One cried in the study; the other cried in the bridal chamber.
Drawn like a dagger through both of their hearts, the pain was too heavy to vent. After an indeterminate stretch of time, Qiaoqiao finally stopped weeping and pushed open the study window.
The fragrance of spring drifted in on the breeze. Spring was a season of hope; as long as you kept moving forward, there would always be hope.
Fetching a clean set of clothes, wheeling the chair, and blinking through a pair of reddened, swollen eyes, she stepped back into the bridal room.
“Put these on.”
Her voice was hoarse and choked as she tossed the garments onto the bed. Then, grabbing her own change of clothes from the wardrobe, she hurried off to the bathroom.
Although she had already scrubbed the living room and the hallway clean, a faint, lingering trace of feces still hung in the air.
By the time Qiaoqiao returned to the bridal chamber, Zhou Wenhui had already dressed. Without a word of scolding, he said quietly, “Let’s eat breakfast. I’m hungry.”
When she stepped up to lift him, he hooked one arm around her neck. This time, the transfer was steady; neither of them fell.
The breakfast had gone cold, and when Qiaoqiao offered to warm it up, Zhou Wenhui shook his head. “Leave it.”
A bowl of cold congee, two cold fried dough sticks, and two boiled eggs.
Picking up a steamed bun, Qiaoqiao took a fierce bite. After the morning’s chaos, hunger had caught up to her as well.
Zhou Wenhui devoured his food with ravenous speed, finishing every last bite.
Pouring him a cup of hot water, Qiaoqiao ventured, “The study still smells a bit. Would you like to go out to the yard and catch some sun?”
Zhou Wenhui offered no reply, which she took as tacit consent.
Out in the courtyard, Zhou Wenhui sat soaking in the sunlight along the veranda while Qiaoqiao went back to digging up the remaining ground.
Now that the seeds were bought, she needed to turn the soil and plant them as quickly as possible. After the next rain, they’d have fresh vegetables to eat.
Ever since returning from the hospital, Zhou Wenhui had never once stepped foot outside the house. Apart from mealtimes, he spent virtually all his time locked in the study.
On multiple occasions, his parents had urged him to go outside and enjoy the sun, but he had refused every single time.
A man who no longer wished to live had no attachment to the sun.
That fateful day, his platoon of sixteen men had been escorting road-construction experts safely away from the station toward Menghong when they were ambushed by an air raid on the return journey.
His platoon leader had dragged him beneath his own body to shield him. When Zhou Wenhui finally regained consciousness, every single one of his comrades had perished.
The platoon leader was an old subordinate of his father’s, having paid with his life to fulfill a promise made to the old commander.
Faced with enemy bombs, Zhou Wenhui had felt no fear; his heart held only hatred.
Yet he was terrified of surviving. He had usurped the glory of his fallen comrades to become a decorated hero.
He didn’t deserve to be a hero; he would rather have been buried alongside them.
Yet he lived, and the smiling faces of those fifteen brothers haunted his mind every waking second—my brothers, my comrades, how I miss you.
From the veranda, Zhou Wenhui watched the chubby, sun-browned girl in the distance. She was breaking up the soil with furious energy, shaping the ridges, clearing a large patch of earth in what felt like no time at all.
Ever since leaving the hospital, Zhou Wenhui had gone on hunger strikes and refused his medicine. He had no desire to live—he only wanted to end it all.
A proud man of iron and blood, a decorated division commander, had knelt to heaven, to earth, to his parents, and finally, even to his own son.
“Wenhui, I’m begging you. For your mother’s and my sake, take a bite. Please?”
His father had wept openly, sobbing like a child, until Zhou Wenhui finally swallowed the porridge his mother spooned into his mouth. He had lived.
He lived on, existing for his parents, though he was merely an empty husk without a soul.
His marriage was a decision his parents had hammered out together, and he had given his consent—aside from Cheng Zhaoying, marrying anyone else was all the same to him.
His parents had made him marry this clumsy, rustic girl digging barefoot in the dirt.
Her name was Yang Qiao? Right, that was it. How could his parents have picked someone so hopelessly thick-witted to take care of him?
She had dropped him right into a puddle of waste—it was vile, utterly disgusting.
Yet she had cried, too. She must have felt deeply wronged, hadn’t she?
His father had mentioned her poor family background; marrying him must have been a choice forced upon her by circumstance, too.
Out in the yard, Qiaoqiao swung her hoe with all her might. Only through hard physical labor could she chase away the crushing weight of her misery.
