Xiao Jiu’er had been reprimanded until she was on the verge of tears. The squad leader’s mood had been truly difficult to read lately. Watching Lin Luxiao’s back as he walked into the outpatient clinic to get bandaged, she mentally drew a dozen circles cursing him.
The moment Lin Luxiao stepped inside, Dr. Zhang was bent over writing a prescription. He looked up and swept a glance over him, his expression composed. “Luxiao, sit down.”
He walked over and had barely taken a seat when he heard Dr. Zhang give an instruction. “Xiao Xia, take a look at him.”
Lin Luxiao glanced over in that direction, remaining quite calm.
Xia Wan stood there without moving, as though she were sulking at someone. After a long pause, Dr. Zhang finally looked up. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you spacing out?”
Only then did Xia Wan walk over, saying to him in a rather flat tone, “Take off your shirt.”
Lin Luxiao obligingly began undoing his buttons.
“Raise your arm.”
Xia Wan moved like a robot, every word coming out cold and mechanical. Lin Luxiao didn’t take it personally and simply did as he was told.
But the moment he raised his arm, she seized her chance and yanked it without warning — a heart-piercing pain shot through him as though it might snap the joint. Lin Luxiao drew a sharp breath. Dr. Zhang noticed and quickly shooed Xia Wan away. “What are you doing, grabbing at him like that? It’s already dislocated — don’t go and snap something! Get out, I’ll handle this myself!”
The last sentence carried unmistakable reproach.
Xia Wan cast one glance at Lin Luxiao — apparently nursing some grievance against the world — and stormed out in a huff.
The young woman slammed the door behind her with a sharp crack.
Dr. Zhang shook his head and steadied Lin Luxiao’s arm. “A slight dislocation, nothing severe. I’ll put it back in place — brace yourself.” He muttered as he worked, “Normally she’s such a gentle girl. What is it about you that brings out all this trouble? Did you offend her somehow?”
Lin Luxiao smiled. “How could I have?”
“Then what’s going on?” Dr. Zhang murmured to himself.
Someone like Xia Wan had a way of making her intentions far too obvious, and men generally kept a wide berth from women like that.
Had it not been for Xia Wan inviting him to see a film a while back — and after he declined, her blurting out that admission of hers — he never would have known the girl harbored feelings for him.
He was not one for dragging things out. The moment he discovered a woman’s feelings for him, he would immediately snuff out that little flicker of hope.
He had handled it swiftly.
His words had been clear and direct.
— “I’m sorry, I have a girlfriend.”
Those words had come as a blow to Xia Wan.
How had he suddenly gotten a girlfriend? She had always thought of Lin Luxiao as aloof and unapproachable, so she had adopted the slow-and-steady approach, intending to get close to him through Lin Qi. But then, a while back, Lin Qi had gotten himself into that scandal — the news had blazed across the internet and the once-celebrated musical prodigy’s reputation had been thoroughly ruined, so she no longer dared to seek Lin Qi out.
Without Lin Qi, she had no pretext to see Lin Luxiao. After suppressing the urge for a long time, she had finally tracked down another avenue and tried to arrange a time to see a film with him.
And he had gone and told her he had a girlfriend.
That was more hurtful than a direct rejection. Given how impossibly busy he was, when had he found the time to get a girlfriend?
Xia Wan refused to believe it.
Her disbelief notwithstanding, Lin Luxiao had no choice but to block her number — terrified that the little woman waiting at home might see it.
Thinking of that.
He suddenly wanted to go home. He wanted to hold his girl.
Noticing him drifting off in thought, Dr. Zhang pressed the dressing down firmly and asked in passing, “How is the transfer coming along?”
Lin Luxiao returned to the present. He didn’t elaborate. “It’s going fine.”
Dr. Zhang smoothed the edges of the dressing. “Old Meng mentioned it — said your interview went well a while back and that you’re in the political review stage now. Conduct yourself well through this period and get into the main brigade as soon as possible. That way Meng’s uncle will stop going on about it to me every time I see him.”
Lin Luxiao offered a faint smile and said nothing.
Dr. Zhang gave him a mild look. “Don’t get impatient with us old folks. We say these things for your sake. That temper of yours needs to be curbed.”
Another cartload of carefully prepared words, ones his ears were growing calluses from hearing. “Did Uncle Meng send you as his spokesperson again?”
