The editor was pressing hard for updates, but I had absolutely no inspiration. Sitting in front of the computer day after day rack among my brains, I was so stressed that my hair was falling out in handfuls. Y was just as anxious as I was.
While I was losing hair from the frustration of writer’s block, she developed canker sores from worrying so much on my behalf. During that period, every single meal at home consisted of black sesame soup paired with stir-fried bitter melon.
Inspiration is such a bizarre thing; sometimes a flood of ideas hits you when you’re just spacing out, but the moment you sit down to think seriously, it vanishes completely. That was exactly my state back then. I was only sleeping three hours a night, spending the rest of my time holed up in the study.
Yet, no matter what, the muse wouldn’t strike. Going out for walks to look at the scenery didn’t work, and even Miss Y coming home to give me a loving hug didn’t help. I simply couldn’t squeeze out a single word. It was truly a deeply frustrating time!
One night, Miss Y nudged me awake in the middle of a dream, complaining that her legs were hurting again. As I massaged them for her, half-asleep, I heard her softly crying. Opening my eyes, I saw her leaning against me, her tears slowly tracing down my shoulder.
I told her to rub her legs herself for a moment while I went to find some heating pads. The ones in the bedroom were all used up and hadn’t been restocked yet, so I checked the living room and found only three left. I stuck them onto her sweatpants right over her knees and kept massaging her legs over the heating pads.
I kept rubbing until the sun came up, then used my phone to book a hospital appointment. As soon as Miss Y woke up, I made her call in sick and took her to the hospital for a full round of X-rays and blood tests. It wasn’t until the doctor looked at the scans and said everything was fine that my heart finally settled back into my chest. Miss Y just looked at me with a goofy grin.
She had slept the whole night and was fully rested, whereas I had spent the night massaging her knees. After playfully giving her a little hard time, I drove us home. Thank goodness it was nothing serious.
Miss Y once fell for a cheap bargain, buying twelve pairs of socks for just ten yuan. They were cheap, all right, but they got holes in them on the very first day she wore them. Left with no choice, she found an old T-shirt we didn’t wear, cut out patches, and sewed them onto the socks.
In Miss Y’s words, “They’re worn inside anyway, so nobody can see them.” Consequently, one sock ended up with six colors, and a single pair had twelve.
It wasn’t until they literally couldn’t be patched anymore that Miss Y finally went out to buy new ones. This time, I told her to just buy the expensive ones.
She came back with three pairs that cost 100 yuan. They were beautiful, practical, and comfortable to wear, with the only downside being the steep price. From then on, whenever we bought things, the two of us would look through them together.
Miss Y would first pick out the ones she liked, and then I would select the option with the best value. Thanks to this system, our home gradually filled up with household items that were practical, beautiful, and inexpensive.
Miss Y had a company dinner once where she drank quite a lot, coming home completely wasted. On the way back, she insisted I was a bad guy and threw a punch that landed squarely on my eye. Instantly, a burning pain flared up. I let go of her to cup my eye, and she took the opportunity to bolt.
Watching her run off, I was frantically wondering what to do, but she was so drunk she couldn’t even walk straight—after two steps, she collapsed and fell asleep right on the ground. There was nothing else to do but carry her home. Fortunately, we were close to our neighborhood at the time, otherwise I really wouldn’t have been able to carry her all the way.
Once home, I laid her on the bed and went to the bathroom to look in the mirror. Whoa—I had a total black eye. I boiled two eggs and whipped up a hangover soup, rolling the warm eggs over my eye while wincing and groaning from the pain.
Meanwhile, Miss Y was sleeping soundly, looking completely carefree. I was so annoyed that I didn’t want to bother with her, but after sighing and grumbling for a long while, I still ended up wiping off her makeup, changing her into pajamas, and letting her sleep in the bedroom while I went to the study to work. Around midnight, Miss Y got thirsty and got up for water.
She probably wasn’t sober yet, as she was swaying and stumbling around. I watched her walk, and after a good while, she still hadn’t made it to the kettle. Left with no choice, I poured a glass of water, helped her drink it, and then held her close as we went to sleep, thinking to myself that I would definitely give her a piece of my mind the next day. Alcohol really does cause trouble!
The next morning, I woke up earlier than Miss Y to prepare breakfast.
Just as I finished making it, I heard her alarm go off. She started bustling and clattering around in her room; the whole apartment seemed to gradually wake up along with her.
