Red Bean Lives in the Republic of China - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Yu Hongdou’s brother, Yu Chongyi, originally planned to come home to take some files, and he didn’t expect to bump into Yu Hongdou. Seeing his sister walking in a hurry, he knew that she might be late, so he frowned and asked, “Why didn’t you go early?”

Yu Hongdou didn’t want to explain the reason for being late, so she just pushed her bicycle out of the building, saying, “Brother, I’ll go first. By the way, when are you coming home tonight? Mom wants us to deliver something to my uncle’s house.” 

Yu Chongyi, after a little hesitation, handed the sweet-scented osmanthus candy he just bought on the way to Yu Hongdou, took the handlebar, and said, “You are late, and I’m afraid you will meet any accidents on the road. I still have some time today; my brother will take you to school.”

Yu Hongdou was overjoyed; she hurriedly put the sweet-scented osmanthus candy in her trouser pocket and jumped to the back seat. “Okay.”

Mrs. Peng, who was living on the first floor, was sitting on the shelf at the door of their tailor shop, feeding breakfast to her two children. Seeing this situation, she said, smiling, “It’s rare to see such harmonious brothers and sisters. Look at the two villains in our family, who always quarrel from morning to night.” While speaking, she even poked the chubby cheek of the eldest son, A Yuan, causing A Yuan to let out a series of childish grunts of dissatisfaction.

Tailor Peng, who was in his early thirties, came out of the shop and joined the conversation. “Mr. and Mrs. Yu have taught them well.” 

Mr. Peng looked dark and short, while Mrs. Peng looked fair and tall. Mrs. Penga was actually half a head taller than her husband.

Yu Hongdou always felt that one in the couple looked like a white glutinous rice ball and the other looked like a western sesame candy. “Good morning, Mr.Peng,” she said with a smile.

Yu Chongyi waited till his sister sat properly on the bicycle, then greeted the Peng family. Then he stepped on the pedal, and the bicycle rushed out like an arrow.

It would only take a quarter of an hour to reach St. John’s University because their house was not very far from the university.

The siblings galloped against the autumn sun for a while. Yu Hongdou raised her hand to suppress the flying hair and asked her brother, “Brother, do you still remember the time when you borrowed a newspaper from Tailor Peng? Did you find that Wang Meiping?”

“Oh, she… No, she is still missing. Yu Chongyi paused for a moment before remembering who his sister was talking about.

 “Was she kidnapped by the White Party? Did they ask for money from her family?” 

 “Who told you she was kidnapped?” Yu Chongyi asked with a doubt.

 Yu Hongdou shrugged. “I guess. A good living person disappeared so strangely, there must be something.”

Yu Chongyi knew that his sister liked to read such types of news, and she was curious about such things. “In the past few months, we have also caught a lot of demolition parties. After careful questioning, none of them said anything about Ms. Wang Meiping. She was a country girl, and she didn’t have any valuable things with her when she came to Shanghai. If she was kidnapped for money, her family would receive calls from kidnappers. Even we searched all over Shanghai prostitute spots to find out any information about her.”

In fact, in Shanghai, countless people got lost in a year. So it was actually difficult to find their whereabouts. If Wang Meiping didn’t have a well-known uncle in Shanghai, the police would not pay much attention to this case. Wang Meiping’s uncle, Zhou Tongqiang, was a well-known scholar in Shanghai. Although he came from a poor family, he was a brave newspaper article writer. Every time he wrote an article, it was about current problems in the country and about corrupt officials.

 Actually, the chief of the police station was afraid of Zhou Tongqiang’s influence in Shanghai, so he made a special statement to investigate that case carefully.

 They explored every shelter, dance hall, church hospital in the concession, and even the morgues in the suburbs. After several months of searching, they were still at a loss.

 Yu Chongyi didn’t want to show their weakness in front of his sister, so he changed the topic in another direction. “We have searched everywhere but found no news. Women from old-fashioned families like Wang Meiping always run away from their homes to be with their lovers. Maybe she has eloped with someone in pursuit of free love. “

 Yu Hongdou agreed that it was not impossible, despite hearing his brother’s comments as having only a cursory significance. “Where is that big star, Chen Baidie?” she thought about it and asked again. “You are so busy these days. Are you just busy looking for her?” 

Yu Chongyi sighed and said, “Yes. Only a few celebrities have contact with her, and they also don’t know about her whereabouts. After she disappeared, the police department became very busy. Yesterday, the chief ordered us to search an apartment under the name of Chen Baidie in the French Concession. It continued until the middle of the night.

 “Then do you have any clues?”

“No.” Yu Chongyi stopped the bicycle at the gate of St. John’s University. “Here we are. Get down.” 

Yu Hongdou got out of the back seat and looked at her brother’s face. For some reason, she felt that her brother was a little depressed today.

Yu Chongyi whirled around to face his younger sister’s questioning gaze, thought for a moment, then abruptly uttered, “Hongdou, what do you think if your brother changes jobs?” 

Yu Hongdou was stunned. “Changing jobs?”

Yu Chongyi appeared to be speechless and overcome by thoughts. After a while of silence, he finally reached out to touch his sister’s head and said, “Okay, let’s go to class first, and we’ll talk about it later.” 

