The room suddenly fell silent.
The Peking opera was still playing on the radio, the gongs and drums beating urgently, yet the three people sitting in the room seemed to have been abruptly pressed down by something.
Zhong Jihui’s teacup froze in mid-air.
Zhong Mian took off his reading glasses, placed them on the tea table, and slowly raised his eyes to look at his youngest son.
Zhong Jiming also looked at his father.
Father and son stared at each other, neither speaking.
Zhong Jihui was the first to regain his composure.
He dreaded moments like this the most—both father and son shared the same stubborn temper, and once they clashed, neither would yield an inch.
He still vividly remembered the huge argument from eleven years ago and had no desire to witness a repeat.
“Third Brother, it’s perfect timing that you’re going to Shenzhen,” Zhong Jihui hurriedly steered the conversation away, his voice deliberately lightening a little. “Jinghe is in Shenzhen, you know? You didn’t know that, did you? He’s always listened to you since he was a child. When you see him, help me talk some sense into him. He’s abandoned a perfectly good, respectable job to run off to Shenzhen to make movies and shoot commercials, saying it’s the sunrise industry of the future. Your second sister-in-law is so angry she gets headaches.”
Jinghe was Zhong Jihui’s son, just over twenty years old. The boy had always been close to his third uncle, probably because both of them had a stubborn streak deep down.
Zhong Jiming nodded. “Mm, I know.”
He stood up. “I’ll be leaving now.”
He didn’t want to stay in this room any longer. The air was too heavy; the unspoken words were even harder to bear than those spoken aloud.
As he reached the doorway, his father’s voice came from behind.
“Wait.”
Zhong Jiming stopped but didn’t turn around.
Zhong Mian was silent for a moment, as if weighing his words.
“I don’t care what you’re going to Hong Kong for,” Zhong Mian’s voice was lower than before, tinged with a weariness he was reluctant to let others detect, “but you mustn’t forget propriety. When you visit the Gu family, keep a humble posture.”
Zhong Jiming didn’t respond.
Zhong Mian continued, “When you return from Hong Kong… let go of what should be left in the past.”
He paused. “A while ago, Elder Wang mentioned his granddaughter to me. The girl works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…”
Before he could finish, Zhong Jiming let out a cold laugh.
“His granddaughter should call me uncle, shouldn’t she?”
Zhong Mian’s face instantly darkened.
“You…”
Zhong Mian’s hands trembled with anger, and one of the medicine bottles on the tea table was knocked over by his sleeve, rolling clatteringly onto the floor.
Zhong Jihui quickly stood up, grabbed Zhong Jiming’s arm, and pulled him toward the door.
“Alright, alright, it’s about time. You should go now.”
He practically half-pushed, half-dragged Zhong Jiming out of the main room, across the courtyard, and all the way to the main gate.
The spring days were longer, but it was still early. The light and shadows in the courtyard had already faded, and the winter jasmine at the base of the wall had turned into a blurry, warm yellow in the dusk.
Zhong Jiming stood at the gate. The spring wind was biting, still carrying a hint of chill. He pulled his coat tighter.
After a moment of silence, he said, “Go tell him to worry less about my affairs from now on.”
Zhong Jihui smiled bitterly and lowered his voice. “You don’t understand. Elder Wang came directly to our door and brought it up in front of several old comrades. Father couldn’t just refuse him outright at the time. Why don’t you just meet her…”
“Meet who?” Zhong Jiming glanced at him.
That glance was faint, so faint it bordered on indifference, yet Zhong Jihui read an unyielding resolve within it.
Zhong Jiming said nothing more, turned, and left.
His figure disappeared at the alley entrance. Zhong Jihui stood at the doorway for a moment, then sighed.
“His temper is still the same as before.”
He turned and went back inside.
Zhong Mian was still sitting in the armchair, holding his reading glasses, motionless.
He wasn’t reading the newspaper, nor was he listening to the opera. He just sat there, his gaze fixed on some invisible point in the void.
Huilan quietly picked up the medicine bottle that had rolled onto the floor and slipped out of the room.
