Before going to Tuslan, Lu Huaizheng’s marriage application was approved.

That night, he handed the yellow document envelope to Yu Hao. She received it in a daze, looked down bewilderedly at the thick, weighty packet with the red “confidential” stamp in the corner, and panicked. “What’s this?”

He leaned coldly against the headboard, still resentful about the previous ten strikes. “Marriage application.”

“It came through so quickly?” Yu Hao was startled. She opened the envelope and looked at him suspiciously. “Professor Han said my political background check might not pass. I thought I would be interrogated.”

“Interrogated?” He laughed carelessly. “The Qing Dynasty fell so many years ago. Who would interrogate you? I asked the leadership to help smooth things over. Your issue wasn’t a big problem.”

Yu Hao slowly pulled out the application form.

Seeing their names listed together, that feeling of destinies intertwined, of sharing life and death, made her heart flutter.

Lu Huaizheng, ID#96723, Captain of XX Strike Team One, Air Force Major.

Yu Hao, ID#, Assistant Researcher at XX Research Institute’s Psychology Department.

Below is a long list of both of their resumes. When Lu Huaizheng returned to his unit, he asked her to send over her resume, which she did without question. Only now did she realize it was for the marriage application. Had she known, she would have included more of her awards. She felt somewhat annoyed. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? If you had, I would have prepared a proper resume. The one I sent you was from when I was looking for jobs after college graduation. I’ve received many awards in the past few years that weren’t included.”

The bedside lamp cast a soft yellow glow in the bedroom as they spoke softly in the night.

Lu Huaizheng reclined lazily against the headboard and half-jokingly said, “Were you planning to include the little red flowers you got in kindergarten too?”

Yu Hao laughed and pounced into his arms with the document folder, acting spoiled. “I’ve always been well-behaved, but people just don’t like me.” She lay on his firm, muscular chest, her face pressed against his hard body. She nuzzled a bit, finding a comfortable position to lie flat, then looked up at him before saying, “I don’t know if you’ve ever felt this way, but it’s like when you meticulously complete everything you’re supposed to do, people act like it’s expected of you. Yet some children who do nothing get everyone’s favor when they occasionally do something, and adults praise them for being capable. When I was little, I couldn’t understand why the squeaky wheel got the grease. I don’t know if my perspective was too narrow.”

“Yes,” said Lu Huaizheng, stroking her hair.

“Oh, you too?” She was confused. “I thought you would have been popular with adults when you were little.”

Lu Huaizheng reached for a cigarette. “When I was little?”

Yu Hao rested her chin on his chest, her eyes bright with curiosity as she looked at him. “Yes, what were you like as a child?”

He put a cigarette in his mouth, cupped his hand around the lighter, inhaled to light it, and then casually tossed the lighter back onto the bedside table with his long, slender fingers. He said softly, “Not many people liked me either.”

Yu Hao didn’t believe him.

Lu Huaizheng rested one hand on the bedside table, pointing the smoldering cigarette toward the transparent ashtray. He looked down at her tenderly, his other hand gently stroking her nose. “My maternal grandparents detested me. I remember that during New Year’s, we would celebrate separately. My mother would go to her parents’ home, while my father and I would go to my paternal grandfather’s. When my mother was pregnant with me, a fortune teller at my maternal grandparents’ place said my fate clashed with my maternal grandfather’s and that I shouldn’t be born. My father, having grown up in military camps, naturally didn’t believe in such things. My mother insisted on having me and eventually gave birth in secret, hiding from her parents. After I was born, the family elders passed away one after another. My mother felt very guilty and even began to believe the fortune teller’s words. One year, when my father returned to his unit, my mother covered my face with a pillow. She cried and apologized to me as she did it…”

Hearing this, Yu Hao froze completely, her hand anxiously covering her mouth.

Lu Huaizheng continued to stroke her hair, speaking nonchalantly as if telling someone else’s story.

“I struggled desperately. At that time, I couldn’t understand why my mother wanted to kill me. I thought I must have done something wrong. But I’ve always been stubborn, and I didn’t know how to beg for mercy. I just held back my tears and wouldn’t say anything.”

“Then what happened?” Her voice was choked.

“In the end, my aunt came and saved me. Of course, I know that even if my aunt hadn’t come, my mother couldn’t have gone through with it. My mother was a very gentle person. Except for that day when she tried to smother me with a pillow, she was always gentle and virtuous, never even speaking a harsh word. That day, she must have been triggered by something. Probably feeling guilty, feeling she had wronged me and my father, she committed suicide that night, dying in the bathtub.”

Good heavens.

Yu Hao covered her mouth, her eyes rimmed with red, tears about to fall.

Lu Huaizheng stroked her nose, still smiling. “Did I scare you?”

Lu Huaizheng wiped away her tears with his thumb, took a drag from his cigarette, and continued, “If my aunt hadn’t remarried to Huo Ting, I might now be sitting in prison or living a life on the edge of a knife.”

Yu Hao listened quietly.

He stroked the hair at her temple and said, “My aunt couldn’t have children all these years. Huo Ting established a foundation in my aunt’s name, supporting a group of children through school. Every year, people try to use this foundation’s name to run projects, simply put, to make some money. Huo Ting loves money; he loves it more than anyone, but the one thing he won’t do is exploit my aunt’s love for profit. He might touch anything else, but he won’t let anyone touch the foundation. I didn’t spend much time with my parents. The two people I’m closest to are my grandfather and Huo Ting. It was Huo Ting who told me that love is more meaningful than hate. That afternoon, I had no idea what would have happened if my aunt hadn’t appeared. Would she have stopped? Deep down, I know the answer is no, but I still forgive her.”

