Quietly.
There was no sound at all.
It was as if the whole world had fallen silent.
Zhou Ji remained silent, his eyes like a cold, black river, silently flowing with icy water. He stared at her without blinking, unable to look away.
I don't know how much time passed.
The man lifted his heavy, almost immobile foot and slowly walked to her. He knelt down, slowly raised his hand, and gently stroked the woman's quiet and gentle eyebrows and eyes with his fingertips.
Zhou Zhengchu was right.
She did look very peaceful, as if she had no worries or sorrows.
She left quietly like that.
They didn't leave him a single word.
His hand landed on her face, lingering there for a long time without moving away. He looked at her, parted his thin lips slightly, and spoke in a hoarse voice that even he himself found unpleasant to hear: "Aren't you really going to get up and eat something?"
He asked that question.
His voice was so hoarse it was unrecognizable.
But she remained unresponsive with her eyes closed, refusing to lift her eyelashes to look at him again, or utter another word to him.
Zhou Ji's eyes gradually turned scarlet, with blood lines appearing terrifying in his eye sockets, but his expression remained calm.
It was as calm as if nothing had happened.
His pupils were fixed on her face, as if by looking at her like this, by keeping a close eye on her, she would wake up quickly.
His face was expressionless, his throat was choked, and every word he uttered seemed to be forced out: "Didn't you want to eat this?"
"Why didn't you eat it after I bought it for you?"
It's the strawberry cake she's been asking for every day.
She likes to eat sweet strawberries, preferably ones without any sourness.
I also like to eat soft cakes and melt-in-your-mouth cream.
Zhou Ji had finally gotten used to being ordered around by her every day after she woke up to go to the cake shop and buy her favorite strawberry cake.
The top layer is often covered with a thick layer of strawberry jam.
In fact, Zhou Ji used to take her out with him and accompany her to the cake shop.
Let her take her time to choose what she wants to eat.
These days, however, her physical condition can no longer support her going out for so long. She sleeps all day long, as if she can never get enough sleep.
Sometimes, it's only been a short while since they left the house.
She hadn't walked far when she said she was sleepy and then tried to lie down on him to sleep.
Her body was very light, and even when she was lying on top of him, he could not feel any weight.
So Zhou Ji intentionally or unintentionally tried to feed her more food, hoping to make her gain a few more pounds.
She ate a lot, but didn't gain much weight.
Her waist was still slender, and her wrists were as thin as a section of bamboo when pinched.
The only comforting thing was that she seemed to have no worries at all, her eyes were full of smiles, and when she looked at him, it seemed that there was a dazzling light in her eyes.
When Zhou Ji looked into her smiling eyes, he felt a tightness in his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
She smiled foolishly at him, her eyes filled with contentment.
He could only smile at her, but his heart felt like it was bleeding, so painful that even speaking became difficult, and his chest felt suffocated.
He could only think the best of it; it was better not to know anything at all.
Being too clear-headed isn't necessarily a good thing.
At this moment, Zhou Ji looked at her and gently pinched her cheek as he always did: "Do you regret it? Don't you want to eat anymore?"
The surroundings remained eerily quiet.
It was so quiet that it was as if there was no sound at all.
The redness in Zhou Ji's eyes looked increasingly terrifying, a kind of calm dread, as if blood and tears could flow from his eyes at any moment.
The man gently lifted the person out of his son's arms.
Zhou Zhengchu's eyes were also red, with tears hanging on his eyelashes. He looked somewhat dazed, and his face was very pale. Compared to his father, he was not much better off.
The father and son remained silent.
The housekeeper only saw the master carry his wife out of the flower room, but the bloodshot veins in his usually indifferent eyes were terrifying.
He didn't dare to go forward.
Looking at his wife with her eyes closed in his arms, the housekeeper had a bad feeling, but he didn't dare to ask to confirm it.
Zhou Ji carried the person back to the master bedroom upstairs.
As before, I gently placed her on the bed, covered her with the blanket, and then climbed into bed myself, lying down beside her.
He held her hand tightly, their fingers intertwined.
