Chapter 6: Mangosteen

After the meal, Song Tingyue went to the barracks office to collect the key to their assigned room in the family quarters, then hauled the luggage over.

Given his position, the room he'd been given had naturally received some extra attention.

The family quarters were enclosed by a high wall. Through the gate was a drill ground, with the military service store on the right and bathhouses and public latrines just beyond.

Sure enough, the public latrines here were better than the ones in the soldier dorms—you could tell just from the outside how clean they were.

Wen Ning quietly let out a breath of relief.

Song Tingyue caught that little expression of hers and drawled, "If it's too much trouble to come out at night, you could always use a chamber pot."

"Is there one in the room?" she asked.

"No. We'll have to buy one in town. We're getting our marriage certificate tomorrow, so we'll be going to town anyway."

"Oh…" Wen Ning answered, her voice a little stiff.

She had no idea whether chamber pots were expensive. Having left home, she had no sense of money at all.

Her heart started to pound.

Were chamber pots expensive?

She'd never had to think about such things before.

At home, food, clothes, daily necessities—none of it had ever been her concern. She had no idea what anything cost.

Right before boarding the train, her mother had stuffed the last of the family's hidden savings into the suitcase.

The house had already been picked clean. That little bit of savings—she would have to spend it carefully.

"Are chamber pots expensive?" She hesitated, then asked anyway.

"It's an everyday item. How expensive can it be?" Song Tingyue raised an eyebrow, deliberately feigning surprise. "Short on money?"

"I have plenty." Wen Ning lifted her chin slightly, her voice carrying a stubborn edge. "A starved camel is still bigger than a horse. Don't go looking down on people."

As she spoke, her eyes instinctively drifted to the suitcase.

The suitcase was an odd shape—long and flat. When carried, it swung back and forth, constantly knocking against her legs. A real nuisance.

But in Song Tingyue's hand, it suddenly seemed to behave. He carried it effortlessly, without the slightest strain.

She remembered dragging that suitcase onto the train and accidentally bumping into a woman from the textile factory. The woman had spat in disgust right there: "Hey! Watch where you're going! Waving that leather suitcase around like a bull in a china shop!"

Before Wen Ning could even apologize, the woman had shot a sideways glance at the suitcase and turned to her companion: "Thinks it's still the old society! I've heard it's only the wives and daughters of capitalists who use foreign goods like that—draped in furs and silks, all dolled up, corrupting revolutionary thought!"

The woman had numbers on her side. Wen Ning had a temper, but she wasn't stupid—no point in butting heads with a whole crowd.

Still, she seethed inside. All she had was a few Western-style dresses; most of her wardrobe was qipaos.

And anyway, what was wrong with a leather suitcase?

At that thought, her gaze drifted quietly to Song Tingyue's waist.

An army-green belt was cinched around his trousers, his shirt hem tucked in neat and straight, pulling his waist narrow and upright and making his legs look impossibly long.

See that?

He used leather too!

Why single her out? If they had a problem, let them go argue with the regiment commander! Next time someone dared criticize her, she'd throw that right back at them and see what they had to say then!

Wen Ning clenched her small fists and gave a soft "hmph" through her nose.

Song Tingyue turned back to look at her, baffled.

What was bothering her now?

He didn't ask. Just assumed he'd been walking too fast and quietly slowed his pace.

Further in were two symmetrical rows of red-brick, gray-tiled single-story houses, one after another. A few households had small vegetable plots out front.

Beyond those were two-story buildings. Simple in layout, but a good deal better than the single-story houses up front.

The front row housed ordinary military families. The building in the back was for military district leadership.

The two of them went up to the second floor.

This room was considerably brighter than the soldier dorms they'd seen before. At least there was an outer room that could pass for a living room, furnished with a simple sofa. The windows were bright and wide, and by the window stood a desk with a fountain pen, a jujube-red hardcover notebook, and a lamp—all complete.

Wen Ning's little temper vanished in a flash. Like a sparrow let out of its cage, she darted over and flipped open the brand-new notebook, her eyes lighting up.

