On the afternoon of August 7, 1937, although the streets and alleys of Tianjin, which fell to the Japanese invaders, were almost covered with posters that flattered Japan and glorified the war of aggression, there were still sporadic anti-Japanese forces carrying out the fight like moths to the flame.
heroic struggle.
However, in the relatively quiet and safe British Concession, the banquet hall on the second floor of Love Letter Apartment was as lively as ever.
In addition to Jasmine, who was playing the piano, Meixiang had already started a card game with the Sometani couple and Walker, the manager of the foreign bank, at the card table not far away.
At the same time, in the kitchen on the first floor, a French chef specially paid to hire in the morning was also preparing for dinner a few hours later.
In the basement with the windows sealed by the flower bed, Wei Ran and Tao Canhua were each using a boiled syringe, placed against the edge of the cork of the bottle of whiskey or red wine in their hands, and carefully drawing out several tubes of wine from it.
Then, the transparent liquor was extracted from the glass bottle containing medical alcohol and poured into whiskey and red wine bottles.
After the bottles of foreign wine returned to their original liquid level, Wei Ran opened a wooden refrigerator and put the bottles in one bottle after another.
While everyone was busy in their own way, the sky outside the window gradually darkened, and everyone who had played cards all afternoon was attracted by the aroma of the dishes Qiushi and Tao Canhua took turns serving in the restaurant on the second floor.
These dishes include both French cuisine and some Chinese dishes cooked by Yang’s mother. Even the wine that goes with the meal is a bottle of cognac that has not been added by Weiran.
“It’s too boring to eat like this.”
After Meixiang drank her first glass of cognac, she took advantage of Qiushi to pour the wine for her and suggested, "Why don't we let my cousin and Jasmine come up to join in the fun, and how about we all do boxing and guessing numbers together?"
"I'm good at this!"
Walker immediately became interested after hearing this, then looked at Yukio Sometani and asked proudly, "How is it? Do you want to play with me?"
"You will lose." Somegu seemed to be equally proficient in this. "Miss Meixiang, let Mr. Wei Ran and Miss Jasmine come up."
"go"
Mei Xiang winked at Qiushi and said, "Stop by the banquet hall and bring the dice clock."
Hearing this, Qiushi immediately ran down according to the plan agreed upon last night, and called out Wei Ran and Jasmine who had already prepared and even ate a corner of sesame seed rolls with meat sauce to pad their bellies in advance, and then
I brought two more dice clocks and a few dice.
"Cousin asked us to come over for a drink?" Wei Ran asked loudly and excitedly as he went upstairs.
"Mr. Sometani and Miss Junko are both masters of shaking dice cups, and Mr. Walker is even more of a master who once made Xiao Guanlian drink 14 glasses of wine."
While Mei Xiang praised her friend, she also warned Wei Ran, "Don't be unable to hold on and fall down the stairs like Xiao Guan did last time."
"That can't be done!"
Wei Ran said arrogantly, "I have never been drunk down by anyone in Fengtian Mansion! Jasmine, help me roll up my sleeves!"
Hearing this, Jasmine, who was standing behind Wei Ran, rolled her eyes blatantly and helped Wei Ran roll up the cuff of his left shirt.
After the two of them sat down, the people at the table began to have fun with the sumptuous food and wine. However, when it came to actually playing, Wei Ran could see it, and among the three of them, he was truly proficient in this.
In fact, there is only one master, Junko Sometani.
As for Walker and Sometani Yukio, who looked confident, although they looked capable of drinking, their skills in rolling dice to make drinking orders were really not proportional to their confidence.
While deliberately letting the two men drink up the bottle of cognac that accompanied the meal, Sometani Junko also succeeded in letting Mei Xiang and Jasmine finish another bottle of sweet wine by rolling the dice.
"Sister Qiushi"
Wei Ran deliberately burped, and greeted with the excitement of meeting an opponent in his voice, "Go to the refrigerator in the basement and get those bottles of good wine I stocked up a few days ago!"
"Master Ciao, you'd better drink less."
Qiushi looks quiet and honest on the outside, but what she says is actually fanning the flames, "Don't blame me for not telling you, Mr. Someya and Mr. Walker have a good drinking capacity, any one of them can drink you to the table.
under."
"What did you say?"
Wei Ran waved his hand and said provocatively, "I have to drink them all down today."
"snort!"
Qiushi wrinkled her nose and snorted, and ran downstairs again amid the slightly satisfied expressions of Someya and Walker. Not long after, she picked up a bottle of whiskey without any additives and a bottle of half-and-half without any additives.
Sweet wine.
