Chapter Thirty-Five: Arriving in Shanghai for the First Time

  Shanghai has been thriving as one of the five major ports since the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing. Western missionaries and businessmen also flocked to Shanghai, making it the most open city in the Qing Dynasty at that time. Although it had not yet reached its peak during the Republican era, it already had hundreds of thousands of residents.

  The UK and France both had concessions in Shanghai, with consulates set up. After the fleet arrived, the Allied forces directly entered the concession area. Gui Liang and others had not yet arrived, so negotiations could not begin, and Li Mingfeng, who was already at a disadvantage, became completely idle.

  Feeling bored, although he didn't like Gong Banlun's cold and hard personality, Li Mingfeng had no other acquaintances here, so he could only go find him to alleviate his boredom.

  These interpreters who followed the army all lived in the consulate, Gong Banlun's room was not far from Li Mingfeng's room, just a few steps away. After knocking on Gong Chang's door for half a day without seeing any movement, he accidentally knocked out a British interpreter from the next room.

  The missionary and interpreter had been traveling by boat for too long and was extremely fatigued, sleeping in his room. He was awakened by the sound of constant knocking at the door and became very angry. When he opened the door, it turned out to be an old acquaintance who was also a translator for the British delegation. He suppressed his anger and said: "Li, stop knocking, Gong's room is empty."

  Li Mingfeng felt a bit embarrassed for disturbing others' rest and said, "I didn't mean to disturb your rest, I'm really sorry George, do you know where Gong went?"

  The missionary named George yawned and said: "You're so close to him, yet you don't even know his family is in Shanghai?"

  Li Mingfeng never expected that Gong Banlun had gone back home to live, thinking to himself: he kept calling me brother, but left me to suffer among the foreigners, while he himself went to enjoy a life of luxury.

  After chatting with George for half a day, Li Mingfeng finally learned that Gong Cheng had been living in Shanghai for over ten years. George was a missionary from the UK who came to China, and his church was located in Shanghai, so he knew everything about the foreigners' affairs in Shanghai like the back of his hand. Gong Cheng enjoyed Weetma's trust, so he held some status in the concession area, and most foreigners were aware of his existence.

  It wasn't until after asking around for half a day that I found out Gong Cheng had built a foreign-style house in the concession, not far from the consulate.

  Li Mingfeng came out of the consulate and called for a sedan chair at the gate. He said, "Go to Mr. Gong's house."

  It turned out to be true as George said, in this concession, Mr. Gong's name was still quite loud, and even the vendors knew that there was such a person. In fact, Li Mingfeng had never seen or heard of him before, thinking that Zhang Shipei was from Guangdong and Gui Liang was a high-ranking official in the imperial court, they all knew about this person, but no one at Gong Cheng's door knew him, that would be strange.

  Unfortunately, Gong Banlun's name is loud but not a good name.

  It was just a short while later that the sedan carriers stopped, and they had already arrived at Gong Cheng's home.

  After getting off the sedan chair, he rewarded the sedan chair bearers with a few taels of loose silver coins, and these poor men were so excited that they knelt down and kowtowed to thank him.

  Li Mingfeng stood outside the door, sizing up the villa-style Western house. From the outside, it was built in a Western style, with two floors, and some unknown flowers and plants on the outer wall. The green vines crawled all over the house, making it look like it was built in the middle of a forest from afar. The yard was quite large, planted with green grass, and there were several famous dogs raised in the garden. The Western house was surrounded by an iron fence, inside which was like paradise, while outside was a sea of starving people.

  It seems that this Gōng Chéng is a truly wealthy and noble family, Li Míngfēng thought to himself, he hadn't realized it before.

  He reached the gate, and knocked on the large iron gate that was over five or six meters tall. Before long, a middle-aged man wearing a long shirt and a horse jacket opened the gate, stuck his head out, and asked, "Who is calling at the gate?"

  Li Mingfeng pulled out a name card from his sleeve and handed it over: "He's a friend of your family's master."

  The man only then saw clearly that Li Mingfeng was dressed in an extraordinary manner, and hearing him say he was the master's friend, didn't dare to be slow, took the invitation card, and quickly ran inside.

  Li Mingfeng felt depressed in his heart, and unexpectedly, he still had to hand over the letter to Gong Banlun now. Had his status fallen so quickly?

  Before long, the middle-aged man ran back again, panting and opening the iron gate to let Li Mingfeng in. After entering this villa-style foreign house, Li Mingfeng suddenly realized that the interior decoration was still inclined towards Chinese style.

  When he saw Li Mingfeng coming in, Gong Cheng walked forward with a slightly shy smile on his face.

  Li Mingfeng was also surprised to see Gong Cheng at this time, as he had taken off his long gown and horseback riding jacket, and put on a suit. In his hand, he still held a civilized cane. Li Mingfeng subconsciously glanced at the coat rack, and indeed, an English-style top hat was still hanging there.

  "Go on, go in and say it, go in and say it." Gong Cheng pulled Li Mingfeng to go upstairs.

  This room was specially used for receiving guests and still had traditional Chinese furniture. A servant brought tea, then bowed his head and retreated.

  "Hey, Brother Gong, I didn't expect you to be thriving in the British concession. You never mentioned it to me before." Li Mingfeng teased.

  Gong Banlun's face was somewhat unnatural, and he smiled: "Brother, don't make fun of me, what kind of skill I have you still don't know, in front of these underlings just putting on the airs of a master is enough, who dares to say anything about being carefree?"

  Seeing Li Mingfeng's strange gaze on his body, Gong Banlun blushed and muttered: "Brother, you don't understand my bitter situation. When I'm with foreigners, I have to wear a long gown and mandarin jacket, so that they think I understand the Qing government and people's feelings, and they can trust me. If I'm not dealing with foreigners, I'll wear Western clothes. Brother, don't underestimate this suit, as soon as I put it on, from governors to county officials, everyone will look up to me. As for those ordinary citizens, when they see me, they're so envious that they'd knock their heads off."

  Li Mingfeng listened to this and found it somewhat understandable. Because he himself had also pretended to be very familiar with the Qing dynasty in front of foreigners. However, he had never tried wearing Western clothes and interacting with Qing officials.

  "Gong big brother, do you and I still need to explain? You and I eat the same food, suffer the same hardships. If there's one person in this world who can understand big brother, it must be me."

  After hearing this, Gong Cheng gradually became less awkward and asked Li Mingfeng why he had come.

  Li Mingfeng told the truth, it was just boring and suffocating, so he came out to find a way to relieve his boredom. Gong Cheng heard this and burst out laughing, calling him brother and saying don't blame me, I forgot you have no acquaintances in Shanghai.

  The two of them chatted for a long time, and the servant came in to invite them, lunch was already ready. Li Mingfeng didn't bother with formalities with Gong Cheng either, he directly got up and followed Gong Cheng to eat.

  Just out of the room door, a woman stood at the door, curtsied and gave Gong Cheng a salute.

  Gong Cheng's face was slightly unnatural, and he let the woman get up. He turned to Li Mingfeng and said: "This is my concubine." Then he said to the woman: "This is my good friend, you can call him Mr. Li."

  The concubine called out to Mr. Li again, and Li Mingfeng hastily said, "I don't dare, I don't dare." He had wanted to call her "sister-in-law", but she was only a concubine, and Li Mingfeng, who wasn't very familiar with the ancient way of addressing people, didn't dare speak rashly, so he just said that.