Chapter 100 Her Answer
Dinner was held at the old house, a celebration of the old man's successful discharge from the hospital. The atmosphere at the table was fairly harmonious, and Mrs. Huo specially instructed the kitchen to prepare several light and nourishing dishes. Huo Siqi chattered about recent amusing events, making the old man laugh heartily. Huo Zheng didn't talk much, but occasionally he would chime in with a word or two, and when his gaze swept over Song Zhiyi, who was eating quietly, it would carry a hint of barely perceptible gentleness.
Song Zhiyi ate little and behaved quietly and politely. When the old man wanted to pick up a slightly oily dish, she would gently remind him, "Grandpa, the doctor said you can't eat oily food for the time being." She would also occasionally add a professional opinion or two when Mrs. Huo mentioned a health topic, with a humble attitude that made people listen.
Huo Yanli sat opposite her, barely tasting his food throughout the meal. His grandfather's words that afternoon had been like a boulder thrown into his heart, the ripples of which lingered for a long time. He glanced at Song Zhiyi from time to time, noticing her calm eyes, her slightly lowered eyelashes as she quietly sipped her soup, and the polite yet unreserved smile on her lips when she spoke with her family.
Each time his gaze lingered, the belated guilt intensified, accompanied by an anxious urge to confirm something. Did she know? How much did she know? What was her attitude towards the complex considerations behind this marriage, including… the fact that her brother-in-law had been her first choice?
After dinner, everyone moved to the living room for some tea. The old man was feeling unwell and was helped back to his room to rest by Uncle Chen just after eight o'clock. Mr. and Mrs. Huo also got up to return to their own residence. Huo Zheng received a phone call and said he had to leave first.
"Zhiyi, are you staying here tonight or going back to your dorm?" Huo's mother asked before leaving.
Song Zhiyi put down her teacup and stood up: "I'm going back to my dorm. Auntie, please be careful on your way back, Uncle."
Mrs. Huo nodded, said nothing more, and left with Mr. Huo.
In the blink of an eye, only Huo Yanli and Song Zhiyi remained in the lively old house's living room. A maid quietly entered to tidy up the tea set, and the air was filled with a faint aroma of tea and a sudden silence.
"I'll take you back." Huo Yanli picked up his coat from the back of the sofa.
"Okay, thank you." Song Zhiyi did not refuse and picked up her small bag.
The two walked out of the main house one after the other, the cool night air immediately hitting them. The streetlights cast a dim yellow glow in the yard, outlining the shadowy silhouettes of the plants and trees. Neither spoke on the short walk to the garage; only the soft sound of their footsteps echoed on the cobblestone path.
After getting into the car and fastening my seatbelt, the car slowly drove out of the old house gate and merged into the night traffic.
The car was still as quiet as ever. Huo Yanli turned on some soothing music, turning the volume down low. He gripped the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, but his heart was pounding with tension.
After driving for about ten minutes, when they passed a red light, he finally couldn't resist turning his head to look at the person in the passenger seat.
She was gazing at the neon lights flowing outside the window, her profile appearing exceptionally serene in the flickering light. Her eyes were somewhat vacant, as if she were thinking about something, or perhaps simply resting.
"Zhiyi," he said, his voice sounding somewhat abrupt in the enclosed carriage.
Song Zhiyi turned her head at the sound, looking at him with clear eyes, asking, "Hmm?"
The red light turned green, and Huo Yanli restarted the car. His gaze returned to the road ahead, his Adam's apple bobbing before he finally asked the question that had been nagging at him all night:
"Regarding our engagement... do you... know the specifics of how your maternal and paternal grandfathers agreed on it back then?"
His question was somewhat vague, but his heart was racing involuntarily. He was both afraid that she knew too much, and secretly hoped that she would know something, even just a little.
Song Zhiyi seemed taken aback by his sudden question and paused for a moment. But she quickly regained her composure, and after a moment's thought, she understood the implication behind Huo Yanli's question. His grandfather's conversation with him that afternoon must have involved something.
She turned her head back and looked at the car lights flowing ahead, her tone as calm as if she were discussing the weather:
"Know what?" She paused, her gaze remaining steady. "Do you know that the person Grandpa and Grandfather initially favored was actually my uncle?"
She said it so casually. There was no surprise, no complaint, and no curiosity to investigate.
Huo Yanli's fingers tightened around the steering wheel, his knuckles turning slightly white. She knew it after all! And she said it in such a nonchalant tone.
“Before Grandpa passed away, he mentioned something,” Song Zhiyi continued, her voice devoid of emotion, “He said that Grandpa Huo had mentioned two names, one was my uncle, and the other was you. He said my uncle was more stable, but you…” She paused slightly, as if recalling his exact words, “…but you are the head of the Huo family, and Grandpa Huo might prefer you. At the time, Grandpa also said that it would depend on fate, and he would be at ease with whoever was chosen in the end, as anyone Grandpa Huo valued should be of good character.”
She narrated very objectively, even including her grandfather's affirmation of Huo Yanli's character. But it was precisely this objectivity that made Huo Yanli feel even more uneasy. It was as if she were recounting an old arrangement made by her elders that had nothing to do with her.
