Chapter 377
Lao Yi came out after taking a bath and hugged the kitten. The child was very excited and happy when he came back just now, but now he looked at him with some surprise.
He laughed and said, "Don't you recognize your father?"
He usually combs his hair up, but after a shower, he doesn't apply any hair oil, so he lets his hair down. The contrast between combing his hair up and letting it down is huge. They hadn't slept with the child for a few days, and the little one hadn't seen him, Xiangzi, for a few days, so he needed to react.
The daughter rolled her eyes and looked at him. It wasn't that she didn't recognize him, but she thought her father looked a little different today. After confirming, she leaned her head on his shoulder and returned to normal.
It was a rare opportunity for him to stay home the next day, and he didn't have to get up early in the morning. Half asleep, he felt something rubbing against him, thinking it was the cat rubbing against him again, half asleep. But when he opened his eyes, it was the cat sniffing around to see if he was still alive. Yesterday, it had come into the house without them knowing and had slept with them.
He wondered if all cats were like this, liking to smell people while they were sleeping. When he was in school, he found a tiny stray cat and actually raised it. It was a big white cat, and he loved playing with it as his pillow.
In his previous life, after Wang Jiazhi died, he saw a small white cat on a rainy night. It quickly grew to a large size. Rubbing its ears and paws would make it seem incredibly comfortable and enjoyable, becoming incredibly clingy, constantly rubbing against him and meowing. At night, it loved to sleep in his arms, sometimes resting its head on his legs and scratching his fur pants with its paws. If it woke up but he wasn't, it would snuggle up to him and sniff to see if he was still breathing.
It sniffed him one last time and found he was truly dead. It nudged him again, nudging him with its head, but he still didn't move. It froze for a moment, as if realizing something, and cried out mournfully a few times before nestling into his arms.
She woke up too, saw the cat sniffing it, reached out to push the cat away, and then rubbed herself against it. This is the most common way of acting cute every morning.
When the kitten sees his mother rubbing against him, he goes over to rub against her too. Sometimes he really feels that the house is full of cats.
"Get up?" he said.
She moaned and said coquettishly, "No." Then she kissed and rubbed him again.
He looked up and saw the child looking at them with his big eyes like a kitten.
Although the child doesn't understand anything now, Wang Jiazhi would have to live without the child unless she felt guilty. Right now, she didn't think it was a big deal.
The kitten was stunned for a moment, then buried its head in its father's arms and continued to sleep.
After a while, although they were awake, she couldn't cling to them because she didn't have to get up early.
"Have you read what I wrote?"
She hasn't been back for the past two days, so I took some time out of my busy schedule and read her new novel while waiting for her.
"It could be more stimulating."
"Um?"
"Gambling has ruined families and even caused many deaths."
"But I see a lot of people playing mahjong all day long, and no one gets killed."
"That's because they have nothing to do, nothing to do. Playing mahjong is just a pastime, not an addiction. People who are truly addicted are very scary."
He told her about his experiences, and she recalled a story from her hometown about a woman who lost her child because she was too busy playing mahjong. A few days later, the child floated up in a pond and was found. Her husband divorced her because of this incident.
She thought those fake imperial edicts probably had nothing better to do than play mahjong day and night. What was the point of playing mahjong, anyway? Then she remembered her aunt, who also had nothing better to do, playing mahjong. It was all because she had nothing to do. Grandma's family had been abandoned, and the family fortune had fallen into her hands. If she'd needed to work, she wouldn't have been spoiled like this. Even with enough food and clothing, she wasn't satisfied. She sold her house, and now she's selling her too. Damn it!
The little girl heard the voices inside at the door and knew they were awake. She said outside the door: "Madam, Mrs. Liao's daughter called to ask her out for dinner."
"I'm not going."
The little girl agreed and went down. She didn't need to think of an excuse, because they would naturally have one to refuse.
Now she would stay at home if she could. Although he usually left early and came back late, he would occasionally come back in the afternoon, and she would try to stay with him for as long as possible.
Two weeping crabapples sit in a vase by the bed, their delicate fragrance wafting through. Crabapples do have a scent, but it's not overpowering or aggressive, and the scent is elegant, similar to the aroma of apples. Now is spring, the perfect time for blossoms to bloom. The garden is in full bloom, and the wisteria trellises are overflowing with blossoms, rustling in the wind like countless purple wind chimes. The crabapple trees, osmanthus, and lilacs are also in full bloom, filling the air with birdsong and the fragrance of flowers, a vibrant spring scene.
