I was soaking my feet with Mi Cai, but neither of us felt relaxed despite the warmth from the hot water. We were still troubled by the renovation fee of 50,000 yuan that Uncle and Aunt had asked us to repay. I placed my hands behind my head, messing with my hair, and finally said to Mi Cai after a long silence, “…I have a strong feeling that this 50,000 yuan renovation fee will become a sticking point. How about we move into that house first? If we avoid too much contact, the conflict won’t escalate…”
“I don’t think so. Moving now will make them feel like we’re deliberately avoiding them, which might make them feel even worse. Besides… the two neighborhoods are just a short distance apart. Visiting each other would take only minutes.”
“But right now, we really can’t afford that 50,000 yuan. If we keep hanging around in front of them every day, won’t that just annoy them more?”
“So you’re planning to run away from the debt then…?!”
“Don’t put it like that. After all, they’re our parents. There’s no question of running away from debt. Besides, I think we need some personal space. Living together with them all the time will inevitably lead to conflicts in the future due to ideological differences.”
Mi Cai shook her head with a smile and said, “Zhaoyang, I find that you’re really good at coming up with solutions to every problem… and especially skilled at convincing yourself and others. You even make me feel like not moving with you would be a mistake.”
“Because what I said makes sense!”
“But didn’t you tell me last time that the house over there is only renovated, without any daily appliances or kitchenware? How are we going to live there?”
“Uh… isn’t it winter now? We have central heating, so we don’t even need air conditioners. We can take showers at the bathroom, eat outside, and occasionally come back home to eat. As for laundry… well, laundry really is a bit of a headache. We’ll have to wash it back home shamefacedly!!”
“Then it’s like we never moved at all!”
I sighed. Being so half-heartedly connected like this really made it seem like whether we moved or not made no difference. I couldn’t help but regret: If only we had renovated and bought the appliances together when we bought the house, we wouldn’t have so many troubles now!
After a moment of silence, Mi Cai said to me again, “Zhaoyang, I still have 200,000 yuan from my aunt. Why don’t we use it to repay the renovation money to my uncle and aunt, buy some appliances, and also set aside some fixed capital for the coffee shop in case of emergencies?”
I shook my head firmly and said, “If you hadn’t planned to use this money at the beginning, then don’t use it now either. Besides, we’re not at the end of our rope yet… Let’s treat the current difficulties as a kind of training for us. You must know that once this 200,000 yuan is spent, there will definitely be more situations where money is needed. The key is how much ability we have to solve problems ourselves.”
“Ahhh… I’ve been brainwashed by you again! Always speaking so logically and righteously!”
I handed her a towel, indicating she should dry her feet, and smiled as I said, “This has always been my specialty. And honestly, I don’t think I said anything wrong. Since we’ve already chosen this kind of life, there will inevitably be things we can’t handle and need to figure out how to deal with. So we need to pull out these thorns one by one. Don’t try to solve everything with your 200,000 yuan. In fact, it can’t even solve partial problems!”
“So you’re the real master of life!”
…
Late at night, I was lying in bed with Mi Cai. She was concentrating on the civil service exam materials I had bought for her during the day, and I wasn’t idle either. Holding a tablet computer, I was looking for barista and waiter information on the local job website, so I could contact them during working hours the next day.
I finished what I was doing before Mi Cai did. After putting the tablet aside, I lay down first, but I still couldn’t get into the mood for sleep. I placed my legs on top of Mi Cai’s legs, feeling her presence, which made me feel more grounded again. The troubles I had encountered in life no longer seemed like troubles. However, this sense of security didn’t last long. Because of Mi Cai’s presence, a deeply embedded thorn in my heart was once again pulled out.
I remembered that back in Suzhou, my former boss Chen Jingming and Mi Lan had both mentioned Mi Cai’s mother. I knew that we would definitely have the opportunity to meet. But I didn’t know how she viewed my relationship with Mi Cai—whether she supported it or opposed it.
It was very likely that she opposed it, because Chen Jingming had already given me some hints. Her mother was not an ordinary woman; her abilities might exceed my imagination… I felt anxious about this uncertainty. I wanted to ask Mi Cai about it, but I also knew that her mother was a sensitive topic for her. She was unwilling to talk about it with me. Thus, this uncertainty became a knot in my heart, troubling me, and I seemed to be on the verge of insomnia…
Finally, Mi Cai yawned, closed the materials in her hand, and placed them on the bedside cabinet. After asking for my opinion, she turned off the bedside floor lamp. When the room became dim, I knew she would soon fall asleep. Recently, her mindset had been much better than mine. She seemed completely free of worries and didn’t take the difficulties we encountered to heart. In fact, she was the real master of life. At least she maintained a regular schedule and never lost sleep over trivial matters. This was something I had observed since we started living together.
Unable to contain myself, I finally hooked her finger and asked, “You never have insomnia at night, right? I’ve observed carefully: normally within ten minutes, you’re already asleep!”
“How many minutes left now?”
“Uh… about five minutes!”
Mi Cai seemed to yawn deliberately again and said, “Then hurry up and use the remaining five minutes to say whatever is on your mind.”
“The light is already off. You can still sense I have something on my mind. Are you using telepathy?”
“It is telepathy. This telepathy has been working since we just left Suzhou… I just wanted to see how long you could hold it in.”
If the light had been on, she would surely have seen my complicated expression. She was really a woman who could endure a lot. I didn’t know whether this personality was acquired later in life or inherited from one of her parents, but it was fatally attractive to me because I could never know what she was thinking or what she expected me to do. Yet there was also a drawback: in our daily lives, we lacked spiritual communication. Only when major events happened that could change our lives would our souls collide in pain and merge through the collision…
These emotional knots in my heart made me very anxious. I tried to relax myself as much as possible before finally asking her, “Can we really live in Xuzhou as we imagined?… I always feel like there will be too many obstacles in the future. One person’s persistence alone won’t be enough to overcome these obstacles. Only if we work together with one heart and one mind do we have the foundation and capital to talk about our future life together.”
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