Chapter 58
Zhou Yue sat alone in the night, the bushes and ginkgo trees became black outlines, the lights in the courtyard were on, the light was hazy, and the man's feminine face appeared only when he walked behind her. It looked normal during the day, at most the man would seem sinister, but at night, with his white hair, there was a sense of ominous and strange desolation.
"You want to scare me to death." Zhou Yue looked at the bright full moon in the night sky.
"Hmph." He laughed, pulled up his trouser legs and sat on the bench next to her. "You look scarier than me." He sat down, not looking at her. He raised his head and looked at the moon, teasing: "Dye your hair. It's neither black nor white. You look like a madman."
"No dye." Zhou Yue yawned, "That thing is not good for the scalp." After a while, her eyes turned, and she looked back at him with a charming smile, "Besides, I'm a resentful woman in the deep palace, who would read me?" Jiang Huai said nothing, nor did he smile, he just looked up at the bright moon hanging high in the sky.
Zhou Yue tilted her head and looked at him for a long time, then suddenly laughed out loud: "Tsk, look at your hair." She stretched out her arm to brush away his wind-twisted hair, pushing the few loose strands back. "Our CEO Jiang is at the peak of his career, he should pay attention to his image, why do you look so down and out?" He also smiled and brushed his hair a few times: "I'm an old man, what's the use of image?"
Zhou Yue was stunned for a moment, remembering that he had called him an old man in front of the hospital bed, and he still remembered it, so he grinned: "Old man? Where does the old man get such strong energy? He covers the sky with his own strength, supports hundreds of people, and has a son at the age of 43..." As he spoke, he stretched his neck and leaned close to his neck to sniff, but there was no fragrance of flowers or grass, only the strong smell of traditional Chinese medicine.
"Hmm!" She sniffed his neck, smiling and lifting her eyelids to look up at him from below. "Feminine scent!" She stroked his hand and sighed, "But after all, he's already this old. He can't be a sniper, right? Could he hit the target with one shot?" The more she spoke, the more charming her smile became, and her voice became softer. "Tell me, how many shots were fired? Is it because the nights are too short and the sun is rising, that the king will never attend court again?"
But he only looked at her face and her eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment, and she slowly frowned, "Why don't you react at all!"
"Heh," he finally laughed, like a sleepwalker waking up, "Your acting is really bad."
"...boring, no interest at all." She pursed her lips, withdrew her hand, wrapped her legs with the blanket, and looked at the moon with her back to him.
"It's not the turn of any other woman to have this child."
After a long moment, she slowly hummed, then added, "Aren't all yours, no matter who they are? I like them because they're yours." She twisted her body and looked back at him, "They always look like you in some way."
He was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter: "Shouldn't I be the one saying this?" He lowered his head and smoothed the wrinkles on his trouser legs. "You have such a big mouth, you can say something that makes me feel like a knife is piercing my heart, but you can say it with just one sentence."
"With just a few words, you can make things happen here." He stared at his hands on his knees for a long time, then came to his senses and brushed off his trouser legs like dust, laughing self-deprecatingly: "I'm old, and my heart has softened."
Zhou Yue didn't respond. He put down his legs and stood up. "Let's eat." He touched her shoulder lightly. "Dinner is ready. Let's have mooncakes after dinner. It's Mid-Autumn Festival, and we have mooncakes."
"Yeah." She nodded. He pushed the wheelchair back along the winding path of the courtyard. The shrubs and bellflowers were dimly lit in the dim light, fireflies danced, and the faint fragrance of flowers filled her nose. She looked around in the wheelchair and asked him casually, "I just met a girl. She's quite pretty, but her legs aren't very good either."
"Oh, Ajie's wife." Jiang Huai pushed the wheelchair and spoke in a calm and natural tone. "She had polio when she was a kid and had a fever but couldn't afford treatment, so her brain got damaged. Now she has the IQ of a seven or eight-year-old. Ajie takes her with him whenever he's not working, and she always grumbles to me when it's time to leave work."
