TCRT_13
Chapter 13: Working Late Into the Night — Don't Go Complaining to Your Family
The night grew thick, and inside the study of Jie Jianshan on the second floor of the west wing, the dim yellow glow of a desk lamp cast light on the silhouettes of a father and son seated around the desk.
The western-style study enclosed by brown wooden walls was spacious and heavy, with a deep darkness that seemed to pour down from the four corners of the room.
"In other words, the Jinling Military Academy wants to invite you to serve as this political instructor. The role mainly involves providing training guidance for soldiers and tactical guidance for officers, with no need for hands-on demonstrations. If you are interested, I will arrange for someone to escort you there."
"Finding a blind man to be an instructor? Isn't that laughable?" A faint smile played at the corners of Jie Yu'an's lips, though his words carried not the slightest trace of emotion.
Jie Jianshan had anticipated he would say this.
"Originally, given your record..." He leaned back against the chair, shaking his head with a grave expression: "Very well, I will write a letter to decline. Treat this as if it never happened.
"Your mother feels the same way. For now, the priority is rest and recovery. As long as you are safe and well..."
.
After leaving the study, with A' You leading the way, Jie Yu'an went for a walk around the garden.
The night was deep and dark, yet to him it was no different from daytime. At most, the evening breeze was cool, requiring nothing more than a jacket draped over his shoulders.
He returned to the room in silence. Pushing open the door, he heard the sound of turning pages, followed by a clear and familiar male voice drifting over from the direction of the window.
"You're back?"
For some reason, the gloom that had settled thickly over Jie Yu'an's heart dissipated somewhat the moment he heard that voice.
He gave a low hum in response and raised his hand slightly, signaling for Huang Youshu to leave and close the door behind him.
"Qiu Wenxin came by today."
He spoke as he walked steadily toward the sofa, his tone flat, carrying no hint of sarcasm.
"I figured. I saw their car when I came back," Ji Qingzhou replied.
He had originally been sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed, sketching out a shirt design for He Lu. Seeing him approach, he closed the notebook and said, "You wash up first tonight. I need to work a bit of overtime. I can use the paper and pens in your study, right?"
He remembered there were quite a few large sheets of white paper in the cabinet of Jie Yu'an's study, and thought to make use of the free time tonight by drafting patterns on that paper first. This would make it easier to lay out and cut the fabric directly once he had it tomorrow, saving quite a bit of time.
But upon hearing this, Jie Yu'an's mood, which had only just begun to lift, turned inexplicably sour.
He sat down on the sofa on his own and said nothing.
"Silence means consent," Ji Qingzhou handled his silence with practiced ease.
With that, he walked into the bathroom and turned on the hot water tap for the bathtub.
Once the hot water was ready and the temperature adjusted, he called out toward the room: "Come in and bathe. I've put your sleeping clothes and soap in the usual place. I'll have A' You come to the room to keep you company in a bit. If anything comes up, just call out to him.
"I might be busy rather late. Once I'm done, if you're still not asleep, I'll read you some more Sherlock Holmes. How does that sound?"
Jie Yu'an gripped his cane and entered the bathroom, still pressing his lips together without a word.
Ji Qingzhou then patiently raised his voice and asked again, right by his ear: "Did you hear me?"
Jie Yu'an frowned slightly, as though bothered by the noise, and said: "I'm blind, not deaf."
Upon hearing this, Ji Qingzhou nearly burst out laughing from sheer exasperation.
He had to complete an entire suit within three days, already pressed for time and under enormous pressure. He had come home and, with all the patience he could muster, attended to this young master's bath, only to be met with snide remarks in return.
At last unable to hold back, he retorted: "I don't think you're blind or deaf at all. I think you've gone mute. Would it kill you to give me a single response?"
"If you keep up this indifferent act and treat everything I say like hot air, I'll..."
Ji Qingzhou glanced at the washstand, turned around, grabbed a tin of tooth powder, and drew out his words in a slow, menacing tone: "I'll add something special to your bathwater every day. Tooth powder today, chamber pot water tomorrow. I'll let you soak to your heart's content!"
Jie Yu'an seemed not to have expected him to come up with such a tactic. He was stunned for two seconds before finally getting out a single line: "You dare?"
Ji Qingzhou let out a scoff. Knowing full well that he couldn't see, he still flipped open the lid and stretched out his arm, making as if to tip it into the bathtub.
"I'm pouring it now, I'm really pouring it——"
"Ji Qingzhou!"
Jie Yu'an's voice was cold and sharp. His lips were pressed tight, and a faint flush had crept over his usually pale and composed face, giving him the look of someone both irritated and utterly at a loss.
