After Jiang Lizhu finished washing up in the bathroom, Gu Mingyan went to take a cold shower before changing into his pajamas and coming out.
On the bed, Jiang Lizhu, now in a new nightgown, had her back to him and was holding their son, already asleep.
Gu Mingyan deliberately softened his movements, turned off the light, and got into bed. Without waiting for Jiang Lizhu to “snuggle into his arms” this time, he turned sideways and actively reached out to pull her into his embrace.
Among the dozen or so tips on marital harmony that Xiong Dongjun had shared with him, the most important keyword was “initiative.”
Take initiative in chores, in taking care of the kids, in handing over your salary, in being the first to apologize…
According to Xiong Dongjun, marriage is like a battle—whoever strikes first gains the upper hand. If a man remains passive, he risks his wife growing distant or even being lured away by some other man outside.
A military marriage inevitably faces more challenges than an ordinary one. If even civilian men need to take the initiative to hold onto their wives, then soldiers like them must do so even more.
Gu Mingyan wasn’t as prone to worrying about such things as Xiong Dongjun, but after these few days of being together, he had come to understand that Jiang Lizhu appreciated his initiative and honesty.
Jiang Lizhu, who hadn’t yet fallen into a deep sleep, felt the coolness behind her and immediately let go of their warm little boy. She turned back around and nestled into Gu Mingyan’s arms. “Sore…”
“Where does it hurt?” Gu Mingyan adjusted his position to accommodate her, tilting his head to ask softly.
“My waist and legs ache… it’s uncomfortable,” Jiang Lizhu mumbled vaguely as she lifted the leg with the sore calf and draped it over Gu Mingyan.
These past few days, she had sat too long rushing to meet a deadline, and today she had walked quite a bit. Her old postpartum ailment—aching waist and tired legs—had flared up again.
Feeling unwell, she wasn’t in the mood to tease Gu Mingyan anymore.
“Want me to massage it for you?” Gu Mingyan asked, waited a moment, then sat up. He began to gently rub her waist and back, then moved on to her legs and arms.
Jiang Lizhu frowned and let out a few soft groans, but before long, she had fallen completely silent, sound asleep.
Gu Mingyan continued massaging her for nearly an hour before stopping. In the darkness, a faint trace of guilt surfaced in his eyes—guilt for not realizing sooner that she was feeling unwell, and guilt for the fact that she had endured pregnancy and childbirth all on her own before.
Leaning down, Gu Mingyan placed a gentle kiss on Jiang Lizhu’s hair. “Goodnight.”
He reached out and pulled her nightgown back down to her knees before lying back down and readjusting their position, pulling her completely into his arms before falling back asleep.
This was exactly how Jiang Lizhu had held him after falling asleep the night before. Although it was inevitably a bit warm, both of them had slept quite well like this.
The bed, which had felt slightly cramped before, now seemed much more spacious. The little three-month-old baby stretched out his limbs, claiming most of the bed for himself.
…
Around 5:30 in the morning, Gu Mingyan woke up and skillfully changed their son’s diaper before waking Jiang Lizhu to feed him.
Their train was scheduled to arrive at Suzhou Railway Station at 7:20 a.m., meaning they needed to be at the station waiting by 7:00 at the latest.
Jiang Lizhu had been feeding their son for quite a while before she finally felt fully awake. She moved her hands and feet, then remembering something, glanced at Gu Mingyan, who was busily packing their luggage without looking her way.
“Thank you, Papa Gu,” Jiang Lizhu said with a gentle smile, her eyes curving into crescents. Then she paused and, still holding the baby, quietly turned her body slightly away.
Habit was truly terrifying. She was almost getting used to breastfeeding right in front of Gu Mingyan now.
“Would you like brown sugar eggs for breakfast, or egg cake?” Gu Mingyan’s gaze quickly swept across the room. Aside from the sheets, pillowcases, and mosquito net that still needed to be packed away, there wasn’t much left to do.
“Egg cake, I’ll have it with milk,” Jiang Lizhu replied. She had already eaten far too many brown sugar eggs and now only consumed them like medicine.
After all, she needed to nourish her body. Eggs were the easiest to come by and nutritious, and they weren’t troublesome to cook.
But now that Gu Mingyan was here, the egg cake was freshly made the previous evening. It was a rare treat—still warm when bought—and Jiang Lizhu had quite enjoyed it.