She missed her grandparents, her parents, and her brother, too.
She longed to flee back to Big Willow Village and escape this suffocating household.
She wanted to throw herself into her mother’s arms and cry until her heart broke.
The Zhou family was wonderful, but the Zhou family wasn’t her home.
Zhou Wenhui was as cold as ice, and she had no idea how to thaw him.
Back home, she had told her grandfather, Our family background is poor, so what kind of good husband could I ever hope to marry?
She had made her peace with it long ago: she didn’t need some grand, extraordinary husband—she just wanted someone who would treat her as an equal and talk to her like a human being.
Sweat and tears mixed together, dripping down into the dark earth. Her vegetables, she realized, would literally be grown from her tears.
After turning half a mu of land, Qiaoqiao straightened her back and glanced over at the veranda. The man who had cursed at her was lounging lazily in the sun, looking entirely at ease.
Hmph, what gives him the right to be completely unfazed while I’m suffering?
Then she recalled Luo Meiyun’s words: war was brutal, and the peace of today had been bought with the blood of soldiers.
Oh well, oh well—I’ll forgive him. He’s a soldier, a hero.
Her head spun with a tangled mess of racing thoughts until she finally shook them off. Just keep digging. Once you’re bone-tired, you won’t have the energy to think about anything.
By mid-morning, it was time to prep lunch. Wiping away the sweat, Qiaoqiao rested her hoe against the veranda railing and turned to ask Zhou Wenhui, “We still have tofu, chili peppers, and napa cabbage inside. If you don’t feel like eating those, I can go to the mess hall and buy something.”
“Eat at home.”
He hadn’t resorted to a flat “Whatever” this time.
“Then I’ll go fix lunch. Do you want to go lie down on the bed for a bit?”
“No. The study stinks.”
It had been all morning—surely the smell was gone by now?
Wheeling him into the living room, Qiaoqiao headed off to the kitchen.
She fried the tofu until its outer crust turned golden brown, tossed in the chili peppers to stir-fry, and splashed in a bit of water to let it braise.
Using the little bit of pork fat she’d rendered from yesterday’s belly, she stir-fried the napa cabbage until it smelled divine.
With just two simple dishes, Zhou Wenhui polished off two bowls of rice, while Qiaoqiao managed half a bowl. So he could eat quite a bit when he wanted to—normally he only ate a single bowl.
“Should I help you back to the study for a nap?” Qiaoqiao stammered, feeling exhausted herself and yearning for a rest.
“The study stinks. I’ll sleep in your room,” Zhou Wenhui said coldly.
“Alright, I’ll sleep in the guest room then.”
Qiaoqiao was actually quite pleased; at least the hero was finally willing to hold a proper conversation.
“There’s a military cot in the guest room. You’ll sleep right next to my bed.”
Wait, what? Qiaoqiao stared at him in confusion. Weren’t they supposed to have separate rooms?
Without waiting for an answer, Zhou Wenhui pushed his own wheelchair straight into the bridal chamber, its doors plastered with bright red double-happiness characters.
Four days after their wedding, husband and wife were finally sleeping in the same room—one on the main bed, the other on the military cot.
Perhaps exhaustion had finally caught up to both of them. When they woke up, the clock pointed to three in the afternoon.
Qiaoqiao scrambled out of bed quickly, and perhaps startled by the rustling, Zhou Wenhui woke up as well.
“I’ll help you to the bathroom,” she offered.
“Just put the commode chair inside the bathroom.”
He had no desire to use the toilet in the bedroom anymore; if he suffered another fall, it would mean another humiliating mess and a room reeking of waste.
“Got it, wait a second while I go get it.”
Truth be told, Qiaoqiao wasn’t keen on him using it in the bedroom either—the smell was simply too foul to bear.
That afternoon, Qiaoqiao went back to digging up the yard. Zhou Wenhui didn’t sit out in the sun; instead, he stayed in the living room, reading a book.
They cooked and ate at home again that evening, and once more retired to the same bedroom—one on the bed, one on the cot.
After a fall and a good cry, the dynamic between them had undergone a subtle, delicate shift.
Zhou Wenhui was still just as icy, but he was offering a few more words here and there.
Busy with turning the soil and planting seeds, Qiaoqiao found herself dwelling less on feeling wronged.
Besides, it was her fault he had tumbled in the first place; whenever she remembered that pile of waste, though, a phantom wave of nausea still threatened to rise.
Zhou Wenhui must have felt it, too, since he stopped sleeping in the study altogether and willingly parked himself in the bridal chamber every single night.