1979: My fiancée is a goddess

Chapter 368: Atonement

"Pap-ta-ta-ta-"

The spring rain is falling gently.

There was a puddle of rainwater on the blue brick floor in the yard, which looked like a mirror at first glance. The withered and yellow sycamore leaves were firmly attached to the ground after being soaked in water, making them wet and slippery when stepped on. If you were not careful, you would fall.

The sloping roof of the courtyard is covered with rough blue-gray tiles. Under the nourishment of rain, the surface of the gray tiles is covered with a thin layer of water sheen.

The rain slid down the roof to both sides, and the eaves covered the windows of the room to some extent. The rain was like broken jade beads, dripping into the ditch which was half full of water, making a crisp sound of water.

"Ding dong..."

"Tuk~"

The sound of rain sounds particularly quiet.

Especially now at seven o'clock in the evening, the sky is dark.

The neighbors have already eaten and returned to their houses to sleep.

The courtyard was particularly deserted, and even gave people a chill down their spine.

Fortunately, there were lights on all around the courtyard, shining brightly through the windows, with a warm yellow glow, which softened the cold and quietness of the rainy night.

A corner of the window was opened, revealing the interior of the house.

Behind a clean and tidy desk.

"call……"

Cheng Kaiyan was sitting on a chair wearing a military coat, writing and drawing with a pen in one hand and thinking quietly with his chin supported by the other hand.

Fresh and moist air is pouring into my nose from the window.

The first rain of spring in Beijing has been falling for several days.

Just like a woman in love, lingering and entangled.

As the saying goes, spring rain is as soft as butter. Cheng Kaiyan felt that this rain was very comfortable.

The originally dry and cold air became much moister and cleaner.

When he breathed in, the air with moisture entering his lungs always gave him a refreshing and moist feeling, making him feel particularly comfortable.

Since returning home from Harbin, Cheng Kaiyan has had a very leisurely life.

No. 10 spent the day with his mother, aunt, and partner.

The next day I went out to buy gifts and snacks and to pay New Year's greetings.

The first stop was the teacher and Aunt Yao Cheng. The whole family was there and they were very happy to see Cheng Kaiyan. The family invited him to have lunch and drink some wine.

After lunch, he went to his aunt's house to wish him a happy new year. He originally wanted to say Happy New Year to his aunt that day, but it got so lively that Cheng Kaiyan forgot about it.

During the New Year's greetings, I made an appointment with Sister Xiaoli to go out on a date and go shopping, because Liu Xiaoli will soon be fully committed to training and striving for the position of the first freshman dancer in the new semester this year, and Cheng Kaiyan will also have to devote her energy to the creation of new works.

The two started in the morning, going shopping in the mall and the park. In the bookstore, Cheng Kaiyan wanted to look for books about the society and customs of the Republic of China to check information, which would be very helpful for the construction of new works.

But unfortunately, no. According to the store clerk, most of these books have been taken off the shelves and cannot be bought in bookstores. You have to go to a public library or a school library to find them.

Cheng Kaiyan had no choice but to give up and make plans later.

In the afternoon, I went to see the movie "Night Rain in Bashan" produced by Shanghai Film Studio. It was a very bold film.

We went to a restaurant in the evening and sent Xiaoli home.

From then on, the two of them went their separate ways and devoted themselves to training and creation.

Cheng Kaiyan was just perfecting the outline.

After a few days of hard work, it has begun to take shape.

This new story combines the deeds of Jiang's uncle and "Atonement", both of which serve as the blueprint for the story.

The title of the book is still "Atonement" and it adopts a three-act structure.

Cheng Kaiyan divided his works into three parts, spanning a period of seventy years.

The first part is the most critical and most contradictory part of the whole text.

There are three lines in total.

1. The emotional line between the male protagonist Jiang Mingzheng and the female protagonist Cao Yanan.

2. The unrequited love story between Jiang Mingzheng and his sister Cao Hanyu.

3. Chen Jianan, a 30-year-old wealthy businessman from Hunan and Hubei who started his business with tung oil and built a cement factory, visited the Cao family in Shanghai with the eldest son of the Cao family.

From then on, the three lines converge and the main story line officially begins.

The story takes place in 1910, two years before the establishment of the Republic of China.

This year, Jiang Mingzheng was born in a county town in Hangzhou. He was a branch of the local prominent family, the Jiang family. His father relied on the Jiang family's ancestral property to become a small manager and lived a good life.

This year, Cao Yanan was born in the Cao family in Shanghai, the eldest daughter of the Cao family head. The name comes from the "Book of Songs·Gufengzhishi·Guzhong" in "Ya Yi Yi Nan, Yi Yue Bu Yi Ugly".

She also has an older brother named Cao Hanwen.

