Thirty years ago, when Yan Xi was eight years old, he went to experience life at a military base with Da Yi and Si Wan.

The children, accustomed to being pampered at home, always swayed unsteadily during flag-raising ceremonies. Back then, Old Xin hadn’t retired yet, and his military insignia and booming voice struck fear into every child. Whenever Yan Xi got scolded, he would stand at attention in the dormitory with wide eyes, holding a sugarcane stalk ramrod straight. He would march in place counting “one-two-three” until he reached Da Yi’s small bed, shouting: “Charge at the enemy with our broadsword, come on, get up—”

As a child, Da Yi liked to sleep on his stomach. The nanny said he had worms and needed to take deworming medicine. Before leaving, she brought two large tablets. White pills were always bitter, just like all reactionaries were paper tigers! Just as the child steeled himself and squeezed his eyes shut to take a “crunch” bite, he saw Yan Xi’s big eyes. He shrank his little head but said defiantly: “It was my grandfather who scolded you, not me. Besides, we were wrong. Grandpa said he’d never seen Liberation Army heroes like us!”

Old Xin’s exact words were: “You bunch of little brats! New China has been established for forty years, and this is the first time the national flag has been raised upside down! Yan Xi, Xin Da Yi, Wen Si Wan, fall out!”

At that time, they were surrounded by soldiers, all squinting up at the sky. Sure enough, the five stars were fluttering beneath the bright red cloth. Da Yi was so frightened by his grandfather that tears welled up in his eyes, which still had sleep in their corners.

Whenever Yan Xi recalled this, his teeth would grind audibly. Being scolded so publicly with such a clamor—where could young master Yan put his face? If you bully me and I can’t bully you back, I’ll bully your grandson. So with his hands still dirty from eating sugarcane, he reached out to pinch Da Yi.

The pill in Da Yi’s mouth had started dissolving, releasing a strong fruit flavor. His small face, which had been bracing for battle, suddenly bloomed into a tiny flower. He stuffed the remaining half of the pill into Yan Xi’s mouth and patted his little chest: “You scared me! It’s sweet.”

Yan Xi pouted: “A Liberation Army soldier won’t be bought off by sugar-coated bullets! Oh… it is sweet…”

Da Yi laughed: “Sweet, it’s sweet!”

Si Wan, who had been flipping through an illustrated version of “Zizhi Tongjian,” was quick with her hands. Her little paw snatched the other pill from Da Yi’s dark little hand and popped it into her mouth.

Da Yi grabbed the remaining sugarcane from Yan Xi’s hand and chased after Si Wan, crying as he ran: “What am I going to do?! I only ate half, so there’s still half a dead worm in my belly! What should I do? Wen Si Wan, you treacherous thief! Spit out my candy!”

Si Wan chewed the candy with puffed cheeks, finally swallowing it whole, yet couldn’t tell if it was bitter or sweet.

Twenty-five years ago, when Yan Xi was thirteen, he went through a phase of being obsessed with “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.” He read the vernacular version three times and watched the seventy-eight-episode TV series three times. During class, his artistic talent exploded, creating countless classic cartoon images of fox spirits, flower spirits, and ghosts.

Lu Liu pointed at a small figure in green clothes with long hair and asked: “Is this male or female?”

Yan Xi enthusiastically explained: “Male, a male fox spirit.”

Lu Liu made an “oh” sound: “I get it. The females seduce men, so the males seduce women, right?”

Yan Xi righteously declared: “Of course not! The male’s main skill is helping the females seduce men.”

Lu Liu raised an eyebrow: “Then he shouldn’t be a fox, he should be a turtle.”

Yan Xi’s mouth twitched: “Why?”

Lu Liu flipped through his “Cases of Judge Bao” for the third time: “The book says men like that are called turtle-pimps.”

Yan Xi was filled with righteous indignation: “What nonsense! This male fox is really good—he saved a scholar and then matched him with his beautiful sister. What a great fox! Don’t insult my fox!”

Lu Liu looked skyward: “Your male fox is doing volunteer work like Lei Feng.”

Yan Xi flipped the table: “Damn you, Lu Liu, damn you! Don’t insult my idol’s little fox!”

Back then, Yan Xi’s idol was Pu Songling.

As it turned out, young people with faith and idols would pay a painful price. Who knows if the foxes in the books also wanted to marry the scholars’ sisters?

Twenty years ago, when Yan Xi was eighteen, his paintings had no people in them, but his photographs were full of people.