Comfort? Yu Hao thought he didn’t need it, but she couldn’t help feeling heartbroken for him. Her heart ached in spasms. Her tears opened the floodgates, unstoppable no matter how she wiped them, flowing more with each attempt, like pearls from a broken string.

Lu Huaizheng sighed, somewhat regretfully stroking her head. “Should I not have told you so much?”

“You should tell me,” she quickly said. “You always keep things to yourself. From now on, don’t bottle things up. You have to tell me everything.” After she finished, she gently stroked Lu Huaizheng’s head with pity and said sadly, “Huo Ting is amazing to have brought you back to the right path.”

He allowed her to stroke his head, lowered his head with a smile, and said, “Keep the marriage application for now. When I return from Tuslan…”

As he finished, he lifted his head slightly, his eyebrows gently raised, his eyes as clear as ever, yet filled with deep affection.

Yu Hao felt he was about to say something important, so she looked at him quietly, ripples of anticipation slowly spreading in her heart.

Her heart and eyes were full of expectation.

Lu Huaizheng’s military shirt was open, revealing his tanned body. His hand still rested on the headboard as he lowered his head to think, the cigarette flickering with a faint spark.

He extinguished the cigarette in the water-filled ashtray with a “sizzle.”

He leaned over. Yu Hao’s chin was gently tilted up, and her lips were sealed with his—wet, hot, carrying the strong scent of tobacco. His tongue gently traced along the edge of her lips. Finally, holding her face, he pressed his forehead against hers, rubbing gently, and asked in a deep voice, “Yu Hao, will you marry me?”

His tone was reverent, like the striking of a temple bell, each word heavy, hitting her heart deeply. Through the river of time, the man’s face seemed to gradually overlap with that vibrant, lively young face from the past. She lay on top of him, the lamplight flickering, her heart racing, her face and ears hot as she looked at him.

Yu Hao recalled a saying.

Gone for half a lifetime, yet still a youth upon return.

It seemed he hadn’t changed much. His youthful spirit remained, and even his proposal was characteristically Lu Huaizheng—simple, powerful, yet irrefusable.

“What time are you leaving tomorrow?” Yu Hao suddenly asked after staring at him for a while.

“Evening.”

She hooked her arms around his neck and actively kissed him back. “Then let’s get the marriage certificate tomorrow morning. I’ll ask Professor Han for time off. It will only take a few minutes.”

Lu Huaizheng laughed while kissing her. “Why the rush?”

“Do you want to hear my reason?”

“Mm,” he kissed her absentmindedly.

“There’s no special reason. I just want to get the certificate. In case you come back from Tuslan this time and some lunatic bites you again, and you come back telling me, ‘Yu Hao, let’s call it quits, I can’t and don’t want to wait anymore’—since we’ve decided to be together, let’s weather the storms together. Even if something happens to you, I don’t want to be without the right to see you. Also, I’ve already joined the Military Wives Alliance with Senior Zhao… Anyway, sooner or later…”

“What Military Wives Alliance?” Lu Huaizheng paused at her chest.

“It’s a group created by your Staff Officer Li’s wife. There are many military wives in it. I didn’t know until I joined, but once I did, I realized how tough it is to be a military wife. But I’m prepared for it.”

Lu Huaizheng lowered his head to bite her, murmuring, “What business does Zhao Dailin have joining in? When did she become a military wife?”

Yu Hao moaned softly as he kissed her, making her body go limp. “She’s in reserves!”

He thought for a moment. “Still, it’s not right. Let’s wait until I come back. I should at least meet your parents first. Otherwise, it would be too disrespectful to them.”

…

But the next morning, Lu Huaizheng still found himself tricked and coerced by Yu Hao to the doorstep of the Civil Affairs Bureau.

The handsome, six-foot-tall man sat with his arms crossed in the waiting area of the marriage registration office. Several couples waiting to register couldn’t help glancing their way. Perhaps feeling these gazes were too brazen, Yu Hao nudged Lu Huaizheng with her elbow. “Could you look happier? Otherwise, people will think I paid for a pretty boy.”

Lu Huaizheng gave her a sidelong glance and retorted, “I don’t look like a pretty boy.” Then, looking her up and down, he teased, “And you don’t look very rich either.”

Yu Hao threw the marriage application back at him and challenged, “If you don’t want to get married, then forget it. Let’s leave now.”

Lu Huaizheng sat with his legs splayed, leaning back in his chair, and said with an unchanged expression, “I’ve dreamed of marrying you.”

He said it forthrightly, his manner equally candid, presenting the image of a perfect gentleman, so straightforward.

His words made Yu Hao’s heart flutter. For the first time in public, she wanted to rush over and kiss that poker face.

But a woman who had been sitting nearby with sunglasses and a sun hat lowered her head, pushed her sunglasses down slightly, and suspiciously called out, “Lu Huaizheng?”

Lu Huaizheng turned to look, still squinting. But Yu Hao recognized the woman even faster.

“Hu Siqi?”