ma, “Alas, maybe she thought I left without giving her anything, I should have told her to come in and wait.”
Zhang Ma brought back a big sister, the family lives not far outside the French Concession, people do not look very old, twenty-something years old, tall and strong, it seems to be able to do the work of strength.
This big sister does not recognize life, especially love to talk.
Zhang Ma said, “I want to find people can not find here ah, to go outside to find, the results have not gone out to see her, she came up to ask me if I want to find people, see I do not believe her, but also led me to her home to see.”
Zhang Ma went to this big sister’s home to see before she was relieved to hire her, and agreed that she would work for a dollar and a half a month, with food and shelter but no clothes.
The elder sister’s family name was Gao, and she said with a smile, “I used to work as a servant in the French Concession, and I earned a lot of money then, and I alone was worth the money earned by my father and my mother. With the money I got back, my brother and I were able to go to school, and the family didn’t lack food or drink. It’s just a pity that these good times didn’t last for a few years.”
According to Sister Gao, she knows half of the foreigners in this French Concession, as she has worked in at least ten of them.
“But it’s always not long. These foreigners, they don’t move and go back. If you want to say they didn’t make any money, it seems like some of them did, and some lost money,”
Big Sister Gao worked especially well, and as soon as she arrived she mopped the floor that had been soiled by carrying the luggage, wet once and dry twice, and the floor was as clean as a mirror could be.
Then she went back to cooking.
Su Chunjun had sent them all the grain stored in Zhujia Lou, just for fear that they would have no place to buy food.
As for the Zhu Family Building, with him there wouldn’t be no food to eat.
Zhang Ma had filled two cups of rice from the warehouse, and took salt and sugar and other seasonings, as well as a few canned goods, to make food with Big Sister Gao.
When Gao Da Sister saw the canned goods, she knew that this family must have a doorway, and immediately became even more solicitous.
She grabbed the work, so Zhang Ma had nothing to do, but Zhang Ma was afraid of her stealing food, so she stayed in the kitchen with a green onion and peeled it slowly, staring at Big Sister Gao cooking.
Gao Da Sister’s cooking couldn’t be said to be good, but it couldn’t be said to be bad either. Because there wasn’t much to do in the first place. Steam the rice, pour out the canned food and heat it up.
Big Sister Gao cut up a whole piece of lunch meat and kept gagging as she did so.
This piece of luncheon meat would make three dishes and a soup, but now no one would complain.
The finished dishes were first put in the pot to renew the fire.
Big Sister Gao couldn’t help but ask, “When is dinner? Madam should be hungry already, right?”
Zhang Ma: “The master has gone out, and we have to wait for the master to return.”
She pulls Big Sister Gao out of the kitchen.
Zhu Yanshu is still thinking about the woman in the morning and has been uneasy, especially since that woman is so frighteningly thin that she probably really hasn’t eaten for half a month.
She wanted to go out and look for it, if the person starved to death somewhere, then her conscience would have to be uneasy.
When Big Sister Gao heard Zhu Yanshu talk about that woman, she immediately said, “Ma’am, tell me a little bit about her, I might recognize her.”
Zhu Yanshu described, the woman is not very old, twenty-four-five or so, round forehead, eyebrows thin, eyes big, nose is very small, mouth is cherry, wearing a reddish-red cheongsam, collar and cuffs have a small black lace, draped in a shawl is silver-white.
Zhu Yanshu: “The shawl was embroidered with flowers in silver thread. It’s just that it’s already too old, the silver threads are all taut and tattered.”
Big Sister Gao slapped her thigh and said, “Oops, ma’am, I really know this person! She’s the Frenchman’s wife.”
Zhang Ma: “Yo, you really know.”
Big Sister Gao said proudly, “Of course I know. She’s actually the Frenchman’s mistress over here, just like an outside wife. In the past, she used to hold a ball until dawn every day, and when she held a ball, she would invite a lot of subordinates to cook, and she also looked for me, and I went to help wash clothes and take out the garbage.”
Zhu Yanshu: “So the French don’t want her when they go back? Does she still live here?”
Big Sister Gao shook her head, “She doesn’t live here. Ma’am, she was kicked out by the French a long time ago, because she was broken from smoking opium, so the French didn’t want her. Ma’am, you mustn’t believe her. She always comes to this area to knock on doors, because there are many rich people in this area, she can ask for money when she knocks on a door, if she meets a man, she will even sell it, and when she gets the money, she will go to buy big cigarettes to smoke.”
Zhu Yan Shu was stunned, sighed heavily, no longer mention this woman.
After waiting for another forty minutes or so, Prof. Dai finally came back.
Hearing the car ringing outside the door, Zhu Yanshu hurriedly opened the door and walked out, smiling to greet the guest.
Professor Dai parked the car, came down and opened the door to help Principal Tang’s wife get off, there was also a woman in her forties holding a bag and carrying a suitcase following behind.
Professor Dai introduced: “This is Mrs. Tang, this is Mrs. Tang. This is my wife, and this is my great aunt.”
He pointed at Zhang Ma.
Zhang Ma was stunned, the smile that just hung on her face couldn’t hang on a bit, thinking that it’s really not a family that doesn’t enter a family, look at this mouth, how good at making up ah.
Zhu Yanshu held Zhang Ma: “Welcome, welcome, great aunt, look, there are two more people in the family, this can be more lively.”
Zhang Ma: “Yes, yes.”
When Zhang Ma became a great aunt, she didn’t have to work.
Luckily, there was Big Sister Gao, plus another Tang Ma, the two of them worked together, it was considered that neither side suffered.
The meal was already prepared, and bringing it out was just filling the room with fragrance.
Mrs. Tang is an old-fashioned woman, on behalf of the professor very knowingly go to another house to eat, by Zhu Yanshu and Zhang Ma as a companion.
After the meal, Mrs. Tang went to rest.
Prof. Dai also dragged Zhu Yanshu to take a rest.
Only Mrs. Zhang, Mrs. Tang and Big Sister Gao were left, the three of them gathered in the kitchen to clean up and talk at the same time, it was very lively.
Zhang Ma took two plates and quit, taking melon seeds to get high.
Tang Ma was also very talkative, probably with Mrs. Tang did not dare to talk too much, but now that she met Gao Da Sister and Zhang Ma, she was not going to talk a lot.
She said, “On our way here, we also encountered an unfortunate incident! A woman collapsed on the side of the road, our wife is kind-hearted, Professor Dai is also a good person, not afraid of this is a hijacker, so stop and go down to see, you guess what?”
Big Sister Gao was very cuddly and hurriedly asked, “What happened?”
Zhang Ma also pricked up her ears to listen.
Tang Ma: “The person is gone! Alas, you said that this person was gone halfway, and her family didn’t know, so even if we wanted to do a good deed with good intentions, where could we go to find her family for her? It made our wife shed two tears. On behalf of the professor to move her to the side of the road, so as not to let the car to run over. Alas!”