Chapter 5

one day.”

I was still sulking. He put the list down and apologized seriously. He should have discussed it with me first, he said. That was his mistake.

Then I admitted I had been impatient too.

We reworked the plan together, cut some decorations, and shortened the guest list. Cheng’an wanted to put the money toward a better washing machine. The old one in our rented room made such a racket on the spin cycle that doing laundry at night could wake the neighbors.

I teased him for having no ambition.

He was delighted.

“Once we’re married, I’ll wash your clothes every day.”

“The machine will wash them, not you.”

He thought about it.

“Then I’ll hang them up.”

In those days, our worries were money, too few days off, and a washing machine that occasionally went on strike. I thought that if we worked hard enough, we could gradually solve everything.

Then, two months before the wedding, Cheng’an’s illness suddenly worsened.

At first, we discussed postponing the ceremony. Later, even postponement became an impossible luxury.

I still remember the last week of July. Outside, the sunlight blazed. The hospital corridor was cold to the bone.

I sat on a bench, clutching the wedding schedule I had revised so many times.

11:00 — The bride and groom enter.
11:10 — Exchange of rings.
11:20 — Vows.

I knew every time by heart.

I just didn’t know how I was supposed to live the rest of my life.

Xu Cheng’an never made it to September seventeenth.

For a long time after he died, I couldn’t bear to look at that schedule. I canceled most of the wedding services, but I couldn’t bring myself to let go of Elm Hall.

As long as September seventeenth remained, as long as the hall was still there, perhaps our promises wouldn’t become entirely meaningless.

Later, I met Xue Shiye.

He stayed with me through my darkest days. I had truly loved him too.

So when he said he wanted to marry me two years ago, I thought again of September seventeenth. Of that hall. Of the aisle flooded with midday sunlight.

I thought that completing a wedding in the same place could somehow make up for everything left unfinished.

Until today.

I stood in that very hall in my wedding gown, facing another wedding that would never happen.

Only this time, the groom wasn’t gravely ill.

He stood before me, whole and healthy, certain that one word from him would make me weep and beg him to marry me.

And suddenly I understood.

What I feared was no longer simply losing someone.

That unfinished wedding had held me captive for years.

—

### 6

“Wangshu?”

Jiang Zhixia touched my shoulder. I came back to myself.

The digital clock on the dressing table read 11:17.

According to our schedule, we should have exchanged rings and been preparing to say our vows.

Instead, the guests were being shown out.

Zhixia handed me a glass of warm water.

“You look awful.”

I took it and sipped.

“Zhixia.”

“Yes?”

“Xue Shiye wasn’t always like this.”