Xu Xuzhi

Chapter 97 Mask
When they woke up the next day, they suffered another sudden blow: there was news from the country that China and Japan had signed the "Tanggu Armistice Agreement"-in short, the government of the Republic of China not only recognized Japan with the Great Wall as its "border", The legitimacy of the puppet Manchukuo supported, and at the same time handed over Suidong, Chabei and Jidong to Japan, and asked the Northeast Army to withdraw from the relevant areas.

Ning Zheng was furious, and immediately sent a telegram to Mr. Jiang, Song Wencheng, Mrs. Jiang, Ji Songling, and other generals of the Northeast Army in China, expressing his intention to return to China.

However, these were useless, the agreement was made, and Mr. Jiang was determined to launch the fifth encirclement and suppression operation. He vowed to wipe out the Red Army. It's under my brother's control." He also said that he was pretending to retreat and actually attack the Japanese, hoping that he would understand his difficulties... Who is he lying to?
Not to mention that a few days later, another bad news came - the Bohai Fleet of the Northeast Navy was split. Cruiser officers such as Haiqi and Haichen, because of the intensified long-term conflict with the commander of the Northeast Navy, Shen Honglie, finally went south to defect when the commander was absent. Chen Jitang, the "King of the South" in Guangzhou.

Ning Zheng was beyond his reach, thinking of the collapse of the navy that his father and he had worked so hard to manage for so many years, it would inevitably hurt his heart.Just a few days ago, he sent a secret telegram to Ji Songling and other generals, encouraging everyone to "preserve the strength of the Northeast Army in military, and develop Fengtian University in literature."

Seeing that Ning Zheng was in a bad mood and depressed all day long, Feng Jiu simply dragged him away from Fei Leng Cui and went to other Italian cities, together with Long Sheng and Ya Ya, they pestered him around every day.

Not being able to go back home, and not being able to quench thirst even with distant water, Ning Zheng gradually figured it out, especially the signing of the traitorous "Tanggu Armistice Agreement", which was something they had expected to happen before they left the country, but it was not. The thought came so quickly.

After repeatedly deducing the current domestic situation back and forth, after a few days, his mood has improved significantly.

Those beautiful cities in Italy have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they are all worth savoring.

They went to Venice first, just in time for the opening of the Biennale. Last year, the first "Venice Film Festival" was supplemented, which has since become an important part of the Biennale.After visiting all the contemporary avant-garde art carefully selected for competition in various countries, the couple asked for leave with their two children—Long Sheng and Yaya graciously agreed—so they made up for the ones that they didn’t have the energy to watch in China The "Best Picture Award" at last year's film festival - the Hollywood film "Dr. Jekyll", a thriller and satire that also won the Oscar for Best Picture in [-].

The next day they boarded the black and narrow Gondola, which is unique to Venice with its head and tail upturned and smooth lines. When the boat sailed near the Doge's Palace, there was an arcade bridge on it. "The place.

The boatman said that there is such a legend in Venice-kiss under the Taixi Bridge, and a pair of lovers will last forever.

Ning Zheng sneered after listening to Feng Jiu's translation: The end of Taixi Bridge is the dungeon where death row prisoners are held. Kissing in such a bloody place will bless love?What a joke.

Feng Jiu agreed, but Ning Zheng pressed her over without warning and kissed her red lips. Ya Ya and Long Sheng on the opposite side were stunned. Feng Jiu broke away from him, his face turned red, and he stared weakly. Glancing at the duplicity guy, Ning Zheng seemed to be fine, just smiling slightly, seeing the Chinese guests being so helpful, the Venetian boatman also laughed, and Feng Jiu was even more embarrassed.

Even here, Ning Zheng did not forget to visit the Venetian arsenal, which was once the most powerful in Europe in the Middle Ages. This maritime factory, which was the first to adopt a streamlined production line, once strongly supported Venice's maritime hegemony. The scene of the work, especially the part where the hot asphalt poured into the cracks of the ship, once inspired the great poet Dante to describe the terrible scene of lava rolling and cascading in the hell he imagined in "Divine Comedy"; He was able to build a galley with only a little effort, and he once made the visiting French King Henry III amazed and awed.