After washing up, she came into the kitchen and saw my eye wrapped in a bandage. She asked me, looking incredibly fierce, “What happened to you?!”
“Someone hit me.”
“Who hit you? Go find her and hit her back!” Miss Y said, her face full of serious fury.
“I’ll go find her after breakfast. I need to eat my fill so I have the strength to beat her up.”
“What do you mean, eat breakfast?! Are you seriously just going to let her hit you like that? Don’t eat, take me to find her right now so we can hit her back!”
“Alright, alright, alright.”
I put down my chopsticks and pulled Miss Y into the bathroom.
“What are you bringing me to the bathroom for?”
I pointed up at the mirror. Miss Y looked completely blank for a second. Suddenly, it clicked, and she started laughing like a total goofball.
“Hehehe.”
“Hehehe? What are you giggling at?”
I pinched Miss Y’s cheeks before returning to the dining table to finish our meal. While sipping her porridge, Miss Y kept asking me what had happened the previous night. I recounted all her embarrassing drunken antics from start to finish, making her blush so hard her head almost sank beneath the table.
“I’m so sorry, Ruru baby. I didn’t know I was like this when I’m drunk.”
“It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt that much anymore. To be fair, your safety awareness is actually pretty strong.”
“Should you go to the hospital later? It looks pretty severe to me.”
“No need, it’ll heal in a few days.”
Miss Y stepped closer and gently kissed my bandaged eye, saying, “I’m off to work. Bye-bye. I’m so sorry, I’ll definitely make it up to you tonight!”
“I’m really fine. Hurry along to work. Bye-bye.”
Miss Y kept turning back to look at me with every three steps at the door. I waved my hand to urge her along, and only when she finally took the elevator did she leave. Once I was sure Miss Y was gone, I unwrapped the bandage and checked myself with my phone camera. It was blacker than a panda’s eye.
I rushed straight to the hospital to see a doctor and get some medication, hoping it would heal quickly. Otherwise, it would never do for Miss Y to see me looking like this!
After seeing the doctor and returning home, the delivery notifications didn’t stop all morning—all sent by Miss Y. There was medicine, desserts, and milk tea; my mouth didn’t stop moving the entire forenoon.
I told her to stop ordering, but she insisted she wanted a chance to make it up to me. Fine, fine, I let her have her way. By lunchtime, I figured there wouldn’t be any more deliveries, so I started cooking for myself.
Just then, Miss Y messaged me saying she had ordered a portion of Japanese cuisine for me so I wouldn’t have to cook. Wow, Japanese food! I was full of anticipation. But when I actually tasted it, it wasn’t quite as good as eating at a physical restaurant—though it wasn’t too bad either, just average
I saved half of it to share with Miss Y when she got home.
That evening, Miss Y returned home with a massive bouquet of fresh flowers. Despite complaining about it being extravagant and wasteful, I still accepted them and found a vase to arrange them in. Miss Y dug into her pocket and pulled out a jewelry box, asking me to guess what was inside. I guessed a gold ring. Miss Y looked at me with a face full of shock. She had been just about to drop to one knee to slip it on my finger, but because I guessed it right on the first try, she couldn’t stop praising my intuition. The gold ring felt heavy on my hand. Between my two hands, I already had eight rings spread across my ten fingers; adding the one she bought tonight made nine.
Taking off all those rings every night before bed was becoming quite a chore.
The sun had been wonderful lately, so I took out several of Miss Y’s long dresses to wash. A row of dresses in red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, and purple hung out to dry. As the sunlight streamed onto the balcony, they fluttered gently with the wind, swaying like a row of dancing little elves.
Miss Y had bought me so many rings—gold rings, platinum rings, sterling silver rings, jade rings, gemstone rings, and diamond rings. The two of us had three or four boxes dedicated just to holding the rings we bought for each other. Sometimes when friends came over and saw our ring boxes, they couldn’t help but marvel, asking why humans only have ten fingers.
Chatting about our childhoods, I mentioned that my family had never bought me a silver bracelet when I was little; I could only watch other kids wear them. Miss Y looked at me and said she would buy them for me in the future.
I said sure. A few days later, I received a parcel. Upon opening it, I found twenty-five silver bracelets inside. Looking at those twenty-five bracelets, my first instinct was to laugh, and my second was to cry.
I put them all on until my arms were completely covered, took a photo, and posted it to my Moments. A friend teased me, asking if I had just robbed a silver jewelry store. I told her to get lost and proudly declared that my wife had bought them for me to make up for the happiness I missed out on during my childhood.