Wen Heng asked why, and Yan Xi said he couldn’t draw them. He couldn’t capture what was in everyone’s eyes—innocence mostly hurts people, and malice hides self-interest behind it.

Wen Heng liked doing housework. She would stand on a stool, tiptoeing to wipe the photos high up again and again. Those images were easy to be dazzled by colors at first glance, but the corners behind the colors were always pitch black. As A-Heng kept wiping, she could only see those dark spots. She asked him sadly: “Who do you most want to photograph?”

Yan Xi thought for a moment, then smiled: “A clown.”

During the holidays, Yan Xi, A-Heng, and Da Yi played cards, with the loser facing punishment. Yan Xi and Da Yi were forced to drink almost a bucket of water, but A-Heng remained unscathed, her face glowing even when pressed against the cards. This child took everything seriously. But then she lost three hands in a row. Just as Yan Xi finished pouring water, A-Heng lifted her little face from the cards, her eyes twinkling as she said: “I’ll be a clown.”

She found a colorful hat and covered her face with grease paint—yellow nose, red eyes, blue lips, white face—looking truly comical. When the clown grinned, Da Yi doubled over with laughter, and she shyly started laughing too, pulling out a plastic flower she had prepared from behind her back to present to Yan Xi.

Yan Xi took out his camera but didn’t press the shutter for a long time. He crouched down and gently wiped away the makeup with cleansing oil, looking at her with rare tenderness as he smiled and said: “Too many tragedies in this world are man-made, but I don’t want to create even a tiny tragedy for you.”

He wanted to see clowns because his heart was full of indignation, always speculating about what kind of malice and strange lights lay behind those laughing faces. Tragedy was the same—it never showed itself openly.

During those years, Lu Liu kept asking him why he had strayed from someone equally lonely as himself. Yan Xi said: “You’ve never seen such a happy clown, a clown who was happy because of me.”

Fifteen years ago, when Yan Xi was twenty-three, he had been DJ Yan for a long time. He was very busy then, with many self-proclaimed fans writing him letters. When he became too busy to handle them all, he hired a personal assistant specifically to deal with the letters.

That girl was a bit slow-witted. Holding a bundle of letters, she excitedly shouted in the broadcast hall: “Hey, Yan Xi, this pile of letters is from someone named Wen!”

Everyone at the radio station knew he was waiting for a letter from someone surnamed Wen.

When he first started reading letters, he would spread them out like playing cards, but later, he would stack them tightly, forever dreading seeing the name signed on the next letter.

He feared they would all be surnamed Wen, but not named Heng.

Ten years ago, when Yan Xi was twenty-eight, his son finally learned to walk. He stood a short distance away, nervously clutching a piece of candy, waiting for his tiny baby to walk toward him.

His son’s small hands reached out for his father’s embrace and that toothy smile reminded him of his childhood. When he learned to walk, he was always like a little old man, hands behind his back. There was no embrace called father waiting ahead.

The tiny child finally tottered into his arms. He unwrapped the candy and put it in his son’s mouth, asking if it was tasty. The baby nodded and shook his head, but finally hugged Yan Xi’s face and started kissing him. Those milk-scented kisses with a hint of candy pressed against his cheeks, and Yan Xi smiled.

When the little one first softly called out “Papa,” Yan Xi held those tiny hands and smiled: “Baby, call me several more times, make up for Papa’s share too.”

He used to think that crying one’s heart out was the only way to vent emotions, but how many tears does one have in a lifetime, and how many tears should a man have in his lifetime?

Five years ago, when Yan Xi was thirty-three, his wife was having their second child. Si Wan, Da Yi, and Yun Zai were betting on the gender at the door.

Si Wan slapped down ten yuan: “Nephew!” He was tired of little girls as fiery and troublesome as Wen Si Er in this lifetime.

Da Yi hesitated, pulling out twenty yuan: “Godson?” He couldn’t imagine what Yan Xi’s daughter would look like. Sometimes just thinking about it made him feel life was like a car crash—better to die early and achieve early salvation.

Yun Zai fingered his prayer beads and threw down fifty yuan: “Nephew!” Inwardly sneering—damn, you want a girl? I’ll curse you with a son, yes, a son. The nephew will take after his uncle!

A-Heng had been craving spicy food lately. Yan Xi viciously handed over a hundred yuan, grinding his teeth: “Girl, girl, girl! If I’m right, you’ll treat me to ribs. If I’m wrong, I won’t eat your ribs!”