Gu Mingyan nodded. First, he used the hot water from the thermos to prepare Jiang Lizhu’s milk, then went to the kitchen to boil all eight remaining eggs. He planned to take them along on the train as dry rations.
Meanwhile, Jiang Lizhu finished feeding the baby and burped him before placing him between two pillows to play on his own. She then went to wash up, comb her hair, and change her clothes before returning to the desk to eat her egg cake with milk.
Gu Mingyan came back into the room and glanced at Jiang Lizhu, who was trying hard to hide her struggle while eating. A flicker of worry crossed his mind, but he still walked over.
“Eat the eggs instead. Leave that for me.”
To Jiang Lizhu, the egg cake, now cooled and left out overnight, had developed a strange smell that she found oddly off-putting. It tasted far worse than it had the day before.
Jiang Lizhu looked up at Gu Mingyan with a pitiful, almost pleading expression, then broke the remaining half of her egg cake in two and fed one piece into Gu Mingyan’s mouth.
As Gu Mingyan chewed, he peeled two of the still-warm boiled eggs for her.
Smiling inwardly at her little trick, Jiang Lizhu fed the other half of the egg cake to Gu Mingyan. Then she turned, stood on her tiptoes, and with some difficulty, leaned in to give him a light, almost airy kiss.
“Thanks, Comrade Old Gu! Love you.”
The nickname “Old Gu” was something Jiang Lizhu had picked up from Xiong Dongjun; she found it rather amusing.
Just as Jiang Lizhu was about to turn away, Gu Mingyan proactively lowered his head, turning his cheek toward her. “That didn’t count.”
Besides, her “love you” sounded slightly more perfunctory and less heartfelt than when she said it to their son.
Jiang Lizhu, who had indeed kissed nothing but air, didn’t make a fuss. Her eyes crinkled with mirth as she slightly pouted her soft, pink lips and planted a firm, milky-scented kiss on Gu Mingyan’s cheek.
Successfully leaving a milky smear on his face, Jiang Lizhu decisively turned back around and resumed drinking her milk and eating her boiled eggs.
This kind of pure, natural protein suited her taste much better.
Gu Mingyan wiped his face while giving her a helpless yet deeply fond smile. “Eat slowly, we have enough time.”
After reminding her, he turned and walked over to the bed, picked up their little boy who had rolled over, secured him snugly against his chest in a baby carrier, and then continued packing the last cloth bag with the bedding and mosquito net.
They would need these quilts, sheets, and mosquito net when they returned to his home in Hebei. At the very least, Jiang Lizhu and the baby absolutely couldn’t do without a mosquito net.
Jiang Lizhu might not be used to the old bedding sets at his family’s rural home, and these items weren’t heavy anyway, so he decided to bring them along.
…
“Granny Li, here’s the room key for you.”
Jiang Lizhu placed the key to their small single room with Granny Li, asking her to help return it to the hospital logistics department.
“Thank you for the notebook. The baby and I will miss you.”
Thinking about it, Granny Li had actually been quite kind to both her and the original owner. Having the elderly woman watch over the East Courtyard had invisibly helped shield them from quite a bit of trouble.
Granny Li couldn’t stand Jiang Lizhu’s sentimental and mushy talk. She waved her hand dismissively. “Go on, go on. Just don’t let my notebook gather dust.”
“Leave me a photo of the baby.” Granny Li had been waiting for Jiang Lizhu to give her a photo for a long time. She was a bit exasperated that this couple, even as they were about to leave, hadn’t noticed her obvious hints from the day before.
Jiang Lizhu’s fox-like eyes immediately curved into crescent moons. She was just teasing Granny Li; she wasn’t actually that dense. “This one’s for you.”
She handed Granny Li the photo where she and the baby both looked their happiest—the one of the three of them together. She unilaterally decided that Granny Li was just saying the opposite of what she meant; she clearly wanted her photo too!
“Take care of yourself, Granny. The baby and I are waiting to attend your 80th birthday banquet!” Jiang Lizhu said, handing over the photo and taking the opportunity to hold Granny Li’s hand.
Granny Li was 68 this year. They wouldn’t be back for her 70th, but they would try their best to return to Suzhou for her 80th.
“You sly girl, always trying to sweet-talk me,” Granny Li scolded with a laugh. She wasn’t sure she’d even live another dozen years or so.
