My phone wallpaper is a photo of Miss Y and me holding hands. She is walking ahead, leading me, and I am following closely behind her. Our hands are held tightly and securely together. Our shadows stretch out on the ground, mirroring our image—just like in this photo, we have walked forward together, step by step, year after year.
When we sleep, I love to cuddle close to Miss Y. I gently nuzzle her face, feeling the rise and fall of her chest and listening to the rhythm of her breathing. As the moonlight streams through the window onto the sill, Miss Y wraps her right arm around me, radiating a cozy warmth. I reach out to hold her too, our hearts pressed so close together it feels as if they might break through the shackles of our bodies and merge into one. The thumping melody of our heartbeats grows louder and louder, taking me back to the moment our love first began—back then, my heart raced just like this, marking the fluttering start of our love story.
The Rhythm of Love
What is love like? It’s the habit of holding hands whenever we walk. You always take big strides forward, while I always stroll along at a leisurely pace. We grip each other tightly; you slow down your pace for me, and I speed up mine for you. Gradually, I began to stride ahead while you started to slow down. This time, you were behind me, and I led you forward with big steps, returning to how our story first began. This time, we will change for each other once again. I suppose this is what love is: I change you, you change me, and we gradually become like each other, only to shift from that shared likeness back to how we were at the start. We change back and forth, but what remains constant is our unchanging love for one another.
After being with Miss Y for so long, I’ve grown used to her gentle tone, and used to her coaxing, spoiling, and pampering me every single day. If she suddenly acts cold one day and just texts a flat “Oh,” it can make me sad for quite a while. I can’t even show it; I can only cry and grieve secretly in my heart. When she comes home and I ask her about it indirectly, she tells me it was just a typo—but it still makes me feel so sad and hurt. The power of love is truly immense.
In front of outsiders, I’ve always maintained the image of a cool, aloof girl who speaks very little and has a super-high aesthetic. But in front of Miss Y, I’m just a closet-freak, hilarious, and eccentric beautiful girl! How should I put it? In front of the person who loves you, you never have to pretend. Even if you do try to fake it, your disguise will probably shatter in a single second. Around the person you love, you can just effortlessly be yourself. Meanwhile, to people who don’t love you, even if you trip and fall, they probably just think you’re practicing breakdancing.
Online Fandom & Silly Nicknames
Sometimes when I write novels online, I write purely for my own satisfaction, but the readers don’t buy it. They bash my writing, call me uncultured, and flood the screen with toxic comments. I usually just go through the whole routine of deleting and blocking them directly. Honestly, I don’t care at all; being insulted a couple of times in the virtual world is irrelevant and doesn’t affect my real life.
However, Miss Y reads my stories too. When she saw some of the haters attacking me, she got even more furious than I did. She specifically created burner accounts to fight back. Sometimes the anti-fans were so thoroughly embarrassed by her scolding that they deleted their comments on their own. What can I say? Having a wife like this, what more could a woman ask for?
Miss Y wanted to give me a contact nickname that was unprecedented and unmatched by anyone before or after. So, she came up with a super long name: “Past-Life Wife, Present-Life Spouse, Lifelong Companion, Dearest Ruru Baby.” The nickname was even followed by a zodiac description: “A Strong and Powerful Ox.” Sometimes, seeing her long string of a nickname cracks me up. What on earth does “a strong and powerful ox” even mean?!
In comparison, my contact name for Miss Y is much more concise: “AAAAA Kiss-Kiss-Kiss-Kiss-Kiss-Kiss Wife Your Highness.” Five A’s, six “kisses,” plus a title. Compared to Miss Y’s nickname, mine isn’t quite as wildly diverse—it’s just a very proper, standard nickname that lovers have.
