When Si Chen first met Yu Hao, he always appeared impeccably neat and well dressed.
Only after they'd been together for some time did she realise how startlingly sparse his wardrobe actually was. He owned a handful of outfits and rotated them with quiet discipline. Most remarkable of all were his white shirts—they seemed never to age. A single shirt could last him years and still look crisp as the day he'd bought it.
Even the pyjamas he wore now had been bought together when they first married. Had the fabric not gradually worn thin and soft, he probably would never have considered replacing them.
Si Chen didn't bother arguing. She simply threw them away.
And once she'd started, she may as well finish. She opened the wardrobe and began a full year-end clear-out.
Collars frayed at the edge. Old underwear folded into the back of drawers. Socks with small, dignified holes in them.
She worked through each item slowly, and a strange unease crept in. How had he been living these past two years?
She had meant to buy him a whole new wardrobe when she came back—but she'd still been in a sulk, and couldn't bring herself to. Then they'd gone to his hometown, and the idea kept getting pushed aside.
So today she simply took his arm and walked him into the shopping mall.
Their apartment in A City had been a purchase she'd thought carefully about years earlier. Outside the windows: a park that changed with the seasons. Behind the building: a lively commercial strip, restaurants and shops all within walking distance, his office nearby. A rare pocket of green inside the concrete.
Online shopping had long since become the default, but Si Chen still preferred going in person. She liked touching fabrics, examining the cut, watching what a piece of clothing did to a person in the mirror. Shopping, to her, wasn't consumption—it was a way of being present in her own life.
She used to take the two of them out regularly. She'd choose; they'd sit and wait to be called for a fitting. As Si Yuan grew older he developed opinions of his own and flatly refused her more adventurous selections, especially anything with cartoon references. Yu Hao, however, still deferred to her entirely.
Without her input these past two years, he had almost certainly continued cycling through the same few outfits.
One thing that had always amused her: Yu Hao's deep personal objection to wrinkles. A slightly creased shirt was simply unwearable, as far as he was concerned. Si Chen, for her part, found ironing somewhere between pointless and offensive—a vigorous shake on the drying rack was the most she'd commit to. Whenever wrinkles appeared, Yu Hao would eventually slip away and iron them himself.
After a while, she'd started choosing fabrics with a natural drape. Problem solved.
These days, cities no longer worshipped the rigid corporate uniform. A full suit could read as trying too hard. People went to work in trainers and backpacks, takeaway cup in hand. Nobody was watching anyone else anymore.
Si Chen picked out a pair of dark grey jeans and paired them with a patterned polo shirt. Relaxed, but still grounded—still him.
"Not bad," she said.
Yu Hao hesitated.
Since when did he have opinions? He used to wear whatever she bought without a word.
Si Chen called on her reserves.
"Well," she said lightly, "given the age gap, we can't have people thinking some young, beautiful woman was seduced by a wealthy older man and ended up raising his child in the bargain."
That landed exactly where she'd aimed it.
Yu Hao was quiet for a moment. Then he turned back to the rack and began pulling out several considerably bolder options.
Was he really that easy? Or had her taste and her powers of persuasion finally worn him down after all these years?
Sunday morning. Winter sunlight fell through the windows in long pale strips.
Si Chen lay with her head on his stomach, one hand raised against the brightness. Light leaked between her fingers and moved across her face; she tilted her hand this way and that, playing with it idly. The warmth of the sun and the warmth of him wound together, and something she hadn't felt in a long time settled in her chest.
Slowly, without meaning to, her thoughts drifted back two years.
That winter—just after the Spring Festival. A fight about nothing. She had left in a burst of wounded pride, alone, for Germany.
At first everything was new and absorbing. She threw herself into work, adapted to unfamiliar surroundings, tried different food, learned to ski, moved flats, made new friends. Every day was full to the edges. Almost frantic.
As though keeping busy could outpace something that was chasing her.
But the more she ran, the less she could settle.
That summer she packed a bag and crossed Europe alone. Ancient streets in Italy. Golden evening light in France. Every place was genuinely beautiful.
And in every place, someone was missing.
It would be better if he were here.
Late at night, small things surfaced. The time he bought the wrong flavour of snacks. The way he always woke five minutes before she did. How, whenever she turned over in the night, he would reach over without waking and tuck the blanket back around her.
The longing had never stopped. The busier she kept herself, the less she could outrun it.
Does he ever think of me?
The question went round and round.
She didn't even know what she was waiting for. Maybe just one message. A small concession. Something as simple as I'm sorry. She suspected she would have gone straight back if it had come. She even started getting angry at herself—why was she holding on to her pride this hard, for this long?
"Did you ever think about me?"
Si Chen rolled over and looked up at him. He was replying to messages on his phone.
He set it down. His hand found her face.
"I did," he said. "All the time."
"Really? How?"
Yu Hao didn't answer in words. He picked his phone back up, opened the photo gallery, and began scrolling slowly.
The gallery was full of her.
Hundreds of photographs. Maybe more.
She went still.
Back then, Si Yuan had always had a camera, trailing after her everywhere. She'd assumed he was practising his photography.
The lens was always on her. And behind it, invariably, was Yu Hao.
No wonder he had never once hesitated to pay for cameras, lenses, accessories—whatever Si Yuan asked for.
In the photographs she looked vivid—alive in a way she hadn't quite felt herself. Every trip. Every smile. Every small moment she had assumed no one was watching—all of it kept.
One photo: her attacking a pile of snow with a shovel, arms working hard. That winter it had snowed constantly and clearing the path had become a daily obligation. Her hands had been red with cold every evening.
She remembered thinking, back then: if he were here, I wouldn't have to do this myself.
Now, looking at the image, her eyes went warm without warning.
She set the phone gently back in his hand.
She didn't say anything. She just turned and leaned into him.
All the arguments, the misunderstandings, the stubborn pride—in the soft winter light, they felt as thin and far away as a half-remembered dream.