When the couple emerged from the bathroom, Zhan Yin looked utterly satisfied, while Haitong was infinitely shy.
Zhan Yin caught sight of his wife’s pretty face, flushed with a rosy tide, and could not resist leaning in to steal another kiss. “Wife, we’re an old married couple now, and you still blush.”
“It seems you’re very pleased with your husband’s performance.”
“Be quiet.”
Haitong lightly tapped his mouth to stop him speaking further.
She returned to the bed and sat down, gently lifted the quilt, and lay beside their daughter. Gazing at the child’s peaceful sleeping face, her eyes softened until they seemed ready to spill water.
Zhan Yin positioned himself behind her, one hand propping the bed, the other stretching across her body to rest on their daughter’s small face, giving it a gentle pinch.
Haitong immediately swatted his hand away and whispered, “If you wake her and she starts crying, you’re the one who’ll have to settle her.”
Zhan Yin smiled. “My touch was very light. How could I wake her?”
She was his precious daughter. He would never pinch hard enough to hurt her. If he left the little girl’s face red and Grandma found out, she would skin him alive.
Then, when his parents returned from Yangcheng, they would probably team up for a mixed doubles beating.
From childhood, his parents had never struck or scolded him or his brother, but now that they were grandparents, they sometimes defended the grandchildren so fiercely that they scolded him and his sixth brother without mercy.
When Mother was truly angry, she would even land a slap on his arm.
“When Beibei wants to sleep, it has to be with you. No matter how much we dote on her, Mummy is still the best.”
Zhan Yin’s tone carried a touch of jealousy.
“Of course. I carried her for ten months and gave birth to her. We’re connected by blood, and I’ve cared for her the most, so naturally Mummy is the best to her.”
She gently bent down and placed a soft kiss on her daughter.
Then she lay back, still keeping one arm around the child’s small body.
“When children are little, most of them want to cling to their mummy. Mummy’s embrace is their safe harbour.”
She thought of her own mother.
Her parents had been gone from her and her sister for more than twenty years.
Even though she and her sister now lived well, whenever Haitong thought of their parents, she was filled with countless regrets.
She regretted that they never saw the sisters succeed, never saw them live happily. She regretted that the sisters had not been able to fulfil even one day of filial duty before their parents passed away.
Every time she and her sister returned to their old home, she would think that if their parents were still alive, the sisters could come back to a house where Dad and Mum greeted them, where calling out to them brought an answer. How happy that would be.
After marrying and having children, during festivals when she saw others return to bustling parental homes, Haitong felt both envy and sorrow. She missed her parents even more.
In the past, she could still visit her sister’s house and treat it as her own parental home.
Now her sister lived long-term in Jiangcheng, her work kept her busy, and she returned far less often. Sometimes she did not even come back to Guancheng for holidays. Haitong felt she no longer had a parental home to return to.
That emotional emptiness could not be filled by her in-laws.
Even though her eldest aunt loved her like a daughter, an aunt could never replace parents.
“What’s wrong?”
Zhan Yin gently kissed her cheek. “What are you thinking about so deeply?”
“I miss my dad and mum. Now I have both son and daughter, and I live very happily. If my dad and mum were alive to see my sister and me both living so happily, how delighted they would be.”
She turned over, wrapped her arms around Zhan Yin, and said softly, “Husband, we must live well. We’ll live to eighty or ninety, watch our children grow up, marry, and build their own families.”
“Yes, we’ll live to eighty or ninety, or best of all to a hundred. Don’t worry. We both take care of ourselves and look after our health. We may not reach a hundred, but ninety is within reach. Grandma is long-lived, and we carry her longevity genes. We’ll live long too.”
