No Wind or Rain

After the advert was officially released, it brought a large response from the audience. The sale rates went up as high as 40%. The advert not only brought in profit but also people’s curiosity.

The entertainment industry had always been dominated by beautiful women and suddenly, a beautiful but unknown woman appeared which inevitably caused a lot of sensation.

On the third day after the release, the female artist in SY’s advertisement became the third hottest search on Zhike.1 It also made people finally take notice of Yu Sichun.

Gradually, directors found her in hopes that she would make her official debut with them but she refused them all.

Du Jiayi didn’t want her to go into the entertainment industry either and all the online news was handed over to SY’s public relations department for them to resolve. It didn’t take long for the fire to die down.

Yu Sichun received a phone call from her father a week after the commercial was released. His voice sounded old and not as lively as he did when he was young.

When he heard her voice, Father Yu was still in a trance. They hadn’t seen each other in a long time and rarely heard each other’s voices too.

If he didn’t happen to see the advert on TV, he wouldn’t have thought of contacting her. He probably wouldn’t have even contracted her again in this life. 

He just remembered telling his assistant to give her money every month and didn’t care about anything else. He remembered that when she was born, he had hugged her. At that time, the pride he felt as a new father with Yu Sichun’s birth had been forgotten since his divorce with her mother. His heart was only filled with bitterness now.

After dialling the phone number, he didn’t know what to say. He said a simple greeting and then there was a long and embarrassing period of silence. Finally, Yu Sichun opened her mouth and said that she was married.

After her father recovered from his shock, he could only sigh and regret not attending his daughter’s wedding. He just said plainly. “Let’s meet.”

“Okay, in a few days then.” Yu Sichun responded.

Father Yu was a little disappointed. Yu Sichun would frequently say that when she wanted to refuse something but couldn’t bluntly say it so she would just say ‘in a few days’.

After all, who knew how many days there were. Last time she said she would visit him in a few days, he waited half a year but in the end, he could only smile bitterly. He didn’t fulfil his duty as a father so how could he expect her to do her duty as a daughter? They were not responsible for each other. Where would he get the face to blame her?

She had more respect in her tone than family intimacy.

Her voice was still slightly cold but soft. He finally said: “Okay, okay, call me then and I’ll tell your aunt2.”

“En, I will.” At that moment, Du Jiayi was very close to her. He was holding her in his arms as he ate.

In fact, she didn’t like such shows of intimacy very much. She wanted to get up but she was firmly held in his arms even if he didn’t use much strength. You Sichun knew she couldn’t break away so she just stayed where she was.

She didn’t know why, but recently she had this illusion that they were in love with each other. The illusion made her happy but after, only timidity and sadness would be left (when she returned to reality). She even began to have some expectations.

This feeling made her feel cheap and it had never once stopped since she married Du Jiayi.

She had always disdained this kind of behaviour when it came to others but by now she had broken her beliefs again and again for him. She felt wronged being treated this way.

Every time she felt like that, she would remember a sentence she heard during university – you love him but does that mean he has to love you too? Being indifferent and being invested were two completely different things.3

Where and who she heard it from, she had long forgotten.

She once thought that if a couple had a harmonious relationship then they would have a happy marriage but the failed marriage between her parents proved her wrong. 

She didn’t want to feel so awful anymore and wanted to hysterically ask Du Jiayi why she still didn’t have his love after giving so much.

She really didn’t want to become like her parents.

“Father-in-law called?” His voice was faint.

“No…huh? Yes.”

Yu Sichun couldn’t react for a while because she didn’t think that Du Jiayi could so calmly enter his role. Seeing her gather herself in Du Jiayi’s dark eyes, she realised that he may have already accepted the fact that they were married.

“When I finish my things, let’s go and see him.”

“En.”

He was always so gentle and his treatment towards her was good too. Sometimes she wondered why there were rumours of his aloofness during university.

But even his roommates rarely talked about him. The only one who interacted with him seemed to be Lu Sisi only.

After marrying him, her concept of time improved. She no longer forced her body beyond their limits like when she was still in school4 because now she would often stay in bed, refusing to get up. She would listen to him rustling in bed in the morning and remember that they were married.

It wouldn’t be until when she heard the front door closing that she would slowly get out of bed to wash and eat. At that time, he rejected her entry into his life so she couldn‘t touch many of his things, such as the picture album of his dreams.

In their second year of marriage, she cleaned his study and accidentally dropped the picture album he put on the shelf. All the paintings inside scattered on the floor and each of them were of the future he dreamed for him and Lu Sisi.

Some of them were of him winning the National Youth Painting Competition, some was of Lu Sisi performing on a stage abroad, some of them were them eating together and some was of Lu Sisi and him getting married in a church…

His paintings were very exquisite and her wedding dress was so beautiful it even moved her heart.

It was then that she knew she would never enter his world because his future never had her in it.

That day, Du Jiayi just so happened to go home to get some documents and saw Yu Sichun squatting barefoot on the floor next to a pile of his paintings.

