Chapter 86
It was late at night, and Mo Daoyan was still tossing and turning, which was no wonder. After listening to Tong Yufei's heart-wrenching words, he was lucky to fall asleep. He walked to her door again as if possessed by a ghost. The door was not locked, but ajar. He didn't know whether it was because of the unbearable heat or she had long been accustomed to not locking the door.
In the past, when he came home from overtime at night, she would always wait in the living room to open the door for him. At first, he thought it was her little trick to please him, but later he found out that it was a habit of life. She was particularly sensitive to movements at night and would become extremely nervous at the slightest sound, and would wake up even if she was asleep.
He remembered that rainy night. It was already late at night after they had made love. Perhaps the atmosphere was so good that he stayed in her room for the first time, still keeping them in an embrace. But later he personally experienced her being awakened by the sound of wind and rain three or four times. He completely misunderstood it at the time, thinking that this was her hint that she didn't want to be close to him and was trying to drive him away in various ways.
Feeling rebellious, he hugged her tighter: "Can't sleep?"
"Someone's knocking at the door."
"It's the sound of rain."
"Is it raining again?"
"Um."
Less than half an hour passed before she struggled to get up again: "There are footsteps."
"Are you going to sleep or not?"
"Someone really came in, let's go and take a look."
"Is this your first time hearing the sound of rain?" Seeing her panicked expression, he pulled her up and forced her to look around. "Look carefully, there's no one." Then he pressed her back on the pillow and said in a deep voice, "Or do you want to say that it was me? You can't let me sleep in the same bed with you?"
He was holding back his anger, thinking that she was just too sleepy and confused, and even her excuse for sending him away was so poor. Later, when he learned that Guan Fei had harassed her, he realized that her abnormal resistance was nothing more than an instinctive wariness of the dark.
Tonight, Tong Yufei slept very soundly and was not awakened even when he walked in and sat at the head of her bed. She didn't know when she stopped kicking the quilt like before and didn't even need a sleeping bag. He lowered his head to look at her carefully and found that her cheeks were rounder than before.
Feeling relieved, he recalled the scene when he first met her.
Thanks to Meng Ruqing's reminder, the vague memory was gradually pieced together.
He and Tong Yufei first met in the winter at the end of the first semester of his sophomore year. He saw several out-of-print philosophy books from an old professor, exchanged them for the old pocket watch given by his grandfather, and gave them to his aunt.
Leaving his aunt's house and returning to the old house, he passed by the Lanxing River and heard several people shouting, "Someone fell into the water!"
That day he was wearing a new set of casual clothes, which was given to him by his aunt. A few days ago, on his grandmother's birthday, he wore a dark green jacket. His aunt stared at his back, and in a trance, she seemed to see her ex-husband. She lost control and cut his clothes with scissors. Although he was not hurt, it scared a lot of people.
My aunt felt guilty and spent money to make him this more expensive set. As she was fixing his collar, she sighed, "He only looks good from the back, but in terms of looks, he still loses."
That night, the shore was crowded with people. He didn't want to get involved. First, some people were about to go into the water and needed him. Second, he was afraid that his new clothes would be ruined. If his aunt knew about it, she would get mad. But the river was covered with thin ice. The people who jumped into the water to save people were frozen to death after just a few strokes. Most of the onlookers were elderly, so someone looked at him eagerly and said, "Young man, can you swim? Go down and help!"
He quickly took off his coat and jumped into the glacier.
When Tong Yufei was pulled out of the water, her lips were blue and she was unconscious. He pinched her nose and bent over to give her artificial respiration according to the method he had read in the book. The old lady who had just praised his bravery immediately changed her expression: "Oh! Saving people is one thing, but being a hooligan in public is not allowed!"
Without even looking up, he used the laziest excuse to try to shut everyone up: "She was my girlfriend, and we had a fight and she jumped into the river."
The crowd exploded.
"Forget about partners, even husband and wife can't be so unruly!"
"This girl is as thin as a bean sprout. Is she an adult? Could she have been kidnapped?"
One old man reached out to pull someone away: "What's the point of just kissing? You have to hold it upside down to control the water."