Wang Jiazhi had longed for a garden like this since she was a child. This was her first time spending spring here, and also her first time spending spring with him. She was delighted at first, but then she thought that all the vibrant flowers would eventually be lost to ruined wells and dilapidated walls, and she felt even sadder.
He asked if I liked the plums that I had asked someone to send me yesterday.
"I'm going to make plum wine. It's too sour and I can't eat it."
"You especially loved eating it when you were pregnant last year."
"Back then, I liked sour food, but I couldn't eat anything too spicy. That's how the saying 'sour boy, spicy girl' came about."
He smiled and touched his daughter's little head.
She thought for a moment and said, "I know you've asked someone to watch over me."
"Oh, how did you know that?"
She smiled and said, "If you hadn't asked them to come, who would be so enthusiastic and attentive?"
Wang Jiazhi thought of the out-of-season fruits and the dim sum she loved eating at the shop in Shanghai. From the beginning, he hadn't been afraid of her finding out. In fact, he wanted her to know, wondering if she would go back on her own if she knew.
Every time he gave her something, he would first ask him to look at it, to touch each one. Thinking that these things would appear in front of her tomorrow and she would eat them, he felt warm in his heart.
Wang Jiazhi read about a true story in the newspaper: a wealthy family and a poor family gave birth in the same hospital. The poor family deliberately swapped their children. The wealthy family, realizing they had the wrong child, wanted to swap them back. The poor family, wanting their own child to have a better life, moved around with the other family's child. They were already struggling financially, and having to keep their child company was a real hassle.
The rich family feared that the poor family would treat their child badly, so they treated the poor family's child well, and when he reached school age, he attended a very good school. Seven or eight years passed, and the rich family still hadn't seen their child. The mother missed her child so much that she cried every night. One day, the mother heard about a family that knew the poor family. She bought some snacks for them, asking them to give them to her child.
After leaving that family's house, she burst into tears, thinking that her children could finally eat the food she had given them.
Of course, this story had nothing to do with them, and he was far from being as emotional, but the point of sending something to express one's feelings was still the same.
"I thought you would come pick me up, but in the end I had to give birth alone."
"I'm waiting for you to come back on your own. If you don't want to come back, I can't force you to go back."
"So you went in the end."
"There's nothing I can do."
He sighed. She was surprised that he sighed.
He talked about the various actions of hers that those people reported to him, and at that time he thought he had to go.
"I knew it. It must be you who insisted that they make me change the bathtub and eat those things. I insisted on having my confinement by myself and had to take a bath like that. Let's see if you still care about me."
Talking about that time, Wang Jiazhi also said that she felt that those who took care of her had suffered a lot. After all, in the matter of giving birth, the one who cared the least about her was the baby in her belly.
She added, "I thought you really didn't want me anymore, and that you wanted someone to take care of me just because you have a child."
"How could that be?"
"Of course not!"
They chatted idly while the child crawled all over them. Then, seemingly bored, she stood up and walked toward the bed. They watched her stand up, and it took them a few seconds to react. Just like that, the child was gone!
After getting up and cleaning up, they watched the child walk. Grandma and the little girl were also surprised, saying, "Big Sister was still crawling yesterday, but how come she can walk on her own today?" They also thought that if she was still crawling this morning, she would be able to walk all of a sudden.
This child's temperament is really similar to his parents. He is too strong-willed and never bothers others to teach him if he can do it himself.
Yesterday someone sent me several lotus seedlings, each with a small note with his name on it. He said he would plant them when he got back.
After finishing up today's cleaning, he planted the lotus seedlings and determined which flower color matched which pot. She had said she wanted to grow lotuses. Since she was little, she'd had a dream: when she had her own home, she'd have her own study, where she could store her own books and frame her own paintings. Then, she'd plant several lotus pots, one in each bedroom and one in the study, and they had to be white.
She thought she could just bury it, but she didn't expect there was another explanation.
"How do you grow lotus flowers?"
“Many people in my hometown grow lotus flowers.”
Yes, the lotus flowers in West Lake are also very famous.
It did take some time to plant this thing. She stood beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. The little cat stood beside him, hugging one of his legs with both hands and resting its head on his leg.
The servants were used to it. Whenever he was at home, there would usually be someone hanging on his body. If he wasn't hanging, it meant Wang Jiazhi wasn't home. If he had a small one, he would hang another one on his body.
