Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Big Shanghai (Part 2)

The white light was blinding, and at first, Song Qi couldn't make sense of it. Once he regained his bearings, he realized something was terribly wrong. Yu Manyi was clearly angry, and when she was in this state, he couldn't control her.

"Why do you always lie to me!" Yu Manyi's anger grew with each word. "Back in Shaoxing, you left without telling me where you were going. Here in Shanghai, something this big happens, and you just leave me a note—no explanation at all."

"Now even Qi Song is lying to me. I said all those things to his face in front of you, and you just stood there watching, not saying a word!"

"I didn't watch the joke!" Song Qi defended himself, lowering his voice. "Keep it down, the soundproofing in my room is bad—"

"—Bang!"

Before he could finish, a loud knocking came from outside the door.

Both of them went silent.

In the dark, only the flashlight's white light wavered. Song Qi quickly grabbed it and turned it off. Then, the landlord's wife’s voice came from outside, furious.

"All you do is make noise! During the day, you come to make newspapers, and now at night, you’re making noise while trying to sleep! When Song Qi comes back, I’ll have a good talk with him. I rented the place to him alone, not to you guys. Who is this little brat now? Open the door!"

It was eerily quiet in the alley, and it seemed even the neighbors could hear the landlord's roar. Yu Manyi was so frightened that she stopped making any sound and was dragged back to the bedroom by Song Qi.

When the flashlight light vanished, he fumbled around to pull the light cord. With a "click," orange light filled the living room, revealing the mess everywhere.

Song Qi braced himself and opened the door, only to see the landlord's wife’s expression change from anger to surprise, then to even greater dissatisfaction.

"Xiao Song!" she yelled like a lioness, "Didn’t you say you were going to Shaoxing for literacy work? You didn’t report back when you came!""…Yes, I said that."

"Even bringing someone over to stay the night should be reported," she continued questioning. "From the sound, it seems like a female student? You brought a girl back and you—"

At this point, the landlord's wife’s displeased expression was replaced by a hint of curiosity. She leaned her head in to peek inside, noticing that the bedroom door was tightly closed, and a single bedspread was laid out on the living room floor. Her tone softened slightly.

"Well, at least you have some gentlemanly manners," she said. "I’m so annoyed with young people these days. They start dating, and before you know it, they’re in bed together."

The soundproofing in this room was very poor, not to mention the small door to the bedroom. Song Qi’s scalp tightened, and he immediately started explaining to the landlord’s wife, also worried that Yu Manyi would feel embarrassed hearing it: "It’s not dating; she’s just an ordinary classmate."

"Which classmate?" The landlord’s wife tightened the clothes on her shoulders and leaned in, continuing to probe. "There are so many—different hair lengths, heights…"

"Auntie, you shouldn’t say it like that!" Even though Song Qi was skilled at keeping his composure in all kinds of situations, his voice rose now. "They’re all just here to make newspapers, no one stayed overnight!"

"Ah, why are you so nervous? I didn’t say they stayed the night," Auntie rolled her eyes. "You’re in such a rush to explain, huh? Our Xiao Song, keeping himself clean, never brought a woman home. Not even letting me in to clean, right? The female classmate must have heard about that, huh?"

Women are always hard to control, regardless of age, and Song Qi felt powerless—no one could control him. The only thing he could control was the door to his house. With a loud bang, he slammed the door shut, leaving the landlord's wife outside.

"Bring her down for breakfast tomorrow!" The landlord’s wife said as she finally put on her wedge heels and clicked her way down the stairs.

Finally, the house was quiet.

Song Qi let out a long breath and went back to the bedroom door. He placed his hand on the rusty copper doorknob, paused for a moment, and finally turned it, pushing the door open.

The landlord’s arrival had startled Yu Manyi. She was curled up at the head of his bed, hugging her legs, with her shirt draped over them, making her whole body resemble a clock, her long hair spread out, gently resting on her back. Song Qi dragged a chair from beside the bookshelf and sat down weakly by the bed. He noticed that Yu Manyi was wiping away tears while looking down....Why did she scold others and then wipe her own tears here?