When the two bottles of wine were finished one after another, Wei Ran, who had already been trained by Professor Alexei and that scumbag Ji Ma, had already mastered his drinking capacity. Although his face was a little red, he could still continue to drink——
Even when he met Junko Sometani, the opponent won four times in a row and drank a whole glass of whiskey.
They ate, drank, and played with the sumptuous meal. When the people who had eaten and drank enough moved from the dining table to the card table, Qiushi also poured a bottle of spiked whiskey at Walker's urging.
A bottle of red wine was brought up. The way everyone competed for wine changed from punching and shaking dice to a more gambling poker game - Stud.
Although Wei Ran knew how to play this card game, which was called "Sand Crab" by the celebrities of the Republic of China, his skills were still poor after all.
Fortunately, the two girls, Meixiang and Jasmine, are really good at stealing cards and playing tricks. In addition, Someya Junko has been drunk since she drank half a glass of whiskey at the dining table. Without such a strong enemy,
The drinking operation with Wei Ran as the core also went extremely smoothly.
During the poker games one after another, the sky outside the window became darker and darker, more and more empty wine bottles were placed on the table not far away, and the smell of alcohol permeating the people around the card table naturally became heavier and heavier.
At this time, accompanied by the clear ringing of the car bell, Guan Bingwen also rode a bicycle into the small courtyard of Xuqing Book Apartment, and not long after, he ran up to the second floor.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Xiao... Xiaoguan is here?"
Meixiang said hello with drunken eyes, "Why are you...coming to my place?"
Guan Bingwen asked with a smile on his face, "Sister Meixiang, do you think you can lend me your car? My sister and my father had a fight again, and I plan to drive her to her classmate's house to hide."
"Come to borrow my car again?" Mei Xiang asked drunkenly.
"Hey," Guan Bingwen pulled the back of his head in a silly tone, "Can you just lend it to me? I'll send it back in two hours at most."
“It’s not impossible”
Meixiang said, picked up the wine bottle and poured Guan Bingwen a glass of semi-sweet wine, "Come, have a drink with everyone, sister, I will lend you the car."
"Sister Meixiang, I'll wait, I have to drive later." Guan Bingwen said with an embarrassed look on his face.
"Here, let me burp for...!" Wei Ran burped before he could finish his words.
"I'll do it"
Qiushi, who had been pouring wine for everyone just now, rolled her eyes and took the cup from Meixiang's hand, "I'd like to toast everyone on behalf of Brother Guan."
After saying that, the girl drank the glass of wine in one gulp.
"good!"
Wei Ran was the first to say hello, poured himself a glass of wine and said, "Come on, let's all have a drink!"
Under the leadership of a drunkard, the other two half-drunkards didn't think twice. They picked up the wine bottle and poured it for themselves in unison, clinking with everyone else's glasses, and then followed Wei Ran's rhythm with a particularly bold one.
Drink it all.
"Bang!"
After finishing the glass of wine, Walker was the first to lie down on the wine table and lost consciousness.
"How can I let sister Qiushi drink for me?"
Guan Bingwen seemed to have just reacted. He took the wine bottle handed by Qiushi and poured himself a glass of wine, "Here! Let me toast everyone! I'm done!"
After saying that, Guan Bingwen put the goblet to his mouth, gritted his teeth and frowned and drank it. At the same time, he couldn't help but mutter in his heart, "This grape juice is sour and sweet. It's quite good."
drink".
"Drink! Drink!"
While shouting to create an atmosphere, Wei Ran filled up the glasses for Somegu and his wife, and then filled himself up with whiskey, and took the initiative to come over.
"drink..."
Yukio Sometani, who had already seen something ghosted for a long time, touched the wine glass with Wei Ran, and then brought it to his mouth.
However, before he could finish the glass of wine, he slipped under the table. Junko Sometani, whose drinking ability was only supported by her poker skills, could not finish the glass of whiskey, so she panicked.
He stood up and ran into the bathroom with Jasmine's help.
Seeing this, Mei Xiang winked at Yang Ma who had been standing at the door of the small kitchen on the second floor. After the latter came downstairs, she said, "Xiaoguan, I'll lend you the car when I get off...
You have to send Mr. Walker back for me. By the way, how about taking Qiushi to the Italian Concession and helping me get back the dress I ordered last month?"
"Of course..."
"Let Canhua come with me!" Qiushi said loudly on purpose, and Guan Bingwen, who had not even finished speaking, also let out a disappointed "Huh?"
"Then let Canhua and... go with you."
Meixiang, who smelled of alcohol, stood up unsteadily, patted Guan Bingwen's cheek gently, and teased with a smile, "Lest you bully sister Qiushi."
