Piles of dung. How romantic. LOL. Gui Xiao is indeed doing very well, isn't she?

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Gui Xiao silently deliberated over everything a few times, but ultimately she still decided to speak plainly. Ever since they were young, the way she and Lu Yanchen interacted was very direct, and whatever needed to be said would be said. "What did my dad say to you?"

Lu Yanchen had the cigarette clamped between his teeth, and it was a long while before two words came forth from him. "Forgot already."

"I'm asking you seriously."

By the moonlight, he looked at her neatly-trimmed, oval fingernails, a smile at the edge of his lips as he pulled back down his foot that had been resting on the fence railing. Unable to see his face, Gui Xiao felt a slight sense of panic in her heart, and with her hands, she turned his face towards her.

Her action was too abrupt. The plume of cigarette smoke that Lu Yanchen had not had a chance to blow out all landed on her face now.

For a moment, Gui Xiao choked on the pungent smoke and was unable to produce a word. Lu Yanchen watched her with lifted brows, a languid smile on his face. Tossing onto the snow-covered ground the half a cigarette he had been holding, he pressed her against his chest with one hand.

In this pitch-dark place that had not even the slightest speck of lighting but still could roughly be made out to be a horse shed, the two of them silently embraced, nestling together for quite some time.

Gui Xiao also slid her arms around him. The warmth she exhaled all poured in through the gap at his neckline, gentle and also carrying a moist heat.

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Bringing his head down against her ear, Lu Yanchen gave a sigh before remarking, "There's a stench of goat."

Embarra.s.sment rushed up in Gui Xiao, and she gave him a shove.

Far away, that good, kind comrade-in-arms, who had waited long and fruitlessly for these two people's return and hence had braved an all-new round of wind and snow to come out to find them, just happened to catch this never-before-seen scene of Lu Yanchen teasing his wife. Truly, it was like seeing the ninth wonder of the world. He gave a "whoooa," utterly gleeful. " 'Even a hero cannot resist the charms of a beauty', eh. Commander Lu, I can say my eyes have been opened today. But, Commander Lu, you're here joking around and playing with Sister-In-Law right by my family's heaps of frozen cow dung. You're sure not scared of not treating Sister-In-Law well enough."

Gui Xiao snuck a glimpse. Ah, so those hastily covered-up piles and piles of stuff on the inside of the fence beside them were cow manure.

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At night, when they were back inside the little ger that they slept in, Lu Yanchen specially added a lot of coal into the metal stove so that the fire burned quite a bit more intensely than the previous night. After he had turned off the lights, he grazed against Gui Xiao's half-bare arm beneath the covers. Gui Xiao's breathing was extremely light, but it teased at him until he felt as if he had plunged into a dense fog. He closed his eyes and, in total darkness, forced his mind to clear.

"I looked through your duffel just now…" Gui Xiao asked in a small voice, "How come you're so good at lying?"

"What did I lie to you about?" He placed kiss after kiss on her ear, then used his lips to caress over it, his actions containing that type of tenderness that occurs when two people brush over and over against each other in intimacy.

"You know in your heart."

He admitted to having deceived her about one thing for more than ten years.

Gui Xiao's heart sank heavily, thinking it might have something to do with his family.

Completely outside of her expectations, though, he continued, "I was actually a lefty when I was a kid. Later on, when I started school, I was forced to change that. Only my family knows about this."

Lefty? A knot formed in Gui Xiao's train of thought. She paused for a long time before her mind finally caught up, and then she understood. Incredulous, she shoved him away and glowered at him, while he chuckled there quietly. "I said it before! How could someone use only his left hand and still beat me? …"

The answer was finally revealed more than ten years later: Lu Yanchen was just a downright scoundrel and cheat! So devious…

Gui Xiao could not hold back from giving him a fierce kick under the quilt. Rolling over so that she was on top of him, she hammered him with her fists and bit him. Of course, they wound up in each other's arms again, pressed tightly and rolling together on the bed. Once again, they were caught in that state of wanting to do it but not actually doing it. Both their bodies ended up becoming entirely hot and damp, and they tossed and turned, utterly unable to fall into a peaceful sleep. Gui Xiao stuck her leg outside of the quilt, wanting to cool off. In the darkness of the night, the appearance of that segment of long, slender leg was awfully glaring on his eyes.

The double impact coming from the physical and visual stimulation caused the alcohol that he had consumed through the whole evening to become like a downward-rus.h.i.+ng landslide.

