Chapter 26
Meng Zixian cooked eight eggs.
Chen Huan was full after eating two. She watched him peel six eggs, swallow the whites, and pour the yolks onto a plate. He explained that he didn't particularly eat egg yolks. Chen Huan nodded. They sat on opposite sides of the dining table. Behind her was a shoe cabinet, and his back was pressed against the refrigerator wall. If he raised his arm, his elbow would touch the wall.
Meng Zixian asked, "Once in Surf City, I saw you running on the beach. Do you like running?" The passionate, cheek-to-cheek moment between them faded, and Chen Huan realized she didn't really know what kind of person Meng Zixian was, and he didn't know her either. They'd only known each other for two weeks, and they were already talking about marriage. This was his decision, too.
She shook her head and said, “I don’t run much.”
But you run fast, he said, you've been running for many years. This wasn't a question; he made this judgment.
Chen Huan said, "I left my phone at the restaurant that day, and I was a little anxious running back from the beach." Meng Zixian didn't respond, but continued to stare at her, waiting for her to answer the previous question. Gradually, Chen Huan discerned the power dynamic between her and Meng Zixian. When he didn't get the answer he wanted, he would stare at her silently. That silence carried a kind of coercion, and Chen Huan always lost to him.
Chen Huan swallowed her saliva. She said that her elementary school was six kilometers away from home. When she was in fourth grade, she wanted to buy a bicycle, but Shen Honglang disagreed and promised to drive her. But later, Shen Honglang came home less and less, leaving only the nanny to take care of her. The nanny didn't know how to drive. Chen Huan got up late in the morning and was afraid of being punished for being late. She was anxious to watch cartoons after school, so she was always running back and forth. She ran from the school sports meeting to the city competition and almost didn't go to the sports school. But she was not keen on running, and she stopped running when she went to boarding school in high school. After listening, Meng Zixuan didn't ask any more questions. He didn't ask why Chen Huan's father no longer came home, nor did he ask why she no longer asked for a bicycle. Chen Huan breathed a sigh of relief.
Meng Zixuan put the remaining six egg yolks into his mouth. Shen Huan thought that the box of eggs would be enough for her to eat for a week. She heard that the meal time in the military camp was very tight. She asked if he was still hungry, and he shook his head and said he was a little choked.
After sweeping the egg yolk crumbs off the plate, Meng Zixian went to wash the dishes. There was no dishwasher in the apartment, so Chen Huan stood beside him, took the dishes he had washed, wiped them dry, and put them in the drainer. Actually, this job didn't require two people, but Meng Zixian was a guest, and she couldn't keep him in the kitchen.
While Meng Zixuan was washing the pot, Chen Huan wiped the last bowl and stood there, unsure of what to do. The kitchen was lit only by a single warm yellow light overhead, and water flowed from the faucet. She saw shimmering foam overflowing from between his fingers, flowing over his knuckles and sliding across the back of his hand.
For the next few days, Meng Zixian came to see her after work. They huddled in front of the open refrigerator in the kitchen, kissed, shared a cold beer under the scorching sun outside the movie theater, and walked hand in hand across the 60-degree asphalt on Fayette Street's main street. Two fighter jets flew overhead, their low-flying roar sounding alarms from parked cars.
They hadn't slept yet. This was certainly due to her previous period, but it wasn't entirely due to that. She thought perhaps their first experience had given him some misunderstanding, suggesting she was averse to premarital sex or cohabitation. He would leave her house promptly at 11 p.m.
A week later, Shen Huan asked, "Are you Cinderella? Do you have to return to the castle before midnight? Or is it military camp rules that prohibit staying out overnight?" When she asked this, he held her on the sofa, watching TV. Her back was pressed against his chest.
Meng Zixian didn't answer her question. His right palm rested on the outside of her hip bone, and his index finger unconsciously fiddled with the pattern on the hem of her vest. Shen Huan followed his gaze and looked down. It was a thumb-sized red, white and blue Stars and Stripes flag, with frayed edges. The TV volume was turned down so low that Shen Huan couldn't hear the lines of the movie. Meng Zixian asked softly why a Stars and Stripes flag was woven here. Shen Huan said she didn't know, the vest was given to her by Tang Ya because she was pregnant and couldn't wear it anymore. Meng Zixian asked if it was Tang Ya Pierce. Shen Huan said her father knew my father, and she helped me find a place to live before I came to North Carolina.
Meng Zixian still lowered his head. He asked, "If it weren't for Tangya Pierce, you wouldn't be living in Fayette, right?" Chen Huan didn't answer immediately. She thought seriously for a few seconds and replied, "Probably not. I want to live by the sea." Meng Zixian didn't say anything. Chen Huan turned sideways to look at him. This was the first time she saw an expression close to sadness on Meng Zixian's face. The light and shadow of the TV screen flickered in his eyes.
After a long time, Meng Zixuan said that we could live by the sea, "When my contract expires in three and a half years, we will live the life you want." At that time, Shen Huan didn't know where Meng Zixuan's sadness came from. She vaguely felt that it was related to his original choice to go to military school.