"I was wrong," Song Qi said. "At first, I just wanted to hear you talk about the serialization, and then there was never a chance to explain clearly, so I just forgot."

"But it wasn't wrong to this extent."

"Luckily, the landlord’s wife didn’t see it, or she’d definitely think I’m bullying you..."

He placed the flashlight on the table and slowly turned it with his right hand, occasionally glancing at Yu Manyi with his peripheral vision. She was fine when she was angry, but when she cried, it really made him feel helpless. He hated that he could write so many serials but only knew how to focus on the writing itself. When it came to his own life, he thought for a while and then said, "You don't look good when you cry."

"You don't look good!" Yu Manyi retorted, lifting her head.

When she scolded him, Song Qi felt a sense of relief.

Yu Manyi wiped her tears again and finally found the strength to speak.

"Can you stop lying to me?" she said. "Er Ma said that when my dad left, he lied to my mom. She let him go, and he never came back."

Song Qi’s fingers, still turning the flashlight, froze. He slowly withdrew his hand and clenched his fist, placing it on his knee, and answered her softly: "Mm."

"I feel like you're not being honest with me," she said. "The four of you don’t treat me as one of your own."

"No, we don't," Song Qi replied.

"You do. You discuss things outside and think I can't understand. When you're talking, you don't even invite me," she blurted out all those moments of being ignored. "The first time you left without telling me was when you went to find Director He with your teacher."

At this point, Song Qi had nothing more to say."The second time was when you brought in reporters to help me out. Not only did you not tell me, but even Fang Qian didn’t. I appreciate what you did, but I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me beforehand."

Song Qi looked up at Yu Manyi, thought for a moment, and replied, his tone unsure: "I was afraid I wouldn’t handle it well and that you'd be disappointed."

"I’m not afraid of disappointment, but I don’t like being kept in the dark," Yu Manyi said. "You should have told me in advance, I could have helped you with the plan instead of just waiting for you. Like that time in the classroom when we dealt with the You family together—it worked out great, didn’t it?"

Her reasoning was sound, and Song Qi wasn’t the type of person who couldn’t be persuaded. He reached for the flashlight again and began to slowly turn it.

"If there were hidden reasons behind these two incidents," Yu Manyi continued, standing more firmly on the moral high ground, "then this Qi Song situation is different. You’re just plainly lying to me. It’s clear that you’ve gotten used to lying, and because of that, I can’t trust you anymore."

"Don’t," Song Qi said.

"Are you hiding something else from me? You’d better tell me everything today."

"There’s nothing," Song Qi said, his gaze involuntarily darting toward the suit hanging deep in the wardrobe. Luckily, the light in the bedroom was dim, and his eyes barely moved.

Yu Manyi wasn’t easy to fool anymore. She demanded that Song Qi swear an oath, proving that he would never again keep anything from her. Song Qi thought for a moment and told her that his ancestors had suffered greatly from making oaths, and according to family tradition, the Song family could not swear oaths. Yu Manyi was furious. She felt that Song Qi was lying again, but this time, he was lying about his ancestors, and there was no way to verify it.

The two were at a standstill for a moment, and finally, Song Qi came up with a solution. He pulled a sheet of white paper from the drawer.

"How about I give you an IOU?" Song Qi said, unscrewing a fountain pen. He had been away from home for days, and the pen had dried out, so he had to open a bottle of ink. "Your Yu family got started by lending land and money to sharecroppers. Now, I’ll do the same and become your sharecropper."

"What’s wrong with being a sharecropper?" Yu Manyi thought of the laborers who came to her house to deliver grain, their faces cracked from the sun, and their hands rough like millstones.

"What's wrong with being a sharecropper?" Song Qi replied. "We owe our clothes and food to sharecroppers. It’s the working class that has no original sin."

