Grandpa Huo looked towards the doorway, searching for a while but not seeing Wen Ci. He asked, puzzled, “Where’s A-Ci? Why are you alone?”
“She’s still sleeping.”
After saying this, Huo Jingyuan felt his tone and implication might be misinterpreted, so he explained, “Last night, A-Ci suggested I stay in Hangzhou a few more days to keep you company. So she only just fell asleep not long ago.”
As people who had been through it all, the two elders understood the meaning behind Huo Jingyuan’s words, “only just fell asleep not long ago.”
Grandma Liu shot him a disapproving look and scolded, “Your grandfather and I may be looking forward to you having a baby, but we didn’t mean for you to be so impatient.”
As she spoke, she called out loudly to the housekeeper, Auntie Li, in the kitchen, “Xiao Li, stew some chicken soup for lunch. Make sure the young mistress gets a good nourishing meal.”
“No need, our flight is at eleven.”
Hearing this, Grandma Liu looked at Huo Jingyuan with utter disdain, enunciating each word as she criticized him, “Huo Jingyuan, you’re really something else. A-Ci has a flight at eleven, and you kept her up until daybreak?”
“Exactly,” Grandpa Huo chimed in.
“It’s not like that…”
Huo Jingyuan massaged his forehead. Even with ten mouths, he couldn’t explain this clearly. Originally, he had only intended for once, but Wen Ci herself had agreed.
“Add some goji berries to the soup. You can have some too on the way to taking A-Ci.” After a pause, Grandma Liu asked, “How many more days are you planning to stay in Hangzhou?”
“Three or four days.”
Any longer, and he wouldn’t be able to handle the… abstinence himself.
“Good, good, good.”
After breakfast, Grandma Liu went to the kitchen to check on the soup. Huo Jingyuan went to the study to make a cup of coffee. Even as the “plowing ox,” he was tired too.
He was pushing through to take his wife to the airport later.
…
9:30 AM.
Huo Jingyuan returned to the room to find Wen Ci still sound asleep. He covered her eyes with the silk quilt and, moving extremely gently, picked her up in a princess carry.
As Su Wanqing passed through the courtyard, she saw Huo Jingyuan carrying Wen Ci in his arms. A sour feeling welled up in her heart, her eyes filled with envy and bitterness.
She clenched her fists. She should have listened to her friends back then, before Huo Jingyuan returned to China. She should have drugged him and cooked the rice—made it a done deal.
That way, even living in separate countries, a man like Huo Jingyuan would have taken responsibility to the end. It was a pity; she had just turned eighteen at the time.
She hadn’t had the courage to drug him.
…
An hour later, Wen Ci slowly opened her eyes. Her head was resting on Huo Jingyuan’s sturdy thigh, and a thin blanket covered her.
“Awake?” Huo Jingyuan said softly.
He had maintained this position without moving for an hour. That wasn’t the main issue; the key point was that his wife moved occasionally in her sleep.
His thigh was so close to… there.
With her head on his thigh, every little shift she made tightened his nerves. Occasionally, he even had to “adjust the trajectory” to avoid… poking her and disturbing her rest.
Wen Ci sat up, stretched, hugged Huo Jingyuan’s arm, looked out the window, and asked, “Where are we?”
“Young Madam, we’re almost at the airport,” the driver replied.
Wen Ci rubbed her eyes and glanced sideways at the dark circles under Huo Jingyuan’s eyes. He looked utterly exhausted. “Didn’t you get any sleep?”
“I didn’t sleep.”
As he spoke, Huo Jingyuan took out a thermal container. His voice was gentle. “Are you hungry? Do you want some chicken soup now, or would you rather have it on the plane?”
Flights in the 1980s did provide meals.
They were at the standard of state-run canteens.
“Why didn’t you sleep?”
Wen Ci looked at him sternly.
Last night, most of the effort had come from Huo Jingyuan. He had worked harder than she had. Her whole body ached, as if she’d been run over by a cart.
While Huo Jingyuan might not feel that exaggerated…
He was definitely in a state of fatigue too.
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