This year’s fierce cold wave lingered in the capital longer than usual. Its unpredictable nature caught many people off guard, followed by a prolonged stay of the flu virus. Hospitals and small clinics fell into their “busy IV drip season,” with endless streams of patients flowing in. Nurses worked tirelessly like spinning tops, mostly too busy to even touch the ground.
Reality proved that one shouldn’t speak too absolutely. Even if you’re confident about everything, you should maintain some humility to leave yourself a way out.
…Because you might never know how unprepared you’ll be for that unimaginable moment of dramatic reversal. It might even make you become someone’s laughingstock.
Yan Cheng caught a cold and fever from Chen Jinyao. He hadn’t been beastly or done anything excessive – he was just worried about Chen Jinyao kicking off her blanket at night. Instead of listening to her suggestion to sleep in the guest room, he held her and restrained her kicking legs all night, leading to his honorable defeat.
But his sacrifice earned no sympathy from Chen Jinyao – only mockery.
After the needle slowly entered his vein, Yan Cheng relaxed his fist. With narrowed eyes, he cast a cool glance in Chen Jinyao’s direction, and his sarcastic laugh abruptly stopped.
Though it might not be entirely appropriate for describing a married couple, it would have to do. Yan Cheng said expressionlessly: “Cao Zhi was right – we grew from the same root, why torment each other so?”
He paused, “Think about that for a while.”
“…” Chen Jinyao raised her eyebrows, and after a long while, lazily said “Oh,” her perfunctory attitude obvious and completely insincere.
Deliberately ignoring her perfunctory response, the man nodded slightly and, letting bygones be bygones, shared a profound truth: “Mutual destruction only leads to both sides getting hurt.”
Chen Jinyao: “………………”
This theory had nothing to do with reality – that was Chen Jinyao’s first thought. Then, she wisely chose to remain silent, pretending to surrender and showing agreement with his words, while in reality, she still couldn’t help laughing whenever she saw him.
“…” Yan Cheng could see what she was thinking, but honestly, he really couldn’t understand what she found so funny. He let out a long sigh, frowned, and stopped paying attention to her, remaining silent.
This continued until the fifth day. When they came to the hospital hand in hand for another IV drip, Chen Jinyao could no longer laugh. Not only could she not laugh, she even felt like crying.
It was like eating the same dish every day – after a while, you naturally develop a physiological aversion to it and won’t try it again for some time. But there was no choice – the physical fatigue was indeed decreasing. After the high fever broke, they couldn’t completely relax as there were strong “aftereffects,” with intermittent low fevers following, leaving them in a weak and listless state.
Of course, this condition was visibly improving. The hospital’s advice was to come for IV drips for a few more days.
Finally reaching the last day, they had recovered their vigor.
“I haven’t been to the hospital this many times in my entire life combined,” Yan Cheng said very calmly, looking sideways.
His tone suggested he was complaining to Chen Jinyao. Obviously, he was tired of it too.
Chen Jinyao answered without looking up or thinking: “Impossible.”
Hearing this, Yan Cheng frowned. He turned his head and seriously looked at Chen Jinyao, his brows showing dissatisfaction at her disbelief.
Chen Jinyao was unmoved by his scanning gaze: “Who knows how many nights you spent in an incubator when you were just born.”
“…That doesn’t count,” the man replied seriously with a straight face.
However, these three powerless words were destined to lead to an “ineffective rebuttal,” and were quickly dismissed by Chen Jinyao.
Their lowered voices arguing back and forth appeared to the nurse as flirting. The cold dog food had been slapped on their faces for so many days that they had become familiar faces. The nurse shook two thermometers and handed them to the couple, smiling with curved eyes as she remarked: “You two have such a good relationship.”
Hearing this, Chen Jinyao suddenly fell silent, stunned.
Whether it was a wake-up call or not, she suddenly felt quite awkward. Thinking back carefully, she broke into a cold sweat.
She lowered her eyes, her eyelashes trembling. Besides making an “um” sound, she remained silent, not knowing what to say. Should she look up and smile politely?
While she was struggling with whether to raise her arm to scratch her head, Yan Cheng answered for her, his voice hoarse, “Yes, newlyweds.”
“…” Claiming to be newlyweds after half a year of marriage?
Chen Jinyao glared at him sideways, then unexpectedly met his eyes full of laughter. The next second, he curved his lips, his expression pleased.
She was stunned again, temporarily forgetting to look away. Her face felt hot, and she could feel her ears starting to burn too.
A normal exchange of glances appeared deeply affectionate to others.
A handsome man and beautiful woman – the nurse watched enviously: “How wonderful!”
Chen Jinyao pressed her lips together, withdrew her gaze, and lowered her head, quiet as a chicken.
A few seconds later, she kicked Yan Cheng, “Hmph.”
“????” This was truly an undeserved disaster. Yan Cheng lowered his eyes slightly, then leaned over and teasingly asked in a low voice, “Are you shy?”
“Tsk.” Predictably, she gave him another hard kick.