Yu Hongdou had no choice but to say, “Okay.” She took a few steps forward before turning around and asking her brother, “Brother, do you have a girlfriend? Even if you want to hide it from Mom, please don’t hide it from me.”

 Yu Chongyi ignored his sister’s question, stepped on the pedal, and said, “After class, you go home with your friends. If I have time, I’ll pick you up.”

Yu Hongdou thought while walking. ‘ When my father was alive, he was in the leather goods business, and in order to earn a fortune, he traveled abroad all year round. My brother was ignorant at that time; like a big hollow carrot, he only wanted to play all day long, let alone study. Although he went out with my father to practice a few times, he didn’t gain any business experience.’

Mr. Yu died suddenly, leaving the three alone, and the eldest son in their family grew up overnight to take care of his family.

At that time, the situation in Beijing was not good, and the news in Shanghai was also tight. Their mother was afraid of war, so she simply closed the fur shop and sold off the properties left by Mr. Yu one by one, converting some into cash and the others into gold bars. And slowly, their lives settled down.

Yu Chongyi failed to enter the university, and he didn’t want to be a burden, so he went to visit a good friend of his father and asked him to write a letter of introduction to study at the police academy.

The Shanghai Police Department did not have a strict mechanism in place for selecting new recruits at that time, so Yu Chongyi successfully joined the public service under the Police Department after graduating and became a police officer—a hard-working police officer.

For example, in the case of Wang Meiping, Yu Chongyi deliberately found the missing person notices published by different newspapers to read. It was clear that Yu Chongyi made every attempt to solve the problem, but it was unfortunate that there was no forest by itself, making his labour in vain. Therefore, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he became depressed.

‘However, if my brother stopped working as a policeman, what would he do for a living?’

On the way, Yu Hongdou ran into classmates Gu Yun and Xiao Xichun, exchanged tacit glances with each other, and rushed to the classroom together.

 The classroom was packed because of the reputation of the professor who taught this class. He was called the “Strict Master”, so no one dared to miss the class.

 Professor Yan was a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Culture. He had an amazing photographic memory. Since the first day of the class, he had been able to remember the students’ faces and their names. Since then, there had been no calling names in class, and he just looked at students’ faces to make attendance. If someone missed one class, their grades would be reduced.

 Additionally, it was required that the homework be written in standard script. If there were students who were careless and ineffective, as long as they accumulated three times, they would be immediately disqualified from taking the final test.

 Professor Yan had been ruthless for many years; even if the principal came to intercede, it would be useless.

 Yu Hongdou recognized some strange faces in the classroom as soon as she sat down in the back row. The majority of them were transfer students from other departments at the start of the new semester.

She couldn’t help but cast a few more glances at the female student seated in the middle of the third row; she was lovely and gentle, and her clothing was also quite smartly designed.

“That’s Mr. He Mengmei’s fourth child,” Gu Yun whispered. Gu Yan was born with a small, round face. According to her own account, because her father was the president of a newspaper, she has had a lot of books at home since she was a child. So she had finally become shortsighted and had to become a four-eyed person.

Hearing her friend’s words, Yu Hongdou was startled. ‘What a coincidence! I only saw her brother yesterday and saw his sister today.’

“Additionally, we will have a music instructor from Yuanxin this semester who is well-known for her beauty in Shanghai and has a close relationship with Miss He Si.” Gu Yan stated it again.

 [T/L: “Si” is the Chinese word for “number 4”. Miss He is the fourth child of the He family, so she was called “Miss Four. This has been common in China since ancient times.]

 Before they could talk more, an old man with white hair and a beard walked quickly into the classroom. It was Pro. Yan.

Today he was wearing a crumpled blue mercerized cotton coat with dishevelled silver hair all over his head and had forgotten to button up the buttons under his neck, but it did not damage his majesty at all.

Throwing it on the table, he yelled sadly, “Half of your summer homework is not satisfactory. I don’t know what has happened to you. You must know how hard you have to work. You just completed it for the sake of completing it. For today’s homework, you have to rewrite it again.” Professor Yan yelled as he threw some books on the table. 

With this loud shout, the atmosphere in the classroom instantly dropped to a freezing point.

There was a girl in the front row who seemed to be very timid. When she was startled, she trembled nonstop. After a while, she tilted her body and fell limply, causing a lot of exclamations.

Yu Hongdou hurriedly looked down. She was the daughter of the He family.

Someone said urgently, Student He has the disease that Western medicine calls ‘hypoglycemia’. Which student has sugar? Hurry up and give it to Student He.”

When Pro. Yan yelled for students, he didn’t expect such a thing would happen. Therefore, he couldn’t help raising his voice in a panic. “Who has sugar?” 

When Yu Hongdou remembered her brother had given her sweet-scented osmanthus candies, she stood up and hurried towards Miss He. “I have candy.”

When Yu Hongdou was about to take the candy from her pocket, a group of people came to them.

Among them was a young lady wearing a beaded gray cheongsam. She looked at Miss He and suddenly turned pale with shock. “Fourth sister.” Then she took out a piece of chocolate-like object from the small bag on her wrist, but before she came to the front, Yu Hongdou had already put the osmanthus candy in her hand into Miss He’s mouth.

Miss. He quickly woke up, saw the lady, and said softly, “Sister-in-law.”

End of chapter 3

Have a nice day!