Chapter 12 Chapter Eleven

Eileen Chang wore her hat slantly, held a small bag in her hand, and leaned on the rickshaw. Through her clothes, she experienced the charm of a woman similar to her mother. According to the address provided by Hu Lancheng, the car pulled into a winding alley.After Zhang Ailing paid the money, she looked around. The small houses nearby did not look like a mansion, and her anxiety dissipated immediately. Hu Lancheng was a little restless waiting, he buttoned up his sleeves, picked up a sweater on the sofa and put it on again, a subtle rhythm jumped out of his heart.He felt that he cared too much and was a little pretentious, and he shouldn't even show that he was a little bit prepared.He sat on the sofa and flipped through the newspapers on the coffee table, and felt that even this little action was unnecessary, so he sat quietly in the hall and waited.

When Zhang Ailing walked into Hu Lancheng's house, he hurriedly stood up to greet her, with a strange surprise on his face. What he thought in his mind was completely different from what he said in his mouth: "Ah! Mr. Ailing? Please come in! Please sit down!" He was annoyed that he was slightly flustered, and he couldn't seem to look at the girl openly in his eyes. Perhaps her illustrious family background and noble attire discouraged him. Zhang Ailing came in stepping on the heels of her shoes, and took a quick look. The house was just a small room, and the environment was completely different from what she had imagined, so she just walked in and sat down confidently, as if it was good to wear the wrong clothes.

Hu Lancheng first exchanged a few words of pleasantries to ease the exciting and disharmonious feeling when they first met. Zhang Ailing was completely different from what he thought.He felt a little uneasy, feeling that his small room could hardly contain her, such a well-dressed woman.In order to get rid of this invisible pressure, he smiled apologetically and went to the kitchen to ask his niece Qingyun to bring tea, but he almost knocked over Qingyun's tea tray.Qingyun had never seen Hu Lancheng so reckless before, and when she entered the living room with tea, she found a luxuriously dressed woman sitting there.

Hu Lancheng hurriedly introduced: "This is my niece Qingyun, Mr. Zhang Ailing! She is a very great writer in today's literary world!" Qingyun nodded, invited Zhang Ailing to drink tea, turned around to leave consciously, and couldn't help but sneak a glance back.Zhang Ailing took off the hat, but the hairpin caught the hat and messed up her hair, so she had to take off the hairpin, re-arrange her hair and put on the hairpin again.The serious look on her hair when she was pinching her hair was like a little girl at all, which didn't match her attire as a high society lady.All this fell into Hu Lancheng's eyes, and he began to be a little curious about her, and even found it a little funny: "My room has heating, why don't you take off your coat, so as not to catch a cold when you go out later."

Zhang Ailing actually didn't want to take off this otter fur coat, and said in her mouth: "I don't take it off! It's easier for me to catch cold when I take it off and put it on again." She looked at the teacup, spoke softly, and only occasionally raised her head to look at Hu Lancheng With one glance, a childish smile will suddenly flash across his face to cover up the uneasiness and embarrassment of the stranger. Hu Lancheng asked with concern: "Are you in poor health?" Zhang Ailing shook her head and smiled: "It's not bad, and it's not too good! Minor ailments are common. My aunt said that I was born with sloppy diseases. You can be sloppy and not do many things when you are sick."

Hu Lancheng really wanted to find something to say to her at first, so he could only chatter and ask, "Are you living with your aunt?" Zhang Ailing nodded, amused in his heart that he was looking for something to say.Hu Lancheng asked again: "The one who answered the door yesterday?" Zhang Ailing was afraid of his embarrassment, so she held back her laughter and said, "That's my mother! This made my aunt grit her teeth and get angry again." Already!" Hu Lancheng hurriedly said apologetically: "I'm sorry! I was afraid that I didn't say hello when we met yesterday. I was too reckless yesterday! I'm always like this, I can't hold back, I have to do what I think Go out, or I'm afraid I'll get sick too!" These words naturally revealed Hu Lancheng's eagerness to see her, and Zhang Ailing listened to the undertones, so she smiled, looked at him and asked, "Where did Mr. Hu ask for my address?"

Hu Lancheng said frankly: "Ask Su Qing for what you want, don't blame me, she also asked me to force me to copy it to me. Since I read your masterpiece, I want to meet you, and I want to say hello in person. , Even if it’s the icing on the cake, I feel happy. Later, something happened to me, so I didn’t come to Shanghai until the next year.” At this time, Hu Lancheng was not sure whether Zhang Ailing deserved his praise, so his tone was reserved. Zhang Ailing asked with some hesitation: "That matter... is it over?" Hu Lancheng was surprised that Zhang Ailing knew, so Zhang Ailing told about the fact that she and Su Qing went to Zhou Fohai's house to intercede for him.Hu Lancheng opened his eyes wide and asked, "Is there such a thing? Su Qing didn't tell me!"

Eileen Chang smiled innocently: "She probably thinks that doing good deeds should be done in silence! I must shout!" Hu Lancheng was a little surprised by this incident, and invisibly got closer to Zhang Ailing, and said with some emotional fluctuations: "I must shout when I see a good article. I read yours and thought it was too good, so I pulled the girl next to me. Friends read it, and they also like it, but this is not good, and I have to ask them to go back and recommend relatives and friends to read. I was locked in a cell, and my family sent clothes, books and newspapers, and sent the two issues of "Heaven and Earth" I calmed down in the prison, read it again, and saw more benefits. There was no one in the prison to talk about, so I was in a hurry. Later, I called the jailer and asked him to read it too. Squat by the cell and ask me word for word!"

