Chapter 434 Temperature
After the students left, the mother and son walked slowly along the snow-covered path.
Gu Zhao was still excitedly waving her hand: "Wang Ming in our class always brags that his mother is the most beautiful woman in the textile factory. See? I told you my mother is the most beautiful! I've seen many classmates' mothers, and my mother is the most beautiful of them all."
Nan Zhiyi pinched his little face, "My son is the cutest too."
The setting sun cast long shadows of the two of them, and Gu Zhao skipped and hopped along, playing with her shadow as she said she wanted to take a walk outside with her mother for a while.
Nan Zhiyi was happy to indulge him, so she simply adjusted his scarf and slowly led him around in a big circle.
Gu Zhao played in the snow for a while, her little face turning red from the cold.
Will Dad be home for dinner tonight?
"Come back." She wiped his face with a handkerchief. "He said he would check your pinyin homework."
"Yay, I like it when Dad checks me out."
As dusk fell, lights came on in every household, making the snow gleam.
Gu Zhao pointed to the sky: "Mom, look! The stars are out!"
Nan Zhiyi looked up and saw a few cold stars dotting the frozen, purple sky.
"Zhaozhao, do you know what the brightest star is called?"
Gu Zhao snuggled up to her mother and said, "Venus! The teacher said it was the Morning Star, but now it should be called the Evening Star."
That star was like a silver nail stuck in the darkening sky.
"That's great."
Nan Zhiyi tightened her son's scarf and pointed southeast, "Those stars that form a dipper shape are called the Big Dipper. We'll be able to see them clearly later. Legend has it that the Big Dipper was formed from the chariot of the Yellow Emperor..."
Gu Zhao asked a question or two every now and then, and the mother and son slowly walked home.
Suddenly, Gu Xiao strode in through the night, the hem of his military overcoat fluttering in the cold wind.
Gu Zhao's eyes lit up: "Dad!"
Gu Xiao caught his son with one hand, casually ruffled the woolen hat, but his gaze passed over the child and landed on Nan Zhiyi.
He walked over to his wife in a few steps, pressed his palm against her slightly red cheeks from the cold, and asked, "Why aren't you wearing a scarf?" He then took off his camel hair scarf and carefully wrapped it around her twice.
"It's not cold at all." Before Nan Zhiyi could finish speaking, she was already pulled into a coat that was still warm from her body.
Gu Xiao looked down at the reddened tip of her nose and frowned: "This kid has led you out wandering around again." He turned to his son and deliberately put on a stern face, "Comrade Gu Zhao, look at your mother's hands, they're frozen solid."
Feeling the person in his arms gently nudging him with their elbow, he immediately fell silent and simply hugged his wife tighter.
Gu Zhao felt guilty and leaned closer, holding Nan Zhiyi's hand and breathing on it: "I'm warming Mom's hands."
"Good son, Mom isn't cold."
Nan Zhiyi bent down and touched the child's cold little face with her forehead.
Gu Xiao stood to the side watching, and sighed softly. This scene of motherly love and filial piety made him, the strict father, seem heartless.
He reached out and pulled his son along: "Let's go home. Sister Zhang made braised lion's head meatballs today."
The three walked home through the snow, their footprints forming a string in the snow.
Taking advantage of the twilight, Nan Zhiyi asked softly, "Did you go home first?"
“Yes,” Gu Xiao pulled her closer to avoid the icy road, “It’s rare for me to come back so early, and there’s only a warm bed left in the house. So I had to come out to find my wife and kids.”
Nan Zhiyi couldn't help but laugh out loud. The white breath she exhaled from her scarf dispersed in the night. She hadn't expected Gu Xiao to be so witty.
After dinner, Gu Xiao led his son into the study.
Strangely enough, although her mother was more patient in helping with her homework, Gu Zhao preferred to have her father do it. Her father never said, "This problem is very simple." Instead, he would draw out a clear solution on the draft paper with a pencil, just like solving a battle map.
Nan Zhiyi, enjoying a rare moment of leisure, nestled on the sofa and watched the evening news.
On the television screen, bulldozers were roaring as they leveled hills at a construction site in the Southern Special Economic Zone.
The reporter excitedly described the special economic zone's "one floor every three days" speed, with scaffolding erected under the blue sky.
Looking at the swirling dust on the screen, Nan Zhiyi recalled Gu Yan's words on the phone: an electronics factory was going to be built next to the land they had bought. He also said that things in the south had become exceptionally good.
Nan Zhiyi thought that the whole country was getting better, and their family was getting better too.
She looked around her living room. The telephone had just been replaced with a push-button type last month. Gu Xiao said that the department was testing a new gadget called a "pager," a palm-sized black box that could receive short messages.
The scene suddenly switched to a family planning propaganda video.
The model families depicted in the propaganda posters were all three-person households, with only children wearing red scarves smiling like sunflowers. She recalled the scene in the family compound when she was with the military, where slogans like "Many hands make light work" were painted on the walls, and women would gather around the well to compare whose son was the strongest.
Now that the hardships of childbirth have suddenly become policy, Nan Zhiyi feels absurd relief, at least in the future, girls will suffer less from the torment of childbirth.
Sleepiness gradually crept in.
The sound from the television faded into the distance, and she seemed to see countless women leaving their maternity beds to walk into classrooms, factories, and modern offices, like butterflies emerging from their cocoons.
After Gu Xiao coaxed his son to sleep, he found that his wife was already asleep on the sofa, her eyelashes casting thin shadows on her eyelids.
He turned off the TV and carefully picked up his wife.
Nan Zhiyi stirred in his arms, squinted to recognize him, and buried her face in his neck with relief.
"Gu Xiao, are you done with your work?" Her voice was sleepy, and her warm breath brushed against his Adam's apple. "Gu Xiao, take a good look."
He carried her upstairs to the bedroom: "Go to sleep."
The person in her arms struggled, their legs swinging gently: "No, I haven't washed up yet."
Gu Xiao sighed, lifted her up a bit, and used one hand to turn on the bathroom light: "Okay, I'll help you."
Nan Zhiyi leaned against his chest and yawned, then suddenly remembered something: "Where's our son?"
"I've already fallen asleep. I'll keep you company."
The bathroom lights were warm and yellow. He had her sit on the edge of the sink while he rolled up his shirt sleeves to test the water temperature.
Nan Zhiyi jumped down, her bare feet landing on the tiles, and gently rubbed her forehead against his broad back. "Fifth Brother, you're so good to me. I wish I had dated you when I was little..."
Her seemingly random exclamation prompted Gu Xiao to exclaim, "My wife's mind is truly extraordinary, so imaginative..."
He turned around and helped his wife unbutton her clothes. "Hmm, if we had started dating when we were younger, I probably would have spoiled you rotten."
Nan Zhiyi closed her eyes and let him serve her, like a lazy cat: "Fifth Brother, have you thought about the past?"
"Of course I've thought about it."
What Gu Xiao didn't say was that if he had known earlier... he definitely wouldn't have let her even glance at other people, and he definitely wouldn't have let her suffer. If he had dated that pampered little girl back then, he probably would have treated her like royalty.
“Sigh,” Nan Zhiyi suddenly opened her eyes, “If I had started dating Fifth Brother earlier, he would probably have doted on me.”
This deep connection between them shook Gu Xiao to his core.
He leaned down and kissed her, their lips lingering, gradually releasing a burning heat.
Nan Zhiyi tilted her head back to receive the tender kisses, and heard his deep voice whisper in her ear: "Don't I cherish you in the palm of my hand now?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com