Chapter 21 You are not good enough for her
December 28th, the year is about to end.
The Huo family's old residence was much livelier than usual, with several vehicles bearing military license plates and special passes parked in the courtyard. Today was the day that Huo Zheng, the younger uncle, was returning to Beijing from the Northwest Military Region to report on his duties. According to Huo family tradition, as long as one is in Beijing, attending this family gathering before the end of the year is mandatory.
When Huo Yanli arrived, a number of people had already gathered in the front hall. His eldest uncle's family and his second uncle's family were both there. The children were chasing and playing in the yard, while the adults sat in the hall drinking tea and chatting. The heating was on full blast, and the air was filled with the aroma of tea and the sweet scent of pastries, as well as the lively yet polite atmosphere unique to large family gatherings.
Huo Yanli had just taken off his coat and handed it to the servant when he heard steady footsteps coming from the courtyard.
Everyone looked towards the doorway without prior arrangement.
Huo Zheng was dressed in a crisp army uniform, the two bars and three stars on his epaulets gleaming coldly under the lights. He was thirty-six years old, six years older than Huo Yanli. He was tall and straight, with skin tanned from years of field training. His features were more defined than Huo Yanli's, and there was a faint old scar on his brow bone. When he was silent, he exuded a chilling aura.
A former special forces soldier, later transferred to a classified department, he was constantly on missions and rarely returned home—this was Huo Zheng's defining characteristic. Among the Huo family's generation, he was the most unique, having taken a completely different path from his father and brothers.
"Uncle," Huo Yanli greeted him.
Huo Zheng nodded, patted his shoulder with considerable force: "You've gotten stronger again."
The two walked into the front hall together. The elders surrounded him, asking about Huo Zheng's situation in the army, when he would be transferred back to Beijing, and whether his personal life had been resolved—all the same old questions. Huo Zheng answered briefly, mostly just nodding or shaking his head, occasionally saying "It's okay" or "No rush," his tone calm but carrying the unquestionable authority unique to soldiers.
Huo Yanli sat by the window, watching his uncle surrounded by people. He and Huo Zheng had never been particularly close since childhood—the age difference was one reason, but more importantly, their personalities and life trajectories were different. Huo Zheng entered military academy at eighteen and was away from home for most of the year, while Huo Yanli followed the typical path of a family heir: prestigious university, overseas studies, and returning to take over the family business.
But Huo Yanli always remembered that when he was a child, he was bullied by several children from the compound. It was Huo Zheng—who was only fifteen or sixteen years old at the time—who beat all the older children to the ground by himself, and then carried him home in silence, only saying at the end: "Tell me if anyone bullies you in the future."
Those were some of the few heartwarming moments between the uncle and nephew.
Before the banquet began, Huo Zheng finally managed to escape from the crowd of elders and sat down next to Huo Yanli. A servant brought tea, which he took, drank a large gulp, and then looked at Huo Yanli: "I heard you got married?"
Huo Yanli was looking at work emails on his phone. Hearing this, he paused, looked up, and said, "Yeah. It's been two years."
"Song Zhiyi." Huo Zheng said the name in a very calm tone, as if he were saying an ordinary name.
But Huo Yanli keenly noticed that when his uncle said those three words, there was an extremely subtle change in his eyes—not curiosity, not inquiry, but a kind of... déjà vu confirmation.
"You know her?" Huo Yanli put down his phone.
Huo Zheng didn't answer immediately. He picked up his teacup, took another sip, and looked out the window at the bare locust tree branches in the courtyard. Winter dusk comes early, and it was already dark. The lights in the courtyard were not yet on, and the branches looked like blank spaces in a traditional Chinese ink painting in the twilight.
“Last autumn, in Syria,” Huo Zheng finally spoke, his voice lower than before, “on a joint evacuation mission. She was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ working group.”
Huo Yanli's heart skipped a beat for no apparent reason. He remembered the scattered pieces of information his grandfather had mentioned before.
"Oh," he responded, trying to keep his tone calm. "Grandpa mentioned that she used to work over there."
Huo Zheng turned his head and looked at him: "It's not as simple as 'work'."
The others in the hall were still chatting, their voices noisy, but Huo Yanli felt those voices suddenly fade away. It was as if a separate, quiet space had been created between him and his uncle.
“That mission was very difficult,” Huo Zheng continued, his tone calm and objective, as if he were giving a mission briefing. “We had to evacuate a besieged industrial zone with seventeen Chinese engineers and technicians, as well as nine of their local employees. The opposing armed group controlled all access routes and demanded supplies in exchange for the people.”