"So," Huo Yanli heard his own voice sound a little hoarse, "you knew from the beginning that your uncle... was the first choice?"
"Yes, I know." Song Zhiyi nodded, finally turning her head to look at him. The light from outside the car window swept across her eyes, reflecting a calm and clear expression. "But for me, it makes no difference."
There is no difference.
The three words, seemingly light and airy, struck Huo Yanli's heart like a blunt hammer, causing a sudden, dull ache.
"Why?" he asked almost involuntarily, his voice filled with a sense of resentment and pain that he himself hadn't fully grasped. "If it were my uncle, perhaps he could understand you better, you two..."
"Yanli." Song Zhiyi interrupted him. This was the first time she had called his name so naturally in private. Her voice was still calm, but it carried a gentle power that brought the conversation to a close. "The marriage is the wish of the two elders, a promise to their deceased comrade-in-arms, and an explanation to my grandfather's dying concerns. I promised my grandfather, and I will keep my word."
She paused for a moment, her gaze seemingly drifting to a distant place, and for the first time, her voice contained a barely perceptible, sigh-like fluctuation:
"To be honest, when you proposed that five-year agreement, I actually felt a sense of relief."
Huo Yanli's heart clenched, as if pierced by the cold, sharp edge of those words.
She... breathed a sigh of relief?
Song Zhiyi seemed oblivious to his sudden pallor, or rather, she considered it an undeniable and natural occurrence. She continued in that clear and straightforward tone:
"Because that means that everything has a clear deadline, a clear end. I can wholeheartedly fulfill my responsibilities for these five years, take good care of Grandpa, and play the role that the Huo family needs. Five years later, I can continue to walk the path I want to walk and do what I should do without any burden. So, who the other party is specifically, whether it is Uncle Huo Zheng, or you, or anyone else that Grandpa Huo approves of, is really not important to me. What is important is that the promise has been fulfilled, and my path is still ahead."
Her tone was so calm, her logic so clear, that she dissected a marriage that concerned the future of two people, involved two families, and even reflected her grandfather's profound considerations, with such calmness, objectivity, and...ruthlessness.
She viewed marriage as a responsibility that needed to be fulfilled on time, and Huo Yanli (or Huo Zheng) as the "other" who met the elders' expectations for fulfilling this responsibility. The "five-year agreement" proposed by this "other" perfectly aligned with her deep-seated yearning for freedom and her plan for responsibility. Who this "other" was, or what made them different, was irrelevant to her life plan and emotional world. She was even grateful for this "five-year agreement" because it made everything "controllable" and "predictable."
Huo Yanli felt his heart being squeezed and kneaded by an invisible hand, a sharp and continuous throbbing pain that almost made it hard for him to breathe, and his palms gripping the steering wheel instantly turned icy cold.
He had always thought he was the unwilling one, the one who proposed the "contract" and drew the boundaries. He even vaguely felt a sense of superiority in controlling the situation, or a passive resistance to being forced into marriage. But now he realized that in this marriage, the one who was truly "outside," clearly drawing boundaries and treating it merely as a to-do item with a clear deadline at a certain stage of life, was her.
What he perceived as a "contract" under his control was, to her, not a constraint, but rather a "roadmap" and "timetable" leading to freedom. The "five years" he proposed was a countdown she had already silently calculated, a countdown of patience and responsibility.
The music inside the carriage was still playing softly; it was a soothing piano piece. But now it felt like endless mockery in the background, each note striking at his sense of powerlessness.
Huo Yanli didn't speak again, just drove silently, his jawline taut, his lips pressed into a pale line. The light and shadows outside the window flashed quickly across his bloodless face.
The car finally stopped in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dormitory building. It stopped rather abruptly, and the tires made a slight rubbing sound on the ground.
Song Zhiyi unbuckled her seatbelt, picked up her bag, turned to him, and politely said, "Thank you, drive carefully." Her expression was completely normal, as if they had just had a casual conversation about the weather or work.
She pushed open the car door and got out. Just before her figure disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell, she paused slightly, turned around, and added, her voice very soft in the night breeze: "Grandpa has just been discharged from the hospital and needs to rest. There are some old things... there's no need to make him worry too much. Good night."
After she finished speaking, she turned and walked into the stairwell, where motion-sensor lights turned on and off floor by floor.
Huo Yanli sat alone in the car, not leaving immediately. He stared through the car window at the window that would never light up again, remaining motionless for a long time. The chill of the night seeped in, but it couldn't compare to the coldness spreading through his heart.
He finally understood the weight in his grandfather's sigh that afternoon, and the profound insight behind Huo Zheng's words, "self-awareness."
For some people, their world is too vast, their path too long. Ordinary romantic entanglements are perhaps just insignificant background noise to them. And he, just beginning to clumsily try to blend into this background noise, discovers with despair that he may not even have the qualifications to be a background noise, and even the "five-year deadline" he set for himself has become the clearest milestone in her plan to move towards freedom.
The clenched and crushed pain in my heart, mixed with an unprecedentedly cold understanding, lingered for a long time.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com