The things they had done last night were still vivid in his mind.

He could even still remember the sticky-slick feeling of Gui Xiao's perspiration in his palms.

Here, in this drunken state, the woman he loved so deeply was in his arms. With this sort of thing, once you close your eyes, there really is nothing that cannot be done. But, he simply could not make that move. The girl's dad had just listed out your several great offenses, his att.i.tude like he wished he could dig up every last trivial and petty thing that you've done in these ten-plus years while you were in the military. And he had very explicitly expressed his strong opposition: You're just a toad[1] who was born and raised in a village in the remote outskirts of Beijing munic.i.p.ality, and whose family and all the relations.h.i.+ps in it are a mess. Don't even think about going through someone's daughter to try to find some sort of high-paying job with good benefits and then change your life.

But at the end, as soon as you turn around and hang up the phone, you go off and head straight to enjoy bed pleasures with his daughter—this was something he just couldn't do.

At least, at this moment, he could not do it.

Lu Yanchen's eyes were cast very low, gazing at Gui Xiao in this room that was without light. After looking at her for a while, he flipped over, got off the bed, and, once more, went outside.

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The following day, they left this little vacation village and went to a cemetery.

Lu Yanchen's comrade led the way until they found quite an ordinary grave plot. While Gui Xiao was reading the name on the tombstone, Lu Yanchen ran his fingers over the strokes of the sunken, etched writing.

"Do we need to find someone to repaint the characters?" Gui Xiao asked in a soft voice.

Lu Yanchen shook his head, giving a smile.

For those who have died for their country, there shall naturally be a place on the great, vast gra.s.slands where their loyal spirits will go. This place, here, was merely a formality.

"He was… your comrade-in-arms?"

"One of those in the first group of new recruits that I ever trained."

"How did he die?"

Lu Yanchen shook his head another time, not wanting to talk too much about someone who had pa.s.sed on already.

Gui Xiao did not continue asking either. She was actually quite afraid of hearing a hero's story that can move you to tears and praises. Behind every person who has become a hero, there are always blood and tears, and therefore, of course, the less these types of stories occurred, the better. Lu Yanchen seemed to see into her thoughts. The basic understanding that people had of them was that they had to die by real weapons and real fighting before they were heroes.

Lu Yanchen's comrade began ramblingly recounting, "He was from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area, an orphan. He came to our place, here, first and then later went to Tibet. Up on the Tibetan Plateau, it actually is really damaging to the body, especially in high-intensity training. It wasn't long before his situation became grave and they weren't able to save him. Before he died, he said he wanted to be buried on the steppe, so Commander Lu used his own money and bought a burial plot. At the time, it happened to coincide with my discharge from service, so I helped bring his ashes back to some place near my home. That way it would be easy for me to look after the site, too." Lu Yanchen's old comrade sighed. "Sister-In-Law, let me tell you, quite a few of the ones who come back down from the Tibetan Plateau suffer damage to their heart and lungs. When all is said and done, those who weren't born and bred there just can't handle it."

Gui Xiao understood now. She recalled how, just after graduating from university, she had gone to Tibet and chatted with a taxi cab driver there. The driver had said that he, too, was from the mainland and had come here to make money, but would not be staying long; otherwise, it really would not be good for the heart and lungs.

No wonder Lu Yanchen had taken the roundabout route and come through Xilinhot.

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Now that he had come and had a look at this comrade, Lu Yanchen's mind felt settled. After leaving the cemetery, he said some parting words to that former comrade-in-arms. Gui Xiao, quite at ease, ran over to talk to the cemetery keeper about topics ranging from the cemetery to the funeral services industry of the steppes, chatting away to the point that the other party was rather dazed and dumbstruck.

Before getting into their vehicle, Lu Yanchen dug out his wallet, intending on pulling out money to settle the cost of staying at the vacation village.

His old comrade-in-arms absolutely refused to take the money from him and even circled around the vehicle to evade him. Finally, unable to handle Lu Yanchen, he clung to the door of the front pa.s.senger side and cried loudly, "Sister-In-Law, Sister-In-Law, just look. Isn't Commander Lu just tacky? I have way more money than him, all right?" He even yanked up his sleeve to show Gui Xiao his watch.

