The days after marriage didn’t seem particularly wonderful for Hao.

During Lu Huaizheng’s vacation days, he forced her to go to bed at nine o’clock every night and then tormented her in various ways. Yet every morning, he would still punctually drag her out of bed at six to go running, beautifully phrasing it as, “I’m helping you exercise.”

Lu Xin, pregnant with a child, fortunately escaped this ordeal. Every day she watched Yu Hao being pitifully dragged from under the covers by her nephew. With drowsy eyes brimming with tears and a woeful expression, Yu Hao would wink at her pleadingly: “Auntie, please save me!”

Lu Xin sat on the sofa, deliberately looking away, pretending not to see as she quietly took a sip of water.

Don’t beg me. Once I deliver this baby, I won’t be able to save myself either.

Beijing mornings in October were somewhat cold. Lu Huaizheng still wore simple athletic attire—a white t-shirt and gray sweatpants. Yu Hao clung shamelessly to his back like an octopus, firmly attached to him. Lu Huaizheng simply twisted her off his back and, without another word, dragged her along to run.

“I’m not running anymore. Last night was too exhausting,” Yu Hao said irritably as she plopped down on a park bench.

Lu Huaizheng stood looking at her for a moment, then lowered his gaze and sat beside her. The park was filled with people exercising. Lu Huaizheng often ran in this area and was quite familiar with several elderly men who regularly exercised there. They greeted each other whenever they met. Just then, an old man practicing tai chi walked by with a sword that had red tassels swinging from its tip.

The two men chatted for a while.

Yu Hao watched from the side, thinking he could talk.

It wasn’t that Lu Huaizheng was talkative, but rather that the old man was. Having finally met a young man he could talk to, he couldn’t help but say a bit more.

By the time they finished talking, Yu Hao looked down at the time—half an hour had passed.

While waiting for Lu Huaizheng to return, her previous irritation had completely disappeared, like a frost-beaten eggplant, withered.

“You finally remembered me,” she said.

Lu Huaizheng stood in front of her, his legs long and slender. Yu Hao’s head was level with his waist as she looked up at him wearily.

Lu Huaizheng looked down at her, one hand in his pocket, while his right hand ruffled her fluffy head. He smiled and said, “The old grandfather said my wife is both beautiful and obedient. When I heard that, I felt we had much in common, so I chatted with him a bit longer.”

Yu Hao couldn’t help it—his words made her laugh, though she still twisted her neck and said, “Liar.”

Lu Huaizheng didn’t argue, just lowered his head and looked at her with a quiet smile.

Yu Hao knew well that Lu Huaizheng had thoroughly figured out her temperament and nature. She simply couldn’t stand being praised; whenever someone praised her, she would make an effort to persevere.

And so, through Lu Huaizheng’s combination of coaxing and tricking, she had persisted in running for nearly a week and a half.

On the last night of their honeymoon.

Lu Huaizheng was particularly intense, nearly taking Yu Hao apart completely. He even unlocked so-called new positions for her. Yu Hao felt that a man’s achievements in this area were simply astonishing. Sometimes when she complained to Zhao Dailin, Zhao would immediately call her back and talk for half an hour about her bedroom secrets with Sun Kai.

Zhao Dailin was more open than her, and the two were perfectly in sync.

Yu Hao listened with flushed cheeks and a dizzy head. That night, for the first time, she had an erotic dream.

She woke in the middle of the night, her bed soaked with sweat, her hair damp with hot perspiration, feeling strangely empty. Remembering what Zhao Dailin had said during the day, she couldn’t help but send Lu Huaizheng a WeChat message.

“Husband.”

Unexpectedly, Lu Huaizheng replied quickly. He was abroad at the time and had just retrieved his phone from his superior. Yu Hao’s WeChat message arrived, and he promptly replied.

“Hmm, not asleep yet?”

Yu Hao hadn’t expected him to reply so quickly. “Huh? You’re on your phone?”

“Just got it back. Why aren’t you sleeping so late?”

“I miss you.”

“Missing me so much you can’t sleep?”

“A little.”

Lu Huaizheng couldn’t help but smile as he replied: “What are you thinking about?”

Then Yu Hao sent a message that made him understand.

“Have you ever tried… on the phone…”

These ellipses were particularly suggestive, making Lu Huaizheng’s eyelids twitch and his blood rush. “These ellipses, they shouldn’t mean what I think they mean, right?”

“They do.”

“What’s gotten into you? Has it been too long since we’ve seen each other?”

“No, Sister Zhao said that she and Sun Kai sometimes do that thing over the phone… there’s even a professional term for it. Haven’t you heard of it?”

Lu Huaizheng couldn’t help but hold his head in his hands. “You might want to maintain some distance from Zhao Dailin. We don’t need to be like them in everything.”

“Oh.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Oh.”

…

Later, Yu Hao asked Lu Huaizheng why he wasn’t willing to do that with her over the phone. He said he didn’t like such purely physical release methods; these things should naturally arise from emotional connection. It was also partly a professional habit—there are no walls in the world that are completely soundproof, and WeChat records have no real confidentiality.

When saying this, Lu Huaizheng pinched her nose and pressed his body over hers: “I understand your curiosity, but I’m a person who values practical action, like now…”

In the second year of their marriage, Lu Huaizheng and Sun Kai were dispatched to South Sudan for eight months of peacekeeping, with truly no news for a year and a half.

When they returned, Yu Hao and Zhao Dailin happened to be in labor.

However, they had no idea their wives were pregnant. When they had just landed and hadn’t even had time to change out of their military uniforms, someone told Lu Huaizheng, “Your wife is about to give birth at the hospital!” Lu Huaizheng laughed and kicked the person, saying, “Get lost! Go play somewhere else!”

