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- Herausgeber: via tolino media
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
This is a love story between two men from two well-known families engaged in tea business. Shrewdning Wong, the influential female manager of tea business of the Fangs, sets fire to the mansion and kills the parents of Geson Fang. As a result, Geson becomes the crippled puppet head of the Fang family, and he is determined to fight back and awaits an opportunity. He, however, has to cut himself off Gem Fore for whom he has had affections since his childhood because he does not want to get his sweetheart involved with his revenge. Gem becomes the substitute for the bride, who should have been his younger sister in an arranged marriage, and marries Geson. Since then their love has grown deeper and deeper. Moreover, Gem assists Geson in bringing Shrewdning down. At last the couple have a happy ending.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Gem & Geson I
Meet Again
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.For permission requests, write to :[email protected]
GEM & GESON: MEET AGAIN
First edition. November 23, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 Sweet One.
ISBN: 979-8223875468
Written by Sweet One.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Gem & Geson: Meet Again
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Further Reading: Spring in the Shabby Lane
About the Author
Written by Sweet One
Translated by Snow Han
Chapter 1
Pear trees blossomed in Jorleen. The breeze in the early morning blew the dew and the flowers in the Chagon Road into shallow pools left by the heavy rain last night. A male servant, wearing blue clothes and black boots and carrying several silk garments, sneaked into the backyard of the mansion of the Fores.
The Fores well-known in Jorleen had been engaged in tea production and trading through three generations and had owned hundreds of hectares of tea fields outside town and a large number of shops inside town. The head Shangyee Fore used to be a tenant farmer and had made his business prosper since at the age of fifteen he married Miss Rachel Cheng, who was the daughter of a tea trader, and worked with his father-in-law. Rachel was a well-mannered and sensible lady but could not have children, so she let her husband date two other girls: one was Miss Willow whom he met during his business trip and the other was Miss Sallow who was a tenant farmer’s daughter and was forced to sleep with him.
Lady Willow was still a peach even in her forties and she had managed the mansion of the Fores since she had three sons. By contrast, Lady Sallow had one son and one daughter but she was not smart enough to gain her position in the family. She died of sadness several years ago.
The male servant in blue clothes was standing in the courtyard where Lady Sallow used to live. It had little sunshine and had no decorations. Bamboo sieves for tea drying were placed at one corner and some fresh tea buds could be seen.
“I’m back, my young lord,” the servant said, knocking at the door.
A handsome young man, wearing light green clothes, holding a fan decorated with small paintings of a bridge and a river and framed with carving of willow branches, and with a half piece of white jade carved with moon and peonies tied onto his belt, walked out of the room. He was Gem Fore, the second son of the family. His mother was Lady Sallow and he was disliked by his father, but he was cheerful and clever.
“Have you got the things I want?” the young man asked.
“Yes, including underpants!” the servant Sanbor replied, waggling the clothes. He had been serving Gem for eight years.
Gem nodded and looked at the thin bamboo poles at a corner, and Sanbor knew what to do next. The servant fastened the underpants on one pole and placed it in the gap between stones in the centre of the courtyard and let the underpants flutter in the wind.
“Let’s go to see something interesting, Sanbor,” Gem said.
The Fores would burn incense and worship their ancestors on the first day and the fifteenth day of each lunar month for a good life and good fortune. Lady Rachel, wearing a purplish grey gown and a golden hairpin, supported by her husband with his hands, walked into the temple. She had been in poor health and had been so vulnerable to colds that she had been staying indoors for the whole winter.
“Good morning, my lady,” Lady Willow, resplendent with jewels, said humbly. Her greeting was ignored.
“I’m glad to see both of you,” Lady Rachel smiled with a nod, looking at Gem and Lily.
A young, thin girl, standing behind Gem, was Lily, the fifth daughter of the Fores. She and Gem were the children of Lady Sallow.
“Good morning, my lady,” Lily said timidly.
“You and Gem may call me auntie,” Her Ladyship replied amiably, holding Lily’s wrist.
“Rachel has been ignoring me and my three sons but she has been liking the two kids of the dead Sallow,” Lady Willow whispered to her husband sourly.
The fifty-four-year-old Shangyee Fore looked like a gentleman but was overcautious and weak-minded, and he owed the good business of the Fores to his father-in-law’s competence. Lady Willow had been coveting the family business for her sons since Lady Rachel fell into bad health.
