Mi Cai did not respond to Yan Zhuomei’s moralistic remarks. Her expression remained heavy with silence, a silence that finally became a burden to me. I knew that Yan Zhuomei’s words had somehow affected her, otherwise she wouldn’t have changed like this… I was afraid to imagine whether she would still have the willpower to resist when Yan Zhuomei mentioned my absurd past, or whether she would blame me again…
Over the years, what I’ve felt most profoundly is the unpredictability of human nature. In this world, no one remains unchanging or unshakable. I could see the long-standing hidden conflicts between Mi Cai and me. Although these underlying issues had gradually faded as our relationship deepened, they had never been completely eradicated. Once triggered, the consequences would be unimaginable…
Thus, burdened with worries and sorrow, I had nothing more to say. In silence, I drove the car into Suzhou. I parked the car in front of the most upscale hotel in the city. After the car stopped, Mi Cai said to Yan Zhuomei, “Ms. Yan, we won’t be joining you for lunch today. I think we’ve already communicated everything that needed to be said. So this afternoon, I’m planning to return to Xuzhou with Zhaoyang. We’ve already delayed a lot of work waiting for your return… I hope Ms. Yan won’t disturb us anymore. I will take responsibility for my decision today!”
I had expected Yan Zhuomei to refuse, but instead she simply smiled and replied, “It’s fine for you to return to Xuzhou, but I’d like to have dinner alone with you both tonight. You can return tomorrow.”
Mi Cai and I were momentarily unsure of her intentions and did not respond. She continued, “Let’s settle it like this… Tonight, we’ll have dinner together. If you can’t even agree to this request, I suppose this afternoon I’ll just go back to Xuzhou with you both and pay a visit to some old friends there!”
Mi Cai looked at Yan Zhuomei with a fluctuating expression, helpless, and finally said, “Alright, since you want to have dinner with us tonight, we’ll invite you to our old house. I don’t know if you are aware, but I’ve already repurchased that old house when I first returned to China… You’re welcome to come over; Zhaoyang and I will prepare dinner for you.”
For the first time, Yan Zhuomei’s usually unflappable expression changed slightly. Her eyes flickered evasively. After a moment of silence, she replied with complicated words, “Alright, then we’ll meet tonight without fail.” Saying this, she opened the car door and walked toward Mi Zhongde and others who were waiting in the rain. I instinctively glanced at the hotel standing in the rain before stepping on the gas, leaving this place that did not belong to us…
…
Back at the old house, Mi Cai and I had a simple lunch without exchanging a word. It seemed that since the moment we met Yan Zhuomei, we had been bound by an unknown force, unable to talk and laugh freely as we used to. Outside the window, the persistent rain mirrored our current mood, gradually piercing us with its “drip, drop” sounds…
After lunch, I washed the dishes in the kitchen while Mi Cai stood at the balcony, arranging the potted plants we couldn’t take with us. Then she squatted there, watching. Until I finished washing the dishes, she remained motionless. Out of curiosity, I approached her from behind and found that she was simply staring at a withered flower stem…
Finally, I asked her, “Are you meditating? You’ve been squatting here watching for so long!”
Mi Cai pulled me down and squatted beside her, asking, “Zhaoyang, will this flower grow and bloom again?”
“Of course. It wilts in winter and sprouts in spring; this is an unchanging law, unless its roots are damaged or dead…”
Mi Cai looked up at me and asked, “As long as the roots remain intact, is there still hope for growth?”
“Exactly… After enduring a winter, next spring comes. As long as we remember to water it, it will bloom more beautifully than before.”
“Uh-huh… If our love also had roots, would you let those roots wither away like the surface?”
I finally understood Mi Cai’s implication and realized what she had been thinking all along. This winter had indeed been terrible for us. It seemed to have chilled everything around us, leaving us feeling helpless and lost. All we had been doing was trying our best to protect the roots. Although it was a painful struggle, spring was approaching, and as long as we preserved that last breath, we could wait for the day of regrowth…
Finally, I told Mi Cai, “Our roots will never wither… because we’ve always been trying hard to protect them, letting them grow deep beneath the soil. As long as we endure and remain hidden, the axes others wield will never reach their core… So, we mustn’t give up just when winter is about to end, okay?”
Perhaps because she had been squatting for too long, Mi Cai’s legs were numb, so she sat directly on the ground, rubbing her legs while saying to me, “Remember how much hope you’ve given me today… If I were a flower, I would want to be planted only in your pot for my whole life.”
I exhaled heavily, looking upwards… Finally, the stone in my heart landed. I was really afraid that Mi Cai would waver, afraid she couldn’t withstand Yan Zhuomei’s repeated pressure!
If she really went to America with Yan Zhuomei, my life would definitely turn gray. Because, whenever I imagine her living with another man, building a family, having children, I feel suffocated. She had already imperceptibly become the oxygen that keeps me alive!
…
In the afternoon, the rain continued. Mi Cai and I went to a nearby supermarket to buy some ingredients for tonight’s dinner with Yan Zhuomei. After returning home, we washed the vegetables together and put them in the refrigerator. Then we sat on the sofa, waiting for night to fall, waiting for the moment when the door would be knocked on.