"Don't touch her!"
He pushed her away, then, ignoring the others' gazes, continued to give her artificial respiration until Tong Yufei's pale lips turned red, she finally choked out a few mouthfuls of water, and her breathing gradually stabilized. Only then did he wrap her in his coat, pick her up, and leave the scene. He hadn't originally planned to take her home, but after asking for her address several times, he only got a few vague mumblings from her. As the night deepened, their clothes were soaked, leaving him no time for further thought.
The next day, at the old house, he read "Fu Lei Family Letters" beneath a camphor tree. Chen Ruchao had forced the book on him. At the time, his relationship with his father was strained, and Chen Ruchao wanted him to appreciate the depth of a father's love between the lines. But he didn't envy the bond between the Fu family father and son. The root of the conflict between him and Mo Changlin had never been love, but the chasm between their generations, and his father's obsession with patriarchy to bridge that gap. However, the lives shattered by the currents of time in the book offered him another perspective: fortunate enough to live in this new world, he had to achieve something worthwhile, to make his life count.
In the interval of reading, he noticed a pair of eyes at the door. The girl he picked up was secretly looking at him, and when he looked back at her, she hurriedly turned away. He didn't like evasive gazes. It was always tiring to get along with such people. But when he picked her up yesterday, she was wrapped in a water-soaked cotton coat and was surprisingly light. At this moment, her thin figure made her eyes look even bigger, reminding him of the young orange cat at his aunt's house, with a bit of cunning and cleverness.
When he went back to the room to pack his luggage for school, she chased him to the door, holding his dark green jacket and two torn certificates. The certificates were the ones he won when he won second place twice. They were originally nailed to the wall, but the nails fell off and he threw them away.
She handed the things over: "Auntie Nanny said these are all yours."
He unfolded it and saw that the place on the jacket that was cut by the knife had been seamlessly patched up by her with a yellow maple leaf pattern, and the original damage was almost invisible. The certificate was also taped together flat and smooth without any wrinkles. She was really skillful.
That jacket was his aunt's inner demon, and he would never wear it again. As for the second-place certificate, it was useless except for recording a moment in time. He casually said, "If you want the jacket, you can give it away. As for those two pieces of waste paper, throw them away."
She couldn't deal with the clothes, but she still left the certificates at his door: "Keep them, they are your marks of pride."
"What's there to be proud of in second place?"
"They're not just awards; they're also testaments to your life. You're first, and you're second. A person shouldn't just be the glamorous part; the whole is the best. And second place at Jiaotong University is a level many people could never reach in their entire lives." She paused, then suddenly asked, "What's your name?"
"Don't say anything."
"Does silence mean golden?"
"You'd have to ask the person who named it."
"My name is Tong Yufei." She was wearing Meng Ruqing's light green silk jacket. The loose clothing made her look like a child wearing adult clothes. She was tall, and her trouser legs were obviously too short, revealing a slender ankle, which was dazzlingly white. She was obviously aware of it and was pulling at her trouser legs uncomfortably, trying to cover it up. "I fell into the river last night, and your mother saved me."
He didn't explain much, but simply replied: "Eat more, gain some weight, and then if you fall into the water again, maybe you can float up on your own."
"What does your mother like to eat?"
"How tall are you?"
The two spoke almost at the same time.
She smiled and motioned for him to speak first.
"She doesn't like to eat much, but there are a lot of things she doesn't like to eat. Don't bother." He walked to the door and stretched out his hand to gently pull her to him. She didn't react for a moment and paused. Before one foot could stand firmly, her head had already bumped into his chest, and her forehead hit the button of his shirt.
He whispered, "Did it hurt?"
She shook her head. It was the first time she was so close to a strange boy. Her heartbeat quickened. She didn't know whether to look up or down. She only responded vaguely, "You..."
"Stand still, don't move!" He gently placed his hand on the top of her head, and compared his palm between her head and his chin, then confirmed, "Well, you are about the same height as Eryao."