Before meeting Meng Zixian and the men of the Third Battalion, Chen Huan had a stereotypical view of the twenty-something officers in the military fort. Most of them came from well-off families and joined the army for various reasons, perhaps driven by idealistic patriotism, family military traditions, or even the thrill of the military.
After graduating from military academies, they sign a five-year contract with the Ministry of National Defense and wear the shoulder straps of a second lieutenant. Due to their impressive academic credentials, officers don't need to rely on years of service to qualify for university tuition waivers, housing subsidies, allowances, and post-retirement health insurance like ordinary soldiers do. These five years are more like a ticket to a revolving door between politics and business.
But later, Chen Huan learned that Meng Zixian's application to West Point wasn't his own decision. Admission to West Point requires a nomination from a state senator or congressman. It wasn't until Meng Zixian received a call from a Pennsylvania congressman that he learned his adoptive father, Jack McCormick, had arranged this path for him. Of course, at seventeen, he could have chosen not to go and instead enrolled in a more prestigious private university, but he obeyed his father's wishes.
Many years later, Chen Huan came to understand that there's more than one path to honor and achievement. No one would bury their vibrant twenties in the dust and smoke of military service unless they had to. For Stan Collins, that necessity was his firefighter cousin who died on 9/11. For Henry Schumer, it was his father, Oliver Schumer, the Army Lieutenant General awarded the Silver Star. Chen Huan still doesn't know what Meng Zixian's necessity was.
On the sofa, Meng Zixian tightened his arms around Chen Huan from behind. He said he knew Tang Ya's husband, and that last year Company B went on a mission to Yemen, and Robert Pierce was Rear D. Chen Huan asked what Rear D was. He buried his chin in the hair on the back of her neck, his fingers still fiddling with the American flag on her dress. The corner of her dress was lifted up, revealing a little of her belly, and then he covered it back. The air conditioner was on in the living room, but his fingertips felt warm. Meng Zixian replied that they were officers who stayed behind, and the main force was deployed overseas. Rear D was responsible for personnel, administration, and family support in the rear. Chen Huan asked if the officers in the rear could stay at the headquarters for a few months after the troops left. Meng Zixian said yes.
Chen Huan licked her dry lips and asked, "Then can you apply to stay?" Meng Zixuan stopped moving, and his fingers stiffened slightly. After asking this, Chen Huan felt that he was not thoughtful enough. They had undergone rigorous and long training, not to stay in the base camp to comfort the wives in the rear. She lowered her head and said, "I'm sorry, that's your work arrangement." Meng Zixuan reached out and brushed the hair behind her ear to the left, put his palm on her right shoulder, and slowly stroked her shoulder blade with his thumb. He lowered his head and kissed her shoulder. He asked, "So can I stay here tonight?"
Chen Huan parted her lips and took a light breath. She had thought that he had to go back to the camp, but it seemed that was not the case. She replied that he could. He murmured "hmm", as if he did not quite believe her. Chen Huan turned sideways to look at him. In the dim light, she could not make out his eyes, but she heard him say, Huanhuan, you are not very enthusiastic. His low tone made the sentence sound like an order, and Chen Huan's throat tightened. She said again in a trembling voice, "I would be very happy if you stay." Meng Zixuan did not speak, he just looked at her, moved his hand up, and paused for a moment with his palm covering her throat. Chen Huan raised her head and said, "I beg you to stay."
On a rainy day in New York, the driver drove from Kennedy Airport an hour northeast to Bayville, Long Island. Chen Huan and Meng Zixian got out of the car in front of a three-story colonial-style villa. The driver carried Chen Huan's luggage inside. She held an umbrella and leaned against the large oak tree in the driveway, gazing at the house's gate.
The driver returned to the car, and Meng Zixian asked him to wait five minutes. Shen Huan regained consciousness and asked Meng Zixian if he was leaving. Meng Zixian took out his phone, glanced at it, put it back, and led her inside. The porch was wide, with four white columns. To one side of the door stood a sandalwood table, framed with a company team-building photo. Lou Hetai held a trout in his hands, his gums showing in a smile.
Meng Zixian said this building was Xuan Tao's New York office, usually used for receiving guests and occasionally hosting cocktail parties. Chen Huan nodded and said, "I see there are two cars outside the garage door." Meng Zixian put her schoolbag on the table. He said, "You will stay in the innermost bedroom on the second floor tonight. Everything is packed. If you can fly tomorrow morning, the driver will take you to the airport."
Shen Huan folded up the umbrella and placed it on the umbrella stand. His eyes fell on the brass tray on the table with several spare keys. "Are you in a hurry to leave? Are you afraid that other people in the company will see us together?"
Meng Zixian paused as he picked up the keys from the tray. It had always been Chen Huan who was terrified of being seen together; for the past five years, she'd been desperate to pretend she didn't know him. But Meng Zixian wasn't about to argue. He picked up a key and told her it was for the front door. Chen Huan reached out to take it, but Meng Zixian slammed it on the table, turned around, and got in the car, telling the driver to go back to Jericho.
The car drove past the cobblestone driveway at the gate. Chen Huan stood in the hallway, clutching the key in his hand. His dark green raincoat against the red brim of his hat made him look like a Christmas tree waiting for someone to come home.
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