Many years later.
Xu Miyu and Ji Feng’s 15-year-old granddaughter Ji Siyu, while surfing the Internet one day, discovered that everyone was showing off old photos of good-looking elders in their homes.
How could she miss out on such an activity? After all, she had the best-looking grandparents in the whole world.
She immediately ran to her grandparents’ house to look for photos of them when they were young. As far as she could remember, no one’s smile was as beautiful as Grandma’s, and no one’s gaze towards Grandma was as gentle as Grandpa’s.
Grandpa had taken Grandma travelling again recently, and only the driver and housekeeper Auntie were home. Ji Siyu didn’t dare to mess with Grandpa and Grandma’s stuff randomly, so she pried a photo Grandpa kept by his bedside out of the picture frame and took a picture of it with her phone instead.
In the photo, Grandma held a bunch of fiery red roses in her arms, smiling brightly and charmingly. While Grandpa tilted his face sideways, looking at her softly and affectionately.
Ji Siyu posted this photo online, along with the caption:
“These are my grandparents, don’t they look gorgeous? In our family, with my dad and mom included, I’m the ugliest out of five people.”
Very soon, lots of comments piled under her text and picture.
Everyone was exclaiming:
“Wow, your grandma has such a gorgeous smile!”
“Your grandpa is so handsome! His side profile looks divine! And the way he gazes at your grandma is so tender, so tender! Save me, I’ve totally fallen for them!”
“In all the old photos here, I want to name yours as the pinnacle of romantic atmosphere! The romantic atmosphere between your grandparents was simply too thick!”
“Wait! Sis, did you notice that at the very bottom of your grandparents’ photo you uploaded, there’s a rather dense line of tiny words?”
“Woah, I saw it too! Looks like there really is! But the writing is so flowing and cursive, I can’t quite make out what it says. Which sis here knows cursive and can help decipher it?”
Ji Siyu was taken slightly aback in her mind, and went back to look at Grandpa and Grandma’s photo. Upon closer examination, she found—
Wow, at the very bottom there really was a line of tiny cursive words, obviously written by Grandpa.
Grandpa’s cursive was too difficult for her to recognize. She strained her eyes trying to decipher it, and could only make out Grandma’s name in the sentence.
Suddenly she saw someone commenting:
“My sisters, I’ve deciphered it! OMG, sweetie OP’s grandparents, the love between them is just too beautiful, it simply makes me want to scream!”
She posted her deciphered results in the comments. Everyone started lining up to scream over how sweet their love was.
Ji Siyu read those words, grinning, yet somehow her eyes started brimming red.
She felt so touched. Because Grandpa really loved Grandma so so much.
40 years ago on the day Ji Feng successfully proposed, he took this photo with Xu Miyu. Xu Miyu held the fiery red roses he gave her, smiling brightly like the morning sun. Spellbound by her smile, he forgot to even look at the camera.
There were so many photos taken by others present that day, but this one was his favourite.
She looked at the camera, he looked at her. The camera framed them into the photo. He framed her in his heart.
He singled out this photo and always kept it by his bedside, enjoying looking at it tirelessly everyday.
He also had a little secret. On the day he received this photo 40 years ago, he secretly wrote a line of words at the bottom. The photo was framed so the frame perfectly obscured the line. So Xu Miyu never even knew about the little hidden romantic surprise he kept there.
He would never have imagined that today, that line would be deciphered by his precious granddaughter and netizens:
[**Miyu:
The journey of falling in love with you is my “Record of Sweet Romance”; my record of sweet romance will be as long as my life.
— Ji Feng**]
Author’s Random Ramblings:
The story has come to a perfect end, thank you everyone for following through to the finish! The style changed a bit for this story, but I’m very happy that you were still willing to accompany me to completion. I’m delighted, thank you everyone!
The original intention for creating a character with flaws irritating enough to make her detestable, was that I wanted to grow alongside such a character once, to rebuild my heart once—Could such a character grow later on to become likeable to everyone?
If she could do it, I felt like it would hold a different significance for me too. It was like I myself would no longer fear being disliked in future either for having flaws, because I could also grow, change and rebuild myself. And most importantly, finding my own self—how “I” am seen by others is unimportant, what’s important is how “I” see myself; “I” need to become a confident and independent person.
I actually really liked and wanted to write this silly romance story in particular, because behind its silliness was a new inner rebuilding journey that I travelled alongside.
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