She kept a diary. This notebook was perfect.

"Can I use this? And this pen?" She held the notebook up and looked back at him.

When the girl smiled, her brows curved and two shallow dimples appeared at the corners of her lips—bright and lovely.

Sunlight slanted through the window onto her, gilding her hair with a soft golden halo. She looked drenched in honey, sweet from head to toe.

Song Tingyue stared at her for two seconds, his mind drifting.

The little girl who used to chase after him calling "Brother" seemed to have come back.

She used to smile at him all the time, smiling until her eyes curved into crescents, smiling so brightly a man would want to pluck the stars down for her.

But during his last year at the Wen household, her smiles had disappeared.

In their place were needling, temper, and cold indifference—turning her face away whenever she saw him.

He'd thought she would never smile at him again.

"…This room was assigned to the two of us. Use whatever you like in here."

Song Tingyue pulled his gaze away, his voice a little low. "Tell me if you're missing anything. Don't let Mom and Dad think I'm mistreating you."

With that, he picked up the luggage and turned into the inner bedroom.

Light footsteps pattered behind him. Wen Ning trotted in after him like a tail she couldn't shake.

She craned her head this way and that, her expressions shifting by the second like she was putting on a show, not bothering to hide a thing.

The bedroom had been cleaned too—floor and windows spotless. A light wood-grain wardrobe stood in view, and set into the cabinet door was a long mirror.

Wen Ning's heart bloomed. She was just about to hurry over and check her reflection when her gaze snagged on a splash of bright red in the glass.

A double bed stood against the wall, spread with a striped cotton sheet. On top was folded a stack of bright red wedding quilts patterned with mandarin ducks, square and neat as blocks of tofu.

"That quilt was a gift from the wife of Political Commissar Li from the neighboring division headquarters—I call her Auntie Gu," Song Tingyue said flatly, noticing her staring. "She's warm-hearted. When she heard I was buying new bedding, she said she had a brand-new set at home she'd never used and pushed it on me. I didn't expect this pattern either. If I'd known, I wouldn't have taken it. But in the spirit of thrift, we'll make do for now."

The subtext was plain—this was not his doing.

"Oh." Wen Ning looked at the glaringly red wedding quilt and nodded without much reaction.

She hadn't been overthinking it. Did he really need to be so anxious to distance himself?

But worse was still to come.

Song Tingyue opened the wardrobe and pulled out a roll of straw matting he'd prepared in advance. With a swing of his long arm, the mat unrolled with a rustle and lay flat on the concrete floor at the foot of the bed.

"I mostly stay in the soldier dorms—keeps people from getting suspicious. Every so often I'll come stay here with you." He paused, lifted his eyes to her, his dark pupils unreadable. "I'll sleep on the floor. You don't mind, do you?"

A grown daughter keeps her distance from her father; as her brother, he naturally had to observe propriety too. Even if they'd shared a bed as children, they couldn't carry on like that now that they were grown.

But things were different now. They had to play husband and wife in front of others. How could they not share a room?

This was the only way to make it work.

Wen Ning didn't say anything for a long while.

Song Tingyue looked up and saw that the shallow dimples were long gone, her lips pressed into a tight line.

He knew perfectly well—this whole stretch of the Northwest, himself included, was a choice she'd made because she had no other option.

If there had been a second path, she would never have boarded that train.

Song Tingyue lowered his eyes and said quietly, "Don't read too much into it. This marriage is just a stopgap. Two years at most—once this blows over, we'll get divorced. I'll find a way to send you back to Shanghai, and then I'll apply to the organization to get you settled with a job."

"I won't come to the family quarters often. Sleeping on the floor is fine. It won't get in your way."

"Got it." Wen Ning's voice came out muffled. "Sleep wherever you want. I don't mind."

He had to keep stressing that it was "fake."

Now he had everything going for him in the army—tall, sharp-featured, a prize wherever he went.

To repay a debt of gratitude to this extent—it really was a hardship for him.