Venice, like other Italian cities, has hundreds of churches and monasteries, many of which have crucifixes and murals inlaid with jewelry with obvious Turkish characteristics. Ning Zheng said that this was the fourth mission of the Crusades. Hearing it from the robbery of Constantinople during the expedition, Feng Jiu couldn't help but feel that these magnificent religious murals have become dull.

The history of European prosperity is not only a history of national struggle, but also a history of bloody and brutal plundering of alien races.

When visiting a glass factory, the family also experienced glass blowing. In contrast, only Long Sheng blew out a very regular drop-shaped vase at one time.

The works of others, including Ning Zheng's, are a bit horrible.

Fengjiu was very happy, and praised Longsheng who is quite intelligent; he also bought a lot of cut glass vessels representing the highest level of Venetian glass products, including vases, photo frames, fruit bowls, bracelets, brooches and other small items. Then he took out the memo he carried with him, left the addresses of his girlfriends by category, told the shopkeeper, and mailed them to China, and sent them to Melanie, Xiuwei, Lili and other girlfriends respectively.

The shop owner was overjoyed when he got a big business, so he obeyed naturally.

After she finished processing here, she looked up and found that Ning Zheng and the two children were gone, only Aquarius was left with her; , I'm afraid it will take a long time, so he will take the children outside to play first.

The two of them hurried out, holding a tightly wrapped small box in Fengjiu's hands, and found the three grandpas who were practicing whistling outside - Long Sheng had already done well, Ya Ya's two fat faces were bulging, Frowning his long and delicate eyebrows, his mouth was formed into a small circle, and he made an out of tune whistle from time to time.

Feng Jiu rubbed his forehead with his hand: Yaya is naughty enough, now he has learned to whistle?Feng Jiu could imagine how she would look when she was older, wearing a newsboy hat, riding a bicycle, and whistling at other little girls.

When Ning Zheng saw that Feng Jiu had come out, he hurriedly stopped the two children from continuing to practice before it was too late.

Feng Jiu snorted softly, and said to Long Sheng with a pleasant face, "Inside this box is a small vase you made yourself. When you return to China, you can give it to your mother yourself, okay?" He is old-fashioned in love, but he is still a child after all, full of admiration for his mother Melanie, he jumped up for joy when he heard this, and did not forget to tiptoe and kiss Feng Jiu on the face—since he arrived in Italy, the child They are really behaving more and more like outgoing European kids.

Ning Zheng and Yaya looked at the scene before them with smiles; although Yaya couldn't make a decent vase, but brother Lailai did, wouldn't it be the same as what she made herself?She also got up with You Rongyan.

The two children ran in front, Aquarius looked at them from behind, Feng Jiu and Ning Zheng followed, exchanging feelings softly: Italy's tourism industry is very mature and scaled, and the management system is scientific. The motherland, which has more beautiful scenery and exquisite handicrafts than Italy, can rely on large-scale tourism to support some of its citizens at any time.

On the way they passed a deep monastery with a statue of the Virgin Mary on the golden spire; it was the hour when the bell struck, and a group of nuns in white came out from the gate of the monastery. Look, Feng Jiu suspects that they all made a lifelong vow.

Yaya learned from her mother that these nuns wearing snow-white cassocks, covering their heads, and tying ropes around their waists will never be able to marry or have children. So cute, if these nuns didn't get married, wouldn't they be able to have babies like themselves calling them mothers?

She told Feng Jiuyi that Feng Jiu couldn't help but find it funny, so she relayed the story to Ning Zheng. Ning Zheng smiled complacently, thinking that what the girl said was absolutely right, and said in a low voice, you said that if you were born here and became a nun, that would be a big deal. Just my loss is the world's loss.

Feng Jiu glanced at Ning Zheng dumbfounded—this beard-slicking skill has improved again.

They came to St. Mark's Square, a huge square with fountains, flying pigeons, and children playing in the water. As the sun set, they found an open-air cafe and had a meal.

Ya Ya was the first to discover several stalls of street painters who also sold masks. She told Feng Jiu and ran over to pick out a cat-shaped mask. Long Sheng naturally followed, looked at the clown with two horns The mask is very satisfactory; like Ning Zheng in the past, he didn't want anything. Fengjiu picked it out by himself. Looking at a blank ceramic mask, he sat down on an empty chair beside him and began to draw.

