Chapter Text
Congratulations. All said.
With a decent smile, the civil affairs staff guided her to go through the formalities. After several twists and turns, two hard-shell volumes were handed over to Qin Shi, with shiny gold-plated text. Starting today, Qin Shi registered to borrow a marriage certificate.
She recalled that the university library has many rules. With a student ID card, five volumes can be borrowed at the same time, and more for graduate students. Books must be returned to the library before the due. During the borrowing period, they must not be altered, damaged, lost. She sat beside her married partner and waited, reciting the borrowing rules as if obsessed.
Qin Shi's first borrowing record in his life is a children picture book, and the borrowing time is two hours. From when Qin Shi finished borrowing books to when his mother came to pick her up from school, Qin Shi heard the horn of the No. 102 bus thirteen times, so it took two hours in total.
That night, she drew the content of the picture book from memory, and the next day, with dark eyes, she put the "self-made book" next to the sign at the book return office. The administrator's grandmother touched her hair, and stamped a small red stamp on Qin Shi's borrowing card. When she was promoted to the fourth grade, Qin Shi worked as a social worker in the library for a summer vacation, and finally exchanged the old red badges for blue ones the day before school started.
At the age of fifteen, the librarian was replaced. Where is grandma? She inquired several times, but the adults kept silent. At that time, it was difficult for Qin Shi to understand the meaning of silence. The answer seems to be already in everyone's heart, and no one wants to tell her clearly.
As spring and autumn came, one day she naturally knew the answer. Her father, her eldest brother, and her marriage are all things that are the same as silence, and she knows they will be lost in the future.
The weather is fine today, and the decorative dolls in the Civil Affairs Bureau are shaking their heads happily. After getting the certificate, her partner murmured a series of words, Qin Shi had heard the series of voices, but did not understand any single word.
Where are you going? I'll see you off. The partner slowed down and repeated word for word. Qin Shi regained his senses and put the doll back to its original place: "Thank. And I'll show you the way to my house."
She still needs to arrange her partner, just like the upstarts in the early years usually decorate living room with an ancient paintings.
The good news is her partner maintains good hygiene habits and dressing taste, and is able to take care of three meals and daily life completely independently. If he could not, Qin Shi may have to find another house to isolate him from her daily.
Qin Shi knows little about her new family member. Occasionally, she was invited to share a plate of extra vegetables, told him that they had a trip back to the province today, and that was all.
Qin's mother is much more peaceful than before, she is no longer an embarrassing mother who beats and scolds when Qin encounters idle books. When Qin Shi went home to visit relatives, she saw her mother flipping through manga and chatting with her son-in-law about the past. Is she at peace because she came out of the pain? Qin Shi stood at the door of the room, forcing herself not to touch the casserole that was already full of cracks.
"Shi Shi." The partner turned around and waved at her.
"Hey, Yanghua is calling you." Her mother closed the manga and waved to her, too.
Qin Shi sat down beside her husband, and took a piece of red bayberry from her mother. Red stains on the fingertips, like blood under some kind of filter, making people's eyes wet. Mother smiled and said that she was too delicate to eat sour since she was a child, Qin Shi followed. Yang Hua frowned and patted her on the back, spread his hands and said, "You're going to have a stomachache this afternoon if you eat so much sour fruits."
Her stomach is sensible. If she was ten years younger and could still dismiss the medical examination report, Qin Shi would probably cry and yell. Ten years passed, she is ashamed to say the pains.
The partber were squeezed in Qin’s single bed with her, forced to exchange body temperature and breath. In order to maintain the etiquette between partners, Qin Shi tried her best to control the instinct of curling up. The husband was still woken up, unlocked the phone and asked her where the nearest night emergency center was.
Without thinking time, the lawyer's instinct allowed her to easily deduce from a few excerpts which were the best solutions to deal with such unnecessary concerns. Qin Shi threw back a reason that her husband would definitely agree to cancel the emergency trip, frankly using the fragility and tears brought by the pain:
"Don't let the hospital routine torture me any more."
The husband looked at her for a while and helped her turn over. Qin Shi fished out her long hair from his back hug, arranged it into a bundle and put it on his chest. She was able to fold her body to cover the sharp pain, and heard the husband reply in a low voice. I got it, he added, your lips were bleeding.
She lay in a small hug and recalled her childhood. When she was very young, Qin Shi often turned the book upside down into a triangle, imagining that she would lie in it and sleep in the form of Thumbelina, feeling at ease. Because the teacher said that triangle is the most stable structure.
It's too bad for cooperation etiquette, Qin Shi thought when her head was touched and wrapped around his neck.
During sleepovers at the partner’s house, he was going to be faraway from gentle. His mother was more sensitive than Qin Shi's mother. She often embraced Qin Shi's "rent a girlfriend home" that was circulated on the Internet, and earnestly advised the two that "you will be arrested for producing false certificates." Therefore, her partner sticks to Qin Shi all the time, fully performing the "Perfect Husband".
They kiss in the kitchen. Qin Shi turned her back to the living room, took the lips covered by her strange husband, and held his wrist quite naturally, just as he knew that she preferred being licked and kissed on her upper lip more than other parts.
