Her expression and tone changed at the same time — clearly this had made her quite angry.

Seeing both her elegant brows shoot up, He Yunqin, for some reason, felt a bit like laughing, but he also knew that he absolutely could not laugh right now, or things would only get worse. Seeing that she didn’t seem to be hurt, only that her trousers had torn, he said in an extremely serious tone: “Miss Yu, wait here a moment. I’ll go think of a solution.”

Hongdou forced the words out through gritted teeth: “I hope Mr. He can think of a good solution.”

He Yunqin deliberately furrowed his brow and rode off on the bicycle. When he came back, he saw Yu Hongdou standing obediently with her back against the wall, which rather resembled the scene of him being made to stand in punishment by his father as a child. He didn’t let the smile hidden inside surface on his face. Coming up in front of her, he stepped on the pedal and said: “I called back to Wang Bide’s place. A rickshaw will be here shortly to pick Miss Yu up.”

A rickshaw? Hongdou very much wanted to object, but she’d torn her trousers and dared not move now. If she went out, there might still be that Lu Jingheng lurking about outside, watching hungrily; besides, riding the tram like this would surely make her a laughingstock. After weighing it all, unless her mother or brother could descend from the heavens right now, there was nothing else to be done.

She gave a snort through her nose, her expression indifferent — clearly still not mollified.

He Yunqin took a foreign cigarette from his trouser pocket and lit it. Glancing at Hongdou, worried the smoke might bother her, he walked to one side to smoke by himself.

Hongdou waited a while and, seeing no car come, glanced toward He Yunqin. She saw him holding the cigarette in his mouth, his eyes fixed on the ground, as if lost in thought, unusually silent.

As if sensing her scrutinizing gaze, he turned his face toward her. Their eyes met, and he asked, seemingly casually: “How many years has Miss Yu’s brother been a policeman?”

“Three years.”

“Your brother’s always been in the International Settlement?”

“Mm.” Hongdou stamped her numbed foot and changed the subject: “Mr. He, why hasn’t the car you called come yet?”

Before she finished speaking, the horn of a rickshaw sounded from the mouth of the lane. Compared to that Lu Jingheng from earlier, this horn was noticeably more restrained, sounding only once before stopping.

He Yunqin snuffed out the half-smoked cigarette. “Let’s go.”

Hongdou tightly clutched the torn spot on her trousers and hobbled along after He Yunqin.

At the mouth of the lane, a black rickshaw was indeed waiting. Looking across the street, Lu Jingheng’s car had already driven off.

The driver was clearly one of the He family’s, and upon seeing He Yunqin, said: “Second Young Master.”

He Yunqin led Hongdou straight to the back door and said to the driver: “Take this young lady to Tongfu Lane.”

He didn’t mention Hongdou’s identity at all.

The driver seemed well trained and asked not a single further question. He amiably opened the door for Hongdou, then moved to open the other side for He Yunqin, but was stopped: “I still have matters to attend to.”

Hongdou got into the car, and turning back, saw He Yunqin still standing outside. Though she found it odd that he wasn’t coming along, she had no interest in pursuing the matter. On the back seat lay a stack of clothes, as if hastily fetched — the bottom-most item was a light lavender-gray thin wool coat. Though slightly heavy, it was just right for covering the hole in her trousers.

She gazed at the clothes, brooding to herself, then turned and found He Yunqin still watching her from outside. She asked suspiciously: “Was this prepared for me?”

“My bicycle accidentally damaged Miss Yu’s clothing. I couldn’t get to the department store on short notice, so I had someone fetch some unworn clothes from home for the time being. Please make do with these for now, Miss Yu — another day I’ll copy down the brand of your clothing and go buy an identical one.”

Perhaps worried it would raise the driver’s suspicions, he didn’t mention the trousers, only the clothing.

Hongdou said proudly: “This ‘clothing’ of mine was made by my mother — you can’t buy an identical one at any department store.”

He Yunqin’s face proved thicker-skinned than she’d imagined — hearing this, he didn’t even raise an eyebrow: “Then I’ll go buy identical fabric and have it made to compensate Miss Yu. In any case, today’s matter is entirely my fault — my only fault is being too ‘stingy.’ I don’t know how Miss Yu can be appeased — any request will do.”

He looked utterly sincere, yet Hongdou always felt there was more to his words than met the eye. Though still full of pent-up anger, she didn’t want to keep wrangling in front of the driver, so she said magnanimously: “Since Mr. He didn’t mean it, there’s no need to talk of compensation. I’ll wear this coat home today, and return it to Mr. He when we meet later.” She wasn’t about to take advantage of him.

He Yunqin seemed to see through her thoughts, smiled, and neither agreed nor disagreed, just lifted his chin toward the driver: “Take Miss Yu home.”

The rickshaw set off. Hongdou put on the thin wool coat and sat up straight in her seat. With nothing else to do, her gaze kept falling on that stack of clothes.

All fashionable Western-style dresses, brand new and unworn. Since they’d been fetched from home on short notice, they were most likely to belong to one of the He family’s female relatives.

Miss He the eldest, or Miss He the fourth?

Or could it be the eldest daughter-in-law, Duan Mingyi?

As soon as this latter thought surfaced, she dismissed it at once — why would He Yunqin ask his sister-in-law for clothes? Besides, from what she’d seen of Duan Mingyi that day, her figure was full and shapely, more voluptuous than Hongdou’s own; as for the fourth Miss He, she was thinner and slighter than Hongdou. Yet this coat fit her quite snugly — it could only belong to someone of similar build to her own. Thinking it over, could it possibly be that as-yet-unmet eldest Miss He?

Worried about complications, when the car reached the road near her home, Hongdou had the driver stop and got out herself.

She’d left home at noon wearing only a knitted sweater, and now she was returning draped in a coat — walking home slowly like this, she felt distinctly uneasy.

Fortunately, neither Mrs. Peng nor Tailor Peng were downstairs, and she didn’t run into any other neighbors on the way.

Her foot still hurt a little, so she walked slowly, climbing the stairs step by step. Just as she was about to knock on the door, her brother happened to come out, and seeing her, let out a great sigh of relief: “I was just about to look for you — you’re too impatient, going to find Wang Bide all by yourself. So, how did it go? Did you see him? What did he say?”

Yu Chongyi was rather thick-headed and hadn’t noticed the extra coat on his sister.

Hongdou glanced around and, seeing her mother wasn’t in the living room, hurriedly took off the coat and walked into the room as if nothing were amiss, saying as she walked: “I’ll tell you the details about Wang Bide in a moment. Any news of Cousin Yuqi?”

“No, but I’ve already found out who that man was who was talking to her that day.”

Hongdou turned quickly. “Who was it?”

At this moment Mrs. Yu came out from the inner room. She first noticed Hongdou’s limping gait, then noticed the coat draped over her arm. She was stunned for a moment, then hurried over: “What happened to your foot? Where did this coat come from?”

Author’s note: Busy weekend, so this is all I can update today, sorry — I’ll try to update more tomorrow, see you at ten tonight.

Thanks to everyone for the comments, thunderclaps, and nutrient solution these past few chapters — I’ll compile the list later, thank you all.