"Oh." Zhou Yue smiled after hearing this, "I didn't realize Old Liao was still so..."
They walked past a garden lamp, and the dim light disappeared behind them. As they fell into the night, her smile gradually turned cold, and she said softly:
"So affectionate and righteous."
Jiang Huai didn't speak for a long time. He pushed her slowly in the cool fragrance of flowers and the night. When he spoke again, his tone was still normal:
"Ajie has been doing this since he was fifteen or sixteen. He was smart and lived a long life. But one time, he was forced into an alley. He ran into a house and wanted to kill someone to get food and medicine. Unexpectedly, the girl was stupid and didn't know anything. She even bandaged his wound and gave him food and water."
"No matter how strong a man is, after being treated like this, he becomes like a baby in swaddling clothes. His body becomes weak and his heart becomes weak too."
"Same as me," he said, his mood unrecognizable. He stopped in the darkness and lifted the blanket to cover her legs. "You saved me. In the dead of night, you held me up and down that shabby corridor. You bathed me, and you held me in a towel with your eyes tightly closed. When I looked at you, I thought I wanted to marry you."
"No matter what happens to your wife, she is still your own person. No matter how big a disaster she causes or how bad her intentions are, she is still your own person."
The next light came on, and Zhou Yue smiled again. She tilted her head back to look at his blurry outline. "I almost believed it." She looked him up and down. "You didn't think so at first. You're a liar too."
This time he laughed too, "Who knows."
He pushed her to the front door, went up the ramp, and walked into the front hall of the villa. He smelled the fragrance of food and heard Tiantian's screams and laughter. The two of them didn't speak anymore.
The meal was still eaten quietly.
"I want to paint." Zhou Yue announced at the dinner table. Jiang Huai was drinking his soup without even looking up. "Yeah."
"My stuff is still with you." She looked calm as she fed Tiantian a mouthful of pumpkin porridge. She hardly ate anything all night and was only busy peeling shrimps for Tiantian and feeding him the fish paste with bones removed. The crab roe was fat but cold in nature, so she didn't dare to give him too much. Jiang Huai had a bad stomach and didn't eat it either. Occasionally, when he picked up some food, he would glance at the cold crab on the plate and pretend not to see it.
Tiantian sits in the baby chair every day, looking across the long dining table at Jiang Huai sitting opposite him, then looking up at his mother beside him, but still feels unfamiliar with the presence of the two of them at the same time.
Jiang Huai drank the last spoonful of soup, put down the bowl, and leaned back in his chair. He looked at Tiantian first, his face soft and gentle, and when he looked at Zhou Yue, his smile was a little teasing. "You want the album and the hair tie, right?" He cleared his throat. Aunt Xu handed him the lily and pear juice at the right time. He picked up the small cup and drank while saying, "I'll bring it to you in a few days."
"Send them all to me." Zhou Yue slowly wiped Tiantian's mouth after feeding him porridge, then picked up a small piece of mooncake with a fork and stuffed it into her mouth. "Boss Jiang has a legitimate eldest son now. If he ever turns against us and drives us away, I have to have something to take care of myself."
Jiang Huai was lowering his head and spooning pear juice into his mouth. His silent smile caused ripples in his voice. "Whatever you want."
After dinner, Aunt Xu wanted to push Zhou Yue to take a shower, but Zhou Yue shook her head to indicate that she could go by herself. There was a bathroom on the first floor. She pressed the button and with a beep, the wheelchair slowly left the dining table. "Go home early," Zhou Yue said. "The child is too young and needs help. Give Miss Li a happy Mid-Autumn Festival." Jiang Huai was sitting on the sofa reading a newspaper. When he turned a page, the paper rustled softly.
"Oh, right." Zhou Yue stopped in the middle of the living room and looked back at him. "I forgot to ask, what's the child's name?"