The Cao family is a family of scholars and a prominent family, with five generations of masters being successful in the imperial examinations.

The ancestors of the Cao family can be traced back to Cao Zhi in the Three Kingdoms period, but it was Cao Chuican, the ancestor of the late Ming Dynasty, who brought the Cao family to prosperity.

He was born in the 1614nd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty () and was in his thirties when the Ming Dynasty fell.

But he seemed not to care much about the change of dynasties, and was determined to become an official. So in 1645, the year when the Qing army entered Jiangnan, he passed the provincial examination and won a title. Two years later, he passed the imperial examination and became a county magistrate.

In 1913, Chairman Song Jiaoren was assassinated, the Second Revolution against Yuan Shikai began, and war and chaos began again.

This war was a war between the North and the South, another confrontation between the bourgeoisie and the feudal landlord class, which fully exposed the weakness of the bourgeoisie.

Hangzhou, where the Jiang family lived, naturally also suffered from the war, so the family fell into poverty. Some fled into exile, some migrated, some went to the three northeastern provinces, and some fled to Suzhou, Yangzhou, Shanghai and other places.

Jiang Mingzheng's family fled to Shanghai. Later, because of his family background and decent status, Jiang Mingzheng's father was chosen by the old man of the Cao family and entered the Cao family mansion, where he served as a housekeeper in the garden of Cao's hometown.

In the summer when I was five years old, the Cao family returned to the countryside to escape the heat.

Jiang Mingzheng and the eldest daughter of the Cao family met for the first time in a forest on the back mountain. The two exchanged names, and Jiang Mingzheng blurted out the origin of Cao Yanan's maiden name.

It is exactly what is said in "The Book of Songs·Gufengzhishi·Guzhong" - "With elegance and in the south, with flute and without presumption".

The young eldest daughter of the Cao family never knew the origin of her name, so she went home to ask her mother, and it was exactly as Jiang Mingzheng said.

From then on, the young girl became curious about this boy of the same age.

They met each other every summer after that, and when they started elementary school, they studied together under a tutor.

Jiang Mingzheng showed extraordinary talent for learning.

In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition ended and the Nationalist government established its capital in Nanjing. The golden decade officially began, and both of them were years old at that time.

Miss Cao Yanan is preparing to study abroad, and Jiang Mingzheng feels both reluctant and envious.

After learning about this, the eldest daughter also wanted Jiang Mingzheng to go along, but she knew her father would definitely not agree, so she asked her eldest brother Cao Hanwen for help.

The eldest brother has always admired the learning talent of the housekeeper's son.

However, the most important factor was that he was worried about his sister, a weak woman, living abroad. He thought that having the housekeeper's son serving her would be convenient for his sister to use and could protect her safety.

So the eldest brother agreed. Jiang Mingzheng felt that the eldest master Cao Hanwen admired him very much, and he felt proud and grateful.

The eldest brother asked Mr. Cao for help, and Mr. Cao reluctantly agreed.

In the evening, the master called the father and son of the Jiang family and used both kindness and force to treat them. The father of the Jiang family kowtowed to the master's wife, the eldest son, the eldest daughter monk and others to express his gratitude.

Jiang Ming was watching his father kowtow and thank him, feeling very uncomfortable. The youthful spirit and self-esteem made him stand there with his head down, and it was the first time that he became aware of class.

Fortunately, the master and others were only slightly dissatisfied and did not scold Jiang Mingzheng.

After completing the preparations, Jiang Mingzheng and his eldest daughter are about to go abroad to study. Emotions such as freedom, joy, and anticipation are reflected in their hearts.

In the summer, Jiang Mingzheng and his eldest daughter set off from Shanghai Port on an ocean-going ship of the British Jardine Matheson Company and headed for Europe to study at Cambridge University in the world power of England.

The ship sailed south to Hong Kong for transit, passed through the Strait of Malacca, crossed the Indian Ocean, then went from the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic Ocean, and finally arrived at the Port of London, England.

During their four years of study, they were exposed to the most cutting-edge cultural knowledge, advanced and popular things, the latest records, the latest movies, the most fashionable clothes...

In 1933, the two returned to China from Britain, but they had no place to display their knowledge. Jiang Mingzheng worked as a translator in a newspaper with his fluent spoken English, in order to repay the money he owed to the Cao family for studying abroad.

The following year, Jiang Mingzheng was planning to go to Japan to study medicine. However, due to the five-year medical system and the long distance between the two countries, the two young men had disagreements. Their ignorant and reserved feelings gradually changed at this moment, and they both understood their own feelings.

The eldest brother Cao Hanwen brought Chen Jianan, a wealthy businessman from southern Hunan, to visit his hometown garden, intending to marry and consolidate the Cao family's declining family.

From then on, the gears of fate began to turn.