All three broke out in cold sweat with expressionless faces as Yan Xi’s phone rang.

“Is it a girl?” The voice on the other end was cool and clear, masculine.

“It’s not your wife giving birth, what does it matter to you whether it’s a girl or boy? Gu Fei Bai, you must be having random brain spasms!” Yan Xi raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing much. I just wanted to say, that if it’s a girl, please, I sincerely beg you to never send her to Jiangnan. I’m afraid she’ll be the ruin of my son.” The other’s voice was pleasant but carried an undertone of something between bitter and sweet.

“Damn you!” Yan Xi slammed down the phone.

Soon after, the nurse cheerfully brought out the baby: “Congratulations!”

Yan Xi’s hands trembled as he opened the small blanket and took a look. There was something rice-grain-sized that seemed extremely proud of itself.

The newborn opened bewildered big eyes. Yan Xi was suddenly overcome with emotion and pinched his son’s jade-white little ear while cursing: “Your father wasn’t planning to put together the entire Chinese men’s soccer team, what did you come for?”

The little one didn’t understand but shamelessly smiled toward the only source of light, his eyes curving exactly like A-Heng’s.

Yan Xi was stunned for three seconds, then held the child tightly, smiling through his tears.

He thought he wanted a daughter, but actually, he just wanted a version of himself that was exactly like his wife.

He hoped heaven would bestow all of A-Heng’s wonderful qualities upon their children, but as long as they were even a little bit like A-Heng—whether stubborn, timid, weak, or clumsy—he felt indescribably happy.

The love between husband and wife seemed so mundane and selfish, perhaps not some grand selfless love, but those loves that sublimate to who knows where often don’t last ten, twenty, or thirty years until white-haired elders sink into the earth.

Who would want that anyway?

This year, Yan Xi is thirty-eight, and he got a disease whose name takes half a minute to pronounce, and if you pause to breathe, you forget where to continue. They call it a “serious illness.”

He has a good wife who’s a doctor, so this serious illness never becomes seriously ill.

At night in the hospital, family members aren’t allowed to stay, so he has to drag an IV stand when he urinates. Often, halfway through, he’ll cry out heart-rendingly from the men’s bathroom: “Blood’s coming back, blood’s coming back, Doctor Wen!”

That female doctor who squeezed her way from the research institute into the hospital had developed excellent skills. She’d dart over from her office, holding up the IV while scolding: “It’s not New Year’s, what are you so excited about!”

Looking closer at the needle, it was perfectly clean without a trace of blood. She tilted her head and frowned, asking: “Where’s the blood coming back?”

But he would hug Doctor Wen, whispering: “There was, really was, but when you scared me, it went back in.”

In his heart, there were words he didn’t say aloud: “A-Heng, I miss you again.”

During blood draws, he would howl—the louder he yelled, the more his flesh hurt, and the less his heart hurt.

When the children were at school and A-Heng was at work, he would sit in the hospital garden drawing. He drew the sun, the pond water, the crabapple flowers, and when he finished, he’d draw more. When Doctor Wen occasionally passed through the garden, he would smile and tell her not to move, and A-Heng would stand there watching him draw her.

Yet when he drew her, he never raised his head to look at his wife once. These eyebrows, these eyes, this smile—while alive, he could never forget them. He had taken many hormone medications, and his emotions would suddenly surge and then suddenly fall. When irritated, he would throw away the drawing paper and speak harshly to her as if to an enemy: “Are you a nightmare? Always carved into my heart!”

After saying this, he would stare at her eyes—look, even now, she still wouldn’t cry.

He steeled his heart and turned away: “Let’s divorce, Wen Heng. You go, go!”

But she laid her head on his leg, smiling gently: “Alright after you get better.”

The hospital had issued three critical condition notices. He weakly bit at a grain of rice and asked her: “Are you preparing to be a widow?”

That A-Heng, his A-Heng, said with impossible gentleness: “You’re welcome to try and see whether I’ll become a widow first, or you’ll become a widower first. If you don’t want three children to lose both their father and mother, you’re welcome to try—in this world, isn’t suicide much faster than dying from illness?”

Yan Xi’s face twitched, and he actively cooperated with treatment. He had finally gotten a daughter just three years ago, and he hadn’t even gotten to raise her plump and fair yet, hadn’t even gotten to ruin Gu Fei Bai’s son!

His thirty-eighth birthday was spent in the hospital. Right after cutting the cake, the attending physician called A-Heng away with a grave expression.