"The regular negotiations had been going on for two days without any progress. On the third day, their conditions changed—they demanded that a UN or neutral country diplomat be present to vouch for them before they would release us. They said they were afraid that if our location was exposed after the evacuation, we would be attacked by airstrikes."
Huo Zheng paused for a moment, his gaze becoming distant, as if he had returned to that scene filled with the smoke of battle.
“At the time, the UN personnel couldn’t get here in time, and the nearest neutral diplomat was 200 kilometers away. Time was of the essence, because intelligence indicated that there were internal divisions on the other side, and the hardliners might change their minds at any moment.” He looked at Huo Yanli, “There were five people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs working group at the time. Four men and one woman—that was Song Zhiyi.”
Huo Yanli's fingers unconsciously tightened their grip on the teacup. The tea had gone cold, and the chill emanating from the cup spread from his fingertips.
“She volunteered to go.” Huo Zheng’s voice was flat. “She said she speaks Arabic, knows the local tribal customs, and… she’s a woman.”
"What happened to the woman?" Huo Yanli blurted out.
“In that environment, women are sometimes more likely to get a chance to have a dialogue – as long as they are brave and smart enough,” Huo Zheng explained. “Although the other side is tough, they still follow some ancient tribal rules, such as not easily using force against women, especially female diplomats who have declared their neutrality.”
He put down his teacup and placed his hands clasped on his knees: “We objected at the time. It was too dangerous. But she insisted. She said the workers had been trapped for four days, some were injured, some had chronic illnesses, and they couldn’t wait any longer.”
Huo Yanli's breath hitched for a moment.
"And then?" he heard himself ask, his voice a little dry.
"Later she went there," Huo Zheng said. "Alone, with a local translator—who was a student and trembling with fear. She was wearing a bulletproof vest, holding a Chinese flag and her work ID, and walked to the other side's checkpoint. Our people were listening in from behind, ready to launch a surprise attack at any moment."
“She spoke for twenty minutes.” Huo Zheng’s speech slowed down, as if recalling every detail. “First, she identified herself and emphasized her neutral and humanitarian stance. Then she listed the identities of the trapped people one by one—not a list, but specific information: who has diabetes and needs insulin, who has a newborn child at home, whose mother just passed away last week and needs to go home… She didn’t know where she learned this from, maybe she wrote it down while chatting with the workers before.”
Huo Yanli imagined the scene: against the backdrop of war, a Chinese woman wearing a white shirt (although she wore a bulletproof vest over it) calmly told the stories of ordinary people in fluent Arabic.
"Finally," Huo Zheng continued, "she proposed a deal: release the hostages, and China would provide double the humanitarian aid, and... arrange for a medical team to provide free medical care to local civilians, especially women and children. She also specifically mentioned that she knew the other side's commander's mother had rheumatism, and that the Chinese medical team had experts who could treat her."
Huo Zheng paused, then looked at Huo Yanli: "Do you know how she knew the other party's mother was sick?"
Huo Yanli shook his head.
“She heard it from an old lady when she was doing community research. That old lady and the commander’s mother were old acquaintances. She remembered it.” For the first time, Huo Zheng’s tone revealed a clear emotion—admiration. “She didn’t just cram at the last minute; she had been quietly collecting this information in her previous work. It might never be used, but it could be life-saving in a critical moment.”
The lights in the hall suddenly came on, and the servants began setting the table. The noise grew closer again.
Huo Zheng stood up, patted off imaginary dust from his trousers, then looked down at Huo Yanli, who was still sitting, and said something.
The sound wasn't loud, but to Huo Yanli it sounded like a thunderclap.
“Yanli,” Huo Zheng said, “you are not good enough for her.”
After saying that, he turned and walked towards the restaurant, leaving Huo Yanli sitting alone.
Not good enough?
Huo Yanli almost burst out laughing. He found it absurd. He was Huo Yanli, the helmsman of the Huo family in this generation, the revered heir in Beijing's elite circles, holding a business empire worth hundreds of billions. The people he had met, the things he had experienced, the decisions he had made—everything about him was beyond the reach of ordinary people.
Who is Song Zhiyi? A translator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a woman from an ordinary family, and someone who... married into the Huo family to fulfill her grandfather's last wish.
He's not good enough for her?
Huo Yanli scoffed.
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