Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Republic of China Trainee (3)

This was the third time Yu Manyi had come to Song Qi's residence, the second time to his current apartment. Her fear of the streets eased the moment Song Qi brought her through the apartment door, leaving only the cold sweat on her body as a reminder of her earlier anxiety.

They were not with many people. Jiang Yu's school was quite a distance from the street where Song Qi lived. She was supported by him from behind, led into the elevator, and by the time she regained her senses, she was already sitting in the same chair she had sat in during her previous visit.

He poured her another glass of water. Yu Manyi stared at the water in the glass as it slowly rose to the rim, the sound of water pouring also shifting, becoming muffled.

Her heart gradually began to calm down.

She reached for the glass, her fingers still trembling, but she did her best to steady it. Seeing her uneasy, Song Qi tentatively asked, "Did you say something, fire?"

Yu Manyi almost dropped the glass, but quickly raised her other hand to steady it. She stared at the slightly trembling surface of the water, realizing that she had almost let something slip.

"No, no fire," she clumsily corrected herself. "It has nothing to do with fire."

She focused completely on the water’s surface, while Song Qi was watching her. His gaze shifted from full concern to one with a hint of observation.

Had she really just run away from the Yu family? Coming to Shanghai alone from Shaoxing, it had been a huge deal for the former Yu Manyi. But for the current her, it seemed like nothing now.

The Yu Manyi who had babbled everything to him in the cellar was no longer the same. She had begun to consciously hide parts of herself.

She drank a few more sips of water, finally calming down, and then explained to Song Qi in a broken manner: "I... I came out of Principal Jiang's office, I got the registration form, I went to eat wontons... I saw someone from Liu Fengyan's side..."

"Liu Fengyan is?"

"He’s the one who drove Sister You to death," the name was the source of Yu Manyi's fear, and she became a little agitated again. "He gave the You family a betrothal gift, then Sister You died... and he came to propose to the Yu family. As a result, I ran away. He was furious, hired people to search for me, and I ran into them..."Song Qi patiently listened to her, just like when he returned to the You family that day. It seemed that rambling was the fundamental way Yu Manyi communicated at her core, something she could not change no matter how she evolved. When she became anxious, she simply couldn’t speak in a clear, organized manner.

Song Qi didn’t understand why he had so much patience listening to Yu Manyi. He always considered himself lacking patience. He tried to use his own rationality to transform her emotional words into simple factual statements, then verified them with her through questions.

"Did Liu Fengyan’s people see you at the hostel in Shanghai?"

"No, I ran away."

"The hostel owner..."

"He promised me. He said he hadn’t seen me."

Song Qi felt some relief. Yu Manyi's lack of logic was only reflected in her language, but when it came to action, she was very organized. This was good; she was hard to be driven by reason, but in the panic and confusion, she managed to move forward without leaving a trace—truly a miraculous remnant of feudalism.

In contrast, Song Qi believed he was slightly inferior, as he had to deliberately engage his reason to think things through.

"You mentioned earlier that the little postman helped you prepare a boat. Could it be that he revealed your whereabouts?"

"No," Yu Manyi replied firmly, "He specifically told me not to tell him where I was going. He said that way he wouldn't know and wouldn't have to lie. He only knew that I took a boat to Hangzhou."

Song Qi nodded.

"Since no one knows you’re in Shanghai, that means Liu Fengyan is just casting a net in southern cities. You've been here for quite a while, so they must have first searched around Hangzhou. When they couldn’t find you, they came to Shanghai. As long as you stay hidden for a while, they’ll naturally move on to other cities."

His reasoning made sense, and Yu Manyi’s heart, which had been pounding wildly, began to settle down. She thought for a moment, then asked, "Do you think he will call the police to look for me?""Perhaps they'll report it in Shaoxing," Song Qi said. "But unfortunately, every city has its own chaos now, and the government only wants to clean up its own doorstep. Unless it makes the newspapers like it did last time with me, it's hard for a case from one place to make waves in another."

"Will he report it in Shanghai?"

"There's that possibility. But the situation in Shanghai is different from other cities. Right now, we’re in the French Concession, and each police station has its own jurisdiction. It's hard for matters outside the concession to make their way in, let alone something from Shaoxing."

Yu Manyi listened intently to his analysis, and finally, she was able to steady her hands and take a large sip of water.

"That's why I said you shouldn't look for work outside the concession," Song Qi continued. "Now there’s another reason not to go."

"I won’t go outside," Yu Manyi remembered the registration form and quickly retrieved it from the table, pushing it over to him. "I went to find Jiang Yu. She told me to take this exam. If I pass, I can become a trainee at the Commercial Press’s illustration department... Ah!"

She had just steadied herself, but then she raised her head, conflicted. "You said I just need to hide for a while, but I need to register in three days and take the exam in seven. What if I run into... and there's the public notice..."

"I can help you with the registration, but the exam and the public notice..."

Song Qi tapped his fingers on the table, once again avoiding being led by Yu Manyi's words, and used logic to untangle things from the beginning.

"Actually, I wanted to ask you last time," he said. "When you left the Yu family, did you bring any formal identification? When you're looking for those jobs, don't they ask for this?"

"I don’t have any identification, I never have," Yu Manyi said. "I just told them, we're country girls, we were born without official proof. They all accepted it. Many people who come from other places to work don’t have identification either."

She was really like a person who had jumped out from the cracks in the rocks, shattering Song Qi's orderly view of the world. This land was so vast, and behind Yu Manyi was the real China of 1929, while the urbanized and well-structured Shanghai was just a narrow exception within it.

Song Qi reorganized his thoughts and quickly pulled himself together. He continued, "So you're a person without identity. As long as you find the right connections, you can become anyone."

What does 'connections' mean? Yu Manyi didn’t understand. But she corrected him:"It's not that anyone can do it. My diploma says Yu Manyi. I can't become someone else, otherwise, the diploma would be invalid. It's the only thing I have that’s useful."

"Yu Manyi is a Chinese name," Song Qi's thoughts clicked, and his mind began to race. As he spoke, he continued, "I can make you a foreign identity, create a fake passport. As long as the embassy doesn’t catch you for verification and you don’t use it for border crossings, you can easily pass off any place where your name is required."

...What is he talking about!

Yu Manyi really wanted to know what had happened in the year they had been apart. How had she set the Yu family on fire with a single spark, and then fled hundreds of miles overnight? And here Song Qi was, speaking as if making a fake identity was second nature to him—like he had done it many times before. Not to mention, he was talking about a foreign identity!

What kind of lawless outlaws were they?!

"...You just pretend to be a Chinese-American who grew up abroad," Song Qi continued, getting into the groove. "You can use the name Yu Manyi privately with familiar people, but for registration, check-ins, and hotel stays, use the name on your foreign documents. It’ll all make sense. Especially with some of the lackeys in the concession working for foreigners, they idolize the West. When they see your foreign documents, they probably won’t even bother checking you thoroughly..."

"The most crucial point," Song Qi's tone shifted.

"Those policemen already have my family relations figured out. If the family needs to add someone, fabricating an identity from abroad is the hardest for them to trace."

...Wait.

Yu Manyi’s neck stiffened, and she slowly turned her head to look at Song Qi. It seemed like she had finally regained her sense of reason. She had been so scared by Liu Fengyan that it took her this long to think clearly.

"What kind of identity would be most suitable?" Song Qi pondered aloud, stroking his chin, "…A well-educated lady who studied abroad and her destitute husband?"