Volume 1: A sound on Wall Street, Xinxiang City is busy copying books Chapter 290 Christmas Eve (Part 9)
This chapter's subtitle: Yuan Ermos, the expert in pickup art
“As for me…”
Our Master Yuan smiled slightly, took off his hat and bowed, saying: "My surname is Yuan, my given name is Yan Shu, and my cursive name is Hong Jian."
"What?! You are..." Miss Wei Mingzhu would have almost cried out if she hadn't covered her mouth with her hands in time. Her heart was really surging like a raging sea.
Seeing her like this, Yuan Yan suddenly confirmed the identity of this girl. He stood up and said, "Miss Wei, I was so abrupt just now. I'm really sorry. But I'm still very happy to meet you, so..."
Master Yuan put on his hat leisurely and said, "Then I won't bother you anymore."
As he spoke, he really walked towards the side door "without any hesitation", one step, two steps, three steps, four steps, five steps...
Oh no, if you don’t let me stop, I’m really going in.
"Wait a minute, Mr. Yuan. I...well, I want to ask you a question."
As expected by this expert in pickup arts, Wei Mingzhu actually called him out.
Yuan Yan suddenly thought to herself that it would be good to read more online novels. Isn't it always like this in online novels? The male protagonist meets a beautiful woman but ignores her and is very rude to her. The stinky men that this beautiful woman usually meets are all amazed by her beauty. They have never met such a cold man, so they become curious, and this curiosity eventually turns into love.
He turned around slowly and asked with a slightly impatient tone: "Oh, Miss Wei, do you have any advice?"
Miss Wei blushed, lowered her head and asked a little embarrassedly: "Mr. Yuan, how do you know that I am Wei Mingzhu's?"
"Oh, this is what you are asking..." Upon hearing this question, Master Yuan instantly became like Hercules.
He walked back to Wei Mingzhu, pointed at the fur coat she was wearing and said solemnly, "Miss Wei, if I'm not mistaken, this is made of chinchilla fur, right?"
The chinchilla, also known as the North American squirrel, is a rodent native to the Andes Mountains in South America. This rabbit-sized chipmunk looks very much like Totoro in Hayao Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro," so a hundred years later it was called Totoro in China.
Not only are they cute, but their fur is also very suitable for making fur coats, and is recognized as one of the top furs in the world. Therefore, after Europeans arrived in America, they were hunted in large numbers, and became the favorite fur material of European nobles. In 1920, the cute chinchillas were almost on the verge of extinction.
Fortunately, in 1922, an American began to raise chinchillas artificially, which allowed humans to see cute chinchillas outside of cartoons. But even so, a chinchilla fur coat a hundred years later would cost at least $30,000, and it would not be uncommon for a famous designer to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Yuan Yan suddenly said confidently, "The fur coat you are wearing requires at least hundreds of chinchillas to make, and it is exquisitely tailored and elegantly designed. It is really worth its weight in gold. Miss Wei, how many Chinese women in New York do you think can afford such clothes?"
Then he pointed at the two maids and said, "These two sisters both have long braids. I can't help but think that they are the Cantonese women who comb their hair. And he brought two women who comb their hair with him as maids when he went out. I really can't imagine that there are such women in New York."
The so-called "self-combed women" emerged in the late Qing Dynasty and were a special group unique to the Pearl River Delta. According to the "Shunde County Annals", at that time, Shunde's silk industry was developed, and many female workers had considerable incomes and were financially independent. They saw that some sisters were bullied and had low status in their husband's families after getting married, so they were unwilling to be bound by this and would rather remain single for life, thus giving rise to self-combed women. The situation of self-combed women in other areas of the Pearl River Delta was similar to that of Shunde.
In the early years of the Republic of China, the entire Chinese silk industry collapsed, and the self-combed women had no way to make a living. Some of them went to Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to work as "self-combed housemaids", or majie. The maid played by Deanie Yip in "A Simple Life" can also be regarded as a descendant of the self-combed women.
" Hmm..." Wei Mingzhu nodded slightly, but her tone was a little disappointed. "Mr. Yuan, your vision is really sharp. You are worthy of being the writer who can write "Detective Dee"."
“Hehehe…” Our Master Yuan chuckled a few times and shook his head, saying, “This is just an external object, it’s nothing. In fact, after hearing Miss Wei reciting “He Xinlang” and seeing you, Miss Wei, I guessed your origins.”
When Wei Mingzhu heard this, a strange light flashed in her eyes, and she quickly asked, "What do you mean?"
Yuan Yan shrugged and said, "Wang Zhaoming... Well, Wang Jixin wrote this piece of "He Xinlang" in prison after his failed assassination attempt on Zaifeng, the regent of the Qing Dynasty. It was written for your fellow Nanyang native Chen Bijun. This song is sad but not heartbreaking, and it is very simple and silly... Well, it is pure, expressing the ambition to serve the country and the love between men and women. It can be regarded as a contemporary masterpiece."
To be honest, in terms of ancient poetry, among the modern historical figures, only he and the descendant of the demon are worth mentioning. As a time traveler, Master Yuan looked down on his political level and political personality, but he would not give up on this point.
"But why is it that a young lady like you, who is in the prime of life and has a distinguished family background, is reciting this farewell song on this peaceful night? Forgive my abruptness, but I'm afraid it's..."
He smiled wickedly , looked up at the sky and said, "A waning moon is flowing westward. There is no reason not to shed tears for this."
“Pika Pika!”
Of course, the literary young woman could not hear such a lovely warning. She recited this wonderful phrase several times in a daze and couldn't help asking, "Mr. Yuan, did you write this?"
"This..." Our Master Yuan thought to himself that it was terrible, and could only say vaguely: "It's my... well, I just thought of it by chance. I'm not sure whether it was done by the predecessors."
This is certainly not something that was done by our predecessors, but something that will be done by people today and next year.
"No! If it was written by our ancestors, how could such a beautiful sentence not be passed down to the world?" Wei Mingzhu shook her head, looked at him admiringly and said, "It is true that hearing about someone is not as good as meeting him in person. Today, I have witnessed Mr. Yuan's great talent. As expected..."
She sighed and said leisurely, "He is a true gentleman... elegant and graceful."
When Yuan Yan heard her say this, she realized that some people must have reported her because they were jealous of her success, and this marriage was aborted. There are so many boring people in the world.
“Hahaha…” He laughed wildly towards the sky and chanted in a soft voice, “Laughing in the world on Christmas Eve, who is pretending to be crazy and who is genuine. I once whipped a famous horse because I was drunk, for fear that my love would tire the beauty.”
"Master Ball, you haven't said more than twenty words yet!"