After holding his ground in silence for a full ten-some seconds, he turned sideways so his back faced Ji Qingzhou's direction, lowered his voice slightly, and spoke: "I understand."
"Understand what?"
"That what you say is not hot air."
"......" The words were lifted straight from before, yet somehow they sounded so strange coming out like that.
But Ji Qingzhou understood how stubborn this fellow was. Getting him to back down was no easy feat, so he knew to quit while he was ahead. He snapped the tooth powder tin shut, put it back in its place, and said: "Go bathe."
Just as he was about to step out the door, he turned back and added: "This was a gentlemen's dispute between us. Don't go tattling to your family."
With that reminder given, he finally walked out of the bathroom with peace of mind.
Hearing the sound of the door being shut, Jie Yu'an waited a moment longer, until the sound of Ji Qingzhou ringing for Huang Youshu drifted in from outside the door. Only then did he set his cane aside, walk to the edge of the bathtub, and bend down to scoop up a handful of water.
He was just about to smell it for any trace of something off, when he suddenly froze mid-motion. He let the water droplets fall, straightened up, muttered a quiet "childish" under his breath, and then proceeded to undo the buttons of his robe as if nothing had happened.
.
On the other side of the house, in the study, Ji Qingzhou still carried a lingering trace of frustration even as he sat down at the desk, spread open his notebook, and prepared to sketch.
But his emotions came fast and left just as quickly. Once he threw himself seriously into his work, he put everything that had happened before out of his mind.
As he drew the structural design of the suit according to his sketches, he found himself thinking back to his first year after graduation, when, on the recommendation of his mentor, he had gone to intern on Savile Row in London, the sacred ground of the world's finest handmade bespoke tailoring.
During that year of interning, Ji Qingzhou would open his eyes every morning to an endless cycle of drafting patterns, laying out fabric, cutting, and sewing suits. His skills advanced by leaps and bounds, particularly in hand-stitching and in pattern-making and cutting.
The foundational blocks for a suit, the calculation formulas for drafting base patterns, were carved into his mind. He could draw them with his eyes closed.
Later, finding bespoke tailoring work too monotonous, he chose to join the headquarters design team of a fast fashion brand. Yet that one year of haute couture experience had left a profound mark on him all the same.
One could say that the reason he dared to open his own ready-made clothing shop in Shanghai at this time, rather than taking a salaried position as a designer at Yuxiang Fashion Shop, was precisely because that year of high-intensity work had laid a solid foundation for him.
It made him feel that even though he was young, his tailoring craft need not be any lesser than that of seasoned tailors who had been at it for years.
After spending half an hour completing the structural design sketches for the suit and shirt, Ji Qingzhou quickly drafted the base patterns from the drawings, then made adjustments according to the client's measurements.
Time slipped by without notice, and by the time the pattern-making was done, two hours had passed.
He raised his wrist to check the time, folded the patterns and draft sketches neatly, then rose, switched off the light, and walked out of the room.
The Jie mansion was quiet in the dead of night. A few wall sconces dotted the long corridor, lending an even deeper air of stillness to the surroundings and causing Ji Qingzhou to unconsciously lighten his footsteps.
He pushed open the bedroom door, and the light from the chandelier overhead spilled down onto his face.
The heavy velvet curtains at the octagonal window were drawn shut. Jie Yu'an lay on the bed with his back to the door, whether still sulking or not was hard to tell.
Ji Qingzhou closed the bedroom door as quietly as he could, then took his sleeping clothes and went to the bathroom to wash up.
After finishing, he tiptoed over to switch off the chandelier, lay down on the bed, and turned on the tea-red bedside lamp.
Just as he was about to pick up his draft notebook to give it another look and see if anything needed revising, he turned his head and found that Jie Yu'an had at some point rolled over and was now lying flat on his back against the pillow.
His eyes were quietly shut, and his face, freed from its gauze wrappings, was bathed in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, revealing a rare gentleness.
Ji Qingzhou couldn't help leaning in closer, wanting to see whether he had fallen asleep.
He had barely moved a fraction closer, his shadow not yet even reaching the man, when Jie Yu'an spoke: "Not asleep."
"How did you know I was trying to see if you were sleeping?"
"A guess."
In truth, it was because he had caught the scent of honeydew melon drawing ever closer.
"Playing mind games, are we?" Ji Qingzhou turned and picked up the Sherlock Holmes book, flipping it open and asking: "Want a bedtime story?"
Jie Yu'an had habitually been about to ignore the question, but thinking back on that pointless quarrel from a few hours ago, he replied with a single word.
"Read."
"It's too late tonight. Let's just do one chapter," Ji Qingzhou let out a small yawn.