Dr. Zhang sighed. “Not one of you kids is the least bit worry-free. With the exception of Mingyang actually planting himself in the Special Forces and staying put, the rest of you are all trouble. When you have children of your own someday, you’ll understand how hard it is to be a parent. Some of what the elders say may not be pleasant to hear, but it’s practical advice. Anyway, I won’t belabor the point — your own matters are yours to decide. Just go home and spend more time with your father. He’s stubborn on the outside, but soft on the inside. If you truly want him to accept the two of you, sit with him over a few drinks and some conversation. Shen Mu is so much better at this than you — he’ll drop by the older man’s place for a game of chess, have a chat, no particular occasion needed. But you? You’re like a mythical dragon — more glimpsed than seen — and the one time you show up, you announce you’re getting married. He’s actually giving you face by not chasing you out with a broom.”
Before heading home from his shift, Lin Luxiao made a stop at the old family residence.
Lin Qingyuan stood in the courtyard with his hands clasped behind his back. Seeing him arrive carrying two jugs of clear liquor, Lin Qingyuan’s expression didn’t change — he simply turned and walked inside. The boy had always been like this.
Lin Luxiao called after him, “Dad—”
Lin Qingyuan halted and barked back sharply, “What are you shouting about?!”
Lin Luxiao ignored the reaction and walked in, setting the jugs down carefully. “Where is Secretary Zhang?”
Lin Qingyuan gave a dismissive sound. “Out on an errand.”
“Shall we have a couple of drinks?” he suggested.
Lin Qingyuan regarded him with cold detachment, his tone sardonic. “Did the sun rise in the west today? Or have you switched to a more roundabout approach?”
Lin Luxiao scratched his brow. “Are you drinking or not?”
You insolent brat.
And impatient with it.
“Drinking!” Lin Qingyuan declared with a sweeping gesture, decidedly. “Why wouldn’t I drink!”
Neither father nor son was much of a talker — Lin Luxiao had taken after Lin Qingyuan’s temperament since he was small. Sitting together over drinks, they simply poured in silence.
During the whole time, nothing was mentioned of the matter at hand.
Lin Luxiao seemed to have come purely to share a drink.
In the end, it was Lin Qingyuan himself who brought up the subject of Lin Luxiao’s mother.
The two of them had pulled up a small table and sat in the courtyard beneath an old grapevine. The evening wind stirred the leaves into a swaying dance, and a few floated loose, drifting downward in a slow, unhurried spiral.
One landed on the corner of the table, stilling for a moment, before the wind nudged it and it drifted further down.
Lin Luxiao pulled his gaze back.
Lin Qingyuan’s cheeks were flushed red from the drink. By comparison, Lin Luxiao looked noticeably pale — though his mind was perfectly clear. “I met your mother when I first enlisted. She had no proper work then — her education wasn’t high enough, so no assignment had ever come through for her. She had one passion: she loved Peking Opera. Once, on a trip to the countryside, I saw your mother on a rickety makeshift stage, performing a classic passage from The Female Consort.”
Lin Qingyuan half-closed his eyes, as though he could once again see that bright-eyed, radiant young girl from years past, dressed in the bold, dashing robes of the imperial consort, moving in the gentle gliding steps of lotus-foot stage movement, singing out that well-known aria —
For the sake of saving my beloved Li Lang, I left my home and family; who could have foreseen I would place first in the imperial examinations.
“I thought to myself then — whose daughter is this, to be so beautiful.” At this, he couldn’t help a small laugh.
Lin Luxiao listened in silence.
“I had only just enlisted then, with neither money nor rank, in what was considered the most undistinguished branch of service. Your mother and I eventually became close, but naturally your maternal grandparents — given their standing — were dead set against it. I knew that following me would mean hardship for your mother, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that. I heeded your grandparents’ wishes and resolved to part from her. And then, just at that time, she found out she was carrying you. Your maternal grandparents nearly beat her to death over it. That period was genuinely painful. Without your mother’s perseverance, you and Lin Qi might never have existed. I lacked her courage. After we became a couple, every senior officer and comrade in the unit looked at me a certain way — like I was climbing to a higher branch. People would speak behind your mother’s back about me sponging off her family, calling me a kept man. I’m a stubborn sort.”
Lin Qingyuan gave a helpless laugh.
Lin Luxiao knew, as clearly as anyone could, just how stubborn Lin Qingyuan was — he always had.