Right in the middle of the night, Miss Y shook me awake to ask if I loved her. I was still half-dead in a dream and completely dazed. Mistaking my confusion for a lack of love, she let out a wail and started crying. Startled awake by her sudden cry, I quickly pulled her into my arms, telling her that I loved her, that I loved her the most.
I asked what was wrong, and she whimpered that she had dreamed I was with someone else, and she even had to be a bridesmaid at the wedding.
She kept crying and wailing on the bed, so I could only hold her tight and reassure her that dreams are always the opposite of reality—in real life, she would be the one marrying me as my bride. It took quite a bit of coaxing before I finally got Miss Y back to sleep.
But by the time she was asleep, I was completely, wide awake. Staring at the ceiling until dawn didn’t seem fair, so I shook Miss Y awake too and asked her if she loved me.
Because I sat in my chair for too long, my lower back started aching. The doctor advised me to sleep somewhere more spacious at night. Left with no choice, Miss Y and I had to sleep in separate beds.
In the middle of the night, I woke up thirsty and headed to the living room to pour some water, only to find Miss Y sleeping on a makeshift floor bed right outside my door.
She wasn’t used to the hard floor, so she was tossing and turning restlessly.
I asked her why she was setting up camp on the floor there, and Miss Y mumbled that she wanted to sleep closer to me because she couldn’t fall asleep if we were far apart. However, the room I was sleeping in was too small to accommodate a floor bed, which was why she had set it up just outside the door.
My original plan had been to give the big bed to Miss Y while I took the smaller one, but seeing how clingy she was, there was nothing else to do but go back to the bedroom with her.
This time, I lay on the bed while she lay on the floor below, insisting that I hang my hand down so she could hold it while sleeping. I gladly agreed.
We spent the night like that, but by morning, not only did my back ache, but my arm was completely stiff too, and Miss Y felt miserable as well. To recover quickly, the two of us temporarily began sleeping in separate beds properly.
I once tried to make Miss Y quit smoking, but she didn’t succeed.
Forcing her to quit smoking felt like trying to kill her. Left with no alternative, we agreed on a limit of three cigarettes a day. Instead, she ended up smoking an entire pack in a single day. Having run out of options, I started managing her salary, cutting off her pocket money entirely while setting up a linked payment account for her.
At first, she behaved herself and tried to quit, but later, when her cravings hit, she wanted to hide it from me and began borrowing cigarettes from her colleagues at work. As for how I found out—she borrowed so often that her colleagues actually reported it to me. Furious, I took a taxi down to Miss Y’s office building and caught her red-handed right as she was smoking.
In a flash of lightning, Miss Y turned to her colleague with an air of righteous indignation and said, “Smoking is bad for you!” before snatching the cigarette from her colleague’s hand, stomping it out, and tossing it into the trash can.
I stood to the side watching her perform, finding it inexplicably hilarious.
One evening, Miss Y snuggled under the covers and quietly whispered to me that she had discovered wearing socks with slippers was incredibly comfortable. I looked into her eyes, utterly speechless.
Seeing her staring back at me with a face full of pure innocence, I could only say, “Then I’ll try out this outfit tomorrow.”
Miss Y nodded eagerly, asking if this counted as her own unique discovery.
I have flat feet, so I often trip and fall out of nowhere while walking. When walking with Miss Y, I would suddenly take a spill right on the spot. At first, Miss Y would rush to catch me, but after getting used to it and realizing I wouldn’t actually hurt myself, she stopped bothering. Later, Miss Y saw a video online saying it might be due to flat feet, so she started buying me shoes with strong arch support. I don’t know if it was just psychological, but I really didn’t fall as easily after that. Thank you, Miss Y.
Lately, Miss Y had become obsessed with buying cotton dolls, even going so far as to have a custom cabinet built at home just to display them. For every single doll, Miss Y would prepare complete sets of clothes and miniature furniture. Often at night, Miss Y would fall asleep cradling a doll instead of hugging me.
When I brought this issue up to her, she just looked at me with a smile and said, “How can you be jealous of a doll?” I felt unhappy that she put it that way; I just wanted her to love me a little more. Miss Y also realized her wording hadn’t been great, so she wrapped her arms around me and said softly, “You’re the best, I like you the most.” Hmmph, just like that, I was coaxed out of my pout. That’s the power of love for you.