1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Mr. Wang is a basketball player, but Zhou Yan didn't consider sports at all when choosing a gift.

It's usually a good idea to give a man a pen as a gift.

On the contrary, it is difficult to give outstanding sports equipment.

Wang Yaohuang naturally liked the pen, but since it was their first meeting, he still declined, "It's such a valuable pen to collect, it's hard for me to take it away from you."

Before Zhou Yan could say anything, Wang Zuxian stuffed the pencil case into her father's arms, "Dad, just accept it. Zhou Yan picked it very carefully. You want him to take it back."

"Okay, okay, just accept Zhou Yan's gift." Mother Wang also helped.

"Okay, then I'll accept it."

Zhou Yan smiled and took out the gifts prepared for Wang Zuxian’s grandparents.

He first opened the box he had given to his grandmother. Inside was a Hetian jade plaque, the color of mutton fat and in very good condition. It was engraved with the traditional auspicious pattern of dragon and phoenix.

The old man knew what was worth, and he could tell at a glance that the jade token was very valuable, and he quickly said, "This is too precious."

"As long as you like it, everything is worth it. I have always said that I would come to your house to meet everyone, but I was delayed by some things, so I came so late. I hope grandma won't blame me."

"It's good that you can come. How could we blame you? It's just that this gift...Okay, I'll accept it. In fact, we are already very happy that you can come to our home."

Grandma closed the box that contained the jade token, pointed to the big box next to it and asked Zhou Yan, "What is this?"

"This is for Grandpa."

Zhou Yan carefully opened the big box, which contained two short scrolls and a longer scroll.

"Is it calligraphy or painting?" Wang Guofan asked.

Zhou Yan nodded, "It's a deputy director."

"Who wrote it?"

Zhou Yan smiled and did not answer. Instead, he carefully opened one of the short scrolls and revealed the words inside.

As soon as the scroll was opened a little, a word was revealed, and Wang Guofan was stunned, "This word..."

Everyone else looked at Wang Guofan in surprise, not understanding why the old man reacted like this. Could it be that this calligraphy had a great origin and was written by some famous calligrapher?
There were not many people in their family who understood calligraphy and painting. By the time of Wang Yaohuang's generation, the family had changed from a scholarly family to a sports family. They did not usually study calligraphy and painting.

Not to mention ordinary calligraphers, even if the calligraphy of Ou, Yan, Liu and Zhao were placed in front of them, they might not be able to recognize it.

Zhou Yan continued to unfold it, and when the third word came out, Wang Guofan became even more excited.

He was not quite sure just now, but now after seeing the first three words and the small words on the top, he can be sure that these are the words of his father Wang Renfeng.

But this time he didn't say anything, but waited quietly for Zhou Yan to unfold the entire scroll.

Wang Zupei came over and read the couplet, "The wonderful village is..."

After that, he didn't recognize anything and could only scratch his head awkwardly.

Wang Guofan smiled and said, "It's a rare talent who has amazing ideas."

Then he said to Zhou Yan, "Please open the other short scroll."

Zhou Yan nodded and slowly opened another short scroll.

"A good horse that breaks away from the stable will eventually become separated from the rest of the group." The old man read out the words of the second line again.

Then he pointed to the inscription and asked, "Do you recognize these words?"

Everyone stretched their heads to look.

When they saw the first two words, they were all confused because they were written very sloppily and they couldn't tell what they meant at all.

But the third word is easy.

Although the third character was not written very clearly, it was easy to recognize because the character itself was simple. It was "王", a character they saw every day.

When it came to the fourth word, there were some problems again.

The fourth character also looks simple, but it is hard to recognize what it is. It looks like Hong, Jiang, Xian, or possibly Ren or Ren.

Although the fifth character is difficult to recognize, you can vaguely see that it is the word "feng".

Wang Yaohuang's eyes suddenly widened, "Isn't this grandpa's name?"

"That's right." Wang Guofan smiled and nodded. "The first two characters are Huishi, which is your grandfather's pseudonym. The two seals printed below are also your grandfather's. This is written by your grandfather."

When they heard that the words were written by Wang Renfeng, everyone's expressions became dull, even Joey Wong was no exception.

She only knew that Zhou Yan had prepared a calligraphy piece as a gift for her grandfather, but because it was a collection, it was inconvenient to open, so she didn't look at it.