When Jiang Mingzheng learned about this, he was extremely anxious. In his opinion, the marriage was naturally to his sweetheart Yanan.

He believed that he and Yanan grew up together and were childhood sweethearts.

In addition, after years of companionship, the young lady also likes me, but for any young person who has never had any emotional experience, even if the hint of love is quite obvious, he will still doubt it and cannot be sure.

After all, girls are reserved by nature. How can you let a girl take the initiative in confessing your feelings?
After hesitating for a week, he decided to write a love letter to the eldest daughter, telling her that he loved her madly and to death.

In his passionate emotions, the words he wrote were very explicit and erotic, just like the obscene lyrics and songs in ancient times.

Even though he wrote it himself, he blushed and got excited when he read it, and couldn't help but let his imagination run wild.

After taking a shower that night, he calmed down and rewrote a subtle and elegant love letter.

The next morning, before he returned to the city, he called his second young lady Hanyu, with whom he had lived since childhood, and when the carriage was about to leave, he took out one of the copies and entrusted it to the second young lady, who was about twelve or thirteen years old, to give it to her sister.

Although she was young, the precocious sister naturally understood that this was a love letter.

She also admired Jiang Mingzheng, who had once saved her from the pond. She felt complicated, excited and depressed. She took the letter and ran away.

Jiang Ming was about to leave when his face suddenly changed. He realized that he had given the wrong letter, and hurriedly chased after her. However, he failed to catch up with her. He could only pray in his heart that the Second Miss would be a gentleman and would not read other people's letters.
But a love letter is so tempting to a girl of twelve or thirteen.

It is impossible not to look. Girls like them cannot suppress the gossiping thoughts in their hearts.

After returning home, the young second daughter Hanyu opened the letter. She shuddered all over and blushed. At such a young age, she had never seen such explicit words.

Then she ran to her sister's room with a red face, stuffed her into her sister's arms and ran away.

After reading the letter, my sister blushed but she chuckled. However, when she thought of Jiang Mingzheng's plan to study medicine in Japan, her eyes darkened.

Next weekend, eldest brother Cao Hanwen will bring wealthy businessman Chen Jianan home.

The whole family made preparations for the welcome, cleaning the house and decorating it.

The second young lady was very talented and wrote a script, which was recognized by her mother, who suggested that she could perform the script.

The eldest daughter was upset and didn't want to pay attention to all this. She just picked fresh summer flowers in the back mountain, placed them in her room, played the piano and read books.

weekend.

Jiang Ming was on vacation and was returning from the city by carriage. He found the eldest lady in the backyard and explained the matter of the love letter.

The eldest lady didn't say much, but just talked about his studying in Japan. The two quarreled, and the vase broke during the tug of war. The handle of the vase fell into the water, and the two of them confronted each other in silence by the spring.

Jiang Mingzheng suddenly said that he liked her and that he would return the money for studying abroad to his master.

The eldest lady was happy and angry at the same time. She was so angry that she took off her skirt, stood in front of him, then turned around and jumped into the water. Jiang Mingzheng was startled and hurried to pull her out.

But soon, the eldest lady emerged from the water with the handle fragment in her hand.

This scene was originally just a small disagreement and quarrel between lovers.

But in the eyes of the younger sister upstairs, the meaning naturally changed.

The explicit love letter, the humiliation of taking off her skirt and jumping into the water in broad daylight, there is no way my sister could have done it voluntarily.

The second lady, Cao Hanyu, firmly believed that it was Jiang Mingzheng who forced her sister.

But she was precocious and did not show it.

That Sunday, the eldest brother brought the rich businessman home and the family prepared a grand lunch.

At the dinner table, people talked about the marriage situations of wealthy businessmen. Some people were secretly happy, some were worried, and some had complicated feelings.

A mixture of emotions.

One afternoon, during nap time, Jiang Mingzheng and the eldest lady were having a tryst in the library on the third floor. They were so passionately in love that they embraced and kissed each other, even taking off their clothes and hugging each other, caressing and kissing.

The second young lady suddenly rushed in and interrupted the two of them with an angry face.

At night, two distant cousins ​​of the Cao family who were living here went to the back mountain to play, but they did not return at night.

The family hurried to look for him.

While searching, the second young lady unexpectedly found her distant cousin naked, being pinned down and bullied by a man behind a dense forest or grass.

The sudden light scared the man so much that he quickly pulled out his pants and ran away anxiously holding his pants.

The second young lady asked her cousin directly whether that man was Jiang Mingzheng.

Jiang Mingzheng, who found the two children, was taken away by the police who arrived before he even entered Cao's house.

A week later, he was thrown into prison at the court's ruling and based on the testimony of his second daughter and cousin.

He was convicted of rape and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in Shanghai Prison.

From then on, the gears of fate began to turn.

(End of this chapter)