Of course he didn't remember. In his previous life, a fortune teller said he had two souls, one large and one small. Otherwise, he would have been filled with emotion.
She had always thought he didn't know, but he had actually begun to have some doubts. Just as the fortune teller had said, he recalled some of her actions during her lifetime, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt something was amiss. But then he thought, she wouldn't be so foolish as to not be on guard, and since no one had ever conceived his child, maybe there was something wrong with him.
He also deliberately didn't want to think about it that way, and she was no longer with him, so there was no way to confirm it.
Fortunately, no one else knew about this. The two of them seemed particularly foolish in this matter. They were just having fun, and neither of them had any thoughts. Because he had never been in contact with a pregnant woman, seeing her vomiting and listless, he didn't think about it at all.
She was a bit stubborn in her life. This morning she woke up feeling nauseous and he looked at her in astonishment.
She said, "No, it's like this sometimes in the morning too."
She thought he'd finally gotten the hang of it and understood what pregnancy was all about. They'd already decided not to have any more children, at least not for now, and she wasn't going to be so careless anymore. Her previous behavior was a subconscious desire to give birth to the kitten, to make up for a past life's debt. After having her, there would be no regrets, no need to insist on having another.
He made a wisteria wind chime for the kitten out of wisteria flowers. The branches were woven into a circle, and bunches of wisteria flowers hung down from it, hanging above her crib. The kitten loved sitting in the crib and playing with the wisteria flowers.
He laughed and said, "When I was little, there was a wild lotus pond near my home. Few people went there, so I'd spend the whole day reading there when I had nothing to do. The scent of the lotus flowers and leaves was so wonderful. At that time, I also thought that if I had a big house in the future, I would build a lotus pond inside, plant lotus flowers, and build a pavilion in the middle so I could enjoy the cool air and the flowers in the summer. But I've always lived in a Western-style house, so I never had the chance."
Wang Jiazhi then realized that most of the houses in his hometown were in the Su-style garden style, which was very different from the style of the houses in the concession. Of course, he preferred that style.
He also realized that what was the point of having wealth and glory after a busy life? The simple ideas he had in his youth had never been realized until today. Perhaps this life was over and it would be like this in the end.
In the past, I was so busy traveling all over the country, moving from place to place and just making do with whatever I had, I never had the time to properly plan my home. Now, I just want to be safe, and I don't care about anything else.
Mrs. Yi came from the countryside, and the more she felt that way, the more she worried about being called a bumpkin. So she went overboard, even more Westernized than the city dwellers. Except for the study, which he arranged according to his own wishes, everything else in the house was up to her. But he also liked Chinese things, so the house was simply stunning. When Wang Jiazhi moved in, she was greeted by a living room filled with pine, cypress, orchid, and bonsai trees, along with freehand Chinese paintings on the walls. Then she saw the dining room, with both Chinese paintings and oil paintings on one side. Then, upstairs, the hallway was filled with orchids and pine bonsai, along with large Chinese landscape paintings. The worst part was the living room: a vase of bright red roses, pine and orchid bonsai trees, a Western-style cherub quartz clock, large oil paintings on the walls, antique vases and jade, and a mahogany round chair alongside a Western-style sofa. She wondered, what on earth was this, neither Chinese nor Western? Was that the kind of mix and match that only rich people could create?
She had always wanted to grow lotus flowers at home, but now she suddenly felt melancholy. After all, the two of them didn't have a free lotus pond; they were trapped in this small space. No matter how beautiful the flowers bloomed, they were always unable to control themselves.
Wang Jiazhi had always found the title of "Jin Ping Mei" utterly tacky. The words "gold," "plum blossom," and "vase" all seemed traditional, almost tacky. She once assumed the author chose them simply to combine the names of the three heroines. Later, she came across an interpretation that compared the women in the novel to a plum blossom in a golden vase. While seemingly beautiful and noble, they had actually been plucked from the tree, rootless and destined to wither and decay. She then reflected that plum blossoms bloom in winter, and winter is cold. Just as gold is cold in winter, so too was the water in the golden vase, which nurtured the plum blossoms, even colder. It was a picture of both beauty and cold sadness. She marveled at the power of this interpretation.
"Do you know how to interpret the three characters 'Jin Ping Mei'?"
"Um?"
She told him this interpretation, and he felt lost and looked melancholy after hearing it.
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