Ning Zheng, the children and the street painter selling masks all watched with great interest.

Feng Jiu first drew a vigorous Sun Xingzhe in a tiger skin skirt, and then drew a little Chenxiang who split the mountain to save his mother and had two conspicuous thick eyebrows. Ya Ya and Long Sheng liked it very much, and the newly bought mask I don't want it anymore.

The Venetian painter was very interested in this Chinese-style mask, which was obviously different from the West. Feng Jiu simply drew another fine-painted kingfisher and generously gave it to him.

The painter was shocked by Feng Jiu's skillful brushwork and agile brushstrokes, and immediately got up to express his thanks solemnly. Feng Jiu cupped his hands in a free and easy way, and returned the salute like a Chinese man.

It would take a while for the newly painted mask to dry completely, so they sat in the open-air cafe next to it.

In front are the two fountains in front of the Pantheon - as long as there are fountains, there will be no shortage of people throwing coins in them.

Although the fountain here is not as famous as the three-way fountain in Rome, there are still people who make a wish with their backs to the fountain and then throw coins.

Ya Ya and Long Sheng each wore a straw hat on the back of their necks: Feng Jiu couldn't stand Venice, which is definitely not inferior to the world-famous Tuscan sun, and he was afraid that the children would be exposed to ultraviolet rays or something, so I bought a light yellow straw hat for one person early on, but they are too hot from time to time. As long as the sun doesn’t shine on their eyes so much, they push down the straw hat and hang it on their backs. The wide black straw hat band is loose around their neck neck.

Ning Zheng and Feng Jiu drank coffee with reluctance, and watched with relief the two children playing with the water in the fiery sunset, with the pigeons circling in the blue sky, and with other children in the square.

Feng Jiu looked at Ya Ya and Long Sheng muttering to themselves, turned their backs to the fountain, each threw a five-lire coin into the spring water, clasped their hands in a decent manner, looked at each other, and shouted loudly in Chinese together Saying: "We must come back again!" After the two made their wish, they grinned at each other and smiled.

In an instant, Fengjiu felt that Yaya and Long had grown up and grown into a pair of handsome girl and boy. She had a premonition that they would fulfill this childish oath.

When they arrived in Milan by boat, they asked for leave with their children again and went to La Scala Theater to listen to Italian operas.

Of course, Feng Jiu and Ning Zheng had heard operas in China, but they were all performed by Chinese majoring in vocal music who returned from studying in Europe and the United States.

Now that they had the opportunity to come to Milan, they decided to listen to authentic Italian opera, especially Milan, which is the birthplace of Italian opera.

They sat in boxes on the third floor, the top floor was for ordinary audience seats, but they were sat opera fans with a high degree of appreciation. Once the singers made mistakes, they were also famous for their booing skills.

Tonight's performance is Ji Li, a tenor singer in his 40s. The repertoire is "Faust of Mephistopheles", the music director is De Sabata, and the conductor is the world-renowned Toss canini.

Because of the powerful performance lineup that has been rarely seen in recent years, the huge theater was full of seats. It can be said that opera lovers from all over Europe came out to see the wonderful performance of this powerful combination.

With ups and downs in the plot, Geely interprets Faust's cynical, self-satisfied, and shameless mentality of returning to youth in a full and three-dimensional way, with a sweet and firm voice, beautiful and gorgeous transitions, full of color changes.

When he sang the aria that everyone would like to sing - "Pure House, I Salute You", Ning Zheng suddenly felt that Feng Jiu hadn't responded for a while, unlike ten minutes ago, when he raised his hands from time to time Binoculars, carefully trying to figure out the character's expression, he turned his head to look, and sure enough, Xiaojue Baoer Fengjiu fell asleep again...

This opera is of course very exciting, but it's really too long. Feng Jiutian mixed with the two energetic children to guide their studies and play with them. It was inevitable that she was exhausted. Her eyelids became heavier and heavier until...

In fact, Ning Zheng had been in a daze just now. He had never appreciated purely Western art such as opera and ballet—in his opinion, it was far worse than Mr. Mei's Peking Opera.

But if the wife wanted to come, he would naturally have to accompany her.

