Chapter 76: A Heartfelt Confession
Zhou Lian pouted. "Of course I’d be angry. You’re my man. If you were flirting around with other women, I’d kill you."
"Then would you be sad? If I still treated you just as well, but was just getting tangled up with another woman, would you be sad?" Li Xiu slowly guided Zhou Lian to think about it.
"Of course I’d be upset. But I’d kill you first," Zhou Lian said without a second thought, her eyes wide.
Li Xiu suddenly pulled Zhou Lian into a tight hug and burst out laughing. ’My wife wants to kill me over this. I don’t think it’s just possessiveness because I’m her man. She loves me, too, she just doesn’t know it yet. Right, my Bao’er may have lived a few extra decades compared to others, but I’m the only man she’s ever had in two lifetimes. In her last life, before she even had a chance to know what love was, I foolishly ruined it. This time... she probably came back with me.’
Zhou Lian was starting to get it, too. She wasn’t very clear on all this lovey-dovey stuff, but seeing his reaction, she understood that she had probably fallen in love with him and just hadn’t realized it yet. Getting a little angry from embarrassment, she pushed at him and said, "Stop laughing! If you wake up our daughter, I’ll deal with you!"
"Okay, okay, okay, I’ll stop laughing," Li Xiu said, soothing her softly. But the body holding Zhou Lian tight was trembling violently with excitement.
Feeling his wife start to punch him out of embarrassment, Li Xiu didn’t dare get too carried away, afraid she would get truly angry.
"Bao’er, say it for me, won’t you?" Li Xiu said gently, stroking Zhou Lian’s hair.
"Say what?" Zhou Lian asked, looking at him in confusion. ’How am I supposed to know what he wants to hear when he says something so out of the blue?’
"Say ’I love you’!" Li Xiu said, staring seriously into Zhou Lian’s eyes.
Zhou Lian gave him a casual glance and said lightly, "You love me. I know. Now let’s sleep, I’m tired." With that, she closed her eyes and buried her head in Li Xiu’s chest.
Li Xiu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he looked at his wife playing dumb. "Bao’er, have you forgotten? It’s New Year’s Eve. We’re supposed to stay up."
Zhou Lian shot up from his embrace. "I forgot! Right, you have to go out tomorrow to make New Year’s visits. What about our house? Is anyone coming here to visit?"
Li Xiu pulled her back into his arms, covered her with the blanket, and looked at her with a half-smile. "Yes, but they won’t come until the second day of the New Year. On the first day, they’ll just be starting their rounds. On the second, those younger than me and the junior generation will come by. Don’t worry. I’ll make my rounds on the first day, but I’ll be home on the second."
"What about the third day? Are we still going to my mom’s place? My sister always goes back on the third day, but my mom said I don’t have to go back this year," Zhou Lian said after a moment’s thought. ’Li Xiu is being so intense right now. I feel like if I don’t say something, the atmosphere will get weird.’
"The third day... It’s fine. I’ll just go in the morning and be back quickly. Don’t worry. You just got married this year, so it wouldn’t look good not to go. But you’re still in your postpartum confinement, so I’ll go see your parents for you." At the mention of this, Li Xiu became much more serious.
Zhou Lian breathed a silent sigh of relief. ’He’s finally back to normal.’ A moment ago, she’d found Li Xiu’s intensity terrifying, as if he wanted to swallow her whole. But she hadn’t noticed the madness in his eyes as he looked at her.
"Bao’er, I’m going to wake Nuonuo up. You hold her. We’re about to set off firecrackers, and we can’t let her get scared. We can’t skimp on the firecrackers tonight," Li Xiu said, checking the time. ’It’s almost midnight. I need to set off the firecrackers, lay down the ’door-blocking sticks,’ burn paper money, and scatter sesame stalks and bean pod vines.’
Zhou Lian stood by the window holding her daughter, watching Li Xiu busy himself in the courtyard, but her mind had drifted far away.
