Chapter 69

Wang Wanchuan waited outside to smoke a cigarette, he knocked on the door and went in, Mrs. Jin and Julie Jin have been sitting peacefully in a corner of the hospital room, do not disturb each other, just now the disorder is like a summer dream.

When Mrs. Jin saw Wang Wanchuan, she stood up with her handbag and said, “Ah Chuan, Mrs. Liao will come to the house today, I forgot to tell her when I came out, so I have to rush back now.”

Wang Wanchuan glanced at Jin Juli, and knew that this was Mrs. Jin who had no face to face with her daughter and could only escape. He said, “Good,I will send aunt back.”

Mrs. Jin shook her head and said, “I talked to Ms. Zhu on the phone yesterday, and the second Miss Yang wants to come to visit today, you wait here, help me to entertain them, and also confess for me, saying that I have something to do before I leave, please don’t blame them.”

Wang Wanchuan: “That’s good, I’ll wait here for Ms. Zhu and Second Miss Yang.”

Mrs. Jin hastily gave a brief explanation and left, moving in a hurry, actually forgot to say goodbye to Ms. Jin Juli again.

Jin Juli heard the door gently close, the corner of her mouth gently hooked, revealing a touch of ironic smile.

She looked out the window at the winter scenery, it is nearly spring, this ward narrow window corner can only reflect a palm-sized piece of blue sky, she is day after day greedy to see a never-ending.

At this time, the door rang again, is Wang Wanchuan sent away Mrs. Jin returned.

She heard Wang Wanchuan’s footsteps to the bedside, not waiting for him to say anything “caring” words, suddenly pointed to the window and said: “Cousin, this ward window is so small, is not to prevent people from jumping off the building?”

Wang Wanchuan’s hairs stood up all over his body.

He reflexively looked at the window of the ward, which was narrow and high, indeed it was so small to prevent patients from jumping.

If Jin Juli jumped to her death under his care, then he would also be dead!

He immediately gave a look to the old maids and maids in the hospital room, he must keep a close eye on Jin Juli, never let her out of sight.

He went around to the other side of the bed, bent down and looked at Jin Juli still with bruises on the face, this big lady from back to the Jin family after the body system thousands of favor, usually she coughs are a big thing, his parents have to specially over the house to visit the sick, and now she fell so bad to go to can only be locked in such a small hospital room no one cares about, probably the first time in her life, right.

Thinking of this, Wang Wanchuan’s heart also rose a sigh, which made him want to say a rare heartfelt words.

“Julie, it’s useless for you to fight so hard. Auntie has already made up his mind and will definitely send you to Mr. Yamamoto.” He gave a wink and told the old maids and maids to go out before whispering to Jin Juli, “Something has happened to Auntie’s convoy in Shandong.”

Master Jin’s business was a big one, and he used to make his first pot of gold through the British, so his friendliness to foreigners also made him extraordinarily approachable in front of them compared to other Chinese who regarded them as evil spirits.

Of course, there are more Chinese people who scold him for this, but Master Jin doesn’t care, because those who scold him are ordinary people, and the powerful people like Master Jin who can “communicate inside and outside” very much. When the emperor was still in the Forbidden City, Mr. Kang also wrote a personal letter to the master Jin, hoping that he could help the emperor to do his part to overcome the difficulties of the time, which also greatly boasted a lot of promises of high-ranking officials want to impress the master Jin’s heart.

The letter was handed over to his friends and family when he was drunk. On the one hand, it was to gain face for himself, and on the other hand, it was also because he was so proud of himself that even the emperor wanted to knock on his door, and the Jin family’s lintel was shining brightly.

However, Master Jin never wanted to help the emperor.

He was just a businessman who liked to make money, and he made friends with foreigners because they were good brand names, and both the Qing government and the current government ate them up. He had foreigners as his backing, and all his business was easier than others.

And the emperor can not help him to do business, instead, he also want him to come up with money for the emperor’s spending, for the emperor for nothing, only allowed to give him one or two false name what is the use of it?

In his time, Master Jin did borrow the power of foreigners to make his business bigger.

As a result, it turned out to be like this, the Japanese came to him for trouble, and he could not find any help.

“The British, Portuguese, and French all refused to help him, and now those adults won’t even let him in.” Wang Wanchuan frowned and said, “The Shandong side should have heard the news and thought that Auntie had fallen out with the foreigners, so they intercepted Auntie’s convoy.”

Master Jin is also a good big piece of fat meat, before when no one to do it is okay, now there is a person to do it, everyone is staring at this big fat pig, want to slaughter over a fat year.