Zhang Ailing blushed, shook her head slightly and said, "How can there be such a good article? Once you mentioned it, I was anxious to go back and read it again!" Hu Lancheng said seriously: "At least I haven't read it in recent years. I consider myself a diligent person to read. Since Su Dongpo in China, literati have rarely had that kind of innocence, that kind of vision that is equal to the world! We must first develop a discerning eye from there, and then look back at the subtleties of the world, instead of falling headlong into personal depression. I thought that there would be few people with such literary talents in a century or two, but I never expected such a person. The handwriting actually appeared on a female writer. I don’t discriminate against gender, but Su Qing told me that Mr. Zhang Ailing is a woman, which really hit me on the forehead!"

It was the first time Zhang Ailing heard someone read her article like this, and she was a little surprised. It was good to be so confident. She had never done it before, and said with a smile: "I used to feel that people were forced to read my articles, and they were forced to be prostitutes." It’s pretty bad. Hearing what Mr. Hu said, I’m so angry again, it seems like I can use it as a lesson when I go back!” Hu Lancheng saw Zhang Ailing's agility and naughtiness, and could gradually see her original appearance by jumping off her clothes.Zhang Ailing suddenly lowered her head and looked close to her calf, her face was full of annoyance, her glass stockings were worn out.Zhang Ailing didn't shy away from being in front of a stranger, her annoyance was really annoyed, her pity for a pair of glass stockings was on her face.

Hu Lancheng felt another kind of taste from her serious calculation of the most important thing, and asked: "How much should a pair of glass stockings cost?" It was only when he spoke that he felt that his question was a bit provocative, and he could ask a woman like this That must be a very intimate woman.But Zhang Ailing responded honestly, without feeling at all: "This is none of your business, you don't have to pay me!" Hu Lancheng was slightly taken aback, but he didn't mean that.Eileen Chang's pretense and honesty are almost impossible to avoid.The conversation went from unfamiliar to warm, Hu Lancheng smiled secretly, and it was clearly a little girl sitting in front of her. Zhang Ailing's mink fur coat was too much to wear, so she had to take it off, and wrapped her thin body in a phoenix dress with a small round hole in the neckline.Hu Lancheng couldn't help staring at it, and said curiously: "Mr. Zhang's clothes are very special!" When Zhang Ailing heard him talk about the clothes, she was so happy that she hurriedly described: "This is a piece of clothing left by my grandmother." The quilt of the bed was modified by face, designed by my friend Yanying. At first, I was worried that Chen Si would be like rotten grass, and I was afraid that the tailor would not be able to do it! The Shanghai master is really top-notch!" Hearing that it was the clothes that had been altered, Hu Lancheng couldn't imagine it, but he had to continue: "Nowadays everyone blindly admires foreign things, and it's really rare to think of making clothes out of grandmother's quilt!" Zhang Ailing is very happy, she likes her ingenuity, no matter how others look at it, she said with a smile: "This material is an antique, but it looks like Paris!" Chongyang said that she obviously did not support Hu Lancheng. Hu Lancheng turned a corner and said: "That's really a play on Zhang Zhidong's famous saying of 'Chinese learning is for the body, Western learning is for application'!" Eileen Chang did not support his theorizing, and said to herself: "If you think about it this way, it becomes a restriction again! Some materials are still good as they are in China! We have to look at them randomly!" Hu Lancheng nodded as if enlightened and said: "I understand, this is why Mr. Zhang's article is well written. All restrictions can be removed, the theoretical format can be disassembled, and start again, so it is endless!" Zhang Ailing smiled, and Hu Lancheng actually introduced her basic attitude in writing articles from here, and it was accurate and appropriate.But Hu Lancheng grew up, Zhang Ailing took the light, and the lightness naturally came at a good time. Hu Lancheng immediately felt that he was getting bulky, and he was about to be unable to talk. Eileen Chang went on to say: "Restrictions are good sometimes! Boundless is not necessarily a good effort! But I like to live endlessly, old things can also give birth to new meanings, and it doesn't have to be overthrown to create new ones! But some are good, It takes a few generations to see it! People of the same generation may not be bosom friends." The winter sun was about to fall, and Hu Lancheng sent Zhang Ailing out.The two walked side by side without speaking. Occasionally, Hu Lancheng glanced at Zhang Ailing. Her eyes were like a panicked deer, and she was so frightened that she would move away when touched.The silence seemed urgent. Zhang Ailing suddenly took a breath and said, "Ah! Who is roasting sweet potatoes? You don't need to torture me if you want to confess, just bake sweet potatoes!" Hu Lancheng smiled and glanced at Zhang Ailing.He could hardly resist her agility, and he felt an indescribable joy and melancholy.There was a series of thoughts in my heart, but the words came to my mouth like this: "You are so tall, how can this be?" Zhang Ailing was startled, Hu Lancheng protested like this, she should be unhappy, but he spoke so naturally, she could only look at him and smiled embarrassingly, which turned out to be a bit apologetic.But all of a sudden, this sentence suddenly brought the distance between the two people closer, just like the overtone after a string is plucked, the vibrations can't stop.