Chapter 103 The Republican-Era Young Lady Stops Making a Fuss 14 – He Will Come Back

Song Xuange excitedly set out to make little clothes for the baby, but less than ten minutes after starting, she realized she had overestimated herself.

Even if the clothes were small, they still needed cutting and pattern-making.

And because they were small, there was very little room for error, so what she made came out crooked and lopsided.

She stared at it for a moment, then had to admit that the baby probably would not like it.

It looked awkward enough already. How could it possibly be comfortable to wear?

She decided not to make things hard on herself and called in outside help.

There was a tailor in her family’s own shop, so Song Xuange sent someone to fetch him.

The tailor’s surname was Luo. He was in his forties, and he brought along his daughter Chou’er, originally so it would be convenient to take Song Xuange’s measurements.

Master Luo also brought a hand-drawn catalog of clothing styles.

Some of the designs were genuinely beautiful. The more Song Xuange looked, the more she forgot why she had called the tailor over in the first place.

She ended up discussing her own styles, fabrics, and patterns with Master Luo, and had several outfits cut for herself.

Now that her belly had grown, she needed new clothes made anyway, she thought.

There was nothing wrong with that.

The catalog did not just have women’s clothing, it had men’s styles as well.

Song Xuange simply had several outfits made for He Dusheng too, both long gowns and Western suits. Autumn would be here soon, and he needed new clothes anyway.

She still remembered how, when she had woken up in that little clinic and gone looking for He Dusheng, the white patterned changshan he had been wearing had left her momentarily dazed.

Whenever she thought back on it, the He Dusheng of that day seemed to be standing in the light.

He looked good in white.

This time, all the clothes Song Xuange picked out for him were white or other pale shades.

She also carefully instructed where embroidery should go, what details the buttons should have, and where the collar needed adjusting.

Master Luo noted every point down one by one.

“Miss, do you have Sir’s latest measurements?”

Song Xuange asked, “When was he last measured?”

Master Luo replied, “At the beginning of the year, when we made his spring clothes.”

Song Xuange curled her fingers slightly. It seemed the pads of her fingers on both hands still retained the sensation from last night.

She picked up her teacup and took a sip of water, hiding the sudden flush that rose to her face.

“Just make them according to that. He hasn’t gained or lost weight.”

“Yes.”

After all that bustle, it was finally the little one’s turn.

Master Luo was steady and proper, but Chou’er was lively.

Once Song Xuange learned that despite her young age, Chou’er was already highly skilled with needlework and cutting, she kept Chou’er behind.

Master Luo had brought his daughter along partly so she could show her face before the master’s family. Once he saw that she was only staying to keep Song Xuange company in this little domestic game, he gave a few instructions and left at ease.

Song Xuange took out a pile of fine cotton cloth that Nanny Wen had instructed the maids to wash five or six times, and Chou’er taught her by hand how to cut patterns.

She was not stupid, and after a few tries, the patterns she cut began to look quite decent.

Then Chou’er taught her stitching and how to finish the edges.

Song Xuange’s confidence soared. Looking at a bolt of white satin at hand, she asked Chou’er, “Are adult clothes made the same way as children’s?”

On a sudden whim, she wanted to make a piece of clothing for He Dusheng herself.

She did not dare try making outerwear, but if she just muddled through a set of sleepwear, it should be manageable.

The little garments she had just cut for the baby were all round-collared, slant-front shirts. A style like that should work for sleeping too, right?

“Miss wants to make one for yourself?”

“For Dusheng.” She did not act coy about it at all.

Chou’er said, “If Sir is going to wear it, you’ll need to leave extra room at the shoulders and back.”

Under Chou’er’s guidance, Song Xuange cut several more sets of fabric.

If she ruined one with poor stitching, there would still be replacements.

She was not greedy. As long as she could finish one set before He Dusheng came back from Changzhou, that would be enough.

Thinking about it, he should be happy when he saw the clothes, right?

Just thinking that made her impatient.