Her Ladyship had been controlling the business of the Fores while Shangyee had had to be a fence-straddler.
He changed the topic and asked, “Where is Jack?”
“He has been preoccupied with work and learning,” Lady Willow said loudly on purpose, scowling at her husband, “and he must have burnt the midnight oil studying last night to become a man of knowledge, which was the dream of his father in childhood. He may be too tired to get up early. Shall I wake him up?”
Everybody heard that while Sanbor stifled a laugh but he had to keep quiet after his young master glanced at him.
“Jack has been working hard for our family and he will need more rest,” Shangyee responded. He had been favouring Jack.
The solemn ancestral temple of the Fores had a rosewood altar flanked by two wooden armchairs and a horizontal inscribed board with the words “Do Not Scramble for Fame and Fortune” on the beam. That was the family motto left by the late Mr. Cheng who had given his wealth to his daughter and son-in-law and hoped that his offspring could live in harmony rather than in chaos caused by greediness. But fame and fortune would be too inviting to be resisted.
“Come out, Gem!” someone shouted. Everybody saw a man wearing a pink nightgown come in.
Lady Willow sulked.
“What’s up?” Gem asked.
The comer, Jack, the eldest son of the Fores, with a pockmarked face and odours of rouge and alcoholic stink overnight, was so cross that he had forgotten the important day.
“I’ll kick your ass, son of a bitch!” he cursed, grabbing Gem by the collar.
“Oh, how could you say that?” Gem asked calmly, covering his nose with his fan.
“Don’t play dumb! Have you had my clothes taken away?” Jack yelled. “Ms. Gin has told me about it!”
“Who is Ms. Gin, Sanbor?” Gem asked.
“She is the madam of the House of Paradise, which is a brothel!” Sanbor replied at once.
“I’ve known neither that place nor that woman!” Gem cried out.
“Fuck!” Jack ranted, holding his underpants. “I’ve left you alone in these years but you have annoyed me! My underpants were in your courtyard. How did you get them?”
Gem stepped backwards disgustedly but kept calm. “Are they yours, Jack?” he asked, lifting the underpants with the handle of his fan and waggling them.
Lady Willow shouted and slapped Jack hard across the face before the latter could punch his younger brother. The man suddenly became sober.
“Mom ...”
“How dare you misbehave in front of your forefathers?” Lady Willow snapped. “Kneel down!” She would have scolded her son much earlier if she had not been stopped by her husband.
“Gem has framed me, dad!” Jack complained bitterly although his mother tried to hold him back. “He had my clothes taken away when I was busy with work, and he would make a fool of me!”
“Were you busy sleeping with a whore?” Shangyee snapped and then walked away.
Lady Rachel watched all this before she left with Lily. Gem saw Lady Willow staring at him fiercely when he stepped over the threshold.
“Have you seen the girls in the House of Paradise, Sanbor?” Gem asked, twirling his fan.
“Yes.”
“Were they appealing?”
“Yes, and sexy.”
“How?”
Sanbor mimicked those girls’ manner of walking while Gem guffawed and ignored the angry woman and left.
Chapter 2
Jack changed clothes in his room after he was humiliated in front of the temple.
“You should have given a sharp retort to Gem, mom,” he complained. “He made me a laughing stock on purpose and dad would not have scolded me if I had been allowed to tell him the truth!”
“Tell me the details now,” Lady Willow said calmly, sitting on a sandalwood stool and ready to have tea.
“You asked me to do a part-time job in tea houses. The ministry councillor Mr. Sun came to town and would buy some aged tea. I wanted to seize the hard-to-get opportunity and raise prices, so I invited him to have fun in the House of Paradise. But I could not find my clothes including my underpants after I woke up!”
He was thumping the table angrily.
“How did you know that it had been done by Gem?” his mother asked.
“Ms. Gin told me. I was so furious that I would punch him, but I saw my underpants hanging on a bamboo pole. That must have been done by him, too!”
“Did Ms. Gin tell you about it?” she asked doubtfully.
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She said that Gem had his servant Sanbor threaten her. He broke in and made off with my clothes and humiliated me as an impetuous incompetent!”
“You are stupid!” she shouted, smacking the tea cup down on the table. “I’ve told you that you should behave yourself and learn how to get along with others. But even a procuress has refused to help you! How can I support you to scramble for the property of the Fores?”