Mi Cai lay on the sofa, habitually placing her legs on me. Worried her feet were cold, I tucked them into my sweater and turned up the air conditioner a bit, making the house feel like a warm little paradise compared to the outside. The endless rain had nothing to do with us… because as night approached, the lights we turned on would be our sun…
I lit a cigarette, took a puff, and exhaled heavily before finally saying to Mi Cai, “…I think I should make some changes!”
“Hmm? What kind of changes?”
I took another puff and replied seriously, “Actually, all along, I’ve known my own flaws… Perhaps because my childhood environment was too lenient and rebellious, I’ve never felt the world’s malice or pressure… Only after leaving school did I realize that people like me are completely incompatible with the social tide. Yet I haven’t actively sought to change. This stubbornness has brought me many bad consequences… I should try to integrate into this world, because I can’t be an artist like Luo Ben or Xia Fan Ye, who can be eccentric, resist and exclude others without consequence. That won’t do any good for an ordinary person like me… I really need to strive… First, I’ll build a career in Xuzhou, then plan for greater development. I want to become a man who makes you hold your head high in front of anyone… We must never let those worldly scoffs happen to us again! And that’s the sense of security I want to give you!”
Looking at me, Mi Cai finally replied, “This will be difficult for you!”
“Why do you think so?”
I took another puff, then replied seriously, “Because I’ve always known my own flaws… Perhaps because my childhood environment was too lenient and rebellious, I’ve never felt the world’s malice or pressure… Only after leaving school did I realize that people like me are completely incompatible with the social tide. Yet I haven’t actively sought to change. This stubbornness has brought me many bad consequences… I should try to integrate into this world, because I can’t be an artist like Luo Ben or Xia Fan Ye, who can be eccentric, resist and exclude others without consequence. That won’t do any good for an ordinary person like me… I really need to strive… First, I’ll build a career in Xuzhou, then plan for greater development. I want to become a man who makes you hold your head high in front of anyone… We must never let those worldly scoffs happen to us again! And that’s the sense of security I want to give you!”
Looking at me, Mi Cai finally replied, “This will be difficult for you!”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because you don’t have the gene for striving… Some thoughts have already deeply rooted in your perception of the world!”
I nodded, “You’re right. I don’t have that gene… But I’m willing to change for you, and for our future family. I don’t want our child to start at a disadvantage. I hope that in his eyes, his father is someone worthy of admiration. That’s the motivation that I must strive for… I won’t do worse than anyone else. I’ve already decided. After returning to Xuzhou this time, I will start building my own team, and then seriously choose a project with development potential to operate!”
“Will it be as idealistic as Luku?”
I shook my head and replied, “Certainly not… In fact, I’ve always known that without strong resources behind it, Luku basically has no room to survive. And if those resources were applied to other projects, the returns would probably be far greater than Luku!… Right now, I don’t have the conditions to let the market cater to my entrepreneurial dreams with idealism!”
Women’s thoughts are really hard to grasp. After a long silence, Mi Cai completely shifted the topic and asked, “Jian Wei has given so much for you, and yet it ended like this… And you’re stuck by my side, unable to do anything for her. Doesn’t that make you uncomfortable?”
When Mi Cai also acknowledged Jian Wei’s sacrifices for me, my heart trembled painfully. I couldn’t forget the day Luku was established, when Jian Wei confidently raised her glass and made bold statements in front of everyone. At that time, she was so confident, so invincible… and now, she can only watch helplessly as everything she poured her heart into slowly collapses, with no one to save her, and she can only grit her teeth and sink painfully into the edge of despair…
Finally, I said to Mi Cai, “Can I speak honestly?”
“You can say or not, I understand anyway… Sometimes, I also wonder, what quality do you have that makes us so reluctant to let go?… It’s contradictory. What makes me reluctant is your sense of loyalty… Yet the same loyalty is what fails to give me a sense of security… Zhaoyang, I really hope you can use your loyalty in the right place. Then our future will be smooth sailing… You know, if a man can’t control the degree of loyalty, it becomes indulgence, and it sends many ambiguous signals to women… I think: if I were Leyao back then, when you chose to give up everything in Xuzhou and return to Suzhou to help her run the nearly bankrupt bar, and help her repay debts that were beyond your capabilities, I would also want to tie my whole life to you… And then so many seemingly ambiguous yet not ambiguous mistakes happened!”
“Do you really think that my decision to return to Suzhou back then to help Leyao was a mistake?”
“It was a mistake… But it turned out to be a lucky accident, binding our lives together…!”
When the topic of leaving Xuzhou came up again, I was completely speechless… I saw the power of choice again. If I hadn’t returned to Suzhou, my current wife would have been Li Xiaoyun. Fangyuan wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet Milan. Mi Cai might already have become Weiran’s wife, helping him manage the family business and firmly controlling Zhuo Mei together. And once I got married, there wouldn’t have been Jian Wei’s struggle; she would most likely have already settled down to become Xiang Chen’s woman…
But I made that choice… Was it the will of fate or a random decision? Whether it was the former or the latter, it made me feel infinite sighs at this moment. My heart seemed to be aging bit by bit… I feared making similar choices in life again!… Yet Mi Cai seemed to use her wisdom to make me look back, examine, and then look up to see further ahead!
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