Having been in the Republic era for only a week, he had already settled into a habit of sleeping and waking early. If his eyes weren't closed by ten o'clock, the drowsiness would start creeping in.
Under the combined weight of fatigue and sleepiness, his reading voice came out a little low and hoarse, lacking the expressiveness of before. Words strung into sentences stripped of intonation, not unlike a lullaby being sung.
As Jie Yu'an listened on, his previously fairly clear mind began to blur, and he found himself drifting involuntarily toward sleep.
At some point, rain had started falling outside again. The drops pattered against the windowsill, clattering noisily and disturbing the quiet of the night.
When the chapter was done, Ji Qingzhou closed the book and set it on the bedside table, switched off the lamp, and slid himself under the covers.
Before closing his eyes, he remembered the reminder Jie Linlong had given him at dinner. He hesitated for a moment, then turned his head toward the person beside him and asked quietly:
"Did you want to introduce Qiu Wenxin to me today, but I missed dinner, and that's why you were upset?"
Jie Yu'an had been nearly asleep, but upon hearing his voice, was jolted wide awake again.
After turning the question over in his mind, he answered without a second thought: "Flattering yourself."
Ji Qingzhou turned his head back and was silent for quite a while without responding.
When the expected explosion from the rabbit never came, Jie Yu'an couldn't help but take the initiative and ask: "What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking about how many years a crime of passion would carry under Republic-era law."
"......"
This time it was Jie Yu'an's turn to fall silent.
In the deep of the night, the sound of the light rain grew ever clearer. The silence that had turned awkward spread through the entire room like a contagion.
Just as Jie Yu'an found himself involuntarily pondering an answer to that very question, he suddenly heard a soft laugh from the person beside him.
"Joking. Don't read into it."
Ji Qingzhou pulled the blanket up over his chin and half-buried his face in the covers: "Get some sleep. You have to wake up early with me tomorrow."
"Goodnight, Jie Yuanyuan."
His voice was already trailing off into a murmur, yet when Jie Yu'an heard his own childhood nickname, his heart gave an inexplicable flutter.
His feelings were like a calm lake struck by a single pebble, sending up a ripple that spread slowly outward in widening rings...
.
The following day, Ji Qingzhou made an exception and rose unusually early, running into other members of the Jie household at the breakfast table for the very first time.
It was Monday, and Shen Nanqi had to catch an early train to her school in Suzhou. Seeing Ji Qingzhou appear at the breakfast table, she offered to drop him off at his shop.
Ji Qingzhou figured the detour wasn't far out of the way and agreed without hesitation.
After two days of overcast rain, the morning had finally cleared. The clouds were sparse, the breeze gentle, and the warmth was just right.
Lifted by the mild morning sun, the street scenes glimpsed through the car window looked especially tranquil.
Catching a ride to the entrance of Love Lane, Ji Qingzhou stepped out with his bag and the paper patterns he had made the night before, and said his goodbyes to Shen Nanqi.
After shutting the car door and turning around, he found himself meeting the curious, probing gaze of the barbershop owner.
The barbershop owner, a man by the name of Ge Qingping, stood at his shop entrance with both hands on his hips, watching the Chevrolet sedan drive away. He then shifted his gaze and fixed it squarely on Ji Qingzhou with the look of someone thinking: "I always knew there was more to you, kid."
"Morning, Boss Ge!" Ji Qingzhou flashed a smile and called out a greeting, walking toward his shop door with unhurried steps.
He thought to himself: this was bad. Starting today, his reputation in this lane would probably become that of a rich young man who rides in luxury cars to and from work just to experience ordinary life.
He could only hope that reputation wouldn't affect the trust his customers placed in him.
Facing the morning sun, he unlocked and opened the shop door, hung up the left and right banner curtains, then took a pair of scissors to trim the roses at the entrance that had been knocked down by the rain. And so, a new day's work began.
The main task of the morning was to head to a nearby fabric shop to select and purchase suitable material for making the suit.
As for the shirt fabric, Ji Qingzhou planned to use the white cotton cloth already in stock at the shop.
Time was tight. After buying the fabric, there was pre-treatment work to be done: by spraying water and pressing with an iron, or using steam pre-shrinking, the fabric's shrinkage rate could be reduced. Only after waiting for the fabric to cool and set naturally could cutting begin.
Everything required time.
So upon arriving at the shop, Ji Qingzhou first cut the length of cotton cloth needed for the shirt according to plan. After running a temperature test on a small swatch, he laid the entire piece of cotton flat on the ironing board and pressed it with an even spray of water.