Impatient to finish the clothes, impatient for him to come back.

Song Xuange finished sewing the clothes, and even made a pair of cloth slippers by hand as well.

By “by hand,” she meant cutting the fabric according to the shoe pattern, brushing on starch, and layering it into thick thousand-layer soles¹. She used the sewing machine to stitch the soles, then sewed half-finished uppers onto them by hand.

Aside from snapping an entire box of sewing machine needles, and aside from the stitching on the sole patterns looking a little messy, they actually looked fairly good.

Things in Changzhou were perhaps especially troublesome, because He Dusheng still had not returned.

Even the new semester at her school was about to begin.

Given Song Xuange’s physical condition, it was not ideal for her to be walking around campus, so she went to school and applied for a one-year leave of absence. She would return to classes at this time next year.

She had rarely gone out during this period, and this trip was one of the few times she had left home.

On the way back, not far from the residence gate, she spotted a young man crouching by a wall. The moment he saw her car, he lunged forward to block it.

A-Xiang was driving today. He jerked the wheel sharply, and Song Xuange swayed sideways in the back seat.

A-Xiang stopped the car.

“Madam, are you all right?”

Song Xuange shook her head. “See how that man is.”

The young man had not actually been hit.

A-Xiang got out of the car and grabbed the young man by the collar irritably. “If you want to die, go jump into the Huangpu River yourself. Throwing yourself under car wheels, are you in such a hurry to deliver meals to the King of Hell? Since you’re that impatient, I’ll help you out today.”

Then he barked at the gatekeeper who had come out to check after hearing the commotion, “What kind of watch are you keeping? You actually let someone stop Madam’s car. If anything had happened to Madam, your whole family’s lives wouldn’t be enough to pay for it!”

The gatekeeper shrank his neck and dared not answer.

Song Xuange opened the car door.

A-Xiang said, “Madam, don’t get out yet. Let me deal with him first.”

Hearing A-Xiang address the person in the car as “Madam,” the young man also started shouting wildly, his words tumbling over each other.

“Madam, save me.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to die, Madam.”

“Madam, my little sister is dying. Please, have mercy.”

Song Xuange did not get out. Instead, she lowered the window and instructed A-Xiang, “It sounds like something happened. Let him explain.”

A-Xiang flung the young man aside. He was strong, and the young man stumbled back several steps before managing to steady himself.

A-Xiang returned to stand guard beside the car door, his eyes fixed on the young man’s every move like a hawk.

The young man did not make any rash moves. He simply dropped to his knees in the distance and kowtowed to Song Xuange.

“Kind-hearted Madam, please save my sister. She’s dying.”

Song Xuange said, “Get up and speak. Slowly. What’s your name, and what happened to your sister?”

The young man did not rise.

He bent down and knocked his head again. “Madam, this humble one is surnamed Lu, given the lowly name Changgeng. This humble one and my younger sister are both workers at Dexing Cotton Mill.”

Lu Changgeng?

Song Xuange recognized the name.

She cut the young man off and told him to come forward.

A-Xiang: “Madam…”

“It’s fine.”

The young man did not understand why, but he obediently got up and stepped forward anyway.

Song Xuange studied his face.

She was sure now. This really was the Lu Changgeng she knew.

In her previous life, by the time she met Lu Changgeng, he was already a capable attendant at He Dusheng’s side.

From time to time, he would help He Dusheng deliver something to her.

He was honest and upright, and obeyed He Dusheng’s every word without question.

Later, He Dusheng was caught in an attack. Lu Changgeng took a knife for him, and just like that, he was gone.

What she had not known was that Lu Changgeng had originally been a worker at Dexing Cotton Mill.

A-Xiang reminded her worriedly, “Madam?”

Song Xuange came back to herself.

If it had been anyone else, that would be one thing, but this was a man who had once died for He Dusheng.

No matter what it was, she had to step in.

She nodded to Lu Changgeng. “Go on.”