The gold masters do business and keep a lot of caravans to and from all over the world. In the past, when there was money and power, people from all over the world gave Master Jin a few points of face, benefits received, no longer looking for trouble. Now, those who see the master seems to lose power, immediately bite up, blatantly robbed the caravan, forcing the master to go to the negotiation, to redeem the caravan and goods.

If Master Jin doesn’t go, then his caravan won’t be able to travel in that part of Shandong anymore.

And if he does, all the terms and conditions negotiated before will not be counted, and will have to be renegotiated. This negotiation, the advantage is all in the hands of the other side, if people go, even life is in the hands of the other side.

“Aunt now have to ignore the caravan, want to first here to pacify the Japanese, and then go to Shandong.” Wang Wanchuan said.

This hurdle of the Jin family is really not good. A bad, than when the Zhu family is even worse, those who are staring at the Jin family will not leave the Jin family any more legacy that can be distributed to future generations.

Jin Juli is not moved, in her ears this may be able to explain the fate she will face, but can not make her relieved.

Wang Wanchuan’s voice was even lower, he looked at Jin Juli and said: “Juli, now the Japanese have the upper hand, so we have to listen to them to send you there. When the Japanese don’t have the upper hand anymore, we can take you back! You just need to wait a few years, just a few years!”

Jinjuri sneered, “Wait a few years?”

She was not asking a question, but a rhetorical question.

But Wang Wanchuan pretended not to understand and nodded, “Right! Just wait a few years! Don’t look at the fact that the Japanese are arrogant as hell right now, and the foreigners are fighting with each other. Right now, Britain is unable to care, when they free up their hands, the Japanese are no match for the British! When England comes back, we’ll be better off. Don’t you want to go back to England? At that time, I’ll beg my aunt to send you back to England, okay?”

Back to England.

This was like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey, even if Jin Juli knew it was fake, her heart was moved.

She smiled miserably, and a line of tears slid down along the corner of her eyes, “Cousin …… big brother, I called you big brother for ten years, do you still want to lie to me at this point?”

Wang Wanchuan’s heart seized up, he softened his voice: “Julie, you believe big brother. Big brother will help you. After this hurdle, big brother begged aunt to bring you back. It’s good that you didn’t marry Yamamoto instead, it will be easier to get you back then!”

Jinjuri laughed silently and flopped down on the quilt, refusing to shed tears in front of this cold-blooded relative.

In the mouth of this cousin of hers, that Japanese treating her as a plaything also became a good thing.

At this time, the old mom knocked on the door, came in and said, “Great Duke, Great Miss, I saw someone coming over, it looks like Ms. Zhu and Second Miss Yang.”

Wang Wanchuan and Jin Juli stopped talking, they each straightened up and quickly gathered their exposed emotions.

The old mom came in to help Jin Juli clean up her crying wet face, she bent down to get the powder box from the cabinet.

Wang Wanchuan took one last look at Jin Juli, he knew he hadn’t convinced her, this little sister was no longer willing to be coaxed by him.

“I’ll go welcome Ms. Zhu and the others.” He said and went out.

Jin Juli didn’t bother with him.

The brother-sister relationship that took ten years to cultivate between them was actually unbearable.

The old maids used the powder puff in the powder box and rubbed it hard, and gently poured it on Jin Juli’s face, covering the tear stains with no trace of shame.

The old maids and maids just wait for Jin Juli, usually do not say a word to her.

For jin juli again organized a hair braid, the old lady only let go.

Jin Juli heard the footsteps in the corridor, one steady, one light. There was also Wang Wanchuan’s voice, he was saying something with his fake face.

The Jin family had to pretend to be all right, just as she had listened upstairs that day, as the people downstairs laughed and laughed, and her own father spoke in a loud, unskilled Japanese voice, and was so fond of that Mr. Yamamoto. Her father said that she “admired” Mr. Yamamoto and was eager to become his disciple and learn Japanese knowledge.

She realized that her father did not want to marry her off to Japan at all, but only wanted to give her to the Japanese, and it did not matter under what name or for what reason.

Her mother came downstairs to take her downstairs, urging her to be polite and attentive to Mr. Yamamoto.

She questioned her like mad.

Are you going to give me away?

To make me a plaything for the Japanese?

She had thought that her use of words was unpleasant enough; she had expected that the humiliation she had inflicted on herself would be rewarded with a drink from her mother. What she didn’t realize was that the truth was even worse than that.

Mother said to her:

–If you serve Mr. Yamamoto well, you can make him happy to take you as his wife.

It seemed that her mother also wanted to teach her how to use womanly means to gain Mr. Yamamoto’s pleasure.

She was so nauseous that she wanted to vomit, her head was spinning, and everything in front of her was like a fake.

She was led out of the room by her mother, and the wide chips and people were in the air underneath the building.

As soon as she walked downstairs, her life was over.

