Chapter 478
The fireplace burned in her house all day, even in the summer.
Her name was now Julie, not Kim. She didn’t have a last name, either, but had borrowed the letter P from the Duchess’s name.
She’s been a recluse here for five years now.
Five long years.
And she was still alive?
It really surprised her to no end.
She had thought that when she set foot on English soil, she would live for another six months at most and then die.
But her life was unexpectedly long.
So until now she was still alive.
It didn’t look like she was going to die yet.
The fireplace burned, and the house smelled of wood and the crackle of burning firewood.
She remembered the fireplace burning all year round when she still lived in the castle, because it was too cool without it.
Madame said that was not good for women, who should live in warm places.
Madame loved the warmth of France, and she said they had gone to the south of France together for a summer.
She didn’t remember any of it.
But she would like to imagine what a nice summer it would have been.
Time became meaningless.
She no longer remembers dates, and only the darkness and the light of day allow her to understand the flow of time.
But a few days ago, Miss Jade Cicada came with a letter saying that Miss Jade Swallow would be coming for Christmas soon.
She came every year.
It was also her favorite part of the New Year every year.
When Miss Jade Swallow came, she would be on her best behavior for her.
She would love to make Miss Yuyan happy, because when she was happy, she thought – ah, I should be happy too.
It was not often that she was able to experience the emotion of being happy anymore.
It was quiet outside the window, and the neighbors seldom came this way.
The priest had told the neighbors not to bother her, and they took her for someone who was seriously ill, and they avoided her home because they thought it was bad luck.
This was just as well, she didn’t want to interact with these people either, exposure to their gaze always brought back bad memories.
It was obvious to her that she was different from the others.
Like two different kinds.
Like a donkey and a horse, although they looked alike, they were different at first glance.
She was like a horse that couldn’t talk.
There was a knock on the door.
As an afterthought, she remembered that she had just heard human voices and footsteps coming this way.
“Ms. Julie, are you there? It’s me.”
Julie stood up immediately but forgot to answer, she walked quickly through the living room and foyer, opened the door and prepared a stiff smile.
Her mouth froze and she forgot how to speak.
When Miss Julie came into view, Zhu Yuyan held on to her smile and went forward to embrace her gently.
Because Miss Julie had become thinner and more aged, she now looked like a woman in her forties or fifties, with a thin frame, thinning hair with wisps of gray hair mixed in between, and wrinkles already visible on her face.
If it hadn’t been for Daiyu Cicada writing to her and telling her so that she was prepared, she would have been shocked.
But the best thing for Miss Julie right now was not to remind her.
Just do the same as before.
Zhu Yuyan smiled and said, ”I’m going to annoy the church people to death. Julie long time no see ah, the last time we saw each other was in March, I heard Yu Cicada said you were sick once, is it a cold?”
The three women walked inside and the fireplace baked a wave of heat in the living room.
Luckily, it was already late fall.
Zhu Yuyan took off her jacket and wore only a shirt. In the carry bag she was carrying was a specially brought gift.
Zhu Yuyan opened the bag with gusto: “I hope it didn’t break too much. This is the cookies I bought, I bought them at an Italian restaurant, not too many restaurants are open in the city now.”
Of course she didn’t just buy cookies, there was also nut bread, which was very resistant because it was made very dry, she bought as much as she could, half for Dai Yucan and Shi Wuwei, and half for Julie.
There were also chocolates, milk candies, and colorful fruit juice hard candies, which she had packed and brought back from the city, spending a large amount of money.
She shelled out as much as she could.
“And tea. And perfume …… Let me see what else I got, I bought too much.” She couldn’t even remember herself.
The table and couch were soon filled with one gift after another.
“Of course, the most important thing is this, my work. All the novels I translated this year.” Zhu Yuyan hemmed and hawed, placing this gift at the end and saying.
Dai Yuchan exclaimed, “Oh my god, you brought this again!”
Dai Yucan was so angry that she stood up and circled around the room.
Before Zhu Yuyan and Su Chunjun came, Shi Wuwei and her translated novels only some ordinary works, the novels were still dominated by detective novels, this was only to make money and the two of them were very serious, she would also turn over some fairytales, charging only very little money.
As a result, when the young couple came, they actually began to take over the translation of color* novels! The two flipped them fast and well, and soon became the publishing house’s trump card weapon!
You know, although the publication and sale of □□ is not prohibited nowadays, the social climate is still very conservative, and once □□ is discovered, no matter if it is read or collected, it will lead to bad comments.
–Of course, being good at translating such novels would not appear to be of noble character!
Shi Wuwei’s pen name, which he had worked so hard on for several years, fell into disrepute!
Readers also wrote to the publisher in droves, flirting and joking, as well as saying how disappointed they were.
In the end, the publisher publicly claimed that the pen name was backed by a translation company with several highly skilled translators under its command, and only then were they relieved.