At that time, she also asked Zhou Yan who wrote it, but Zhou Yan kept it a secret for her.

She never imagined that this calligraphy was actually written by her great-grandfather.

This calligraphy does look a bit old, and is not very well preserved; the paper is yellow and damaged in many places.

Although Wang Renfeng was her great-grandfather, she had not seen many of his calligraphy works, and most of what she had seen before were letters, not such large-scale calligraphy and paintings.

When they came to Taiwan, the circumstances were special after all, so it was naturally impossible for them to bring their great-grandfather's calligraphy with them.

As a result, very few of Wang Renfeng's calligraphy works have survived, especially those with seals. When they went to Shucheng Middle School before, they did see a couplet, but that was the only one.

No one expected that they would see another painting today, and it was the center hall.

Everyone turned their eyes to the remaining scroll in the box.

Feeling everyone's gaze, Zhou Yan opened the remaining long scroll.

The painting in the center is a copy of "Hot Spring Inscription" by Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin. The words are beautiful, and Wang Renfeng's copy is also vivid and elegant.

Wang Renfeng was once hailed as one of the three great calligraphers in Anhui, so his attainments in calligraphy are naturally not low.

Wang Guofan excitedly touched the center hall with his hand. He wanted to touch the words his father wrote with his own hands, but was afraid of damaging the words.

"This this……"

Although the gift was valuable, Wang Guofan could not find any words to refuse it.

This central hall painting can be said to be the largest surviving calligraphy and painting work of his father.

In the end, he only asked, "Where did this calligraphy come from?"

Zhou Yan smiled and replied, "It was collected by Mr. Hang Qingxiao, the chairman of the labor union of Shucheng Middle School."

"Oh, so it's with him." Wang Guofan sighed slightly.

In fact, they went to Shucheng to visit relatives three times, but never saw this central hall painting. Only a couplet was kept in the archives of Shucheng Middle School.

Zhou Yan must have spent money to get this central hall painting, and the price might have been quite high.

After a long pause, Wang Guofan spoke again, "Thank you very much." "Grandpa, you are too kind. I am just returning the property to its original owner."

Wang Guofan nodded, went over personally, carefully collected the three scrolls, and slowly put them into the box.

Then he said to Zhou Yan, "Just sit down, have some tea, and rest for a while."

"I'll go make tea." Joey Wong happily ran to the tea room.

The gift Zhou Yan gave her today was so meaningful and made her proud.

It is said that everything is difficult at the beginning, but Zhou Yan conquered their family the first time he came to their house.

At the same time, she was very grateful in her heart because she knew that it was not easy for Zhou Yan to prepare these gifts.

Other gifts are easy to buy as long as you have money, whether it's a brooch for her mother, a jade pendant for her grandmother, or even a commemorative pen for her father. It's just a matter of spending a little more money.

Only this central hall painting cannot be bought with money, it requires a lot of effort.

Most people can't even think about doing it, let alone get it.

This shows that Zhou Yan really takes this matter to heart.

……

After everyone sat down in the living room, the atmosphere was quite harmonious. Zhou Yan was good at dealing with elders and spoke calmly and appropriately. He was the elders' favorite.

At present, in their opinion, Zhou Yan’s only shortcoming is that he is a few years younger than Joey Wong.

Although he is only three years younger, in their opinion, this is a shortcoming.

Fortunately, Zhou Yan behaved quite calmly, which alleviated many of their concerns.

Since it was their first visit, the Wang family did not "interrogate" Zhou Yan much, but simply asked about the situation of Zhou Yan's family.

Afterwards, they asked Zhou Yan about some work matters. They were very interested in the movie "Time Traveler" which Zhou Yan and Joey Wong were currently filming.

Wang Zupei had seen the news about Zhou Yan and Wang Zuxian's marriage in the newspaper before, and now he also laughed and said, "When I saw the news about your wedding, I was shocked. I thought my younger sister had held a wedding with you without telling her family."

"Brother, what are you talking about? How can I elope with someone?" Joey Wong pouted. She was quite dissatisfied with what her brother said.

"It's mainly because the news was too realistic. I was deceived. But the wedding scene was indeed well decorated. You can learn from it when you get married."

“Otherwise, let’s wait until the movie is released and then go to the cinema to watch it as a family. I’m still very interested in the wedding scene.” Wang Zuan said with a smile.