At this moment, it felt as if they were sleeping together every night before.
A few strands of the woman's hair fell slowly to his side. He gazed at her face, his eyes sweeping over her features inch by inch.
Even he himself didn't know when, but his face felt cold and wet.
Memories flooded back.
It surged towards him like a raging wave, giving him almost no chance to catch his breath.
Zhou Ji never easily reminisces about the past, as it's always pointless. His feelings for her are so complex that even he himself doesn't know what they are.
Sometimes, Zhou Ji also felt that he loved her.
If there were truly no feelings involved, even if it was just a one-night stand and they had a child, he might not be able to so willingly and decisively choose to marry her.
Marriage is a bond, but also a contract, and a legal guarantee.
Since he has assumed the role of husband, he will ensure that she receives everything she is entitled to during the duration of the marriage.
At least that's what Zhou Ji really thought at the time.
In the early days of their marriage, Zhou Ji didn't have deep feelings for her, but he didn't dislike her either, at least not her face.
He was very busy at that time. The group had just started its business in overseas markets, and he had also drastically laid off many people. Having just cleaned up the house, he naturally didn't have many trusted confidants he could rely on.
Therefore, he was not in the country for several months.
It happened during the time she was pregnant.
Back then, she was still a bit timid. Even if she had grievances, she didn't dare to speak up or complain in front of him. At home, she would occasionally throw a tantrum like a child, sulking and not wanting to eat, and throwing her chopsticks.
That's incredibly childish.
Not every member of the Zhou family is particularly successful.
But at least they are people who value rules and regulations, unlike her, because her father and mother don't like her very much, nor do they like her tendency to lose her temper at the drop of a hat, but she is pregnant after all.
Therefore, no one in her family dared to say anything to her.
Zhou Ji sent someone to pick her up and move her to the villa, which would be better than facing people she didn't like every day.
But she refused and insisted on living in the old house.
When Zhou Ji returned to China, her belly was already showing. For someone so thin, the slight bulge in her belly was quite alarming.
During her pregnancy, it was a rare period of peace and quiet for him and her.
Like many ordinary couples.
The baby in her belly was very well-behaved; she didn't experience morning sickness, and she rarely had cramps at night, so she didn't suffer much.
Zhou Ji never imagined that she would dislike this child.
After the child was born, he couldn't be by her side day and night like before; he had a mountain of work to do.
For the first two years, her dislike for the child was merely expressed through indifference.
She calls for someone to take care of her when she cries, and calls for someone to feed her when she's hungry. She doesn't really want to hold the baby and thinks the baby isn't very good-looking.
None of this matters.
It wasn't until a few years later that things escalated.
She seemed unable to control her emotions well anymore, and instead became more like a child, always getting angry with this even younger child.
Throwing a tantrum.
His childish nature hasn't changed.
Zhou Ji had no choice but to separate the two. She seemed to return to normal and was happy for a while, but it didn't last long.
The closet is often filled with small clothes she had started knitting halfway through with wool yarn. Day after day, year after year, the unfinished and undelivered clothes filled the entire drawer.
then.
Zhou Ji also gleaned her feelings from these subtle details.
She does love their children, she just doesn't know how to express it; she's sick.
I hadn't noticed it before.
After finding out, I was a little unsure of what to do.
It seems there's no other way but to take good care of her.
Zhou Ji would often stare blankly at her sleeping face. Looking at her face always felt both familiar and strange, and he always felt as if he had forgotten something and couldn't remember it. Even if he tried hard to recall, his mind was still blank.
He stopped thinking about it after that.
Year after year passed like this, and peaceful, smooth sailing didn't seem so bad.
Zhou Ji simply didn't like her going out and showing her face in public; this "showing her face in public" was limited to some unnecessary banquets.
Zhou Ji had taken her there once, but perhaps because they were together every day, he had forgotten how beautiful she really was.
She stands out beautifully in the crowd, and no one else notices her.
The way those men looked at her made him uncomfortable.
But all she knew how to do was laugh, a silly, happy laugh.