Yan Xi watched the children eating cake. As they ate, his usually quiet second son, face covered in white frosting, collapsed crying in his arms: “Papa, Papa, are you going to die soon, Papa? Can you please not die…”

The kindergarten teacher had just taught them what life meant, and what death meant.

Yan Xi held him—this child looked the most like A-Heng. In the end, who could have guessed that the child he loved most would be neither his eldest son nor his little daughter, but this quiet, gentle second son?

“Yan Jing,” he called his son’s full name, telling him seriously, “I promise you, Papa won’t die.”

The little three-year-old girl had been watching the two dumbly, but suddenly started crying along with her brother: “Papa’s lying! Papa promised last time too, said he’d go catch crabs with Ben-ben, but Papa didn’t go. Papa’s lying!”

Yan Xi said sheepishly: “Papa just couldn’t get out…”

The eldest son Yan Qi, now in middle school, had always been responsible for taking care of his siblings. He had been holding his sister well, but now his eyes also reddened as he tried to pull his brother from Papa’s arms. But the little one’s face turned red with effort as he held tightly to Yan Xi’s clothes, refusing to let go.

Finally, Yan Qi let go and began choking up: “You say you won’t die, how can we believe you!”

This young teen already had Yan Xi’s old looks—beautiful and prone to overthinking.

He cried while ranting: “If you die I can’t dig you up, you won’t know even if I cry myself to death if you die and Mom remarries… I’m telling you, the stepfather will beat us scold us, and abuse us to death! You’re done for, Yan Xi, your children will all be bullied to death, how dare you still die…”

Yan Jing and Ben-ben cried even louder.

Wen Heng had been watching from the doorway for a while. Finally, seeing the father and three sons embracing and wailing, their cries truly unbearable to witness, she gently coughed: “Although I’m sorry to interrupt your father-son drama series, I still want to say, Yan Xi, you can be discharged.”

Yan Xi wept rivers of tears: “Finally declaring it terminal?”

A-Heng gritted her teeth: “Although, regrettably, I won’t have the chance to find a stepfather to abuse your three cubs, I still have to say, Yan Xi, you’re cured!”

The hospital room was silent for three minutes.

Yan Xi held his second son kindly and said: “See, Papa doesn’t lie, Papa never lies.”

Turning around, he glared at his eldest son and scolded: “Drama queen, go home and kneel on some ribs!”

Then he smiled and stroked his little daughter’s head: “Silly, Papa won’t take you to catch little crabs, we’ll go catch big sea crabs, big ones, this big, this big.”

As he gestured, he secretly watched his wife’s expression.

A-Heng walked over, sneering: “Before you take your daughter to catch crabs, sign the divorce papers first. I’m afraid you won’t have the chance after the big big big crab pinches you to death! Weren’t you constantly thinking about divorce? Today I’ll grant your wish!”

The soft, chubby little Ben-ben looked at her mother sincerely: “What’s divorce?”

A-Heng picked up her little girl: “It means Mama won’t eat and sleep with Papa anymore.”

Ben-ben thought for a moment, staring blankly at her mother, then her big eyes welled up with sad tears again: “But without Mama, Papa will starve to death.”

Yan Xi had been hanging his head, but hearing his daughter’s words, his eyes reddened. He looked up, smiling wistfully at A-Heng: “A-Heng, what can we do about this, what can we do?”

A-Heng held their daughter, and all her fear, grievances, and pain dissipated. She used the back of her hand to block the warmth in her eyes, choking out: “You won’t die. It’s not that I won’t let you die, it’s just that I don’t want to die at all.”

Yan Xi was stunned, but he understood her words.

In the end, who would have thought that among all the couples in the world, they would be like this—if one was gone, the other couldn’t live?

Who would have thought that even in their youth, it was already so?

His floating life had six records after all: recording childhood to know the world’s initial truth; recording faith to know the openness of being human that never changes; recording suffering, to record bits of kindness, to record preventing others from suffering as he had; recording one woman, understanding true love only after anxiety and loss; recording children to know that though being children has its difficulties, being parents is also being this world’s kindest people; recording birth to understand the preciousness of blood ties, not just because of me, but because of you.

The final record, stumbling to understand bits of conjugal affection, sadness, fear, and shadows following like a shadow from who knows which year, but when people are born crying as infants they already understand this life is for suffering and hardship, no one is exempt, but what most needs to be understood is that there is an equally matched woman who, when great difficulties come, stands with him on the branch waiting for death or another beginning.