Quirks and Everyday Moments
My bangs had grown so long they were blocking my eyes, making everything look a bit blurry. It just so happened that my creative inspiration was exploding during that period, so I didn’t have time to get a haircut and just let my hair grow naturally for a while. After Miss Y noticed this, she bought me a bunch of hair clips and hair ties on her way home one evening. Sometimes, when the mood struck her, she would tie a little topknot on the crown of my head and just burst into hysterical laughter. She even seized the opportunity to snap a few photos. In the pictures, the person has a completely cold and stoic face, but the hairstyle is a cute princess look—there’s an indescribable sense of contrast.
Whenever we travel, we always come across stalls that make clay figurines. Every time Miss Y sees one, she enthusiastically asks the artisan to sculpt a pair of figurines of us. But once the craftsman finishes, Miss Y gets upset again because they turn out so incredibly ugly! The figures always have crooked eyes and twisted mouths. Every single time she says it’s the last time, yet every time we go out and see one, she insists on getting a pair made. We already have a whole pile of these ugly things stacked up at home. Miss Y really falls for it every time—same trap, different day!
Tattoos and Secrets
One evening, while I was sitting at the head of the bed looking at my phone, Miss Y leaned over to kiss me. The two of us held each other face-to-face. She pressed close to my neck, her warm breath making it feel incredibly itchy. She even extended her tongue to lick the spider tattoo on my neck. Holding my phone in my hand, I didn’t push her away immediately. Afterward, my waist went soft, and I collapsed into Miss Y’s embrace. She slipped her hand under the hem of my shirt, sliding upward toward the tattoo on my neck, and then drifted down bit by bit… Lights out. The rest is inappropriate to share, but anyway, it was a mind-blowing night. Imagine it yourself.
Regarding tattoos, it’s not that I have a pain fetish; I genuinely just think they look cool. I got my first one on my lower back on the day I turned eighteen—it’s an ink-black snake. I didn’t feel much while getting it done; it was finished in the blink of an eye. Later on, I gradually became obsessed with how handsome tattoos look, so I got more on my back, over my heart, on my neck, and on my stomach. The designs are a pair of demon wings, the initials of Miss Y’s and my names, a spider, and a lotus pattern. Sometimes when Miss Y sees me covered in tattoos, she often complains that she can’t even see the hickeys when she kisses me. At times like that, I just say with a beaming smile, “It’s fine, as long as there are marks when I kiss you.”
After taking a shower, Miss Y habitually applies body lotion. It’s hard to reach her back, so she asks me to help out. My help, of course, is never entirely innocent; as I rub it in, my hands always manage to wander around to the front. Miss Y will look at me with annoyed affection and tell me to be serious. I’ll put on a stern face and say very solemnly, “I am being extremely serious.” If you ignore my freeloading, groping hands, how does that not count as a form of seriousness?
Health, Habits, and the Emergency Room
I’m not used to the smell of cigarettes, but Miss Y has a very severe smoking addiction. I’ve tried to persuade her to quit, and she even tried to get me to smoke with her once, but I could never develop an interest in it. She has never been able to kick the habit either. I know she faces immense pressure at work, so whenever she feels agitated, I just let her smoke.
Once when I went out to buy groceries, Miss Y smoked directly inside the house. She was sitting in my office chair, leaning against the backrest, taking a puff and slowly exhaling. Surrounded by the swirling smoke, her bright eyes looked misty and heavy. I didn’t know how long she had been smoking, but the ashtray was completely filled with ashes and cigarette butts. Seeing her look so melancholic made me desperately want to smooth away everything that was causing her a headache.
Because we use computers for work for long stretches of time, both Miss Y and I have rather poor eyesight. On a Saturday or Sunday, we found some time to get our vision prescriptions checked. I successfully jumped to -6.50 diopters (650 degrees), and Miss Y successfully rose to -4.75 diopters (475 degrees). Hearing the prescription report, I looked at Miss Y with a completely puzzled expression.
“Why is your prescription so high? I’ve never even seen you wear glasses; I thought your prescription was pretty low.”
“Who said my prescription was low? I just simply don’t like wearing them.”
“Well, now our household is entirely made up of ‘highly educated intellectuals’ (high-prescription folks).”
