Chapter 111
◎You are one in a million◎
In the other room, Pang Yun looked at Shi Ziqian with gentle eyes: "Xiao Qian, our Yueyue was raised with love and care by her father and me. She has never suffered."
Shi Ziqian: "Auntie, please rest assured, I won't let her suffer. I know Xinyue wants to go into business in the future, and I've been making some preparations recently. I will do my best to support her."
Pang Yun shook his head: "I'm not just referring to material things. I believe she will work hard to achieve that herself, and her father and I will support her. What I want to say is that she was spoiled by her father and me when she was young. She is very simple and pure, and she is also very single-minded when it comes to relationships. Once she has decided on someone, that's it. She values relationships very much, but because of this, she can't tolerate any imperfections."
Seeing Shi Ziqian nod, Pang Yun continued, "We've always hoped she could live a simple and happy life, and that she could find a guy with a similarly simple living environment and family background. So, we were actually not really in favor of her at first..."
She didn't finish her sentence. Shi Ziqian's eyes flickered, and he lowered them slightly.
“However, we fully support her choice.” Pang Yun patted his arm and smiled slightly. “Since she chose you, we believe you are worthy of her affection. Xiao Qian, Yueyue is everything to us, and we hope you will not let her down.”
Shi Ziqian was stunned for a moment, looked into Pang Yun's eyes which were always smiling gently, and solemnly said, "Auntie, I am willing to swear with everything I have that my feelings for Xinyue will always remain the same. Even if one day she wants to leave me, my heart for her will not change in the slightest."
Pang Yun was startled, a strange feeling welling up inside her. She always felt that the eyes of the boy in front of her were different from those of his peers. At this moment, his gaze was very calm, as if it contained a sense of relief and open-mindedness that was inconsistent with his age, to the point that even she, who was her age, found it a little hard to understand.
She said carefully, "Don't say that. Yueyue isn't a heartless person. Once she's made up her mind about someone, she won't change it easily."
Shi Ziqian noticed the expression on her face and quickly smiled: "I'm sorry, Auntie, I didn't mean anything by it, please don't misunderstand. I just wanted to say that I decided on Xinyue a long time ago, and that will never change no matter what."
On the plane, just before takeoff, Zhan Xinyue received a message from Dai Yun, saying that the original Class 10 was planning a reunion before the start of the new semester and asking if she and Shi Ziqian wanted to come together. Zhan Xinyue replied that they had already returned to school and wouldn't be attending.
After replying, she put her phone away and noticed Shi Ziqian staring blankly at something red in his hand. She leaned closer and saw it was a red envelope.
“The new moon was given to me by my aunt and uncle just before I boarded the plane,” Shi Ziqian said.
Zhan Xinyue reached out and touched it: "It's quite thick. Shall we open it and take a look?"
Shi Ziqian stared at it for a long time before slowly opening it. A few seconds later, he looked up, his gaze somewhat blank.
The red envelope contained a stack of red banknotes, with a conspicuous one-yuan bill on top.
"Do you know what this means?" Zhan Xinyue smiled. "These kinds of numbers usually have meanings, implying that you are one in a million. It seems my parents really like you."
Shi Ziqian smiled along with her, as if relieved, and solemnly put away the red envelope.
After returning to school, Shi Ziqian changed the lock on her apartment to a combination lock, saying it would make it easier for her to come over anytime, and asked her if she wanted to stay there for a while.
Although none of her roommates had returned to school recently, Zhan Xinyue thought about it and decided to go back to the dormitory. After all, Shi Ziqian's place wasn't far from the school, so it was quite convenient to go there usually.
Taking advantage of the relatively low school population before the start of the semester, she enrolled in driving school and spent her days learning to drive, studying, and dating Shi Ziqian. Her days were fulfilling and happy. Until two days before the start of the semester, an old professor in Shi Ziqian's department who admired him was going to attend an academic forum in a neighboring city and messaged him to go with him.
