But you are no longer Chongming.
79.
Lan Jian's habit of writing letters began in the autumn when the Nuclear Research Institute fell to the Japanese.
The news that the Nuclear Research Institute was surrounded by the garrison battalion attracted the attention of the international community. According to foreign media reports, three days after the garrison battalion captured the Nuclear Research Institute, the South Korean army was forced to withdraw from the nuclear reactor, considering the importance of the teachers and students of the Nuclear Research Institute to the entire southern region. From then on, the garrison troops stationed in both the nuclear reactor center and the four departments of the Nuclear Research Institute were completely replaced and were taken over by the troops under the command of the garrison battalion headed by Zheng Shanshui.
The Nuclear Research Institute, located on the back hill of Nanlu University, had become a sparsely populated abandoned teaching building. Everyone had been forced to relocate during the conflict, and as a precaution, the students had been transferred to the Institute of High Energy Physics ahead of schedule. The former director, Zhong Shiqing, hadn't been harmed during the negotiations, but he had a heart condition. The university administration, threatened by Zheng Shanshui's people, continued to pressure him, using various methods to force him to resign. However, Zhong's rule in the university's administrative meeting minutes—"the last doctoral student in the Nuclear Research Institute must graduate"—deterred all the ill intentions. In the vast Nuclear Research Institute, only a few elderly professors remained, returning to their offices daily to uphold the institute's last line of defense.
But that winter, the nuclear peace treaty was not renewed.
Because the Atomic Energy Commission in Beiluan made major changes, and the Nuclear Research Institute in Nanlu was also under the supervision of the garrison, the director was monitored and unable to attend any political talks or international conferences.
That winter was exceptionally long, with snow falling one after another. Finally, February arrived, and the snow stopped. In mid-March, Country X adjusted its time zone by one hour to observe daylight saving time. Meng Lanjian, who was about to lose an hour of sleep, wondered, "Why isn't there spring time?"
She wrote a letter to Chongming, addressing him as "Dingyue" at the beginning, and after writing only a few lines, she didn't want to write any more.
I really miss him.
Not being able to see him is much harder than adjusting to jet lag.
A few days later, a spring snow fell in Country X, which was on daylight saving time. Lan Jian asked her friend from Europe when they adjusted their time zone. Her friend said that the EU's rule was 2-3 am on the last Saturday or Sunday of March and October.
In North America, where Country X is located, the time difference is always two weeks earlier than in Europe.
So, on the last Sunday afternoon of March, Meng Lanjian sat by the window and wrote a letter to Chongming.
Dingyue:
We've started adjusting to a different time zone again. It's still snowing outside, and I'm wondering why there's no spring time?
Even Europe has switched to daylight saving time, but it's still spring here. Strawberries spent the whole winter turning into awful dried strawberries, and of all the cereals in the supermarket, the worst-tasting is always strawberry flavored. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it's just clumped artificial flavoring. Yesterday, my Japanese friend brought me a homemade raw cheese roll, which I called a "swissroll" in front of her. She corrected me, saying that "rollcake" has absolutely nothing to do with Switzerland.
Because of this, she was somewhat distracted while cooking all evening. So was I.
I thought of the red bean cakes we ate most often when we were at the southern foot of the mountain. I always said that I love red bean cakes the most, but I have never actually eaten a red bean cake with red bean filling. Every time I ate one, it was a misnomer.
For a while, I could always smell red beans on you. Not the distinct, sweet scent of whole red beans, but more like the light, sweet smell of red bean soup. It was hard to describe whether the scent came from your wardrobe or the laundry detergent, since you didn't wear perfume and didn't have much of a natural body odor—but at the time, I couldn't be sure.
This happened when we were still in the lab, simply as senior and junior students.
I remember it so clearly; it was Wednesday night during a group meeting. You were sitting sideways at the table, and I was across most of the table when I caught you lowering your head. You were wearing glasses, and the curve of your lips was beautiful. It was a visual flutter, but my sense of smell was suddenly triggered, and I caught a whiff of red bean scent emanating from you from afar.