Before leaving home to return to school, he asked Aunt Lin to buy her some clothes that fit her and told her her measurements, and to prepare more meat for her meals every day. Most people would have been eager to go home after being rescued, but she didn't mention anything about her family. He guessed that this girl must have had some experiences that she didn't want others to know, but he had no intention of delving into it. He shouldn't get too involved in a chance rescue.
When it comes to matters concerning other people's fate, the slightest carelessness can lead to a lot of trouble.
But because of her mother, their fates were quietly intertwined. She didn't know whether this was a blessing or a curse for her. No matter what happened in the past, it was no longer what she wanted.
At five o'clock in the morning, before daybreak, Mo Daoyan returned to his study and redrafted a divorce agreement overnight. He asked Qiao Zhuocheng's cousin to review it expeditedly, and signed and fingerprinted it before eight o'clock. He then took Tong Yufei to the train station to refund the original tickets and buy the afternoon train instead.
After everything was arranged, the two went to the street office and the Civil Affairs Bureau together.
As usual, the mediators tried to mediate, their tone gentle but formulaic. Mo Daoyan was too lazy to beat around the bush and directly stated that the two of them had different life plans. His future work focus would be abroad, and sooner or later he would immigrate and settle down and marry someone else. Tong Yufei had waited for him for six years and hadn't been able to keep him, so why bother wasting time?
The bluntness of his words only served to expose his coldness. The older woman from the neighborhood office immediately pulled Tong Yufei into a corner and raised her voice deliberately, "Sister, this is a new era. We don't want to be widows anymore. Throwing a bun to a dog might even get you a few calls. If a man's heart isn't in him, no matter how good he is, he's just decoration. Divorce him as soon as possible!"
At the Civil Affairs Bureau, his words were exactly the same. Tong Yufei didn't want others to misunderstand him and wanted to share some of the responsibility. As soon as he mentioned Ye Yimo, he was interrupted: "Whether we get a divorce or not has nothing to do with Ye Yimo," he said in a low voice, "If you insist on dragging him into this, I won't get a divorce."
She had no choice but to give up.
The mediator's eyes had nailed him to the pillar of shame as a modern-day Chen Shimei. In fact, the union mediation was a thing of the past a year ago. The divorce had been dragged on until today, and in the eyes of others it was just a rehash of old news. Although he did not receive the divorce certificate that day, when he returned to China more than a year later, this marriage would finally come to an end, and the divorce procedures would be much smoother.
This marriage began with a lie and ended with another lie, like a carefully designed time-loop experiment.
When walking out of the Civil Affairs Bureau, Tong Yufei stretched, raised the corners of his mouth, and smiled brightly, his smile was brighter than the day he passed the examination to become a reporter.
He teased, "You're a veteran actor after all, and you don't even take a bow at the end?"
She stood under the mottled shadows of the trees, with an unprecedented look of relief on her face: "You don't like watching plays."
"You really don't miss it at all?" He asked persistently.
She stared at the bus stop across the street, ready to board the bus to the newspaper office and reunite with her colleagues, who had also bought new tickets to wait for her. "Did you leave the country because you hated your home?" she asked in return. "People make choices, not because other options are bad, but because the path ahead is more worth taking."
"Don't play tricks." He stared at her profile and asked, "Just tell me, do you still feel a little bit reluctant to leave me?"
"Does your body count?" She said with a playful smile, her eyes clear and insightful. "Mo Daoyan, you don't need me to prove your goodness. You know it best."
She had just bought a ticket for the 3 p.m. bus, which was perfectly sufficient for her to see him off in. However, since the divorce was already finalized, acting out a reluctant farewell would have been awkward for both of them. She didn't express her feelings, and he didn't bring it up again. A few minutes later, the bus she was supposed to take arrived at the station, and he insisted on walking her across the street and watching her get on.
"Hurry to the train station, or you'll be too late." She sat down by the window, her high ponytail blew a few strands by the wind. She gathered her hair and waved at him, "Have a safe journey."
He smiled and nodded: "I remember it."
"Remember what?"
The bus started slowly, and until his figure was gradually submerged in the crowd, she didn't hear clearly what he remembered.
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