Zhou Ji had been liked before, but never by her so intensely, as if all her love had been given to him.
He did not reciprocate with equal love.
He also began to doubt whether she truly loved him. Could it be that she would choose just anyone, as long as he was her husband?
This thought, though fleeting, was a thorn deeply embedded in his heart.
Zhou Ji never voiced these thoughts in his mind. He was a reserved person who kept everything to himself.
He was always silent.
They never say anything.
He always thought he and she had a long time ahead of them.
To be able to spend a lifetime together in such a respectful and loving way, yet not so deeply in love.
She often asked him if he loved her.
Do you really not love me?
Do you really not like it?
If he didn't like it, why did he insist on getting a marriage certificate with her when his parents strongly opposed it?
Zhou Ji suddenly remembered that many years ago, probably when he was still in school, it was a hot summer day with the sun blazing down on him.
Kyoto University has just started its new semester.
He was already a senior at that time, with few classes and his graduation thesis already finalized, so he no longer needed to go to school.
Just that day.
He went back anyway. He, Fu Qingnian, and Gu Chen passed by the playground, where second-year students were undergoing military training under the scorching sun.
At Kyoto University, military training is only conducted for second-year students every year.
I bypassed the playground and took a small path.
The trees provided shade, casting dappled shadows. A few cicadas chirped, sounding somewhat noisy in the quiet summer day.
Gu Chen suddenly exclaimed, as if he had noticed something, and pointed to the shade of the trees over there: "Isn't there someone over there?"
Fu Qingnian glanced around and seemed to see a person lying on the stone table. The thin green camouflage clothing he was wearing almost blended into the shadows of the leaves, and it was indeed impossible to notice that there was a person there unless you looked carefully.
Zhou Ji looked in the direction they indicated. Cicadas chirped all around, and the summer breeze rustled through the treetops, making a soft, whispering sound as the leaves with their clearly defined veins brushed against each other.
The person sleeping soundly on the table seemed undisturbed.
It seemed that their voices did not disturb her at all.
She was still lying there quietly asleep, as if she were having a beautiful dream that she didn't want to wake up from.
Gu Chen and Fu Qingnian weren't exactly meddlesome people either. They saw it, so they saw it. They also had to say that the younger students these days are really bold. They even dare to sneak out of military training to rest. Back then, they could stand in the scorching sun for half a month without stopping, and no one dared to complain about being tired.
Zhou Ji listened casually, but his mind inexplicably drifted to the few strands of the girl's silky black hair that fell down.
The ends of her hair swayed gently in the wind.
It seemed that it wasn't the wind that was swaying, but his heart.
For some reason, Zhou Ji subconsciously turned around and glanced back. At that moment, he happened to meet a pair of beautiful, clear black eyes, like black pearls. The girl seemed to have just woken up, and her expression looked a little dazed and not quite awake.
Their eyes met, and they stared at each other calmly in the air for a long time.
Looking into those eyes, I felt a growing sense of familiarity.
Zhou Ji hadn't thought about this first meeting in a long time. Now, lying beside her, he held her cold hand tightly, as if he couldn't warm it up no matter how hard he tried.
His memory seemed to begin to become chaotic at that moment.
So many years have passed, it felt like he was back in that summer when they first met. Looking into her eyes, he finally remembered where he had seen her before.
A young girl in a fiery red dress sat high on her horse, like the most brilliant sun in the sky. At that moment, her eyes were also like that, as pure and beautiful as black pearls.
"May I have your name?"
"You're not going to talk? Fine, don't talk then."
"I'm leaving. I'll never come to Yanzhou again."
"This sword is for you."
Many unfamiliar scenes rushed towards him like a wave of revelry, and the crimson in his eyes seemed to have reached its threshold.
My heart feels like a shattered mirror.
Many unfamiliar yet familiar voices exploded in his mind.
The past, sealed away for many years, and the memories that seemed to have been locked away, all came rushing out at this moment like a flood.
"Your Highness."
"I owe you my life."
"I'll give it back to you."
At the moment Jiang Yue died.
Zhou Ji remembered everything.
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