’In my last life, I also stood at the window holding our daughter, watching Li Xiu work. But back then, our daughter was thin and frail. I was just out of my postpartum confinement and my body was too weak. We only had a three-room thatched hut. On New Year’s Eve, I held our daughter and shivered from the cold. In the dead of night, the three of us lay on a freezing bed as Li Xiu promised he would give me and our child a good life. But not two years later, just as life was starting to get better, one slap from Li Xiu drove us further and further apart, leaving us as a couple in name only.’
’In my last life, I never accepted Li Xiu, right up to my death. I even told my daughter and son in private that when I died, I was absolutely not to be buried with Li Xiu or interred in the Li family’s ancestral tomb.’
’But knowing Li Xiu’s madness, unless he died with me, he would never let our children carry out my wishes. Given his ways, he probably wouldn’t let go even in death.’
Zhou Lian didn’t know that she had unintentionally guessed the truth. In her last life, that’s exactly what happened. Li Xiu didn’t let go even in death. On the very day Zhou Lian closed her eyes for the last time, he had sent their son and daughter away. When they rushed to the hospital early the next morning, they saw their father holding their mother tightly, a peaceful smile on his face as he, too, had passed on. The children held back their grief and prepared to change their parents’ clothes, but they couldn’t separate them.
Their mother lay peacefully on the hospital bed, while their father’s large frame was on its side, holding their mother’s small body in a tight embrace. Helpless, Li Xianglin and Li Xiangrui called a doctor for help, but the doctor said there was nothing to be done unless they used brute force, which would break their father’s arms and legs. He had been dead for too long—more than ten hours. Li Xianglin and Li Xiangrui were stunned. This meant that only an hour or two after their father had sent them away, he, who had been perfectly healthy, had followed their mother in death.
Unable to bear separating their parents, and with even the doctors and nurses urging them with soft hearts to just leave them be, Li Xianglin and Li Xiangrui, holding back their sorrow, had their parents cremated together. Their ashes were mixed, truly fulfilling Li Xiu’s vow: "To share a bed in life and a tomb in death."
The Zhou Lian of today didn’t know that in both lifetimes, Li Xiu had followed her in death within two or three hours.
The CRACKLE-POP of firecrackers startled Zhou Lian from her distant thoughts. The daughter in her arms stared at her with wide, clear eyes. Hugging her daughter tighter, Zhou Lian smiled gently. ’Let this life be like this. A man who loves me with his life, two filial and well-behaved children... I’ll have no regrets. Li Xiu can give me a life of peace and quiet.’
Around one in the morning, Li Xiu finished his tasks and returned to the room. He saw Zhou Lian standing by the window, holding their daughter. The warm smile on her face made Li Xiu feel as if, in that moment, he could hear the sound of flowers blooming.
He walked to the window and pulled the mother-daughter pair into his arms as if he were holding the entire world. He kissed his daughter’s cheek, then his wife’s, and said with a beaming smile, "Bao’er, go lie down on the kang. The floor is cold, don’t catch a chill."
With that, he picked up his wife and the daughter in her arms, placing them both on the kang. He changed their daughter’s diaper and patted her gently until she fell asleep a short while later. Looking at his daughter’s sleeping face, Li Xiu’s heart felt warm. He gave her a tender kiss and tucked her in.
Watching Li Xiu care for their daughter with such tenderness, Zhou Lian couldn’t help but smile silently. ’In our last life, Li Xiu doted on the children, especially our daughter. Even after she grew up and got married, whatever she said, went. It got to the point where my son-in-law would always complain to me that no matter how much he doted on his wife, he could never match how much her father doted on her.’
In truth, Zhou Lian didn’t know that a part of the reason was her. Their daughter looked too much like Zhou Lian. Faced with a daughter who bore a sixty to seventy percent resemblance to his wife, Li Xiu was simply incapable of saying the word "no."