Miss Y and I both got a new pair of glasses. We bought two bottles of lutein gummy vitamins to eat, got two bottles of eye drops from the pharmacy, and bought two pounds of carrots on the way home. That night, I cooked three dishes, and every single one was made of carrots. After eating carrots for days on end, Miss Y and I practically turned the color of carrots ourselves. The two of us talked it over and realized that eyesight isn’t something that can be fixed overnight—it takes time. Only then did we switch back to a normal diet. However, from that moment on, except during working hours, Miss Y and I avoided touching electronic devices as much as possible during our free time. I don’t know if it was because we controlled our screen time, but during that period, our prescriptions genuinely stopped worsening.
Miss Y is still a child at heart. She came home one day having bought two huge bags of spicy strips (Latiao), all in the flavors we used to eat when we were kids. Miss Y and I barely ate any dinner; we just gorged ourselves on spicy strips paired with steamed buns. It was incredibly satisfying and felt amazing!
One evening before coming home, I don’t know what Miss Y ate while she was out, but she came home with a stomach ache. She didn’t eat dinner either; she just lay on the bed groaning by herself, sweating cold sweat from the pain. I told her I would take her to the hospital, but she insisted it wasn’t necessary. Having no other options and being frustrated, I boiled water to fill a hot water bottle for her and found some Ibuprofen. She remained in pain until midnight before it finally stopped. Her entire face was deathly pale and her hands and feet were icy cold. I refilled the hot water bottle for her, coaxed her into drinking some warm water, and held her while gently patting her back, slowly soothing her to sleep.
At 3:00 AM, I felt an intense heat beside me. Opening my eyes, I saw Miss Y’s face was flushed bright red. I reached out to touch her—she had a fever. I rushed her to the hospital in the middle of the night. The doctor said Miss Y had gastroenteritis and needed to be admitted for IV drips. Looking at the pitiful Miss Y on the hospital bed, a wave of heartache washed over me.
Since Miss Y had work the next day, I messaged her boss to request a leave of absence. The boss agreed and expressed some concern for Miss Y, which I brushed off politely. While waiting for Miss Y to wake up, I stared at the IV bag, constantly checking to make sure there was no backflow of blood. Watching Miss Y keep her brows tightly knit even in her sleep, my own heart tightened right along with hers.
It wasn’t until 3:00 PM that Miss Y finally woke up, by which time she was already on her fourth IV bag. Seeing her open her eyes, I held her hand tightly, afraid the needle might come loose. The very first sentence out of her mouth upon opening her eyes was asking me why we were at the hospital.
I said, “Your fever hit 39°C (102.2°F) last night. If we hadn’t come to the hospital, you would’ve burned yourself to a crisp.”
It was a rare occasion for me to speak to Miss Y in such a heavy, stern tone. Miss Y also knew she was in the wrong, so she didn’t talk back to me. She just said softly that she was hungry. I ordered a portion of yam and goji berry millet porridge and asked if there was anything else she wanted to eat. Miss Y shook her head, saying she had no appetite. I poured her a cup of warm water and told her to sleep a bit longer, saying I would wake her up when the delivery arrived. Since she wasn’t feeling well, Miss Y didn’t argue; she nodded and went back to sleep. Looking at her as she drifted off, I quietly cursed under my breath, “You absolute headache…” Sigh, she really doesn’t care about her own body at all.
Upon discharge, the doctor strictly instructed her not to eat anything spicy, cold, or oily, and Miss Y nodded repeatedly in agreement. On the third night after returning home, while I was fast asleep, Miss Y sneaked a bowl of extra-spicy river snail rice noodles (Luosifen), a cup of iced milk tea, and a handful of barbecue skewers. After eating, she thought she was so clever; she specifically packed up the leftovers into a trash bag. But she was too lazy to go downstairs, so she left it right by the front door, planning to throw it away the next day.
As it turned out, she woke up later than me the next morning. I spotted the trash bag. I was still pondering when it had been put there, but as I walked closer—before I could even look inside—a massive stench of river snail rice noodles hit me. Right then and there, my stomach started aching out of sheer anger.