Chapter 2 (1/2)
Chapter 2
【3】
After Mr. Chen and Mrs. Cheng finished watching a movie that weekend, they came out of the theater and met a man. Though Cheng Yiran felt momentarily embarra.s.sed, Chen Youlin was suddenly fired with with fighting spirit. He curved his eyes into a smile and politely offered a hand.
“Mr. Yi, long time no see.”
Yi Nan[1] was Cheng Yiran’s boyfriend of three years from college. Back then, Miss Cheng held deep feelings towards this man, deep enough that Mr. Chen still felt uneasy and threatened even now.
Yi Nan politely shook hands with Chen Youlin before exchanging some common courtesies with Cheng Yiran. Afterwards, he bade his leave. Mrs. Cheng turned slightly back and she traced the minute form of Yi Nan’s figure, before turning around to face Mr. Chen’s probing eyes.
“What?”
“Whoever told me to kneel on a washboard last time should kneel as well when we get back!”
Mrs. Cheng stuck up two fingers. “You made two mistakes with your words. First, you were the one who bought the washboard last time to kneel on it yourself; second, can you really bear to have me kneel?”
Mr. Chen gave her a few huffy glares, only to see her expression turn smug. He resisted his temper with great difficulty as they went off to dinner.
After they sat down in the restaurant, Mrs. Cheng ordered beefsteak, inciting Mr. Chen to comment. “In the past, you never liked eating beefsteak from this restaurant. What’s the occasion today?”
Mrs. Cheng gave him a strange look. “I just had an urge to try some, is there a problem?”
“None.” Mr. Cheng stuck his head behind the menu for a while, reading its contents before suddenly speaking up. “I heard that Yi Nan really likes eating beefsteak.”
“Ah, is that so…wait a minute,” Mrs. Cheng pried away Mr. Chen’s menu with a stern look. “I say, Chen Youlin, you’ve been acting difficulty ever since then. That happened a long time ago, so why do you still care about him?”
You don’t care because you’ve never tried to steal a girl from him! These words circled the tip of Chen Youlin’s tongue before he swallowed them back down. “I don’t care, I was just bringing something up. Cheng Yiran, what’s with the big reaction?” He adopted a stern countenance as he hailed a nearby attendant. “I want a serving of vinegar pickled cabbage.”
The attendant pursed his lips. “Sir, I’m sorry, but this is a western restaurant.”
Cheng Yiran picked up the conversation. “Give him some vinegar spaghetti or vinegar beefsteak, see how sore he is.”
—
After eating their meal, Chen Youlin was on the topic of Yi Nan all the way home. He made such a racket that Cheng Yiran grew vexed and gave him the cold shoulder. “Are you secretly in love with him?! I still have his number, so why don’t you call him and confess!”
“You have his number!” Mr. Chen’s voice completely changed pitch.
Mrs. Cheng grew impatient. “That’s not the point here!”
“Of course that’s the point! My wife actually still has her ex-boyfriend’s phone number!”
“He’s just never bothered to change it, I was too lazy to delete him.”
Chen Youlin clutched his head as if the sky was about to collapse. “It’s over, over! The first crisis of our marriage has the wife challenging the husband to a never-before-seen battle! I have to be calm be steady be brave against my foe, my wife belongs to me, my wife belongs to me, my wife belongs to me…”
The veins on Cheng Yiran’s forehead twitched as she rolled her eyes at him and turned to leave. Mr. Chen was quick to give chase. “Are you running away from your crimes?”
“Chen Youlin, have you had enough yet? If you keep talking about this topic, I’ll get angry. Once I’m mad, I won’t let you take a step into the bedroom.”
Mr. Chen moved his lips before finally swallowing his words. He took two silent steps forward before a weak voice reached Mrs. Cheng’s ears. “You have his number, but you’ve never contacted him, right?”
Mrs. Cheng’s footsteps paused.
“You haven’t contacted him, right?”
“You’re not allowed in the bedroom tonight!”
