Cen Sen remembered the day he returned to Nanqiao West Lane. A light rain was falling steadily, raindrops striking the puddles on the ground, creating jumping water flowers. The sky was a gloomy gray, like dirty water from a washed rag unevenly painted across the heavens.
Not just that day, but for a long time after returning to Nanqiao West Lane, he seemed to always see such a somber and dim sky.
Cold-toned, gloomy, lifeless, and endless to the eye, yet with an extremely strong enveloping force that cast a gray tone over all brief flashes of brightness.
That awkward period transitioning from childhood to adolescence seemed to be constantly covered by such a gray tone.
Immersed in a past life that had already become distant from him, he unilaterally rejected all kindness from the outside world.
Much later, when his and Ji Mingshu’s daughter, Cen Zhuo, slowly grew up, looking more and more like a quiet, miniature version of Ji Mingshu, seeing Cen Zhuo would often make him wonder: if many years ago, he had accepted the gesture of goodwill that little girl Ji Mingshu had bravely extended to him, would many of the dim times he had walked through alone have been brighter?
In Cen Sen’s impression, Ji Mingshu had always been a beautiful and chatty girl. Spoiled and willful, bold and unrestrained, she seemed to be able to live as the center of the universe no matter where she was, and naturally demanded that all the little planets orbit around her.
When Cen Sen was in ninth grade, Ji Mingshu had just entered seventh grade. Throughout that entire year, Cen Sen heard the name “Ji Mingshu” more frequently than he heard his homeroom teacher’s name.
After entering high school, the pressure of studying increased sharply, and the students’ interest in gossip during tea and meal times decreased slightly. But since the junior and senior high sections of the attached school weren’t separated, Ji Mingshu remained the central figure in all kinds of school topics.
“That Ji Mingshu from eighth grade has been getting close to the class monitor from the next class.”
…
“Have you heard? The track team captain is pursuing Ji Mingshu.”
…
Yesterday, during class, someone sent flowers to the eighth-grade classroom. We’ll probably hear a school-wide criticism during our class meeting. Teacher Yang definitely won’t let us work on test papers. That’s great!”
…
Such news flowed past Cen Sen’s ears day after day, and without intentionally trying, he would remember a few snippets.
Back then, after the evening self-study session ended, Cen Sen always used to stay at the library for an hour or two before returning to the dormitory. This was because the noise level in the dormitory was no less than Ji Mingshu’s, making it difficult to focus on studying after returning.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that by returning an hour or two later, he would escape the torment of meaningless topics.
During lights-out night chats in the dormitory, no matter what the topic, it would somehow mysteriously circle back to the girls at school.
One evening, his roommates were discussing:
“Hey, I overslept this morning, right? At the school gate, I ran into Li Wenyin and Ji Mingshu, stuck in an argument about getting points deducted for shortening their uniform skirts. I’m telling you, Ji Mingshu is beautiful. When she wears that short skirt, her legs are so white and straight, it’s incredible! No exaggeration, I really couldn’t bear to blink at that moment.”
“Li Wenyin looks pretty good, too. The quality of girls in their grade is really impressive, unlike our grade. Hmph, you can count them on one hand, right?”
“Li Wenyin looks fine on her own, but when standing next to Ji Mingshu, there’s still too much difference. She seems a bit bland.”
Adolescent boys inevitably get restless, and discussions about female classmates happen from time to time. Whenever someone threw out a topic, everyone’s enthusiasm for speaking would unconsciously rise exponentially. In the entire dormitory, probably only Cen Sen and Jiang Che weren’t interested in topics about girls.
At that time, Jiang Che was involved in informatics competitions, and when sleeping, he would’ve loved to recite code in his subconscious. Anyone who disturbed him would often be impatiently rebuffed.
But Cen Sen was gentle and calm, though he always had a somewhat intangible sense of detachment. He maintained good classmate relationships with most people and was the leader in the dormitory. By the end of the discussion, the topic would usually circle back to him one more time.