"Let's not do it." Joey Wong said quickly.

The main reason was that there was a passionate scene in the movie. Although it was not as explicit as in "Green Snake", it always felt awkward when my family went to the cinema to watch the passionate scene between him and Zhou Yan.

Even after acting for so many years, Joey Wong still feels embarrassed.

Seeing Wang Zuxian's reaction, Wang Zuan roughly knew why. There must be some scenes in the movie that are not suitable for children.

"Ahem, it's still a while before the movie is released, let's talk about it then." Mother Wang smiled and asked Zhou Yan, "Zhou Yan, how long do you plan to stay in Taiwan this time? If you have time, stay longer. I heard from Xiaoxian that you've been gaining weight recently, right? Auntie can make you something delicious."

"Thank you, Auntie, but I can't stay in Taipei for a few days. If I'm quick, I'll have to leave tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Although the filming of the movie has been completed, the post-production work has not yet been done. Now the other crew members have returned to Yanjing, and they are waiting for me to return."

"Indeed, you are the director. If you are not here, it will be difficult for others to carry out their work." Mother Wang expressed her understanding.

"Don't worry, Auntie. I'll come here often when I have time. If you have time, you can also go to the mainland to play. You haven't been to Yanjing before, right?"

"Well, when I went to the mainland, I spent most of my time in Hefei and didn't go anywhere else. If I have time, I would like to go back to Jinling to take a look."

"Okay, when you want to go, just tell me and I'll receive you."

Mother Wang waved her hand. "No need. You are so busy in Yanjing that you don't have time to receive us. If I want to go there, I can just ask Xiaoxian to take me there. Hasn't she also been to Jinling?"

Although Wang's mother didn't say anything else, Wang Zuxian lowered her head embarrassedly.

She had secretly gone to Zhou Yan's house alone before, and had eaten at Zhou Yan's grandparents, uncle, and third uncle's house for several days in turn, as if she was going there as a future daughter-in-law.

But she didn't tell her family for such a long time, so her mother Wang was naturally dissatisfied. She even talked about this matter before, saying that she was not thoughtful enough.

"It's okay. I have to go home anyway. Xiaoxian has been to Jinling before, but I'm more familiar with it."

Mother Wang nodded with a smile, "Okay."

……

When it was time to eat, Wang Yaohuang took out two bottles of wine and asked Zhou Yan, "Zhou Yan, how much can you drink?"

Zhou Yan said modestly, "I can drink a little."

Hearing this answer, Wang Yaohuang smiled and took out two bottles of wine from the cabinet.

Wang Zupei laughed and said, "Those who say they can drink a little generally have a good alcohol tolerance."

"Uh...I can really only drink a little."

"Haha, then we'll just drink a little."

The men in the Wang family can drink a lot, after all, they are in good physical condition.

Although there is no necessary correlation between alcohol tolerance and body shape, tall people are more likely to have a high alcohol tolerance.

However, their alcohol tolerance was still within Zhou Yan's ability to handle.

The table finished four bottles of wine and were basically full.

If we stop at this point, everyone will be in good shape, but if we continue drinking, someone will definitely get drunk.

The two elders left the battle first, leaving the three younger ones to continue.

Wang Zupei was a little drunk and took out another bottle. "Come on, let's divide this bottle among the three of us."

Joey Wong next to her tried to stop him, but she couldn't.

The two brothers had a very good understanding of each other. The second brother, Wang Zuan, blocked the younger sister, and then Wang Zupei poured wine for Zhou Yan.

Zhou Yan was actually a little dizzy at this time, but Wang Zupei was so enthusiastic that he finally let Wang Zupei pour the wine into his cup.

This glass of wine is less than two taels, and the three of them need to pour it at least twice to finish the bottle of wine.

Zhou Yan was worrying that if the whole bottle of wine was divided, he would probably pass out too. So after finishing a glass of wine, Wang Zupei was the first to give in and ran to the toilet to vomit.

Wang Zuan didn't hold on for long and followed after a while.

Seeing her two brothers going to the toilet one after the other, Joey Wong rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, "Fortunately there are many toilets at home, otherwise the eldest and second brothers would have to wait in line."

Zhou Yan also breathed a sigh of relief. After finishing this glass of wine, if he drank any more, he would really be in trouble.

He could also feel his stomach churning, but fortunately he could still hold on. (End of this chapter)