Father was thinking of Mother…
Ye Jian knew her father was thinking of her mother, but she did not try to comfort him. She closed her eyes and tilted her head to the window.
The light in the cabin was dim, and only the weak emergency light was on. After a while, Father Fu’s eyes fell on Ye Jian’s side.
His daughter’s facial features were very similar to those of his wife. Looking at his daughter, he felt as if his daughter’s face could overlap with his wife’s face, and that vaguely reminded him of his dead wife.
“Fu Yusheng, why is your name so ugly? Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, it sounds like you’re born extra. So ugly.” (TLN: Yu Sheng = the extra one)
“Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, actually your name sounds not bad, huh? Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng… It’s so easy to remember. I can remember your name right away, heh. Yu Sheng, you said you don’t come out for training every day, but sometimes I don’t see you in the morning, and I also don’t see you at night; where have you been?”
“Fu Yusheng, where have you been these past few days! I won first place last week, and I wanted to tell you, but you weren’t around when I came here. Hmph, I’m so angry now. You better come and comfort me. I will forgive you once I’m not angry.”
“Yu Sheng, will it affect our future if we fall in love like this? Our political instructor said that as soldiers, we aren’t allowed to fall in love with each other. I don’t know why but I think he was talking about us; I think he knew that I’m in love with you.”
“Oh my gosh, I was scared to death. I thought he was talking about us, but luckily it wasn’t like that. Yu Sheng, let me tell you a secret, you can’t tell others. The instructor was actually talking about a female student in the telecommunication company. She came out of a male soldier’s room in the middle of the night and so happened to be seen by the male soldier’s squad leader. Oh, how embarrassing. Luckily, if I don’t go to your dormitory, otherwise, if I get caught, I will be so ashamed, I will retire and go home and ignore you for the rest of my life.”
“Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, we will get our marriage certificate in three days. Are you excited? Are you excited? Hmph, you can’t refute even if you’re not happy! You just get ready to be the groom, you hear me! You cannot break your promise, got it?”
“Yu Sheng, I can’t sleep. Let’s go for a walk in the woods, please… Have you collected your report? We need a certificate from the army to get married. If you don’t keep it properly, or lose it, then we can’t get married!”
However, in the end, the report was not lost… but he lost his wife.
He let his beloved woman wait from dawn to dark, from the sun’s first rising to the sun setting, day after day, year after year… She waited for him to bring her and the report to get their marriage certificate.
But she didn’t manage to wait for the day. He had lost her…
Looking at Ye Jian’s side profile, Father Fu had tears in his eyes. He took out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and opened the paper with trembling fingers. The words on the paper were completely unreadable due to the dim light, but Father Fu still looked at it very carefully.
He was so familiar with the words on it that he could recite it with his eyes closed.
It was their marriage application report, and it was also the report that his deceased wife had told him to keep properly.
“Hong Mei, I have been keeping it safe.” Father Fu whispered softly, so soft that only he could hear it, “but I lost you…I lost you…”
Tears dripped drop by drop from his eyes. A few warm tears also dripped on the marriage report that Father Fu had kept for more than 20 years.
After a while, Father Fu’s soft voice floated into Ye Jian’s ears, “I lost you, but our daughter is back. I can finally see our daughter. What a wonderful child. She looks especially like you. Her voice is even a bit like yours.”