Once ironed dry, he left the fabric where it was to cool naturally, then slung his bag over his shoulder, locked the shop door, and went to the fabric shop to select suiting material.
After spending an hour browsing three fabric shops, Ji Qingzhou finally settled on a deep grey herringbone pure linen for the suit fabric.
Through some back-and-forth bargaining, he purchased eighteen chi* of fabric at one jiao and one fen* per chi.
*t/n; a traditional Chinese unit of length. 1 chi ≈ 33.3 cm, so 18 chi ≈ 6 meters.
*t/n; 1 fen 0.01 yuan.
As for the plain weave cloth used for the shirt, the market price was one jiao per chi. Accounting for shrinkage, twelve chi would need to be prepared for the cutting.
This way, the combined fabric cost for the entire suit came to three yuan, one jiao, and eight fen.
As for supplementary materials such as lining, interfacing, buttons, and thread, he would make do with what was already on hand in the shop, keeping those costs to under one yuan where possible.
This way, the total cost for the entire suit was kept to around four yuan.
When it came to the materials for this suit, Ji Qingzhou had indeed been careful to budget in order not to exceed the client's limit. But that did not mean he had been careless or casual in his selection, simply grabbing whatever was cheapest.
To call the fabric poor quality would be wholly inaccurate. Whether the pure linen or the plain weave cotton, both were natural fibres woven entirely by hand. Put them in the modern era, and they would in fact be exactly what people sought after.
What was more, linen fabric was breathable, durable, cool and crisp, and easy to care for. Its naturally rugged texture was something other fabrics could hardly replicate.
Such material was perfectly suited for a spring and summer suit. How could that be called cutting corners or doing a careless job?
With the fabric purchased, the intense work of making the garment now lay ahead.
A suit involved several hundred intricate steps. There was no way to finish it within daytime working hours alone. Having taken on the job, Ji Qingzhou had already prepared himself for late nights.
Yet working at the shop during the day was work, and looking after Jie Yu'an in the evenings was also work. Weighing the two, Ji Qingzhou had no choice but to find a middle ground and bring home whatever he had not finished during the day.
Next to the steward's room on the ground floor was a small tailor's room, housing a sewing machine used by the servants for mending clothes.
When servants had worn or damaged garments, however, they generally preferred to mend them by hand and rarely used the machine.
The room had sat empty for years. Now, at last, it was being put to use.
And so on the first evening, after drawing Jie Yu'an's bath, Ji Qingzhou went downstairs and worked alone in that little room, pedaling the sewing machine until three in the morning.
On the second evening, while A' You sat in the bedroom reading to Jie Yu'an to pass the time, Ji Qingzhou settled into another sofa, leaning against the backrest as he worked on buttonholes and padstitched the lapels.
Once Jie Yu'an had settled into bed to rest, Ji Qingzhou quietly slipped downstairs again on his own and huddled in the little room, pedaling the sewing machine until three in the morning.
On Wednesday morning, the moment the clock hand reached seven, Ji Qingzhou and Jie Yu'an, who had been made to rise early alongside him, appeared in the dining room, beating even Jie Jianshan and Jie Yuchuan, who were usually the earliest up, by a step.
When the master of the Jie household walked into the dining room with today's edition of "Shenbao*" in hand, passed to him by the steward, he found two silhouettes by the floor-to-ceiling windows: one seated, one standing.
*t/n; Shenbao (申報) was a Chinese-language newspaper published in Shanghai, founded in 1872 and operating until 1949. Over its nearly eight decades in print, it covered a broad range of topics; including news, politics, culture, and commerce, spanning both the late Qing Dynasty and the Republican era.
His son was savoring a Chinese breakfast with slow, measured bites, every movement unhurried and composed.
His "daughter-in-law" held a cup of milk in one hand and a slice of bread in the other, wolfing down the bread between gulps of milk.
Jie Jianshan walked to the dining table in surprise and took his seat. Seeing the scene, he couldn't help but ask with concern: "Such a rush? Why not sit down and eat? I can drop you off on the way."
"I appreciate the kind offer, but it's not on the way. Best not to trouble you."
Ji Qingzhou drained his milk in one go, grabbed his jacket, and had just taken a step forward when he pulled back, turning to remind Jie Yu'an: "I'll be very busy today, so I won't be back for lunch. Have A' You bring you downstairs to eat when the time comes."
Jie Yu'an pressed his lips together in a barely perceptible way and said coolly: "Do as you like."
Jie Yuchuan had just gestured to a maidservant to bring him a Chinese breakfast. Hearing this, he glanced at Jie Yu'an a few times with a complicated expression, seeming on the verge of saying something, but in the end said nothing at all.
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