“I roughly understand what you’re saying.”
In the private room, Lu Youling held the teacup with both hands and took a sip of tea. He felt the slightly bitter mellow fragrance of the tea leaves and the heat of the tea, then looked at his own hands. “Everything this real, this flesh-and-blood, is actually only a projection?”
Unbelievable.
Lu Youling, who had been a doctor for a lifetime, sighed with emotion.
But Lu Youling had an innate advantage: in his own world, he was also a transmigrator, and he also had the spiritual spring cheat.
Even transmigration existed. Thinking carefully, nothing was impossible.
It was just…
Lu Youling looked at Gong Ze. “You’re now telling me that my true self is actually a soul fragment. This is like when you grow up and your parents suddenly call you into the room and then, complexly and sorrowfully, tell you that you were actually adopted and not their biological child. It makes it a little hard for me to accept.”
I’ve lived this long and only now you say it.
Something long taken for granted instantly underwent a world-turning reversal.
Lu Youling smiled bitterly. “I really need to process it.”
And Lu Youling was the first person Gong Ze had shared life with, grown old with, maintained married life with for about sixty years.
In front of Lu Youling, the ever-rational temperament on Gong Ze relaxed a lot.
Like a person who schemed and battled outside coming home, changing into slightly tacky cotton house clothes, stepping into slippers, and leaning into the sofa, becoming ordinary.
Hearing him say this, Gong Ze even smiled and teased: “I should be glad I didn’t meet you in your twenties, or thirties.”
Lu Youling tacitly smiled along. “In my twenties I would definitely agonize over whether you really loved me, refuse to fuse, and have a big fight with you.”
Gong Ze: “In your thirties you would be heartbroken, then turn your back and ignore me while shedding tears and imagining a million-word tragic substitute-lover novel script.”
Lu Youling, both annoyed and amused, affectionately punched Gong Ze’s arm. “Get out!”
“Do I have that emotional?”
“More than emotional.” Gong Ze’s voice teased. “I even suspected when you were thirty that Lin Daiyu possessed you. Every day you scolded me for being an uncomprehending scumbag.”
Lu Youling angrily came over to twist Gong Ze’s ear.
Gong Ze did not even dodge.
“Wrong or not.”
“Wrong.”
“Convinced or not!”
“Convinced.”
From the corner of his eye, Gong Ze deeply traced Lu Youling’s appearance. His tone was soft. “I’m convinced by no one, only by you.”
Lu Youling’s face instantly flushed red. He wanted to slap Gong Ze’s back, but seeing the longing in Gong Ze’s eyes, his hand changed mid-motion to cup Gong Ze’s cheek.
The soft coolness under his hand made him unable to resist rubbing it again.
The two fell silent. A faint warmth and a heavy feeling that needed no words spread out.
After a moment Lu Youling suddenly said: “You’ve gotten thinner.”
After saying this, his eye rims suddenly reddened. His voice became choked. The smile on his face turned into something suppressed. Holding back tears twisted his refined face.
“I’m not afraid of fusion. I just can’t let you go.”
Can’t bear to.
A lifelong spouse—how could he bear to let go?
Lu Youling’s throat ached. “When we were together, it was always you accommodating me and taking care of me. I was often willful. When I couldn’t handle work, I dragged you into enduring pressure with me.”
Tears pattered down. Gong Ze, equally uncomfortable, sighed. He was sitting, Lu Youling standing. Gong Ze looked up, one hand pulling Lu Youling’s waist closer to himself, the other raising to wipe his tears.
“Don’t cry, okay… In this lifetime with you, I was not wronged.”
“Really.”
Gong Ze smiled. His fingers picked away one salty tear after another from Lu Youling’s face. After wiping, looking at Lu Youling’s twisted, red-faced appearance from holding it in and desperately inhaling, his thumb rubbed Lu Youling’s cheek and he coaxed softly.
“It wasn’t easy to meet once. Smile a little, hm? Look, crying has made your face distorted and ugly.”
Lu Youling hugged Gong Ze’s head, bent over, and wailed loudly.
Gong Ze’s face pressed against his chest. He closed his eyes, hand gently patting Lu Youling’s back, and let out a long, slow breath.
“Don’t cry…”
If you cry more, I’ll cry too.
“Our time together only made me feel happy.”
“You taught me that love is not only the blazing passion and sweet fulfillment of youth.”
When he was young, he always wondered why fairy tales like Snow White and Cinderella ended only with the prince and princess living happily together.
Why was there no description of their life after marriage?
Only later did Gong Ze finally understand.
Although love and marriage complement each other, they are not the same thing.
Plain, mild daily life, the life of firewood, rice, oil, and salt, repeated conversations every day, and the figure one subconsciously seeks to rely on when encountering setbacks.
None of them were as intense as the blazing “love even unto death,” yet every one of them was happiness.
No matter how passionate, in the end it would tire. But no matter how far a person walked, they would return to the harbor that was their own home.
“Even if it isn’t perfect or fairy-tale-like, the house that has you is my home…”
Gong Ze hugged the sobbing person. His chest sank heavily downward, sinking into solid, firm ground. He curved his lips and said softly: “Youling, thank you.”
“…”
Lu Youling squeezed his eyes shut. Tears flowed ceaselessly from his eyelashes. He cried until his face was red, hugged Gong Ze tight, and nodded hard. “Me too…”
I like you most in this world.
“You absolutely must not forget me! Absolutely!”
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