【4】
Mr. Chen stood stiffly outside the door. He wasn’t willing to apologize, so all he did was shout. “How long are you going to stay angry?” His tone wasn’t threatening at all, but filled with grievances and feigned courage.
Mrs. Cheng was currently in the middle of her bad temper. She didn’t even want to talk to him, but threw a pillow at his body. “Go scram!”
“If I scram, will you stop being angry?!” Mr. Chen huffed.
“Scram!” Mrs. Cheng was too lazy to say any more. She pulled up the cover and prepared to go to sleep, but they were suddenly dragged away. Veins popped out all over her forehead as her eyes seethed with anger. She was about to drop all formalities and have an all-out lecture when she saw Mr. Chen spread the covers on the ground and lay on top of them. Then he rolled around before sitting up angrily. “I scrammed[2]!”
Mrs. Cheng really was absolutely stunned by his move. Just when she was lost and disordered, Mr. Chen shouted again. “How many times do I have to scram before you stop being mad?!”
There was only one more pillow left on Mrs. Cheng’s bed, which she threw into Mr. Chen’s lap. “You better scram straight into the living room for me. Go fight with Meatball over the floor!”
“Then agree to stop being angry when you get up tomorrow morning!”
Mrs. Cheng stared at him wordlessly. Mr. Chen set one pillow back on the bed before dragging the covers and hugging his own pillow as he walked to the living room. He was both resentful and aggrieved, but he’d only taken a few steps before turning back. “There’s still covers in the wardrobe, you better get them out and cover yourself! Hmph! I’m not going to say anything like the night’s still chilly, or that I’ll get distressed if my wife gets sick…”
He mumbled to himself as he left, nagging like a broken record. His voice mingled with a few barks from Meatball, who seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder even as he laughed at this man…
Mrs. Cheng sighed deeply as she covered her face. How angry could she truly get against a fellow like him?!
—
After tossing and turning on the bed for over half an hour, Mrs. Cheng still couldn’t fall asleep. Finally, she put on some robes and quietly padded out. When she saw the man huddled up as a ball inside his covers on the ground, her heart softened. She knelt down and sighed. “Really, you’re a guy with no sense of self-preservation.” Afterwards, she jabbed his cheek. “Are you a dog? You always know how to act cute.”
On one side, Meatball opened his eyes and gave a soft awroo towards Mrs. Cheng, who quickly told him to hush with an index finger on her lip. Meatball calmed down, but she didn’t get to move her hand before it was tightly grabbed by Mr. Chen. His eyes were brilliant as they stared at her. “Wife, you’re feeling distressed for me, right? Let me go to sleep on the bed.”
Cheng Yiran rolled her eyes. “Didn’t we say I’ll stop being angry when I wake up tomorrow?”
Chen Youlin tugged on the corner of her clothes. “I was wrong. I’ll believe you next time.”
“Mm.”
“I won’t yell and shout at you next time, either.”
“Mm.”
“Then can I go back into the room?” Mr. Chen sighed before Mrs. Cheng could reply. “Since you won’t agree after I’ve said all that, I guess I’ll stay in the living room.”
Mrs. Cheng arched an eyebrow as she looked at him. “What do you want to do?”
Mr. Chen lips curved into a smile. With a jerk, he pulled Mrs. Cheng beneath his body. “Things with my wife.”
“Ah! Wait a…Chen Youlin, wait! Go back to the room, the bedroom ah, you jerk! Meatball…Meatball’s watching…”
“Hmph! Don’t think I’m clueless. He’s done it multiple times with others outside. If I don’t care about him, he shouldn’t care about me.”
In the end, the impatient Mr. Chen still didn’t let Mrs. Cheng go back to the bedroom. The two of them did the deed directly on the sofa. At the critical point, Mr. Chen called her name over and over again, as if the two of them were joining into a single person.
“Yiran, Yiran, I love you.”
To meet you, like you, and make love with you, to marry you and walk together through so much time, I still love you as much as when I first fell in love with you. When our hair turns white and we grow old, I’ll still love you all the same.