If their height difference is not well controlled, she will be forced to raise her head and lean sideways on the opponent's arm. Usually it doesn't last too long, because people always open their mouths unconsciously when they raise their heads. For them, the tip of the tongue touches still to be a little too much. Normally, Qin Shi would receive more than ten sentences of apology afterwards.
Always, there is an accident happened. The tip of her tongue has been sucked several times, and it can't be a coincidence. Qin used his fingernails to scratch the husband's wrist as a reminder, but got a provocative deep kiss. He leaned against her left shoulder with a red neck and took a deep breath, his lip rubbing against her thin clothes. Qin Shi's waist felt weak, and his fingertips were numb from the explosion, so she also think about what she was doing with the "reminder" just now.
"Is mom gone?" She secretly cleared her throat, and passed the steps with the responsibility of elder one.
"Yep." Her husband replied hoarsely.
At night, he sneaks out to pick up the takeaway, and the astute mother knocks on the door to pull his ears. He put the unopened fried food in the air-conditioning quilt, and screwed the iced cola to find a place to hide it.
"It's dead," Qin Sh protected his uber eat and listened to him go crazy, "Ms. Qin, why do you think it's illegal for married people to have a takeaway at midnight."
"I know less about family law." She hugged the food, and her mood was getting better. Her husband was leaning against the door, staring at her and her wise head, repeating "Mayday Mayday, Ms. Qin, help me please" over and over again.
Married people go out late at night. There are golden reasons. Qin Shi raised her legs and put them into the palm of her husband. Her back was pressed against the door, and cold hands were stuck to her waist. So she tiptoed on his instep to snatch the frozen Coke, and overflowed the door with the imaginative movement.
Qin Shi didn't care so much about skin-to-skin relationship, she had thought about it since this stranger moved into her house. She is not a fanatical romanticist, and she does not look forward to the pure love in novels and movies so much. She is not picky about the circumstances in which she abandons herself and experiences the other one in depth.
The taste of soda pop remains in the mouth of the partner, the temperature of the iced drink is on the fingertips, but the palm of the hand is itchy. She acquiesced her partner put his palm on her left shoulder and pressed her towards the hottest place. He called her Qin Shi, Qin Shi, as if her name was the most beautiful love word in the worlds. Qin Shi then followed, Qin Shi, Qin Shi.
She also let him continue to lick and kiss the sensitive area after she was incoherent, prolonging her trembling almost violently, until tears accumulated a thick red line under the eye socket. What should she say, what she wants to say. Her partner brushed her cheek and taught her, Yang Hua. The wrinkled fingertips are like a book in the shape of waves during the rainy season. She repeated with his fingertips in her mouth, and repeated, Yang Hua, Yang Hua.
It turned out that Yang Hua is the name of her partner, her husband.
When she sobers up, it'll be nice to see that Yang doesn't like smoking, and has admirable consideration for his partner. Under the atmosphere, Qin Shi remembered that Yang Hua was buried in her body patiently and hesitantly explaining that he had a little habit that was not very polite, and also remembered their contract wife that kept the truth from their mother. She tugged on the fresh clothes she had changed, and lay on her side to watch Yang Hua finish the slightly cold takeaway.
Eating fat and carbohydrates in an air-conditioned room is disgusting in comparison, but at least the fried food that can destroy a mattress has not yet appeared, and opening the window to ventilate can solve the annoying problem.
They sneak out to the pharmacy. In the street corners late at night in summer, the incense of BBQ is often wafting. Accompanied by a tall man, Qin Shi pulled his wrist into the University City block on a rare occasion.
She has graduated for many years, and has long been out of the crowd; Yang Hua is still young, but because of the medicine box in his hand and Qin Shi, who can looks like a young suger mummy ten meters away, many students scrutinize him. Standing in front of the vending machine, he wrung Qin Shi's water and medicine, secretly wrinkling his nose. Qin Shi unfolded the drug instructions to confirm, and a piece of ink smelled in front of his eyes and snickered:
"How about leave a warning letter as your lawyer? "
"Take your medicine, lady."
Qin Shi put a lot of tolerance on sex. There are not many cases where she has time, energy and leisure. The days that followed have proved that in many cases, Yang Hua slipped out of bed while she was asleep and brought a scent of hand sanitizer back to the bedroom. Whether it is a coincidence or not, according to observations, Yang Hua is not keen on this event either.
"I prefer hugs," he replied, flipping through the pages of the comic book.
Reading the document made Qin’s neck hurt. She leaned on Yang Hua's lap and raised her neck, trying to smell the remaining ink of manga: "When I was young, I was very envious of my classmates who had free time to read."
"Okay, then when we get divorced, remember to ask me for half of the my property, and you can take half of my manga and novels."
Qin Shi wanted to put away the book so that she could see Yang’s eyes more clearly. But he held onto it tightly, and then covered his entire face again. Qin Shi touched Yang Hua's exposed wrist, and said with a smile: "Why are you nervous, you don't fall in love with me, right?"
"I'm afraid you'll still ask me for my little turtle. I heard you asked for a pet many times when you were a child. " Qin Shi took the opportunity to look into the balcony, thinking about the little turtle's glass tank, and was blocked by a comic books. "You can’t divide her in half."
"Before divorced, you can borrow my comic books. Unlimited membership. " Her husband bowed down and hugged her, and their breathed and intertwined in the triangle on the spine of the book while talking, " You have known I crush on you since we met."