So she pushed her mother away and rolled down the stairs.

Wang Wanchuan gently knocked on the door and opened it, Julie Jin turned around and saw Ms. Yang and Ms. Zhu behind her.

One of Ms. Zhu’s hands was placed on Second Miss Yang’s shoulder.

Wang Wanchuan smiled and said, “Julie, look who came to see you?”

Jin Juli showed a faint smile, “Thank you for coming to visit me, in fact, there is nothing wrong with me, but it’s because my family is uneasy that they let me stay in the hospital for a few more days.”

–How could she tell those unpleasant things to these happy people and let them worry for her?

Jin Juli pretended that everything was fine and said to Second Miss Yang, “Quickly sit next to me. Mrs. Wu, cut some fruits.”

The old maids and maids also moved, one took the snack box in Zhu Yanshu’s hand, one went to wash the fruits.

Wang Wanchuan saw that Jin Juli didn’t talk nonsense, in his heart he also breathed a sigh of relief, he also hoped that Jin Juli would figure it out as soon as possible and stop making a scene, anyway, no matter how much she makes a scene, she can’t escape, in the end she still has to go to Shan Ben’s house. If she behaves herself, Master Jin and Mrs. Jin will be kind to her and give her more dowries.

Wang Wanchuan looked around and laughed, ”How is it decent to have only fruits? I’ll go buy some cakes and cookies. Second Miss sit with Julie for a while longer, I don’t know what you little girls usually like, Julie doesn’t even have much to say to me.”

He wisely went out, wanting to let Jin Juli relax a little more.

The old maids and maids also guarded the door after serving the fruits, keeping the door falsely closed.

Zhu Yanshu watched this scene, and then saw that Miss Jin was about the same age as Yang Yuyan, in her heart, she also more or less pitied her, she got up and walked to the window, leaned on the window and looked out, and gave up all this space to Yang Yuyan and Miss Jin.

She could understand why Yang Yuyan had to come to visit Miss Jin, and she also hoped that this visit would help Yang Yuyan to be stronger.

Behind her back, Miss Jin was still pretending to be peaceful, she smiled softly and said: ”I heard you’re going to college? Why are you so upset? Back then, my family wanted me to go to university, but I failed to get in twice, which was a shame. Luckily, my family didn’t force me to go, so I was relieved. At this point, you’re rather better than me, more upwardly mobile than me.”

Her smile was impeccable, but the scars on her face and the back of her hands didn’t go away so easily.

Yang Yuyan held her hand and looked at the frighteningly large brown scab on the back of her hand.

Miss Jin’s gaze also moved over and said lightly, “The family held a banquet, I drank wine and had to go down the stairs, that’s why I fell, it looked scary, it’s all flesh wounds, now it doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s just itchy.”

Yang Yuyan’s pair of eyes are like mirrors that reflect the human heart.

“Scared?” She asked.

The smile on Jin Juli’s face was fixed, like a painting. Only slowly did the painting come to life and turn back into a human being. Real emotions began to shine through her eyes, and the expression on her face was no longer stiff, or rather, it was even stiffer, because she didn’t know what expression to use to face the words.

Yang Yuyan recalled the moment she jumped off the building, it was actually very long, because her fear lasted for a long, long time, so long that she could think, “Didn’t I say that it was a matter of a moment? Why am I still afraid? Shouldn’t it have been over before the fear?”

Actually it wasn’t.

The fear lasted long, long enough for her to regret it, long enough for her to remember the alternative.

— Instead of jumping off, why not run away from home?

She could have chosen to run away from home then, too.

Why hadn’t she chosen?

Before, she hadn’t dared to think deeply about “why”, but at that time, she didn’t need to worry about her face, her pride, or anything else.

She knew why.

Because she didn’t want to see her parents’ faces again, and she didn’t want to face the fact that they didn’t love her.

Had she run away from home, being underage, her parents would have called the police. If her parents didn’t call the police, the school would. Eventually she would be found by the police.

After she was retrieved, the matter would surely be talked about on a much larger scale.

“Because of what happened in her family ……”

“Her parents don’t care about her ……”

“Her dad has an affair and doesn’t come home ……”

“Her mom always beats people ……”

Running away from home doesn’t even come close to solving it completely, she still has to come back and continue to deal with it all, and it’s digging open the wound once again, blood soaked for the crowd to see and say again as she goes through it all again.

Never.

She never wanted this.

What she wanted was to be completely-unraveled.

But the moment she jumped, it was as if she had suddenly gained infinite courage!

–If you can’t run away from home once, run away again.

–So what if people talk about it? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard it before.

–It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen her parents’ ugly faces before.

And she knew her parents’ weaknesses very, very well!