The person was so anxious his face turned red and white. “She is about to give birth! I’m not joking with you! If you hurry now, you might still witness the birth of your child!”

The smile on Lu Huaizheng’s face gradually froze. He grabbed the person’s collar with one hand, “Are you serious?”

The person raised his fist and swore: “I swear on Chairman Mao! If I’m lying to you, I don’t deserve to be called a Chinese Liberation Army soldier!”

Lu Huaizheng turned and ran toward the hospital.

He rarely cursed, but this time he muttered, “Fuck!”

When Lu Huaizheng arrived at the hospital, Yu Hao had just come out from her internal examination. The pre-labor examination was excruciatingly painful, and her eyes were red and full of tears. Xiang Yuan was helping her with pre-labor activities. The doctor said she needed to walk more; the cervix needed to dilate to at least six centimeters before going in, but currently, it was only at three.

Yu Hao held onto the railing and walked extremely slowly. Xiang Yuan felt sorry for her and suggested she sit down to rest for a while.

She shook her head, and as she looked up, she saw a long-missed figure standing at the end of the empty corridor. Xiang Yuan also looked in that direction and was stunned, covering her mouth with a cry: “Sister-in-law, that’s—!”

The man hadn’t had time to change out of his military uniform and stood there tall and straight. The window frame at the corridor’s end faintly reflected light from outside, creating an ethereal, dreamlike scene.

Yu Hao thought it was an illusion but couldn’t react immediately. She stood dumbfounded, her large belly supported by the railing, her scallion-like fingers resting on the metal bars. She involuntarily gripped the railing tighter, her knuckles turning slightly white, unable to believe her eyes.

The corridor was quiet, with a gentle breeze. Occasionally people passed by, but stillness remained.

The man slowly began to move, like slow-motion playback, gradually approaching her. At first, he walked particularly slowly, so slowly that Yu Hao felt it wasn’t real, but then he suddenly quickened his pace, arriving before her like a gust of wind.

Yu Hao smiled and reached out to him, “Hug me.”

At that moment, Xiang Yuan burst into tears.

Following Lu Xin’s birth of twin boys, the Huo family welcomed another son, named Lu Yili, with the nickname “Yi Li” (One Grain).

Little Lu Yili looked exactly like Yu Hao but had Lu Huaizheng’s temperament. He was exceptionally emotionally intelligent and learned very quickly. Daily, he observed how Lu Huaizheng coaxed Yu Hao and learned to imitate it quite well. But occasionally, he would be naughty and refuse to eat no matter what. When Yu Hao couldn’t handle him, she would use Lu Huaizheng to scare him, “Wait until your father comes home!”

Little Yi Li’s chubby little body would immediately cling to Yu Hao: “No!”

“When your father comes back, I’ll tell him you’ve been bullying Mommy.” Yu Hao scooped up a spoonful of rice and stuffed it into his mouth. “If you don’t eat, I’ll tell Daddy.”

Little Yi Li pouted, his eyes filled with tears, looking extremely wronged as he swallowed a couple of bites. “I ate it.”

“Finish this bowl.”

His speech wasn’t very clear yet, and he mumbled: “Then I’ll eat myself, you put it here.”

Yu Hao gave him the bowl.

Little Yi Li took the bowl and with a “splat,” threw it on the floor.

Yu Hao was so angry she didn’t speak to him all afternoon. Little Yi Li had no idea what consequences awaited when he offended his mother.

When Lu Huaizheng returned in the evening, the atmosphere felt off. Judging by Yu Hao’s attitude, he knew their son had angered her again. Lu Huaizheng smiled as he walked over, pulled up a chair to sit across from her, casually picked up a book to flip through, and said, “You’re acting like a child yourself, getting angry with him every day.”

“Your son is too infuriating. This afternoon he threw his rice bowl on the floor and even talked back to my mother,” Yu Hao said, not turning from her computer where she was writing her thesis.

Lu Yili usually had a very sweet mouth, but when his temper flared, no one could persuade him otherwise—in this, he truly took after Yu Hao.

“Where is that little guy?” asked Lu Huaizheng.

“In the playroom.”

Lu Huaizheng: “No one watching him?”

“Who would dare leave him alone? The Lu family’s young master—my mother is watching him.”

Lu Huaizheng stood up, ruffled her hair, and said with a smile, “I’ll go check on him.”

At that moment, little Lu Yili was having a grand time in the playroom, laughing so hard he was rocking back and forth. His small, chubby body sitting on the floor looked like a ball of meat, particularly adorable. But the instant he saw Lu Huaizheng, his laughter abruptly stopped, and he silently turned back to begin organizing the toys scattered across the floor.

Feng Yanzhi realized who had returned as soon as she saw this reaction. She slowly stood up, supporting herself by her knees, and vacated the space: “Grandma’s going to make dinner.”

Lu Huaizheng leaned against the door. “You can rest tonight. I’ll take Yu Hao out to eat.”

Feng Yanzhi was startled, “Huh? What about Yi Li?”

“Yi Li doesn’t need to eat,” said Lu Huaizheng.

On the floor, Lu Yili quietly continued putting toys into his basket while mumbling unclearly: “Yi Li needs to eat.”

Then, very decisively, he patted the floor, “Yi Li needs to eat!”

Lu Huaizheng ignored him.

After Feng Yanzhi left, he walked over and sat cross-legged in front of Lu Yili. “Do you know what happens when you make your mother angry?”

Little Lu Yili shook his head in bewilderment.

“It means daddy has to comfort mommy. If daddy can’t comfort mommy well, daddy won’t have the heart to work. If Daddy can’t work properly, Daddy’s salary will be reduced. If daddy’s salary is reduced, you won’t have money to buy toys.”

Lu Yili suddenly understood.

“Okay, Daddy!”