He remained silent, finishing his reading of one side of the newspaper before speaking, "I haven't thought of anything yet." He frowned, adjusted his glasses, and tilted his head to look at the other side. "How about you think of one for me?"
"What does it have to do with me?" Zhou Yue laughed, and without thinking too much, she said casually: "Tiantian, call Didi."
"Of course," he said, a smile forming on his lips, his eyes slowly sliding over the last line of words, "He's my younger brother after all."
Zhou Yue looked at him for a while, started the wheelchair with a beep, and drove into the bathroom.
The sound of water running in the bathroom was heard, and steam was swirling around. Zhou Yue sat in a wheelchair and looked at the mirror. Her face gradually became blurred in the mist. Recently, she had become more and more forgetful. She almost forgot the love and happiness of the past twenty years, and the vague black shadow. Only in her dreams did the shadow grow from a small ball to as tall as a wall, swaying in front of her eyes, opening its mouth to say something to her, but she could not hear a word.
People actually have to forget themselves and what they want to do before they can accomplish this thing. How contradictory, cruel and incredible this is. It is like a malicious mechanism set up by God in people's hearts. This mechanism is called the inner demon.
Jiang Huai should be able to empathize with her on this point. They really have a lot in common. He said that revenge is a cold dish that can only be eaten when it is cold. Revenge cannot be taken in anger.
Aunt Xu was really thoughtful. She installed sponge handrails in the bathroom and placed a wooden block like a staircase next to the bathtub.
She sat by the door and listened. The bathroom was not far from the main door of the villa. If Jiang Huai was about to leave, she would hear the movement, but there was no movement. She stood up, walked to the bathtub, took off her clothes, stepped in and sat in the hot water.
"Don't touch my leg, it still hurts." She looked out the window at night. She wanted to see the dim lights, but the winding mountain road opposite was surprisingly peaceful tonight, with no flashing car lights.
"Hmph." Jiang Huai laughed and took a breath. He tilted his head to look at the dangling leg on his shoulder, picked it up to admire it, and rubbed his palm against her knee. "Where does it hurt? Let me rub it for you?" As he said that, he suddenly grabbed her leg and broke her in half, then launched into a frantic and violent collision...
He dropped his limp, still cramping legs, panting heavily as he fell facedown into the pillow. His breaths burned a mist of water on her neck, and even his laughter was hoarse from the heat: "When your legs are healed, get up and walk. Stop playing this game on me."
Zhou Yue watched her own body twitching and convulsing, gritting her teeth as she waited for the cramps to subside before speaking: "You're such a heartless beast." He lost his temper when she scolded him, and he put his hands in the crook of her neck, grinning miserably. He didn't continue the conversation, just lying there quietly, waiting for his breathing to calm down. Beads of sweat on his eyelashes flickered and rubbed against her neck. He tilted his head to look at her, "You don't like Tiantian's birthday present? And you still want those tattered bags and necklaces?"
"It's magical." She laughed, moved up along his sweaty back, rubbed the roots of his hair and pressed his head back into the crook of her neck.
His eyelashes brushed against her neck, his tone bewildered. "Just two buildings, what's so magical about that?" He thought for a moment and tilted his head back to look at her. "It's all under your name, isn't it safer than those little things?" Suspicious Snake Eyes leaned closer, lingering on her face. "So what you should pray for now isn't that I'll turn my back on you one day, but that I live a hundred years. As long as I'm alive and well, I'll keep making money."
He pecked her face lightly and said, "You are my wife, what are you afraid of?"
What a pity, Zhou Yue thought, it was like a person without a sense of taste facing a table full of delicious food, or like a reptile with only black and white vision walking in the colorful world.
He looked at her blank face, thought of something, and moved closer, blocking her eyes with his whole face. "If you're willing, we'll get the marriage certificate and hold the wedding banquet tomorrow."
"It's not time yet." She looked at him and smiled, ruffling his soft hair and holding him in her arms, patting his back, and once again looking towards the dark mountains in the distance, "There are still many days to come."
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