Although he was only there for two days, the two of them were used to being together, and he was quite unaccustomed to leaving Kaixinyue so suddenly.
After lunch, she returned to her dorm, but her roommates hadn't come back yet; it was empty. She drew the curtains, climbed into bed, and prepared to take a short nap.
I didn't sleep soundly; I was in a state of half-sleep.
Somehow, when she woke up again, she was back home.
She sat up from the sofa, looking bewildered. The house was dark and a bit messy. Her parents were both very tidy people, and she couldn't remember the house ever being this messy.
Zhan Xinyue looked around, feeling that something was off. She wondered if it was the lighting, but even though she had only recently left her home, it now seemed old and worn.
Just as I was wondering, Pang Yun and Zhan Wei, both dressed neatly, came out of the room.
"Mom and Dad, where are you going?" Zhan Xinyue asked, but the two seemed not to hear her.
Both of them were wearing hats. Standing in the dimly lit corner by the door, they adjusted each other's hats. Pang Yun said in a low voice, "Let's go."
Zhan Wei didn't speak, but simply nodded and reached out to open the door.
The two walked out hand in hand, their backs hunched, revealing their advanced age.
The feeling that something was wrong grew stronger, and Zhan Xinyue felt a little panicked. She called out "Mom and Dad" again, but still received no response. She hurriedly took a few steps forward to follow them, but as she crossed the living room, her peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of something on the wall, and she suddenly stopped in her tracks.
A black and white photograph of her hangs on the wall.
Zhan Xinyue stood there for a long time, momentarily dazed. After standing there blankly for a long time, she still followed in the direction that Pang Yun and Zhan Wei had left, relying on her instincts.
Pang Yun and Zhan Wei's destination was a cemetery. The two stood in front of a tombstone and bent down to place a bouquet of flowers.
Zhan Wei gently patted the monument, took off his hat to reveal a full head of white hair: "Yueyue, Mom and Dad have come to see you."
Zhan Xinyue stood beside them. She had tried countless times to talk to her parents along the way, but they hadn't responded at all. Now, she saw a photo of herself smiling on the tombstone, with the words "Tomb of Beloved Daughter Zhan Xinyue" inscribed below.
"So many years have passed in the blink of an eye. I wonder how you are doing over there." Pang Yun also took off his hat and slowly bent down to gently remove the fine cobwebs from the tombstone. "Your father and mother miss you very much."
Zhan Xinyue reached out to touch her, her fingers weakly passing through the middle of her body.
She felt like she was dreaming, yet it also felt like she wasn't, because the whispers of her parents beside her, uttered to the cold tombstone, were so clear, the signs of aging on their faces so vivid, it didn't feel like a dream at all. The two of them stayed at her grave for a very long time, sharing with her all sorts of trivial things in life, just like every time the three of them had been together as a family.
Much later, Pang Yun's hand brushed over the name she had carved, as if gently touching her face: "Yueyue, your father and mother are getting old, and we are waiting for the day we can reunite with you."
Zhan Xinyue murmured "Mom and Dad," and after being in a daze the whole way, tears finally streamed down her face.
After leaving her tombstone, both of them looked lost, as if they didn't know where to go. They stood at a fork in the road in the cemetery for a while, then Zhan Wei sighed, "Let's go see him."
Pang Yun said calmly, "Let's go."
The two walked slowly for a while and then came to another tombstone not far away.
Two bunches of chrysanthemums were placed in front of the tombstone, and a hunched old man sat on the ground with his back against the tombstone, his head tilted back, as if he were asleep.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up, his cloudy eyes staring at the people in front of him for a long time before finally focusing: "You've come to see him."
"Yes," Zhan Wei said, "We came to see Yueyue and stopped by to take a look."
“I just saw you. I originally wanted to go see Xiaoyue, but I didn’t dare to go over when I saw you there.” The old man stood up unsteadily. “So many years have passed, and we’ve all grown so old.”