He was very angry and said. “Don’t clean the study in the future.” Then, he picked up his documents and walked away.

He didn’t even say much when he was angry with her and just blamed her with a single and faint, “Don’t clean the study anymore”. He expelled her from entering his heart just like that.

She should have been angry. After all, she was his wife and he went into a cold war with her for some paintings.

But she didn’t. They always used separate things. There had never been any couple items at home from water cups to clothes.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like them but because she didn’t think he would use them so she never bought any.

At 10pm that evening, he went back home and voluntarily hung up her clothes whilst saying a: “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t realise anything and looked at her for half a second but didn’t explain any further regarding his apology. She just gave a simple “en” and went to the bathroom.

At night, she looked at his sleeping face and tears flowed down involuntarily, dampening the pillow case. She just felt sadness mixed with the fatigue in her heart. Those beautiful paintings flashed in her mind and her lips silently opened and closed.

“Your Rome – rejects our love which makes one feel sadness.”5

…….

When she was in junior high school, she read a history book that had puzzled her. The eldest princess of Hua Guo, Rongle got married to the eldest son of Duke Ding. Historians recorded how strict the princess was and didn’t allow the eldest son to take in any concubines. They resented each other and the marriage wasn’t harmonious at all.

So much so that for two years, the princess and the prince consort lived separately. The servants knew of their living conditions in those two years but they didn’t believe that the two resented each other.

Because her history teacher said that during the Six Dynasty period, the prince consort wrote a letter to the eldest princess. The letter only contained 4 words but it made all the young females in the present day envy them—I love my wife.

Later, she always wondered how hard it was for Du Jiayi to say he loved her.

Du Jiayi watched the woman in his arms sink into deep thoughts for a while. He thought that she wasn’t used to him because her parents neglected her since childhood.

She was his wife, the one he was going to spend the rest of his life with. He would be the person who got to treat her tenderly. He didn’t want her to feel wronged, even if the person who made her feel wronged was him.

The phrase “love over time” wasn’t completely unreasonable. 

He was a simple man who wanted to move a girl’s heart. Yu Sichun was a strong girl through appearance alone but her heart was as soft as water. She would fall for him because of his sudden gentleness. 

After seeing those words from An Yiru that day, he thought for a bit. He didn’t like her anymore. Although there was a large difference between like and love, his like for her was also different from ordinary like.

He was in love with her without knowing it or maybe it was something else. He would admit that she wasn’t in his life. She wasn’t in his life because she was a part of his life, a very large part of his life.

His future would definitely have her existence.

Thinking about that, he smiled like he found something very important. “Did the postman contact you today?”

“No, the editor said that due to recent political changes, the publication of those books will need to be postponed.” Yu Sichun shook her head in dejection.

Du Jiayi kissed her cheek as a method of comfort. “It will be published, just give it some time.”

Yu Sichun nodded. “Uh-huh.”

All the previous translated manuscripts were sent to the publishing company. Recently, she hasn’t translated any new articles and has become very idle. She spent most of her time with Du Jiayi and life was going on in an orderly manner with no big changes. She was very content with this kind of life.

After the company completed its projects, Du Jiayi’s workload became much lighter. The rent of the office building was getting more and more expensive. The renting contract was also about to expire at the end of the year.

Du Jiayi was thinking about whether to continue to stay there or move. Later, Yu Sichun said: “Just buy it and pay it all at once. Unless the government wants to build new roads or something else, the price of the land will continue rising.”

Du Jiayi thought about it and agreed in the end.

The company had been listed for three years now. Du Jiayi and Yu Sichun were also in their fourth year of marriage.

At the company’s third anniversary celebration, Du Jiayi and Yu Sichun attended it together, crushing all the female employees’ ideas of climbing the social ladder. If they wanted to get to the president then they would need to see if they had the ability first. The most important thing: they had to be more beautiful than the Boss’ wife!

“It’s a great honour to share this joy with you here today. SY has been on the market for three years and in this time, we have achieved a lot. However, we are not at the end of our journey. We can’t and won’t stay stuck where we are now. On this road, we need every employee’s efforts, including me, the security team and our cleaning aunties.”6

Yu Sichun stood under the stage and watched the man on stage say his speech skillfully. He captured the atmosphere and complex emotions surged in her heart.

Footnotes

This is a Chinese web browser similar to Baidu or Google.Not her literal aunt but the father’s new wife/ Yu Sichun’s step-motherThe original phrase is ‘不敬业和专业是两回事’. I’m not certain about its meaning but I tried my best to interpret it.What she meant with pushing her body past her limits is like pulling an all-nighter to finish a project or studying.The sentence here is: 你的罗马——它拒绝了我们的恩爱，令人悲痛欲绝. I’m not exactly sure what it means or if it’s a reference to something. I tried my best to translate it but if you understand it better than me or have a clearer way to express this then please leave a message!In Chinese it’s a normal/common thing to call older women and men uncles or aunties.