“Your mother wanted to marry, and I refused to let her. I didn’t have the courage to do it, and I didn’t want people pointing at my spine saying I’d married above my station. In the end it was your mother who snuck home to get the household registration booklet, then dragged me to the civil affairs office to register. Our entire married life: not a single wedding photograph, not a ceremony of any kind. When the better years finally came, even those were built largely on your maternal grandfather’s connections — and in the end people still pinned that label on me, calling me someone who had married up. All my frustration and resentment spilled over onto your mother. Gradually, she couldn’t take it anymore and brought up divorce. I refused. We dragged on for over half a year. Your mother wept and begged me, so I used your college entrance examination as a reason to drag on another half year. But your mother grew thinner with each passing day. And finally, on the very day you received your military academy acceptance letter, we went and got the divorce certificate. Afterward I kept thinking — if only I had never met your mother. Perhaps she would have found someone of equal standing to marry, and none of this would have followed. At least she would still be alive today.”
Lin Luxiao remembered it clearly. He had still been at the military academy at the time, having just finished an outdoor training march — twenty kilograms of gear carried over five hundred li. He was bone-tired, the kind of tired where you can fall asleep the moment your head touches the pillow. Then his training officer had walked in and called out his name. “Your family is here. Very urgent.”
He hadn’t even had time to take off his uniform and ran the whole way, puzzling over who it could be.
Lin Qi was abroad. Lin Qingyuan was absolutely out of the question.
He racked his brains and still couldn’t figure out that the slight figure standing at the guard post was Lin Qi — and he walked right up and pulled him into a big embrace. “It’s been so long.”
Lin Qi buried his face in his chest and began sobbing uncontrollably, smearing tears and snot all over him, before saying in a muffled, broken voice, “Mom is gone.”
That single sentence made the world go blank.
Before he’d even fully processed it, he was already running with Lin Qi toward the hospital, without requesting leave, without telling anyone — leaving the gate guards chasing after them the whole way.
The first real moment of growing up in his life, he supposed, was that one.
By the time the funeral arrangements were concluded and he returned to the academy, three days had passed. He had barely reached the entrance when an instructor caught him and dragged him to the training ground, ordering him to do fifty laps in full gear as punishment.
He had been young and headstrong then, resentful of the injustice, and he’d clenched his jaw and said nothing — three sleepless days behind him, panda eyes and all — and ran every one of those fifty laps.
The instructor bellowed at him, “Do you understand what you did wrong?!”
He stood at perfect attention, face composed, and said not a single word.
His comrades watching from the sidelines were frantic on his behalf, whispering to him from the side, “Just admit fault, just say the words.”
But that was simply his nature.
How could he believe he had done anything wrong? He had been headstrong his whole life — had he ever been in the wrong? His mother had died. He had gone to see her one last time and handled the funeral. What was wrong about that?
The instructor shouted again, “If you don’t think you’re wrong, then go run another fifty laps.”
He kept his silence and ran another fifty laps.
The instructor was so furious his face turned grey. He had never come across a cadet so bull-headed, so unyielding. Yet at the same time, he found it strangely invigorating. There was no denying it — a soldier like this was always more satisfying to train.
That period was also one of deep dejection for Lin Luxiao. He felt that the army — the institution he had dreamed of his whole life — was inhuman. All at once, it was as though everything he had ever believed in — the nation, the soldier, the ideal — bore no resemblance to what he had imagined. He drifted through that season in near-total despair.
Later, when he commanded soldiers of his own.
He understood.
A soldier answers to two words alone: discipline.
Ready at all times. Waiting at all times. Charging at all times. Dying at all times.
……
When Lin Luxiao came home, he half-expected Nan Chu to have locked the door on him.
But when he slid the key in and turned it — click — the lock gave. He stood at the entrance feeling, absurdly, like a child, and let out a small laugh. He stepped inside, swapped his shoes, and tossed his keys aside.
The bedroom door was slightly ajar.
A warm amber glow from the wall lamp spilled from within, as if left burning for him.
The little woman was curled up in a ball on the bed.
He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto the sofa, then walked to the bedside, sat down, braced both hands on either side of the pillow, and leaned in to kiss her.
From the crown of her head, he worked his way down.
Forehead…
Eyebrows…
Eyelashes…
Eyes…
And then he sensed something was wrong. Something wet and damp.
Lin Luxiao’s heart lurched. He switched on the bedside lamp and gently pulled her out from the covers, calling to her softly, “Nan Chu?”