“Hey, Forest Brother, between Ji Mingshu and Li Wenyin, which type do you prefer?”
“Is that even a question? Li Wenyin. Isn’t that a no-brainer?” A roommate answered for him with a teasing tone.
Like Ji Mingshu, Cen Sen himself was also a prominent figure at school, with occasional fresh rumors. One of the more widely circulated rumors was that he and Li Wenyin were childhood sweethearts with a very ambiguous relationship.
Cen Sen had occasionally heard of this but didn’t take it to heart. In his childhood, Li Wenyin had lived at the Ji family’s house. If that counted as childhood sweethearts, then he and Ji Mingshu seemed to have no reason not to count as well.
Usually, when someone changed the topic, it would naturally die out. But that night, after changing the topic, a roommate pursued Cen Sen again, “Hey, Forest Brother, you haven’t said yourself yet. Which type do you like?”
Cen Sen lay flat on his bed, looking at the ceiling above him in the sparse moonlight coming through the window, and casually replied, “Li Wenyin’s type, I suppose.”
His roommates drawled a meaningful “Oh,” followed by the expected teasing and laughter.
But as Cen Sen responded with Li Wenyin, in his mind, he couldn’t help but think of Ji Mingshu passing by him, chin slightly raised, blowing bubble gum bubbles, and secretly rolling her eyes.
Ji Mingshu, that little girl, often didn’t walk properly. When she was happy, she liked to put her hands behind her back and bounce lightly on her tiptoes.
But the pair of legs under her pleated skirt were indeed as his roommate had described—fair and smooth, straight and slender.
That fleeting thought at that time was extremely brief, and he didn’t have much interest in paying attention to people who weren’t particularly relevant to him. His studies were busy, and he continued to be occupied until his high school graduation.
When Li Wenyin confessed to him, he had just received a recommendation letter from the principal and subsequently had a relatively rare period of rest.
He had reached the age where dating was appropriate, had time, and someone had confessed to him—coincidentally, she was also the type he admired at that time, so why not give it a try?
From his perspective at the time, it seemed just like trying to solve a set of competition problems he hadn’t done before—a simple matter that didn’t require deep thought. This included later feeling it wasn’t suitable and breaking up amicably; from his standpoint, it was the same logic.
In terms of emotions, Cen Sen considered himself a refined egoist. He had never imagined that one day he would unconditionally be good to a woman.
After breaking up amicably with Li Wenyin, he went abroad to study. During those years of studying abroad, his time was packed full, but his romantic experiences were a blank slate.
After returning to China, at that classmate reunion, he and Ji Mingshu half-reluctantly had relations, and subsequently, due to the interests driving both families, they naturally got married. But for a long time after marrying Ji Mingshu, he didn’t feel that marriage had brought much change to his life.
Everything probably changed after returning from Australia.
He didn’t know why, but he found himself increasingly attentive to every move of this “trophy wife.”
Even though the adult Ji Mingshu was still as spoiled and willful, bold and unrestrained as before, with the Earth seemingly needing to revolve around her alone to be perfect, this spoiled nature seemed to have gained a vibrancy he hadn’t understood before. It wasn’t off-putting at all; in fact, it somehow made one want to yield to her.
In his rational definition, this was originally just a not-so-important marriage, and after the Ji family’s utilitarian value decreased, ending this marital relationship wouldn’t matter much. But when Ji Mingshu first mentioned divorce to him, he didn’t feel relief; on the contrary, he felt an unease at losing control.
Later on, his emotions were always stirred by Ji Mingshu, changing beyond his control. No matter how busy he was, whenever he had free time, it felt like there was something weighing on his mind.
He truly confirmed his feelings probably during the time when Ji Mingshu misunderstood that he and Li Wenyin had rekindled their old flame and left home.
One night, he went to a bar with Jiang Che and accidentally overheard someone speaking disrespectfully about Ji Mingshu. For the first time in his life, he got physical with someone—without thinking, without considering the consequences.
The most amusing part was that before this, he had always thought that using violence to solve problems was a very stupid thing to do.