Gui Xiao did indeed recognize it; it was a Jaeger-LeCoultre. This was the first time she discovered that someone could flaunt their wealth so adorably and directly. Laughing incessantly, she eventually nodded in agreement. "You guys do have money. 'Sheep, coal, earth, gas[2],' you have them all. The last time I came, I was even sighing over how high the prices of things are."

"That's more like it." That comrade-in-arms blew out a long breath, declaring, "To be brothers is something that's just for this lifetime; there's no next life. Don't make everything so tacky. I so wished that you could stay here at my place for your whole life. Of course, that was before, when I thought you'd be a poor bachelor all the way to the end. I don't have those thoughts anymore."

The other party simply would not take the money, no matter what, saying only that they could view this as his cash gift to them for their wedding.

This sentence quite pleased Lu Yanchen. Smiling slightly, he patted the young man on the shoulder and, with that, bade him farewell.

As Lu Yanchen fastened his seat belt, he asked her, "What were you and the cemetery keeper talking about?"

"I wanted to find out more about the funeral services industry here."

Lu Yanchen threw a glance at her. If his memory served him correctly, the last time Xiao Cai introduced Gui Xiao, she had said that Gui Xiao could be considered their "colleague." Xiao Cai's business was in machinery, specifically toothed roll crushers. Last time, Xiao Cai had gone to Erenhot because there had been a batch of goods that needed to be delivered out of the country. It had been their company's first business deal, and concerned about it, Gui Xiao had personally gone along for the delivery.

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Gui Xiao smiled, unwinding her scarf from around her. "I do investing. What that is is just, every day, helping my bosses look around everywhere to see how they can spend their money. Last year, a funeral services company that one of the bosses invested in went public. I happened to think of that just earlier, so I wanted to understand how things work here and the situation."

The constant mode of her company was that the big boss was never around. The little boss was Gui Xiao's supervisor who had mentored and trained her in the consulting company that she had been in when she first started working. The little boss had personally brought Gui Xiao over to this current company, and hence thought very highly of her. Later, Gui Xiao had demonstrated high work performance and achievements and was rewarded by the big boss, so she had had the opportunity to buy at original issue some shares of a company that had been about to go public.

After careful consideration, she had left half the shares for herself and then transferred the rest to a university schoolmate who had still been in a business start-up phase. The stipulation of the transfer had been that, in the future, for any project that this schoolmate was involved in, she had the right to choose whether or not she would partic.i.p.ate and invest in it. At the time, that university schoolmate had been incredibly poor and had not been able to see any prospect for the future, so given this sudden opportunity to have original issue shares transferred to him, he of course had agreed.

Three years later, when the lock-up period came to an end, Gui Xiao made quite a bit from selling her shares. That schoolmate was also flouris.h.i.+ng in his business and had time and again made money for her. Furthermore, based on how this schoolmate's business was growing and developing, he most certainly was going to continue providing her with a steady, unending stream of money…

Hence, she actually had two sources of income, and life was relatively easier for her.

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After listening to her give this general overview, Lu Yanchen smiled.

He thought of that day.

On the day he last saw her prior to his departure to the military, she had turned around and, in the wind, cycled away.

Her pink bicycle had swerved and swayed as she rode it, looking as if it would topple over at any time, and her arm had come up again and again to her face. He had not even needed to think to know that she was wiping away tears. Stepping one foot up onto the curb, he had smoked his cigarette while staring after her backside until he truly could not see anything anymore. Then, following the edge of the road, he had gone looking for a bus stop sign. To his surprise, all the names of the stops had been unfamiliar to him. As he looked over them one by one, there had been a sense in him that he and Gui Xiao lived in two completely different worlds.

Now, in this moment, it was the same. Two worlds.

That place where she lived her life was the world he had steadfastly guarded and defended for this past decade and more, but did not really understand.

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With her left shoulder leaning against the back of the seat Gui Xiao gazed at the man who was driving.

As she faced the scenery beyond the window, there was actually a feeling in her, like "So vast are the skies, beneath which the boundless gra.s.sland lies, and as the wind blows and the gra.s.s bends low, Lu Chen emerges before the eyes.[3]"

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The first part of this road trip to Erenhot went very smoothly.

Later, when the sky had grown dark, one of their vehicle's tires blew.

Lu Yanchen pulled the vehicle to a stop by the side of the road and turned on the hazard lights. When he rifled through the back trunk, however, he found no reflective warning triangles.

"Do you have an umbrella?"

"Yes."

"Is it a bright colour?"

"Mm… dark red."