Dai Yucan has always been unable to control his own second young lady, in the past, and now she is married, her husband does not care, she then crossed her husband to Yan Yan accusations of virtue, but also seems to be too petty, so I had to forget.
But Yan Yan did not know what to think, even the translated color * novel collection, but also gave her and Julie!
It didn’t matter if she read them – of course she would read them behind Shi Wuwei’s back.
But how could it be given to Ms. Julie as a gift!
How was this a proper gift!
It’s too shameful!
But Yanyan was not happy about it, she always felt that this could make Miss Julie open her mind a little, otherwise she would slowly stiffen up as she sat at home every day and did nothing and had no one to talk to.
On behalf of Yucchan’s previous detective novels she also bought them and gave them to Ms. Julie, using the reason that “this is Yucchan’s work, for you to enjoy”.
Giving a book to a friend is a normal way of socializing with friends. Probably for this reason, Ms. Julie really read the works they sent to her.
This also made Daiyuko no longer worry about what to talk about with Ms. Juri, at least novels would be a good topic.
–At least a novel would be a good topic of conversation. She had once used the village gossip as a topic of conversation, and she really hoped that Miss Julie would not find her too annoying.
So the three friends saw each other again after a few months, and all they did was to sit round the sofa, eating refreshments and reading novels.
Julie didn’t think it was much of a problem, she took well to little *books*, after she first heard Zhu Yuyan talk about how she translated little *books* and how the publishers were literally giving her money for asking to turn the English ones into French and the French ones into English!
She couldn’t help but laugh in her mind.
Even though she hadn’t seen any lady or young lady translating this to make money, but that’s what showed how different Second Miss was.
She was such a different woman.
Everyone thought that what she did was out of the ordinary, but that was exactly how she liked Second Miss!
Second Miss wasn’t a reckless person either, she told her a lot about the choices and ideas of the female protagonists in these novels, some of which she would object to, but more of which she would be in favor of.
“Women are not subservient to men, many of the women in these novels are making their own choices, and while I don’t agree with some of their choices, the fact that they will make different choices is supposed to be an improvement.”
She was right.
She thought.
Reading a *little* book, three readers with even different points of view.
While reading and chatting, Dai Yucan said one after another, “Husbands have mistresses and wives have affairs, these people don’t respect marriage!”
Zhu Yuyan just laughed: “I knew this husband was no good as soon as he appeared on the scene, all he does is talk loudly at the dinner table and boss his wife and children around – I’m sure everyone usually ignores him.”
Julie: “This wife is quite good at home furnishings, everything is in order at home.”
After an hour, Dai Yuchan went back first, she had to go back to cooking.
Zhu Yuyan: “There’s Wuwei and Pure Jun, the two of them are enough, what are you going back for? Don’t go.”
Dai Yucan was serious: “I am the master, how can I let Pure Jun cook? You have a good chat with Ms. Julie and go to the house for dinner together later.”
After saying that, she hurriedly left.
Only the two of them were left in the room.
Zhu Yuyan’s eyes gently skipped over Julie and looked around her living room, smiling, “You’ve collected new decorations, they’re quite pretty.”
Julie: “I received the several frames with porcelain paintings that you sent over, none of them are broken.”
Zhu Yuyan breathed a sigh of relief, “That’s great, when I sent them I was afraid they would be broken.”
If it wasn’t for Julie, she didn’t even know that a noble house like the Duke of England didn’t like gold or other precious things, but liked porcelain.
Not the porcelain from China, which of course they liked.
Rather, it refers to the Englishman’s own system, the porcelain into any of the same home furnishings in the behavior.
Any home furnishing could have china in it.
The first time she came here she noticed that Julie had an unusually large number of porcelain ornaments.
For example, porcelain dolls, beautiful lady on the cabinet, angel statues, Madonna, or placed in the garden to scare away the field mice or fox porcelain dwarfs, porcelain rooster.
Small mirrors with porcelain pictures on the back in brass or enamel. Inlaid porcelain handle of the small fan, small comb, inlaid porcelain jewelry box, and so on.
Julie says that in the old days the Duchess also had a bedstead with a porcelain face.
“Because porcelain is smooth and delicate, like a woman’s skin.” Julie said.
Zhu Yuyan also heard before the British people like Chinese porcelain, but she did not expect to be so like, she used to think it is like tableware or tea set, I did not think it is an all-round like.
Porcelain portraits are also very common – this is after she has seen the world in Julie’s house, and then go outside will be able to recognize some of the second-hand goods that are said to come from a great deal of money, lover’s portraits and what not, hidden in the back of the pocket watch or something.
On second thought it was normal, foreign oil painting studios were such assembly line producers of works, and porcelain paintings were well suited to the assembly line production method, as long as the firing was grasped, no wonder they became so easily popular.
She occasionally saw similar things in London, will buy to give Julie, also sent a few pieces to the generation of jade cicada, her own home has also placed a few pieces.
This fragile, breakable, delicate arrangement fit well with the persona they had pinched for themselves.