“Ms. Gin helped me and told me about the whole thing,” he retorted.
“You are an idiot! Your father is just a businessman, not a high official. How could Sanbor, Gem’s servant, enter the House of Paradise at will and take away your clothes when there were security guards? Gem is a frequent visitor to the markets of flowers, birds, and aquatic products, and he is praised as a good man. He is smarter than you. Perhaps he has colluded with Ms. Gin to infuriate you and make you a laughing stock in the temple!”
He was confused but soon he realised that something must have been wrong. Ms. Gin, the madam of a brothel, should have kept it secret if one of her customers had lost his belongings in her house. But she told him in the early morning that his clothes had been stolen and then gave him a pink nightgown. Why?
He gnashed his teeth and was about to leave.
“What are you going to do?” his mother asked.
“I’ll kick Gem’s ass!”
“You are such a foolish, impetuous boy!” she snapped, grabbing him by the ear. “Gem will ensnare and destroy you after I die!”
“But I must fight back!” he shouted.
“Gem is a cunning man under the mask of a good man. He has embarrassed you in public and he will do much more.”
“What do you mean?”
“He did not throw a stone at you until Rachel showed up. Has he been coveting the family wealth?”
“That’s right. But he can’t do anything with his sick sister.”
She started to think about Lily instead of arguing with her son. Lily was the only daughter of the Fores. Her father did not love her mother but had hired a tutor to teach her knowledge and art since her childhood, and he hoped that she would become a refined lady.
Gem and Lily had a talk with Lady Rachel and then came to a pavilion in an artistically designed backyard which was built by their father, a great lover of horticulture. Gem appreciated the bonsai nurtured by himself for so long.
“New branches from the Sageretia theezans?” Lily asked.
“Yes,” Gem replied. “It is a shade-enduring plant and enjoys sunshine and its roots can grow fast. The pot should be large inside with more soil and be eye-catching outside and should be changed often. And the soil should be loosened frequently. All in all, it is a difficult job.”
She made tea for him. “It is not easy but you have been taking care of it for so many years,” she said smilingly. “You do like it.”
“Indeed.” The bonsai resembling an emerald was an elaborate thing for Gem.
She gave a white porcelain cup patterned with vines to him and enjoyed sightseeing with him, but she grew absent-minded.
“Do you like the bonsai?” he asked, tapping the stone table with his two fingers.
“You like it and I like it, too,” she replied nervously.
“It’s yours now.”
“But you have been nourishing it for five years.”
“You have been my younger sister for sixteen years. The bonsai is a gift to you.”
“Thank you very much. I ...”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Just tell me.”
“I ... I’d like to know ...” she stammered, blushing.
“About Konlin, right?”
The girl looked like a red rose.
Konlin was the son of a tenant farmer who had been renting the tea fields of the Fores. He was attracted by Lily who was watching fish by the lake when he was just a little boy and came to the mansion of the Fores to pay the rent. Since then love had grown and they had been able to meet each other only once a month because of the gap between them. But she had been worried about Konlin since he did not show up this month.
“What has happened to him?” she asked anxiously.
“He gave me new tea the other day,” he replied, sipping his tea.
“He should have seen me when he came here.”
“He asked me to keep you in the dark.”
“But why?”
“Because his father would have him marry another girl.”
Lily became speechless and looked pale.
“Don’t worry. Konlin has been so faithful to you that he has said no to that girl. But ...”
“Say it!”
“You and Konlin have reached marriageable age,” he said, putting down the cup and looking at his uneasy sister. “Our father will have you marry another man if Konlin does not bring up proposal of marriage.”
Chapter 3
Lily’s soon-to-be-husband, who came from the prestigious Fang family in Chuchou, was chosen after half a month.
Good word of mouth was important to both bonsai and tea. There were four well-known families engaged in tea production and trading: the Fangs in Chuchou, the Taos in Yichou, the Hus in Mingchou, and the Fores in Gingchou. The Fangs were the top and provided tea and rice for the aristocrats. The eloquent Lady Willow chose a good husband for Lily and would have her marry Geson Fang, the head of the Fangs. Everybody knew, however, that Geson had been sitting in a wheelchair for over a decade since he became crippled in an accident, and he might be impotent.
