“If Zhou Yu hasn’t cooked, just come over.”
“Okay.”
Sun Jingcheng rode for a bit, then pulled the large scarf open and simply wrapped it around his head like a mother hen, exposing only his eyes. The route home to the marital home necessarily passed by Zhou Yu’s school. He also timed it right, planning to give her a surprise.
Zhou Yu actually recognized her own little electric scooter, but she didn’t want to acknowledge the person on it. She pretended not to see and said goodbye to her colleague before heading home. The school was only four or five hundred meters from the marital home. In winter she always walked to and from work. Sun Jingcheng was a bit angry and followed behind, saying to her: “I’m embarrassing you, is that it?”
Zhou Yu slowly turned her head and pulled down the scarf covering half his face. “Oh, what are you doing here?”
“Go ahead and pretend! I froze to death waiting here an hour for you, and you come out acting like I’m embarrassing you!”
“I really didn’t recognize you. You misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood my ass!”
Zhou Yu sat on the back seat to keep the peace and urged him to go.
“Feeling guilty now, aren’t you? If I’d really wronged you, wouldn’t you jump up and bite me?” Sun Jingcheng couldn’t let it go.
…
“Alright, alright. Don’t be so unforgiving when you’re right.” Zhou Yu looked at the thermos in the basket. “Did you go to the family compound?”
Sun Jingcheng ignored her.
Zhou Yu wrapped her arms around his waist. “Did you go to the family compound?”
“Mom packed food for you,” Sun Jingcheng said. After saying this, he deeply criticized her: “You’re just hypocritical!”
“I’m hypocritical, I’m hypocritical.” Zhou Yu admitted it and kept urging him to hurry home—she was freezing to death.
Sun Jingcheng’s spirit had suffered blow after blow. Even after getting home, he was still gloomy.
Zhou Yu poured out the sesame leaf noodles from the thermos and sat there eating after adding a small spoonful of chili oil. She hadn’t had time to eat dinner earlier, only eating a chocolate.
“Go ahead and eat. Don’t complain about a sore throat afterward,” Sun Jingcheng said, looking at her noodles with chili oil.
Zhou Yu had lectured all day and her throat was already uncomfortable. She hesitated and pushed the noodles aside, then poured out another bowl. Seeing this, Sun Jingcheng sat down to eat. The two ate their own food without speaking.
Neither was a talkative person, especially Zhou Yu. She felt like all her words were used up in the classroom. At home, she just wanted to let her mouth rest. Sun Jingcheng was the same—after working all day in a noisy environment, at home he just wanted to be quiet.
This was the only area where the two were in sync—neither minded that the other didn’t talk much.
After washing up and getting into bed, Sun Jingcheng remembered the plastic bag Grandma had given him. He went to the living room to dig it out. Inside the plastic bag was a small piece of red hawthorn cake. It looked like it had been there for several days and was completely flattened.
“My mom probably took her to a banquet. This kind of thing is only available at banquets,” Zhou Yu licked it. “I loved eating this when I was little, but I don’t eat it now.”
After the two settled into bed, Zhou Yu said: “When I was little, I lived in the countryside with Grandma for a year. Back then, whenever there was a wedding or funeral in the village, she’d take me along. Seeing that I loved eating this, she’d put several slices of hawthorn cake from the plate on my bowl.”
“Later when I returned to the city and went to a wedding banquet with my mom, when this dessert was served I immediately took several slices for my bowl first. When we got home, my mom severely criticized me. She said it was very ill-mannered behavior.”
“My mom was like that too. She’d tap my sister’s hand with chopsticks.”
“Why didn’t she tap your hand?”
“Because I didn’t take any,” Sun Jingcheng said. “When I was little, I wasn’t interested in food. I only liked playing piano.”
“So you grew up eating air?” Zhou Yu asked.
…
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
“It’s your expression that’s the problem.”
“You’re a teacher—I can’t out-talk you,” Sun Jingcheng said with his hands behind his head. “Out-talking you isn’t something to be proud of anyway. You’re not a foreign prime minister.”
“Then when we argue, you shouldn’t talk back?”
“That won’t work. Arguing is another matter. Out-arguing you isn’t something to be proud of, but it’s satisfying,” Sun Jingcheng said contentedly.
…
“People say good marriages nurture you, bad marriages kill you. They kill the self that had beautiful expectations of love before marriage. That’s why there’s a saying: marriage is the grave of love,” Zhou Yu said. “This year I’ve almost become a shrew.”
“That’s not right,” Sun Jingcheng refuted her. “Love that can’t withstand the mundane can only be called passion. Real love is when, after the passion fades, it can still withstand life’s trivial daily routines.”
“I think marriage, besides love, also needs righteousness, understanding, courage, kindness, gratitude, familial affection… The ‘love’ of the passionate period is the purest and fullest, but slowly it will wane like the full moon, and what wanes will gradually transform into righteousness, courage, kindness, familial affection… various deep emotions that blend and interweave, fusing into bone and blood. That’s ultimately what’s called never leaving, never abandoning.”
He’d originally wanted to say a lot more. As he spoke, he fell silent, then looked at Zhou Yu. “Good night.”