Shanghai's racecourse has changed its location three times, and at the beginning it was at the intersection of Nanjing Road and Henan Road, covering an area of only 80 acres, and the runway was no more than 800 meters long. Then it moved to the west of Fujian Road and the east of Nichengbang, from Avenida Nanjing Road to Wuma Road and Guangdong Road, including the current location of Zhongxi Girls' School, which used to be within its territorial scope. However, due to the sharp rise in land prices, the Horse Racing Club only stayed here for eight years before selling the land at a high price. After making a lot of money, the Club bought cheap land opposite the mud city and built the new racecourse that now covers an area of 430 acres.

In the beginning, there was only a small two-story building with a sloping roof that served as a ticket office and a members' lounge, and a simple grandstand attached to the back of the building. In the days that followed, as the number of expatriates in Shanghai increased, so did the Club's members, the stands became larger and larger, and the buildings became more and more complex.

By 1903, it already had two open-air central stands, two second-floor members' stands with cloisters; a four-storey, four-sided clock tower; A three-story annex building on the south side, with a café, reading room, and playroom on the ground floor, a member box and restaurant on the second floor, and a staff dormitory on the third floor; On the lawn for resting, there are also several exaggerated octagonal pavilions. The original intention of these pavilions was probably to highlight the Chinese cornices, but the oversized cornices undermined the lightness and agility of the beauty.

The girls of the Nakanishi Girls' School had a picnic under such a gazebo. Milk, bread with butter, and meat floss are all things they often eat for breakfast, but when eaten in such a different environment, they taste exceptionally sweet.

Most of the girls have changed into spring clothes, revealing the girl's immature lines under the thin clothes, chirping like a group of happy chicks that have just come out of the shell, curiously looking at the novelty around them.

In such an environment, even Daisy's mood was much better, she closed her eyes slightly, half-leaning under a small tree, enjoying the breeze blowing and sultry her skin. It was a feeble, quiet warm breeze, the gentle breeze of spring, which brought the moist freshness of the bushes of the season and the dark, intoxicating aroma of wildflowers, the intense scent of pine resin and the spicy smell of eucalyptus, and the smell of laughter and joy, not just of the schoolgirls, but of the whole lawn, of the whole racecourse, and even of all the people who surrounded the grounds. The girl strives to capture the happiness of others in the wind and bury it in her heart, hoping that one day these seeds can take root and sprout in her heart.

"Dangdang......" The four-sided clock rang, and it was one o'clock in the afternoon.

"Girls, get moving!" The warden owl shouted.

The girls followed the flow of people along the trail next to the fence until they reached the north side of the football field, where the gate had been opened. After passing through the fence gate, they crossed a grass runway, and then another fence in front of them, and behind this fence was a hard runway. The harder the runway and the more fence you pass, you have a football field.

The stadium is north-south and is about 150 meters long and 80 meters wide. On the west side of the course, there is a row of very rudimentary, wooden stepped stands, each no taller than knee-high and no wider than two feet long, a total of four steps, the length of which is the same length as the field, 150 meters.

Since the girls were generally not tall, they were guided to the first step. With Principal Lian Jisheng's gesture, they sat down and sat on the second step, each of them being able to sit half because there were other people's feet behind them.

Because of her tallest height, Daisy was placed in a position at the very edge, and she sat on the northernmost side of the stands. Next to her sat Miss McBride, about her height, and a few teachers in the past. Behind her sat two fashionably dressed ladies with enviable wide-brimmed hats. Both teachers and students at their school are bareheaded, and although the sun at the end of April is not hot, it can still be uncomfortable to spend a long time on exposed skin.

"Do you want umbrella felling, you want umbrella felling?" The cries rang out at the right time. A boy dressed as an apprentice groom carries a bamboo basket with dozens of very small parasols in it, both Western and Japanese, which can be stretched out just enough to cover his head and face without affecting the others around him.

Daisy touched the inner pocket of her clothes, but luckily she hadn't forgotten to bring her purse. She took out her purse and opened it, and said to the apprentice, "How many tongtians?" ”

The apprentice was not in a hurry to answer, but stared at Daisy a few times, swept her from head to toe and dressed, and then said: "If you want to buy or rent, you can rent it, if you rent it, you can rent two coppers each, and if you buy it, Xiaoyang will be a corner, but little sister," he said, he put his head to Daisy's hand, "If you only have the ocean, I can't find it, why don't you take a handful and use it first, as long as you remember to watch the ball and return it to me after the game." ”

Seeing his frivolous eyes, Daisy was already angry in her heart, and listened to his offensive words, and couldn't wait to immediately call left and right to step forward, and the big ear scraper whipped him, but unfortunately she didn't even have a grandma around her, only a group of foreign women who couldn't understand Chinese, and it would take half a day to explain to them.