Yan Cheng understood: “…”
Oh, she was embarrassed and angry.
Seeing Chen Jinyao’s rare expression of wanting to pounce and bite him to death, the man raised his eyebrows. After a few seconds, he turned his face away from her. An indescribable emotion seemed ready to explode in his chest, though it didn’t make him anxious. Coming back to his senses, Yan Cheng curved his lips and finally let out a muffled laugh.
The overhead light reflected on their faces, and the surroundings were quiet.
In the silence, their heartbeats became more pronounced.
The season of spring warmth and blooming flowers had arrived.
Even the air was faintly permeated with sweetness.
Gentle and silent – this must be the taste of love.
After recovering, the weather cleared up too.
Everything was developing in a good direction, flourishing.
How does that saying go… Oh, after rain comes sunshine.
Oh, sunshine always comes after wind and rain.
All these artistic expressions were compiled by Yan Cheng, focusing mainly on one point – his relationship with Chen Jinyao.
In the time before this, Yan Cheng keenly noticed Chen Jinyao’s inexplicable inner anxiety, which stemmed directly from him. Through communication, he discovered he had been charged with unfounded accusations, condemned by the hypothetical “what if one day you suddenly meet someone you fall in love with at first sight.”
This was truly unjust, a historical injustice like Dou E’s case.
But perhaps because the level of attention wasn’t enough, this potential problem hadn’t been properly resolved. Only the surface was dealt with, without addressing the root cause.
The shallow communication and this time of “falling ill like a collapsing mountain” of mutual support had, in a sense, indeed eliminated Chen Jinyao’s inner anxiety. From this point, their relationship grew closer, even frequently displaying childish bickering and playful scenes in front of Du Ni. The distance between them disappeared, and whenever this happened, Du Ni would lie on the floor, not wanting to pay them any attention.
Also, since that time at Er Guan, they hadn’t encountered the original novel’s female protagonist “Su Ran” again, which gave Chen Jinyao a slight feeling of luck, wanting to make another big bet on this luck.
Marrying Yan Cheng without knowing anything at the time was a big gamble.
From marriage until now, she believed she had gambled correctly, and now she wanted to try a second big gamble. She had to admit that the phrase “love grows with time” indeed had some reliability – at least now she had developed an attachment to Yan Cheng, though she was being dramatic and troublesome.
But it felt like being pulled by something, with no way out.
Chen Jinyao’s thoughts had hidden her anxiety through self-deception.
Hidden in a place she thought was safe but could explode at any time.
Afterwards, life continued as usual.
Saturday was sunny and beautiful, with bright sunshine.
Chen Jinyao opened all the windows in the house, directing Yan Cheng to put the blankets on the balcony to sun them. The remaining virus had to be completely driven out.
“Once these blankets are sunned, we’ll die of heat sleeping at night,” Yan Cheng complained while shuffling outside in his slippers.
Chen Jinyao fell silent for a moment.
True. This weather kept catching them off guard again and again.
After the cold wave, without even a transition period, came the scorching summer heat.
And this was even before the Beginning of Summer.
Chen Jinyao: “After sunning them, we’ll put them away and use thin blankets instead.”
She finished speaking and pointed in a direction, “I think they’re in the second cabinet in that room, go look for them, and when you find them, put them in the master bedroom.”
Yan Cheng looked in the direction Chen Jinyao was pointing, and after a moment, nodded.
This kind of seemingly uneventful peaceful life had become Yan Cheng and Chen Jinyao’s main lifestyle, and mysteriously, they lived it quite contentfully.
Of course, it wasn’t limited to just living together peacefully like Buddhists.
Sometimes when the mood was right, just one look between them could create sparks and thunder. Yan Cheng would press Chen Jinyao against the sofa, or directly hold her to sit on his lap, then lean in and carefully capture her lips, enticing her to sink into passion with him. When they finally separated, breathless, Yan Cheng would gently nuzzle Chen Jinyao’s cheek with his nose. After seven or eight minutes, when he had somewhat calmed down, he would ask: “Wife, do you think we’re like we’re in the honeymoon period?”
“Yes,” she answered without thinking.
It was a steady harmony that elevated their relationship to an unprecedented height. In short, they just needed to break through that gossamer-thin paper window.
However, surprisingly, that paper window would be broken through in such an intense way…
But that’s a matter for another time.
Self-deception was useless. The anxiety that was merely buried in a hole without being uprooted finally exploded.
Early May. The orthodontic student recommended by old customer Ji Xiao came to the clinic.
Chen Jinyao never imagined this student would be Su Ran.
Su Ran: “Hello, Dr. Chen, I’m here for a dental appointment.”
Chen Jinyao paused for a moment before forcing out: “Hello.”
Then, Su Ran exclaimed: “Oh, I remember you!”
Chen Jinyao barely maintained her proper and gracious smile: “………………”
This terrifying protagonist’s halo bringing about another fated meeting almost cracked Chen Jinyao’s usually calm and composed expression.
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