We didn't sneak away to steal red bean cakes that day.
Much later, I remembered that it was the taste of the red bean soup that Xiuyun cooked when we lived in Lan Valley.
Xiuyun's method for making red bean soup is always meticulous. Soaking the red beans overnight isn't enough; they also need to be pressure-cooked for half an hour, cooled, and then slowly simmered on a small stove burning honeycomb briquettes. She likes to add rock sugar when cooking white fungus, but uses granulated sugar when cooking red beans. When a summer afternoon thunderstorm comes, it's my nap time, but Xiuyun complains to God, forcing her to keep an eye on the coal stove under the eaves to make sure the briquettes don't go out, thus missing the last available spot in her card game. My bedroom in the mountains has good air circulation; in the summer, it's so cool I can fall asleep without even needing a fan. After the rain stops for a while, the temperature rises a few degrees, and sleeping under the covers isn't so comfortable anymore. I finish my nap, turn on the fan, and sit on the floor, slowly drinking red bean soup. The soup has no red bean shells or beans; it's smooth and warming—not letting me eat cold food in the summer is something Xiuyun insists on. As I listened to Xiuyun swatting mosquitoes with a palm-leaf fan and the deafening chirping of cicadas in the mountains, half the afternoon had passed.
However, I have a strange constitution. As soon as I drink a sip of sweet soup made from mung beans or red beans, goosebumps will instantly appear on my arms.
This is such a trivial matter that it's not worth consulting a traditional Chinese medicine doctor or going to the hospital for a checkup. I heard from Xiuyun that it was because the sweet soup she made was so delicious that I got goosebumps. I'm always quite oblivious when it comes to matters of the heart. It wasn't until I realized the red bean scent on you came from the red bean soup Xiuyun made for me that I belatedly got goosebumps.
So it turns out that I liked you so long ago.
Morality constrained me, the environment forced me back, and in the end, I indulged all my hidden desires through a marriage alliance.
Being able to write to you like this, without having to openly express myself in front of you, truly preserves my rare shyness.
Spring isn't over yet, but I already wish summer would come sooner. If you ask me what spring means to me right now, I can only tell you, almost irrelevantly, that I hate spring-flavored Swiss rolls, so I'm planning to develop my own Swiss-style spring roll.
The spring roll cake must be made with Lindt chocolate, so that my painstaking efforts to associate it with Switzerland are not in vain. The cream should be sprinkled with distinct red beans, so that I know that as long as I wait a little longer, until the red beans are cooked into a smooth red bean paste, you will come with summer.
/
Spring quickly came to an end, and before the first summer arrived, Meng Lanjian's supervisor kicked her out of the lab after she had worked for 28 consecutive hours. Everyone knew that Meng Lanjian wanted to finish her studies as soon as possible, get her degree, and leave, but the school's credit system required her to stay for two more years to obtain her dual doctoral degree.
Lan Jian wrote in the letter:
Dingyue:
Sometimes I feel that spring is like a boring movie, with a wind that's neither hot nor cold, and it just blows on and on until the movie ends.
So what is summer? Summer is when someone sets an alarm for ice cubes, and once they start to melt, summer invades the kitchen before the canned tomatoes are even finished.
I had never known that summer colds existed. After coming to X country, I suddenly became interested in seeing traditional Chinese medicine doctors. They said that my cold should be called a "summer cold." It's probably like being attacked by heat toxins, like being ambushed by a sudden summer.
Because I have to wear a mask even in this hot weather to avoid scaring others when I cough, my Japanese friend, Aiko, gave me some amazing mint stickers. Sticking them on my mask makes it even cooler than chewing gum. Plus, the design is of an adorable Shiba Inu that's even winking.