She didn't say much at the moment, just glanced at the bamboo basket secretly, estimated a little about how many umbrellas there were in it, and then took out four oceans from the purse, threw it into the other party's arms, and said, "I don't need you to look for it, I have wrapped all these umbrellas, you put down the basket, and you can go." ”

Yin Yang bumped into the other party and bounced, crackling a few times and rolling to the ground, the apprentice was startled at first, and then his face showed a look that was half ashamed and half angry, half Laipi, but Dai Qian didn't wait for him to speak, and said word by word: "Don't be verbose, there are my teachers all around here, believe it or not, I told them about this matter, and asked you to go to the arrest room to eat prison food for a few days." As she spoke, she fixed her eyes on the other's eyes. Although her appearance is inherited from her mother, her bones are full of genes from her father's line, and at this moment she doesn't even know it, revealing her father's eyes.

The apprentice's eyes flickered, although he knew that Daisy's sky-clear eyes were staring at him, but he didn't dare to look at it at all, and he wanted to say something, but he heard Daisy's voice continue: "I said I don't want to listen to your verbosity, you dare to say another word and come out and see." ”

The next moment, the apprentice was already lying on the ground searching for the falling silver dollars, one of which rolled all the way to the feet of McBride next to Daisy, and he hesitated again and again, and finally had to kneel at Daisy's feet, prostrate himself into it, and scoop it out, which surprised Miss McBride, and a fat woman sitting on the first step in front of her.

The apprentice did not dare to raise his head after collecting the money, and Daisy kept her eyes on his back like an unsheathed sword until he disappeared from view completely.

Daisy turned around, picked out an umbrella from the basket, and gave it to Miss McBride for her to choose from, passing the basket to everyone to choose an umbrella.

McBride was clearly a Mardahar, and she didn't see anything wrong with what had just happened, and she didn't think there was anything wrong with having students pay for umbrellas. She chose and chose with great interest, picked a hand-painted cherry blossom Japanese umbrella, and then passed the bamboo basket down.

When the bamboo basket came back in a circle, there were still two umbrellas left, and Daisy saw it, so she simply gave them to the two women behind her. Although the two women already wore wide-brimmed hats to protect themselves from the sun, they did not seem to object to an extra umbrella for double protection.

One of them said, "Did something happen between you and the young man?" ”

"I told him that he had another stench on him, so I told him to put down his umbrella and leave."

"Oh!" The other party giggled, seemed to appreciate Daisy's straightforwardness, and said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Elizabeth de Gray, and this is Emilia Griffon." ”

"I'm glad to meet you, Lady de Gray, Lady Grison, I'm Margaret Lee, please call me Daisy."

After that outburst of anger just now, Daisy felt that the blocks that had accumulated in her heart for the past two months seemed to be much looser. She had a good conversation with the two new ladies behind her, and occasionally Miss McBride would get involved.

As the time approached half past one, the stands were almost full, all women, and men were standing around the other three sides of the field, three floors inside and three floors outside, and it seemed that all the Westerners in Shanghai Beach had gathered here.

In the distance, the racecourse was also bustling with locals outside the wooden railings erected along the ring road.

On Jing'an Temple Road in the north, the balconies of more than a dozen three- and four-story buildings are also full of people. These are the so-called "Chinese Entrepreneurs Horse Racing Association".

As more and more Chinese people watched Marseille over the years, many Western businessmen saw business opportunities in the area. They rented some Chinese houses around the racecourse to open up a venue for Chinese people to watch the race, and attracted some Chinese to buy tickets with their wide vision and spacious environment. It is true that according to the rules of the Horse Racing Association, Chinese residents are not allowed to open windows on the side facing the racecourse, but foreigners can be rented without restrictions. Realizing that the Chinese gentry did not want to crowd outside the wooden railing with other people, and also wanted to watch the race in a decent way like Westerners, the Western businessmen specially named this kind of spectator venue "Chinese Merchants Horse Racing Club" to attract good-looking Chinese wealthy class customers.

Daisy looked at the tallest of these buildings, which had a large platform on the top floor, and Daisy wondered if her father was watching from above. This building is actually her family's property, but she found a foreigner to make a name.

"When" the clocks rang in the distance, and it was the chime that struck every half hour. It was half past one and the game began.