Granny Li followed Jiang Lizhu out of the small single room and waved again. “Go on. Have a safe trip.”
“We will,” Jiang Lizhu replied with a smile and a nod, then quickly went to rejoin Gu Mingyan and the baby.
Gu Mingyan was waiting for Jiang Lizhu under the magnolia tree. He had the baby strapped to his chest, a large, bulging military backpack on his back, a sizable leather suitcase in his left hand, and three cloth-wrapped bundles hanging from his right hand.
If you ignored the baby, Gu Mingyan was essentially a walking human luggage rack.
Jiang Lizhu, on the other hand, was a completely different story.
She wore an emerald green dress with tiny white floral prints, paired with a beige knit cardigan. A brown sun hat sat on her head, and she carried a green cloth bag over her shoulder. That was it.
“Off we go!” Jiang Lizhu glanced at Gu Mingyan and the baby without a shred of guilt and walked ahead lightly towards the small east gate.
Gu Mingyan didn’t think there was anything wrong with this division of labor either. The luggage just looked bulky; the actual weight wasn’t beyond his capacity.
At the bus stop diagonally across from the north gate of Suzhou Hospital, Jiang Lizhu and her family waited. Several bus lines passing by here went directly to the train station.
Standing with her back to the hospital entrance, Jiang Lizhu was happily amusing the baby. “How can my baby be so cute? Mommy loves you so, so much! Kiss, kiss.”
She planted a kiss on the baby’s plump right cheek, then deliberately moved to the other side, gently cupped his left cheek in her hands, and gave it an enthusiastic kiss too.
With such chubby little cheeks, how could she not kiss them plenty?
“Ah yah yah…” The baby’s little hands reached out, grabbing towards Jiang Lizhu. His face broke into a wide grin at her teasing, and he excitedly patted Gu Mingyan a few times.
Gu Mingyan watched Jiang Lizhu play with the child, a faint smile on his face, occasionally glancing towards the road.
Just then, a middle-aged couple, dressed well but with unfamiliar faces, walked from the hospital gate towards them.
“Xiao Jiang, this must be Comrade Gu,” the middle-aged man said, his expression genial and full of assumed affection. He nodded at Gu Mingyan. “Hello, my surname is Lin.”
Jiang Lizhu had her back to them because she wanted to avoid exactly this—bumping into former colleagues or neighbors and getting stuck in endless small talk. She hadn’t expected not only to fail at avoiding it but also to run into the person she least wanted to see.
She rolled her eyes inwardly before slowly turning around, her face breaking into a smile even more genial and brilliant than Lin Tianlei’s. “Oh, it’s Uncle Lin. You two are taking the bus? Mm, heading to the police station to pick up Lin Mojia this early?”
Not giving Lin Tianlei or Fan Xue a chance to speak, Jiang Lizhu continued, her voice sweet and cheerful. “Makes sense, he’s been locked up for almost ten days now. Uncle Lin, you really should educate Lin Mojia properly when you get back. You can’t let him rely on his family background to be so disrespectful with his words. Soldiers and military wives are not to be insulted or slandered.”
“It’s only because of your connection to my parents that I was willing to let it go this time. But if he makes this kind of mistake again, others might not be as magnanimous as Old Gu and me.”
The genial smile on Lin Tianlei’s face froze slightly. Fan Xue’s face flushed crimson, almost suffering internal injuries from Jiang Lizhu’s words.
So, after their Lin family had used so many connections and spent so much money to finally get Lin Mojia out of the police station, they were supposed to thank Jiang Lizhu and Gu Mingyan?
Where was Jiang Lizhu magnanimous? Where had she let Lin Mojia off? Where had she shown any regard for her and Lin Tianlei’s face?
But the memory of their last humiliating defeat in a conversation with Jiang Lizhu was still fresh. Fan Xue was furious enough to spit blood, but for now, she could only suppress it fiercely.
Everyone present knew the real story, but who could compete with Jiang Lizhu’s mastery of rhetoric and her audacity to gild the lily like this?
“Yes, you’re right. I do need to discipline him properly,” Lin Tianlei said after a long silence. Instead of refuting Jiang Lizhu, he gave her a long, hard look.
If Lin Mojia couldn’t even judge who could be provoked and who couldn’t, then he really did need re-education.