Father had been impatient for a long time, so he wouldn’t have cared much about her at all. Mother couldn’t wait to make a big deal out of it to make her father lose face, and she’d just be happy to have one more thing to go and argue with him about, and wouldn’t come to care much about her.

So, in fact, her running away from home wouldn’t end up being any worse for her than it is now. Instead, it would make her parents get sick of her and give up on her even sooner.

Her parents didn’t love her, she had known that for a long time.

They hated her, she’d known that for a long time too.

She just needed to deal with the fact that they were all low character scum.

Parents who didn’t deserve to be good enough to set an example for their children. They have no qualms about letting their children see the most disgusting parts of themselves, they don’t care how they look to their children.

And it’s likely that they’re only acting so scummy in the relationship. It’s possible that with a different person, a different marital relationship, a different child, they’d be willing to be nice.

It’s impossible to say.

But it wasn’t her fault, and she wasn’t responsible for their mistakes.

Yang Yuyan said to Jin Juli, “You’re just more unlucky.”

Jin Juli quietly asked back, “Am I more unlucky?”

She could see that Second Miss Yang knew what had happened. Maybe she didn’t understand it that clearly, but she was smart and clever enough to guess.

She remembered the scandalous thing that Second Miss Yang’s father once did, was it this encounter that made Second Miss Yang empathize with her?

Yang Yuyan nodded, “Spreading such parents is just you being more unlucky.”

Jin Juli laughed, she covered her mouth, although she only laughed out a few airy sounds. This laughter came out of nowhere and couldn’t be blocked.

It could have been that Second Miss Yang described it as if the incident was too easy and simple to mention.

She lowered her hand, the corners of her mouth still quirked up.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Julie Kim asked. She wasn’t sure what kind of answer she was expecting, but she knew full well that the little girl in front of her wasn’t going to solve it. And she didn’t really want a light comfort.

Yang Yuyan: “I already had an answer then, didn’t you then?”

Jin Juli slowly shook her head.

She had wanted to die at that time. But she didn’t want to die now, but she couldn’t find a better way than death, so in the end, she might still have to choose to die in order to do so.

Yang Yuyan thought for a moment and said, “There’s no way to compare our situations, I had it much easier than you at the time.” She was able to leave the house at that time, but Jin Juli had no way to go, right? Otherwise she wouldn’t have wanted to run away to England.

Now that I think about it, Jinjuri’s choice in the beginning was to run. It only became like this after she was caught and returned.

Jinjuri shook her head, “No, we’re the same.”

Their mother was divorced in the newspaper, and both of them, mother and daughter, carried a stigma and became outcasts. If it was her, it would be hard for her to be as brave and strong as Ms. Zhu to pull through. That’s why she admired Ms. Zhu’s mother and daughter trio, how well they were living now.

There were people guarding outside, Jin Juli didn’t have the means to talk too much with Ms. Yang, and she also didn’t want to involve Ms. Zhu’s mother and daughter again.

She gently pushed Yang Yuyan’s hand and said, “Thank you for coming to see me.”

This was the first person who had genuinely come to visit her and cared for her since she returned home. Knowing that there were still people who cared about her and were worrying about her made her feel better.

Yang Yuyan knew that this was letting them go.

She didn’t know what had happened to the Jin family, but Zhu Yanshu had made many phone calls at home, and the situation she had inquired about was not optimistic, as if the Jin family had offended the Japanese. She didn’t know what the Jin family was planning to let Jin Juli go for, but it certainly wasn’t anything good.

Poor families sell their children because they don’t have enough to eat, and rich families sell their children when they have enough to eat.

She stood up and Zhu Yanshu also came over from the window, wrapped her up and said to Jin Juli, “Miss Jin, please take care of yourself.”

Jin Juli looked at this mother and daughter pair that made her envious and said, “Thank you for coming to see me, please be careful on your way back.”

The old maids and maids outside the door came in to help see off the guests when they saw the commotion over here.

Yang Yuyan’s feet were stagnant as she stood by the side of Jin Juli’s hospital bed and said her last words, “Ms. Jin, what weaknesses mom and dad have, those who are children know best. When you want to play tricks, it’s the fastest to strike at your parents’ weaknesses.”

The old maids and maids looked at each other when they heard this, thinking that this Second Miss Yang really doesn’t know anything.

Only when Jin Juli was about to laugh, she saw Yang Yuyan’s eyes, that expression seemed to be saying something to her.

Parents’ weakness?

What is the weakness of Master Jin and Mrs. Jin?

It was as if a flash of light crossed her mind.

What were Master Jin and Mrs. Jin’s weaknesses?

How was she going to use their weaknesses to help herself?

That’s what Second Miss Yang wanted to tell her, right?