The good tutoring from a young age allowed Feng Jiu to maintain an upright sitting posture even when she fell asleep, but her back was lightly leaning against the back of the chair. From the surface, she thought she was closing her eyes to appreciate the beautiful and loud music. The singing voice... This is also a kind of skill.

Ning Zheng sighed in admiration, and smiled again—they were sitting in the box, which was a baroque-style ornate off-white couch for two people. Ning Zheng simply put his wife down slowly and let her head lie on the bed. own lap, and thoughtfully closed the scarlet velvet curtain in front of the less half of the box.

Feng Jiu was awakened by the applause like a storm, and only then realized that he was already lying on the chair at some point.

She quickly got up and sat up straight, applauding along with her, and seemed very enthusiastic.Ning Zheng watched her unrestrained movements, smiled and leaned over to playfully whisper in her ear, "You snored just now."

Feng Jiu turned pale with shock, huh? !Is this worth it?How old did you start snoring?Besides, if you can fall asleep and snore while watching an opera in this place, isn't that embarrassing and embarrassing to go abroad?
Ning Zheng laughed, and quickly refuted the rumor, "No, no, I'm talking nonsense."

Feng Jiu: "..."

The next morning, Yaya, who went downstairs earlier than Longsheng, was going to have breakfast, saw that her father somehow had a red spot on his slender neck exposed from the collar of his snow-white shirt, and he knew it was a tooth mark at a glance.Ya Ya took a closer look at the tiny half-circle mark, and felt that it matched her mother's white shell teeth, so she asked, "Why did Mom bite Dad?"

Feng Jiu was annoyed that he bit the wrong place yesterday, and when he heard the words, Ning Zheng laughed heartily, instead of being ashamed, he was proud, "Because my father talked nonsense, so I was cleaned up by your mother, look how good she is, Yaya has to hide a little bit."

Yaya nodded in agreement - there is no doubt that her mother is amazing.

Fengjiu felt that her image of a loving mother had been ruined by this poor father who slandered her and engaged in unfair competition in front of her daughter from time to time. She smiled and pulled Ning Zheng over, turned her back to Yaya, and secretly twisted his upper arm a little. The soft flesh on the inside gritted his teeth and said with a smile: "Can I die if I don't dismantle my platform? Ah, can I die?"

"Crazy." Ning Zheng said boldly, his eyes were shining, he pulled Feng Jiu's hand to his lips and kissed it softly, and looked at her with a smile.

Although Yaya doesn't know what pleasing to the eye is, she just thinks that her parents, who are tired all day long, look better than the pictures of Italian brides and grooms sold in the shops in St. Mark's Square.

After all, Feng Jiu took out his own light blue soft silk scarf with no pattern and tied it on Ning Zheng to hide his embarrassment. Let's take it as a taint of the local playboy's dressing style.After all, even a small thing like Ya Ya could see the teeth marks, if he didn't cover it up, his subordinates would laugh him to death.

Before leaving, they received a surprise: General Ma Zhanshan, governor of Heilongjiang Province, who fired the first shot in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, crossed Heihe after falsely surrendering and failing to raise troops again. He stayed in the Soviet Union for more than half a year, and just arrived in Europe. take refuge.The Soviet Union's attitude towards them was ambiguous. After all, the country had just been established and its internal affairs had not been straightened out. Therefore, the Soviet Union did not want to intervene in the Sino-Japanese War and was forced to choose sides.

Ning Zheng was very happy, and hurriedly made an appointment with General Ma in Rome, and then returned to Rome without stopping, while Feng Jiu stayed in Venice temporarily with the children.

General Ma was also very pleasantly surprised, he did not expect to meet his commander in a foreign country, and he also brought Liu Changchun who he met by chance.

It is unknown what they talked about, but Feng Jiu felt that Ning Zheng was refreshed after returning.

After failing to participate in the Olympic Games for the first time, Liu Changchun moved to Italy. He was ill and spent all his money, so he had to wander here, unable to return home.Ning Zheng was very happy to see his favorite student again, encouraged him not to sink because of a little setback, but to persevere, and gave him a large amount of travel expenses.

Liu Changchun had tears in his eyes. This may be the only big man who has been kind to him since the Olympics.

The principal is the principal, no matter when, no complaints, never snobbery, always stand firmly on his side.

(End of this chapter)