Zhan Xinyue finally saw his aged face clearly and recognized him as Xu Shen's father. This man, whom she had once called "Dad," had a face weathered by time, making him almost unrecognizable to her.
She thought of something and looked behind him.
The tombstone he had just leaned against clearly bore the inscription: Tomb of his beloved son, Xu Shen.
Zhan Xinyue froze, stared for a long while, and then her gaze drifted blankly to Xu's father in front of her.
“This bouquet is for Xiaoyue.” Mr. Xu bent down, picked up a bunch of chrysanthemums, and handed them to Pang Yun. “I was just sitting here, and thinking back to that day still feels like a nightmare. Tell me, how did our family suddenly become like this?”
Pang Yun didn't take it, her tone a little cold: "You'll have to ask Xu Shen about that."
“I wanted to ask him, but I just haven’t had the chance.” Mr. Xu didn’t care about her coldness and slowly put the flowers away. “I remember the day Xiaoyue had a car accident. When I heard the news, I rushed to the hospital. I didn’t expect to receive another call as soon as I arrived, saying that Xu Shen had also had a car accident on his way to the hospital because he was in a bad mood… That day, Xiaoyue was being treated on the sixth floor and Xu Shen was on the fifth floor. I was standing in the elevator holding the phone, and I didn’t even know which floor to press.”
Zhan Wei and Pang Yun both looked rather unpleasant, clearly because his words had stirred up some unpleasant memories.
"Later, Xiaoyue left... Xu Shen remained in a coma, waking up a few times to ask how Xiaoyue was, but I didn't dare tell him, lying that she was fine. But one day he heard about it from somewhere, and that afternoon he suddenly collapsed. The doctor said he had no will to live left." Tears streamed down his deeply lined face. "I originally thought that when he woke up, I would hit him, scold him, and ask him why he didn't cherish such a good life, why he did such a bastard thing. But he's gone too..."
Zhan Wei turned his face away: "Why bring up these things again?"
“I didn’t want to bring this up, but…” He took a step forward. “Xu Shen’s last words to me before he left were asking if he could be buried with Xiao Yue. I’ve never mentioned it to you all these years, I’m ashamed. But now I don’t know how much time I have left, and before I go, I just want to see if I can fulfill his last wish.”
Pang Yun immediately replied decisively, "Absolutely impossible."
“I apologize to you on his behalf, and to Xiaoyue.” Mr. Xu grabbed the arms of the two people in front of him and knelt down with difficulty. “I don’t know why he made such a mistake, but I think he must be in more pain than anyone else. Even if he made an unforgivable mistake, they were still husband and wife. After all, he’s gone, and I really can’t bear to see him all alone.”
Zhan Wei looked down at him: "You've got the wrong person. You should go find that woman and ask her if she'd be willing to be buried with Xu Shen after she's gone. After all, they're the ones who had a child together."
"Don't bring this up again, and don't mention that woman anymore." Mr. Xu wiped away his tears, his face looking rather grim. "Xiaoyue is our only daughter-in-law. The two girls started dating when they were teenagers, and they've been together for so many years. Our two families are closer than relatives. I treat Xiaoyue like my own daughter..."
Pang Yun interrupted him, her eyes glistening with tears, yet she stood ramrod straight: "Before Yueyue left, she didn't say a single word. She kept crying, she cried more tears than blood. How much pain she must have been in. At that moment, I thought to myself, Xu Shen will never get our forgiveness."
“We used to treat Xu Shen like our own son, otherwise we wouldn’t be here to see him today.” Zhan Wei reached out and helped Xu’s father up. “But some mistakes can never be undone, and we will not back down on this matter no matter what.”
“There are indeed two seats next to Yueyue, reserved for the two of us,” Pang Yun said in a deep voice. “As for Xu Shen, I think Yueyue wouldn’t want to see him down there either.”
A bleak wind swept by, scattering yellow leaves across the ground. On the tombstone behind them, Xu Shen smiled in the middle of a slightly faded photograph.
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