Chapter 18 - Beautiful Sister-in-law (1/2)

Beautiful Sister-in-law

The police caught the two suspects on the night the evidence was found. Jiang Ru-Yi sent pictures of the scene to Xia Lei via WeChat and it was indeed the suited man and sexy lady he had welded the key for.

The case was cracked at this point and Jiang Ru-Yi’s position as Chief secured. As to what sort of relics were in the ship - it was hard to tell. Xia Lei was not concerned about it at all since all his attention was now on learning.

He had gone to a bookshop and purchased books worth thousands of yuan when he had returned from Thunder Horse Workshop in the afternoon. English, German, Japanese, French and other books on learning languages, plus specialised books on machine processing. These tens of books occupied two large boxes. A normal person would require at least ten years of effort to study and master their contents.

Xia Lei, however, did not need more than ten years to learn. In the hour since receiving the pictures from Jiang Ru-Yi, he had finished reading ‘The English-Chinese Dictionary’. His way of reading was unique too - he did not concern himself with understanding the meaning of the words. He just swept his gaze over the pages and was done with it.

Xia Lei closed the book and shut his eyes. Images of what he had just read surfaced in his mind, and every piece of writing, every paragraph, every line, even all the punctuation were all in his head!

The hardest part of learning a foreign language was memorising the vocabulary but he’d just memorised the entire English-Chinese dictionary in an hour. With progress such as this, there was no need to spend years to master a foreign language like English.

“Big Brother? Your room light’s still on. What are you doing up so late?” Xia Xue’s voice came from beyond the door.

Xia Lei looked at the alarm clock on his bedside cabinet and found that it was past midnight. “I’m reading,” he said.

“Sleep earlier. You still need to go to the shop early tomorrow, so don’t tax yourself,” chided Xia Xue.

“Mm, I’ll be going to bed. You should, too.” Xia Lei switched off the lights.

“Big Brother, I’ll go to the shop to help out tomorrow,” said Xia Xue.

“No need. There’s not much else to do in the shop. Xiao-An and myself are enough,” said Xia Lei.

“Okay, then I’ll go to school for extra lessons.” The sound of slippered feet could be heard stepping away beyond the door. Xia Xue had gone back to her room.

Xia Lei laid on his bed and closed his eyes, still recalling the contents of The English-Chinese Dictionary. He was too excited to sleep.

Early next morning, Xia Lei brought several books with him to Thunder Horse Workshop and found Ma Xiao-An already busying himself about the shop.

“Why are you so early?” Xia Lei was surprised.

Ma Xiao-An smiled as he said, “I couldn’t sleep. We can open for business sooner if I finish up what needs to be done quickly. Heehee, I can’t wait for that day to arrive.”

Xia Lei laughed, “I think so too; we brothers are of one mind. Thunder Horse Workshop will definitely succeed.”

Ma Xiao-An’s gaze alighted on the pile of books in Xia Lei’s hands and he asked curiously, “What did you bring all these books for? What sort of books are they?”

“These are reference books like ‘Welding Engineer Handbook’ and ‘Precise Machine Processing’ and others. I plan to read these when the renovation guy comes later.”

“Can you finish reading all these? You brought so many.” Ma Xiao-An’s eyes were full of doubt. People normally brought just one book and that was enough - who would bring so many thick books at once like Xia Lei did?

Xia Lei just smiled and said nothing. Inside, he wondered, “Would you still think that way if you knew I memorised the entire English-Chinese Dictionary and English Grammar last night?”

The two busied themselves with work till the renovator arrived in a three-wheeled cargo vehicle with all his tools and renovation materials.

Xia Lei’s plan was to re-paint the walls and change the ceiling tiles to new gypsum boards to create a clean and tidy look. The tools and equipment would also be rearranged to optimise the use of space in the shop. The overall aim was to improve the image of the shop; it would no longer be a little roadside shop but a trustworthy, tasteful establishment.

It held no meaning for Xia Lei to run a machine shop just to weld some ratty-tatty cars or fix broken rice cookers. He wanted high-end orders like complicated welding, precision mechanical parts processing and so on. This was also his original intent in establishing Thunder Horse Workshop.

Xia Lei moved a chair out to the entrance for reading when the renovator entered. Ma Xiao-An had nothing else to do so he started to do odd jobs to help the renovator.

An afternoon passed just like that and Xia Lei finished two thick machining specialisation books.

Just as Xia Lei and Ma Xiao-An were about to invite the renovator to join them for a meal at a little restaurant nearby, a red Volkswagen Polo stopped by the side of the road.

Jiang Ru-Yi alighted from the car dressed in a white short-sleeved round-necked T-shirt and tight black short skirt, matched with flesh-coloured stockings and black high-heels. She was like a refreshing vision in summer, pleasing to the eye.

What Xia Lei saw was not just that - he also saw black lace underwear and a purple bra. These then vanished before his eyes, and Jiang Ru-Yi seemed to have become a primitive tribal girl, coming out of a cave to pick a leaf to shyly cover her body…

A patch of material on Xia Lei’s body slowly stretched tight and he quickly looked away. Too bad the image of a beautiful pale landscape still lingered in his mind. After seeing her naked several times, he came to the conclusion that Jiang Ru-Yi’s buttocks were very sexy.

“Why can’t I ever control the desire to look at her with my X-ray vision?” thought Xia Lei. He still couldn’t figure it out.

Ma Xiao-An clicked his tongue in appreciation, then spoke in a low tone to Xia Lei, “Sister-in-law’s got a good figure! Looks like you won’t be joining us for dinner. Go, go. You should focus on wooing your future bride. I’ll entertain the renovator.”

“Sister-in-law, my foot. How many times must I tell you for you to believe me? There’s nothing between us.” Xia Lei had nothing more to say about it.

Ma Xiao-An chuckled, “I won’t believe you even if you deny it 10,000 times.”