After that physical confrontation that night, he drove to Ji Mingshu’s building and stood in the cold wind for a long time.
It was probably from that night on that he knew he had fallen for her.
Once he recognized this fact, his feelings weren’t complicated; there was even a moment of relief, and he unconsciously smiled.
Fallen is fallen.
In a lifetime, one is bound to meet their destined nemesis.
Cen Sen and Ji Mingshu officially fell in love in the third year of their marriage. In their fifth year, they had their first baby, and in their twelfth year, they had their second baby.
When they had their second child, Zhuo Bao, Ji Mingshu was thirty-four but still looked like a girl in her early twenties, with a personality that retained an innocence that shouldn’t belong to her age.
This was probably because she had been protected too well. From a family of two to a family of three, and then to a family of four, the top priority in Cen Sen’s heart was always Ji Mingshu, this little goldfinch baby who never seemed to grow up.
In the fifteenth year of their marriage, the usually lively little goldfinch baby fell ill—the kind that required surgery.
Initially, she went to the hospital for a checkup due to physical discomfort, and then they discovered a shadow.
Ji Mingshu, despite her usual fierce demeanor, actually had only a tiny bit of courage, and she was prone to overthinking. Even fainting from dieting could make her imagine she had an incurable disease. Waiting for the results was undoubtedly a long torment for her.
For Cen Sen, it was also a torment.
Ji Mingshu showed no signs of abnormality in front of the children, and even in front of him, she pretended to be relaxed, always saying, “Our family is so rich, what disease can’t we cure?” But one night, he discovered that Ji Mingshu had gotten out of bed and was hiding on the balcony, crying secretly.
He slowly walked over and embraced her from behind.
Ji Mingshu cried harder. Her voice sobbed, “Do you think I might have cancer? I… I’m so scared… I’m so afraid of dying… I can’t bear to leave you, can’t bear to leave the babies, really can’t bear it…”
He gently stroked Ji Mingshu’s head, his warm breath lingering by her ear, but he couldn’t utter any words of comfort.
That seemed to be the most powerless moment in the first half of his life.
During that period, both he and Ji Mingshu lost a lot of weight. Later, the test results came out—it was a benign tumor that needed surgical removal.
He put aside all his work to accompany her throughout the entire process.
The surgery was relatively simple and completed successfully, but it was still a procedure that involved a knife. After the surgery, Ji Mingshu recuperated for a long time before recovering her lively and vibrant appearance.
But Cen Sen suddenly realized that they were no longer as young as they were in their teens and twenties.
When Ji Mingshu was sick, he had prepared for the worst. If Ji Mingshu were to go first one day, he would fulfill the responsibilities of both father and mother in her stead, raise Cen Yan and Cen Zhuo to adulthood, watch them establish families and careers, and then go to find her without any attachments.
His life had been solitary, but because of Ji Mingshu, he had stolen many warm years. He couldn’t let this timid little one wait alone for too long.
He remembered that many years ago, he had gone to meet an investor named Chang for the Nanwan project. Mr. Chang was known for being family-oriented and often said during conversations that one can never earn all the money in the world, and one should spend more time with family.
At that time, he hadn’t taken it seriously, but now he felt that no matter how much he gained, if Ji Mingshu wasn’t there to share it with him, it seemed to have no meaning at all.
He greatly reduced his work arrangements and delegated many matters to the younger generation of the Cen family he had nurtured over the years.
He would plan reasonable and healthy three meals a day for Ji Mingshu, accompany her shopping and attending events, travel with her, and even started planning early for when Cen Yan grew up and completely transferred the rights of the Cen enterprise, allowing the two of them to live a retired life traveling as a couple.
While traveling in Morocco, Ji Mingshu noisily insisted on sending postcards to her good friends Gu Kaiyang and Jiang Chun.
He also sent one, with Ji Mingshu as the recipient.
On it, he wrote in regular script:
“Baby, whether this life is long or short, I will be the one who accompanies you to the end. Thank you for bursting into my life without warning.”