As it turned out, Dexing Cotton Mill was not only behind on its outside debts, it had also gone months without paying its workers. Every day, the mill only provided vegetable gruel and coarse flour buns to keep them from starving.

Even so, the workers did not dare leave. First, if they left, they could forget about ever getting the wages owed to them. Second, it was not easy to get hired by another factory.

So the workers had no choice but to keep laboring at the mill for nothing.

When He Dusheng bought Dexing Cotton Mill, those four hundred thousand silver dollars were enough to cover all its debts and still leave some left over.

Naturally, that included the workers’ wages as well.

The Wang Family had not skimmed off their hard-earned money either.

Up to that point, there had not been any problem.

The problem lay in how the wages were distributed.

This was also Song Xuange’s first time learning that the factory was managed under the Foreman System.

The mill had managers and supervisors. But at the very bottom, the people directly in charge of the workers were the foremen, one by one.

These foremen wielded enormous power.

The workers at Dexing Cotton Mill labored more than ten hours a day, and their monthly wages were only three to five yuan. Even after several months of unpaid wages, each person was owed only a dozen or twenty silver dollars.

But not many workers actually received the full amount in hand.

The foremen were in the habit of fining workers for all sorts of reasons.

The workers were used to it. They were angry, but did not dare speak out.

This time, when wages were issued, the foremen were even harsher.

The factory was in the middle of changing hands, and with a new owner in place, the workers had not been dealt with for the time being. But whether they would continue using the same workers was still uncertain.

The foremen used that as an excuse to demand bribes. The workers feared losing their jobs, so they gritted their teeth and paid. They had no choice. If everyone else paid and only you did not, wouldn’t that single you out? If layoffs came, you would be the obvious one to cut.

And when it came time for the Lu siblings to collect their wages, the foreman tallied things up and declared that not only were the two of them getting nothing, they actually owed the foreman money.

Song Xuange found this novel. Since when did people have to pay out of pocket just to work?

Lu Changgeng said, “My younger sister is delicate and pretty. The foreman wanted to match her to his gambling nephew. My sister refused. From that point on, he made life difficult for us at every turn. A few months ago, before the wages started being withheld, my sister fell ill, and the two of us asked the foreman for one month’s wages in advance. Who would have thought that starting the very next month, the owner would begin withholding wages. My sister and I had no way to pay it back, so the foreman added interest and piled on fines under all kinds of pretexts. In the end, not only did we not get a single cent, we were left owing a huge sum of money.”

Lu Changgeng said indignantly, “I went to the managers and supervisors too, but they could not be bothered with such trivial matters. My sister’s illness has only gotten worse. She can’t even get out of bed now, and she’s waiting on money for medicine to save her life. That’s why I came here to try my luck.”

He knelt again and kowtowed. “Please show mercy, Madam.”

Song Xuange asked him, “From the way you speak, I take it you’ve had some schooling?”

“My father used to work as a bookkeeper for someone, so I learned a few characters from him. After my father died, there was no way to make a living, so I went to work at the mill.”

Now that she understood the whole story, Song Xuange got out of the car and had someone fetch some money.

She counted out one hundred dollars and gave it to Lu Changgeng.

“Take this first for the emergency. I’ll have someone deal with the factory. If it’s not enough to cover your sister’s treatment, come back and find me.”

Lu Changgeng hugged the money and stood there in a daze for a while. He looked at Song Xuange, but could not say a single word.

He banged his head on the ground several times, then turned and ran off.

A-Xiang said, “Madam, should I have someone follow him?”

Song Xuange waved her hand.

After they went inside, Nanny Wen learned about what had happened at the gate.

She slapped her thigh in agitation.

“My young miss, you have no idea how huge a sum one hundred dollars is to people like that. He may look pitiful now, but once a person gets money, even a good person can turn bad. Aren’t you afraid he’ll take the money and run?”

Song Xuange smiled. “Don’t worry. He’ll come back.”

Translator’s Notes