Solitary flower

Juanjuan and I used to go home together every day after our shift at Mayflower. Sometimes on summer nights, we would grab a tricycle and swing slowly back to our small apartment on Jinhua Street. Now it is different. Now I often go home alone and spend the night at home waiting for Juanjuan. Sometimes I wait until dawn.

I bought this small apartment on Jinhua Street with my life savings. Once in Shanghai WanchunLou, I have saved a few money, I than five treasure qualifications are older, five treasure is my hand with the head; But a escape down, everything is bare, only a pair of jade bracelets, but has been wearing on the hand. The bracelet was a relic of the five treasures. After many risks, I did not take it off.

It was not my desire to go to the Mayflower. When I first came to Taiwan, I accompanied Yu Dahu and his gang members on a solo gang trip. But after several accidents in succession at Keelung Wharf, Yu Daho has lost all my jewelry, not even what he had done for himself. At last Yu Dao-Gui wanted to peel off the green bracelets on my hand. I seized a long pair of scissors and pointed them at him, Shouting, "Don't you dare touch these things!" He spat in my face and spat, Bitch! Bitch! Do a lifetime of business waves, I just can't hear these two words, the man's mouth scold out, the more dirty.

The business of the restaurant was not easy, and the owner of Mayflower, seeing that I was an old man, good at dealing with things, and good at the opera, sent me to wait on the gentlemen from the mainland and sing some plays to them. Sometimes when I meet old guests from Shanghai, they just call me Yunfang Lao Six. Once I ran into Lu Genrong and Lu Jiu. When he saw me, he stamped his foot as if he was sorry for something.

"Six, how did you end up in this place again?"

I smiled at him and replied:

"That's every man's life, isn't it, Master Nine?"

As a matter of fact, I was able to save a lot of money over the years by mingling with that little Cha in Mayflower, even if I was very skilled. Then I cheated on our boss, and finally got a managerial position to watch over the girls. The only female managers at Mayflower were me and Hu A-hua, and the rest were gangsters. I don't really care. I came from men, and I'm used to them. The guests called me "Commander-in-chief," and they said I had all the generals of the air, sea and land -- like Lijun and Xinmei. When the manager, only to take dry pay, those small Cha Mou flesh money, I can not bear to scrape more, hand is much tighter than before, finally I put the money outside, and put it back, calculate and calculate, count and count, finally hand wrist that jade bracelet also off, just pieced together to buy this small apartment in Jinhua Street. I bought this apartment because of Juanjuan.

Juanjuan turned out to be a mouse boy's man, in Mayflower life is very shallow, usually a few face to face, I did not care very much. In fact, all the Mayflower girls looked pretty much the same when they were wearing powder and washing themselves. On that winter night, more than a year ago, I went to the third floor to check on them. Push the door in, only to catch a glimpse of Juanjuan standing there singing a Taiwanese minor. Half of the table in hand is occupied by Japanese sex cheaters, who are hugging the waist and touching the breast with the wine ladies, Yeo-jun and Shi-mei. A house of smoke, a house of alcohol and men stink, no one is listening to Juanjuan singing. Juanjuan stood in a corner of the room, dressed in a black satin cheongsam and a small white gown, with long, shoulder-hanging hair tied in a twist at the waist. She was surrounded by three musicians, and at the head of it was Lin Sanlang, blinking with his rotten eyes, who were almost blind, playing his very old and very dumb accordion, which accompanied Juanjuan. Juanjuan is singing the Lonely Love Flower. She cocked her head, raised her face, closed her eyes, frowned so tightly that her hair fell over one shoulder, and sang in a little trembling voice, to whom she did not know:

The moon slanted west moon slanted west true love think Junjun do not know --

Youth fir who love into leaf acacia planted -

This minor tune is composed by Lin Saburo himself. He was a famous musician during the Japanese occupation, and he wrote his own songs. They say that he fell in love with a wine girl named Bai Yulou in Penglai Court, and that she fell mad from sheep disease and drowned in a freshwater river, so he wrote the song "Lonely Love Flower" for her. He held his sallow accordion in his arms, and blinked his eyes, which grew redder and redder, and played it day after day, day after day, and I have heard so many wine girls sing it in the Mayflower. But no one can sing like Juanjuan so sad, a sound, as if in the complaint. Somehow, looking at Juanjuan's appearance, I suddenly thought of five treasures. In fact, Juanjuan does not look very similar to the five treasures, the five treasures are more beautiful than Juanjuan, but the five treasures also have a sad expression when they sing the opera. Once upon a time we went out of the hall, always love with a "re-born destiny", I sing Meng Lijun, five treasure sing Su Yingxue, she also love the double frown into a pile, a section of Erhuang, filled with resentment to sing all like. Both of them had triangular faces, short chins, high cheekbones, and slightly sunken eyes, and both of them had the look of falling death.