As he said this, he laid the white paper flat and the fountain pen finally filled with ink. Yu Manyi moved her body to the edge of the bed and saw Song Qi using the same handwriting—the one that had once saved him and made her reveal her own secrets—writing on the white paper:I, Song Qi, due to multiple lies told to Yu Manyi and because of objective factors preventing me from making an oath, hereby issue this IOU. When you see this IOU, it is as if you are seeing me in person.

What does he owe her? A sharecropper owes land and grain, a bank owes loans and copper coins. Song Qi lifted the pen tip off the paper, thought for a moment, and said to Yu Manyi: "The rest of the IOU is for you to write. Whatever you write, I will owe you. That way, does it balance out the things I lied to you about?"

As he spoke, he signed his name, picked up the paper from the table, and handed it to Yu Manyi. She lowered her eyes to look, and indeed, the section that should list the debt was completely blank.

"Is there no deadline?" Yu Manyi asked.

"No, I'm just a sharecropper, how could I dare to set a deadline with the landowner?" Song Qi replied.

The words he wrote with the fountain pen were strong and forceful. The wooden table wasn't exactly hard, and the white paper was indented where the pen's tip had pressed into it. Yu Manyi ran her finger over the raised and recessed letters, then looked up and finally spared Song Qi.

"Then I’ll keep it, and when I think of it, I’ll come collect."

"Exchange immediately when it comes," Song Qi said.

The first scene of coming to Shanghai had finally reached its end. Song Qi stood up and pulled the bedroom's light cord. The room was now lit only by the starlight spilling in from outside the door. Yu Manyi listened as his footsteps faded into the hallway, and her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark.

She blinked in the darkness, suddenly jumped off the bed, fumbled out her money pouch that held her tuition fees, and shoved the IOU inside with it.

...

I have sixteen yuan, three yuan from the illustration salary the newspaper just paid, totaling nineteen yuan, which is one yuan more than the tuition fees. The extra yuan would be used to repay Song Qi for the round-trip bus fare.

This calculation was made by Yu Manyi and Song Qi during breakfast. Thinking that her wallet would be emptied today, Yu Manyi’s heart bled. Song Qi, reading the situation, asked her if she wanted to use the IOU, and said she could write any amount. Yu Manyi firmly refused.

Although she came from a landowner family, her eyes were not solely fixed on copper coins. She wanted to save the IOU for a more valuable purpose, but she hadn’t figured out what that purpose was yet.However, this idea of hers made Song Qi uneasy. It must be known that anything that can be exchanged for money is not hard to realize. Since Yu Manyi didn’t want money, Song Qi was very worried that she might want his life instead.

It became clear that the fate of the working class was completely out of their control, while the landowner was born a landowner. Even without production materials, they could still create an IOU out of nothing.

To avoid wasting time, Song Qi didn’t have breakfast in the alley, to prevent being caught and questioned by the landlord’s wife. The two of them finished their wontons early and then went to Ji'an Road, where the correspondence school was located. There were already people in line, and it seemed that Lu Yueting's reputation was indeed widespread, not worrying about a lack of students.

Yu Manyi quickly took her place at the end of the line, then reached into her money pouch, rubbing the back of the silver dollars with her thumb. After giving her a few instructions, Song Qi hailed a rickshaw and went to the Shengbao Bureau where the reporter worked to get her photo.

As soon as Song Qi left, Yu Manyi felt lost.

She rarely traveled alone in Shaoxing, and even when she did, it was to familiar places like the East City. This was her first time in Shanghai, standing alone on a busy street with no one she knew around. She couldn’t help but feel a little nervous... Would someone snatch her money pouch?

As she thought this, she immediately reached for her pouch, clutching the cloth so no one could slip their hand into her pocket.

The line moved forward slightly, and she stepped forward with it. There had been four people ahead of her, but now one had left, and the third person ahead, a woman, leaned forward to ask the staff at the window something.

However, after only a few words, Yu Manyi suddenly heard the employee at the window impatiently shout:

"Really troublesome, really troublesome! I said, can’t our Teacher Lu stop recruiting female students?!"