Outside it was cold.
He still carried the chill of the night air on him — even his windbreaker — so when the warmth he kissed from her eyes reached him, his heart gave a small clench. He feared the events of today had frightened her.
Nan Chu was half-asleep and groggy.
She opened her eyes and found herself staring at Lin Luxiao’s handsome face, magnified and close, with his upper body half bare and a white bandage at his shoulder. She pushed at him instinctively. “What did you come back for?”
Lin Luxiao scooped her up and nuzzled against her face. “Don’t you miss me?”
“Go to hell.”
Having spent enough time together, Nan Chu had picked up no small amount of Lin Luxiao’s rough language. The way she cursed him with that perfectly straight face made him, inexplicably, feel a tenderness he couldn’t account for.
“I have a day off tomorrow, I can keep you company.”
Nan Chu was unmoved. “Oh. I have an engagement tomorrow.”
Lin Luxiao simply burrowed into the warm nest she had made of the covers, rolled over, and pinned her beneath him, bending his head to kiss her. “Cancel it.”
“Don’t—”
Half a word was all she managed before Lin Luxiao sealed it off.
They went twice before she settled down.
……
In matters of the body, Nan Chu was bold. Lin Luxiao tried to restrain himself, careful not to hurt her — and then the little woman craned her neck up and told him, “I want to be on top.”
Lin Luxiao turned her over in the direction she wanted.
And so it went, twice more that way.
Later that night, Lin Luxiao carried her into the bathroom.
He lost control again, and they went once more at the edge of the bathtub.
By the time he had dried her off and settled her into bed, it was already three in the morning.
……
The next morning.
Lin Luxiao woke punctually at six, went downstairs to buy breakfast, went for a run, and returned to coax Nan Chu out of bed.
Nan Chu answered with another slap. “You’re so annoying!”
Lin Luxiao narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you say you had an engagement today?”
Nan Chu ignored him, and with supreme indifference, rolled the other way and went back to sleep. Not a stitch on her, her long, fair legs sliding out from beneath the dark covers, pressing against them.
By the time Nan Chu got up on her own.
Lin Luxiao was already lounging on the sofa watching television, his expression noticeably sour, remote control in hand, flipping through channels without any particular destination.
Seeing Nan Chu come out, he didn’t glance up — eyes fixed firmly on the screen.
The young woman had thrown on just a shirt. She trotted over, plopped herself into his lap, wrapped both arms around his neck, and beamed at him. “Good morning!”
Lin Luxiao dearly wanted to pick her up and spank her.
This habit of hers — he didn’t know who she’d learned it from. When the morning grouchiness was upon her, she recognized no one, grabbing whatever was nearest to fling at you. Then, once the mood passed, she would smile at you sheepishly and try to make up.
And you couldn’t even lose your temper over it.
Nan Chu stared at him in surprise. “Why do you have five finger marks on your face?”
Lin Luxiao slid his gaze toward her, curled the corner of his mouth into a cold smile. “Shall I demonstrate how they got there?”
“I did that?” The young woman was astonished.
“Or do you think I had nothing better to do than slap myself awake this morning?”
Nan Chu reached up and rubbed his face gently. “I think I might have a bit of a temper in the mornings?”
“A bit?“
“Alright, I’m sorry.”
What more was there to say?
What more was there to say?
Lin Luxiao stared at her wordlessly for three full seconds, then ruffled her hair into a complete mess. “Fine, go wash your face.”
……
That whole day passed in rather vigorous fashion.
Finished breakfast.
They went at it.
Finished lunch.
They went at it.
Finished dinner.
Nan Chu felt Lin Luxiao’s gaze settle on her and immediately grabbed him by the hand and pulled him to the sofa. “Come on, let’s do something meaningful.”
Lin Luxiao watched her with an amused expression, as if waiting to hear what her version of meaningful would be.
“There’s a variety show tonight — my favorite host. I’ve been watching his programs since I was little. Let’s watch together.”
The eight o’clock program ended.
Lin Luxiao: “Anything else you’d like to do?”
“……”
“If not, I suppose we go to sleep.”
He then hoisted her up with one arm and carried her into the bedroom. Nan Chu yelped and flailed. “Could you exercise just a little self-restraint?”
Lin Luxiao deposited her onto the bed and began unhurriedly undoing his buttons. “I’ve been exercising self-restraint for thirty years. It’s about time I collected some returns.”
“……”