Do you think if you put ten mint puppies on your mask at once, wouldn't it look like you've got toothpaste on it? And what about canned tomatoes that won't expire until 2029? Could their production date be around the time of some Olympics? And if mermaids really existed, would their tears turn into pearls?
I don't know, I really don't know.
All I know is that without you by my side, I no longer have to worry about my left eye turning into a triple eyelid when I wake up in the morning!
I won't be nagged by you anymore, saying that all I do every day is collect stamps.
r>
And another thing, I'm no longer the unwanted child born to the loving male and female protagonists in a romance novel's side story.
/
Time passed very slowly, and Lan Jian's letters piled up one by one.
Dingyue:
One night, I was reading a novel on my pillow before bed. As I turned over, I suddenly touched the hair clip on my head. The moment I took it off, I suddenly felt very cute.
It's that rare feeling of being a bit absent-minded that makes me feel adorable. When I was little, my dad bought me a square diamond hair clip, and only when I grew up did I realize it was very expensive. But I didn't understand how expensive a hair clip could be. Xiuyun gave me an analogy, saying that in ancient palaces, what was the most valuable and eye-catching thing for empresses? Of course, it was their hair ornaments. No matter how expensive a hair ornament was, it was worth it because it was the most eye-catching.
Having learned this lesson, I've become subconsciously careful with any hair accessories ever since, never leaving them lying around. Except for one time, when I deliberately left my hairpin in the stable to test a scheming villain, and as expected, she still found it. It turns out I've always lived under her watchful eye.
When I first entered the nuclear research institute, I was like a precise instrument, carefully considering every step before making a decision. But after marrying you, I became reckless and wanton, able to roll around in your arms every day.
So this is what it feels like to be pampered. You become more and more natural in facing yourself, without having to be cautious or feel lost.
I really want to call you "Chongming" again, but you are no longer Chongming. You are Dingyue, Dingyue who is under house arrest in the basement of the nuclear reactor because of this name.
/
Dingyue:
When you and Senior Zheng were still dating, I received a wedding invitation from my elementary school classmate in Beiluan. In the photo, she was beautifully dressed in a wedding gown, arm in arm with the groom. My first reaction wasn't regret that I couldn't go back to Beiluan for her wedding, but rather...
Instead, I was thinking, what if one day you and Senior Zheng get married? You'll probably invite everyone from the lab to the banquet, right? What kind of dress should I wear?
I'm afraid my cheongsam will get stained with food, and my little dress will look too formal. If I'm not dressed up to attend your wedding with someone else, I'll definitely feel resentful.
But why feel resentful? At that moment, I thought, you never truly belonged to me.
And now that you're my husband, so what? Time ticks by, and we're both left behind in the shadows of the past, still tormented by this imminent war. The nuclear peace treaty renewal ceremony has been delayed for a whole year by Zheng's father. Zheng came to see me the other day; she said she's going to marry a son of a garrison soldier. She ultimately couldn't escape the misfortune of an arranged marriage, becoming a puppet of someone as wicked as her father. I asked her why she didn't run away.
She said she wanted to go back to save the nuclear research institute and Chongming Island.
I haven't cried in a long time, but when she mentioned "Chongming," my tears streamed down my face. She said that before you saw me off during my layover in the US, you left something with her. I thought it would be an apology letter that implied you already knew things would change, or a love letter that you couldn't bring yourself to say...
But I never expected to receive a diamond hair clip.
When I received the diamond hair clip, I had so many questions to ask.
Have you received the blueprints? Has the improved ballistic system been successfully developed? How is the old director's health? Xue Xiang has also disappeared without a trace; is he still alive? Can our nuclear research institute survive until I graduate with my doctorate?
Chongming, why could you so shockingly have someone else give me the gift you promised to give me when we first celebrated Chinese New Year together? Why did you only give me the hairpin if something unforeseen happened? Why can't I do anything? Why wasn't I the one who could save you, the one who could stop this war?
I do not understand.
/
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