"I...how could I do that kind of thing!" Guan Bingwen didn't know whether it was because he was shy or because he was piqued, but his face turned red.
"alright"
Meixiang waved her hands and said as she staggered upstairs, "Qiushi, go downstairs and ask Mama Yang and Uncle Mute to come up and send Somegu and his wife into their car, and then let Uncle Mute come up.
Send...send them back."
"I'll go down and call someone right now!"
Qiu Zhen had already run downstairs before she could finish her sentence, and not long after, she called Tao Canhua, Cao Duba and Yang Ma all up. Wei Ran, who had also drank a lot, was sitting there like a transparent person.
on the sofa in the living room.
Under the busy work of these people, Yang Ma and Cao Duba helped Rangu and his wife get into the car. Cao Duba made babbling gestures and pointed at the oil gauge of Rangu's car, which was about to bottom out.
It's strange that the fuel gauge of this car is bottomless. Just when they were playing cards upstairs, Cao Mute had already secretly drained a bucket of oil from the fuel tank.
"Since there is no gas, go and refuel."
After Guan Bingwen put Walker into the cream-white car he was going to borrow, he said, "If you go to that foreign store in the French Concession, mention my name and they can fill it up directly."
"well!"
Cao Yaba gave a fairly clear response with force, and at the same time nodded his head honestly, got into the cab and was the first to drive out of the yard.
"You guys can get in the car too"
Guan Bingwen glanced at Qiushi and Tao Canhua, who was pulled out by Qiushi, and after greeting them both to get in the car and closing the curtains, he drove out of the yard second.
In the living room on the third floor with no lights on, Mei Xiang, who smelled of alcohol, burped. She glanced at Wei Ran, who was sitting on the sofa next to him and was smoking, and asked in a particularly sober voice, "You haven't drunk too much, have you?"
"No"
Wei Ran shook his head. He really didn't drink too much. In fact, he drank real wine during the afternoon meal. But since the poker game started, the job of pouring wine has been left to Qiushi.
Doesn't this girl have the final say whether she pours spiked wine, grape juice, or iced brown sugar water?
Hearing this, Mei Xiang smiled and said abruptly, "Do you dare to kill someone for me?"
"Who?" Wei Ran asked casually, "Ueda or Furukawa?"
"None of them." Mei Xiang shook her head, "She is a woman."
Seeing Wei Ran looking at her in surprise, Mei Xiang slowly lit a cigarette and said, "You won't kill women, right?"
"Tell me who the other party is first," Wei Ran asked, taking a puff of cigarette. He was neither in a hurry to refuse nor in a hurry to agree.
"Do you still remember Ueda's female companion at yesterday's dance?" Mei Xiang asked.
"have"
Wei Ran nodded. He also used binoculars to pay attention to the appearance of the young girl.
"I originally planned to let the mute uncle do this."
As Mei Xiang spoke, she had already taken out a note from her cigarette case and handed it to Wei Ran. Then she leaned into his ear and lowered her voice and said, "That girl seems to have come with Zhi Tian."
"Why did you want to kill her?" Wei Ran took the note and looked at it, then asked curiously.
"Divert Ueda's attention," Meixiang said casually, "Do you have the guts?"
"If you have the courage, you can kill someone."
Wei Ran shook the note in his hand and asked helplessly, "But I don't know the way. Where is this place?"
Hearing this, Mei Xiang was stunned for a moment, then laughed out loud. She stood up unsteadily and patted Wei Ran on the shoulder, "Let's go to the stage in the basement to sleep first, and wait until Xiao Guan comes back.
I asked him to go directly to the basement to find you and tell you the details."
Hearing this, Wei Ran stopped asking any more questions. After writing down the address on the note, he took out a lighter, lit it and threw it into the ashtray. Then he stood up and walked toward the stairs amid the flames.
At the same time, Cao Muba had already driven his car into the French Concession and drove straight into the door of a foreign bank that was still in business.
Before getting out of the car, Cao Yuba glanced at the sleeping Mr. and Mrs. Rangu in the back car and gestured to the people outside the window.
After receiving the signal, the man outside the window immediately asked the people at the back of the car to open the trunk, helped Feng Maoyun, who was huddled inside, out, and got into another car next to him in the dark.
Without waiting for the car to fill up, the car just drove towards the dock in the night, and the person standing outside the driver's seat whispered into Mute Cao's ear.
Cao Yuba nodded imperceptibly, started the car and left the foreign bank, drove into the Japanese Concession with familiar roads, and drove to the Somegu couple's residence. After handing the car and the person to the servant, he walked out for a few steps and got into the car.
A rickshaw that had been waiting for him on the roadside disappeared into the night.