Zhong Jihui sat down opposite his father.
He could guess what his father was thinking.
“Dad.”
His tone carried a gravity not usually present.
“Why didn’t you tell Third Brother the truth? Back then, the divorce… Wangshu was the one who came to you for help.”
Zhong Mian’s fingers trembled slightly.
“What happened back then…” His voice suddenly sounded much older. “Originally, I wanted him to calm down. You know his temper—once he’s set on something, even nine oxen couldn’t pull him back. I thought once his anger subsided, I could explain it to him slowly…”
He paused, his Adam’s apple moving.
“But who could have guessed… less than a year after Wangshu left, she…”
He couldn’t go on.
Zhong Jihui also fell silent.
She passed away.
By then, Zhong Jiming was already in the southwest, having cut off all contact with the family.
“If I had known her health had deteriorated to that extent…” Zhong Mian’s voice emerged from the depths of memory, fragmented. “I would never have agreed back then.”
Zhong Jihui said, “Don’t you know Wangshu’s nature? She was stubborn too. When she came to you for help, she even brought out the Gu family’s elderly matriarch. How could you refuse?”
Zhong Mian shook his head. “At that time, the Gu family was hit by one misfortune after another, and everything was in chaos. Your mother had passed away early… I wasn’t as attentive as your mother, and I overlooked Wangshu. She always wore a smile, so how could I have known her health was so poor?”
He let out a long sigh.
“Whenever I think about it now, I feel I’ve let down her parents and her grandmother. They sent their daughter into our family in good health, and we failed to take proper care of her.”
Outside the window, dusk deepened.
The pomegranate tree in the courtyard swayed its newly sprouted tender branches in the gentle breeze. The winter jasmine at the base of the wall had already closed its petals. The opera on the radio had long since ended, leaving only the static hum of electric current.
Looking at his father’s hunched back, Zhong Jihui suddenly felt a sting in his eyes.
Eleven years.
This secret had been like a blunt knife, sawing back and forth between this father and son.
For eleven years, his father had silently borne the stigma of “breaking up his son’s marriage,” while Third Brother had exiled himself for eleven years, carrying the hatred of “being betrayed by his father.”
The truth was right there, clear with just a few words.
Zhong Mian couldn’t bring himself to say it because Wangshu was no longer here. Revealing the truth now—what would it change, other than causing Third Brother even more pain?
And Zhong Jihui himself couldn’t make that decision for his father.
“It’s getting late,” Zhong Mian finally spoke again, his voice regaining its usual calm. “You should go back too. Tell your wife not to worry too much about Jinghe. Young people have their own ideas.”
Zhong Jihui stood up. “Then I’ll be going. Rest early.”
Zhong Mian grunted in acknowledgment, put his reading glasses back on, and picked up the newspaper.
Zhong Jihui walked to the door and glanced back.
His father’s hand holding the newspaper trembled slightly—and the paper was upside down.
Meanwhile, Zhong Jiming was walking along Chang’an Avenue.
A flood of bicycles surged past him, their bells ringing incessantly.
He walked aimlessly. The magnolia blossoms along the street had opened, and a faint, crisp floral fragrance drifted in the air, elusive and subtle.
He thought of Wangshu.
In truth, he had been thinking of her all along.
For eleven years, whether among the mountains of the southwest or atop the deserts of the northwest, her shadow had never truly left him.
Sometimes it was a silhouette in a dream, sometimes the scent of flowers carried by the wind, sometimes nothing at all—just a sudden dull ache in his chest, like an old bone injury throbbing when the weather changed.
He was going to Hong Kong to see her.
Or rather, to see the places she had lived, the roads she had walked, the room where she had last stayed.
All these years, he hadn’t been able to go—first because the paperwork wouldn’t go through, and later… later because he himself didn’t dare.
He was afraid that going would mean admitting she was truly gone.
But now, he finally felt it was time.
The night sky over Beijing was hazy, with few stars visible.
Wangshu had once said her favorite line of poetry was, “The moon rises bright, the fair one lovely.”
Spring had arrived. Everything was sprouting, branching, growing.