From the luggage-loaded trunk, she dug out a small bag of hers and took out an umbrella for him. Lu Yanchen was actually very pleased with her umbrella's deep red colour. Opening it and setting it down in a spot 150 metres away from the back of the car, he switched on the flashlight function of his mobile phone and placed the phone under the umbrella, creating a makes.h.i.+ft warning sign from this set-up. Then piling their baggage onto the roadside, he grabbed out a tire wrench and jack and also a new tire. Calmly and unhurriedly, he began changing the tire.

For whatever he did, Gui Xiao would be beside him, observing him fixedly.

When he was bent at the waist changing out the tire, she even crouched down, her legs bent and her arms crossed and resting on her knees, and leaned in close to look at him. She watched as Lu Yanchen lined up the spare tire with the hub and wheel bolts, placed one foot against the side of the tire, near the bottom, and began tightening on the lug nuts.

"Is it some sort of special trick to step on it with your foot?"

Lu Yanchen gave a smile, not answering her.

"Tell me." A spirit of learning was very much in Gui Xiao. "Even though my car's tires are run-flat ones, if in the future I happen to come across some that aren't run-flat, it'll be good because I'll know how to change them myself."

Sliding a sideways glance at her, Lu Yanchen lowered the jack and, in a crisscross order, completely tightened each of the lug nuts before waggling the wrench in his hand and squatting as well. "You don't need to learn how to do it."

The moonlight that shone down on them made their shadows indistinct, like there was a small, faint blotch of ink at both of their feet.

Gui Xiao s.h.i.+fted a couple of steps and leaned her body forward slightly. Lu Yanchen, who was still taller than her by quite a bit even when crouching, could very clearly tell what she was itching to do. The lines of the corner of his lips softened even more, and he gave a silent chuckle. "What are you doing?"

Her voice soft, Gui Xiao proposed, "One kiss."

Lu Yanchen did not move.

Such a fake puritan. Sulkily, Gui Xiao stretched out her hand and gave him a light shove. She had obviously not used much strength, but Lu Yanchen went along with the momentum and let himself topple backwards. The instant he sat onto the ground, he did not so much as pause, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her onto himself.

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It was utterly with a pouncing motion that Gui Xiao fell into his shoulder. But the moment immediately before her right knee slammed onto the road surface, his palm was there, firmly cus.h.i.+oning it. After he had finished dampening the force of the fall, he pulled that hand back and circled it around her waist.

This position…

Here, in broad daylight—wait, no—here, on this dark and windy night, she was kneeling straddled over his waist… Ah, forget it. Even if a car just so happened to come in their direction, no one here knew them anyway. Gui Xiao set her chin lightly onto his shoulder and stared out into the distance at the boundless darkness, feeling that simply holding one another like this was actually quite nice.

Both in front of and behind them, there were no cars, no buildings, and no artificial sources of light.

All around, it was so quiet that there was only the sound of the wind.

There was a very light click. Then a few seconds later, it was heard again. He had not pulled out a cigarette, but he was playing with his lighter, while also casually quietly singing couple lines of lyrics. It really was only a couple of lines. The pitches of the notes were not distinct, and the lyrics could not be heard clearly. But Gui Xiao could discern that the song he sang was "Cinderella."

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[1] 癩蛤蟆 "lai ha ma." There is a Chinese saying 癩蛤蟆想吃天鵝肉 "a toad wis.h.i.+ng to eat swan meat." It is used to describe a person who has foolish and unrealistic desires, aspiring to attain something he is not even worthy of (especially a woman of higher social standing). Therefore, calling someone a toad implies that he is such a person.

[2] 羊煤土氣 "yang mei tu qi." The four main natural resources of Inner Mongolia: sheep and goats (or animal husbandry, in general), coal, rare-earth metals, and natural gas.

[3] Gui Xiao is actually quoting in her mind lines from the poem 《敕勒歌》. The English translation used here is modified from Xu Yuancong's translation, t.i.tled The Shepherd Song. Xu Yuanchong's translation of the original lines is "The boundless gra.s.sland lies beneath the boundless skies. When the wind blows and the gra.s.s bends low, my sheep and cattle will emerge before your eyes." Gui Xiao's version replaces "Lu Chen" for the sheep and cattle.

This story was translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only. All forms of reproduction, redistribution, or re-posting are not authorized. If you are not reading this from hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com, the copy is unauthorized and has been taken without consent of the translator.

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