One Life, One Incarnation, Beautiful Bones

24

She felt tremendously happy, so happy she was going to go crazy. Rubbing her face against the fox fur, she squinted her eyes to gaze at him, this man who was now legally her husband. Tonight, he was wearing a solid, light-blue dress shirt with dark blue cuffs and a pair of silver-gray pants -- colors that gave off such a comfortable feeling. These colors complemented the color of the stockings she had been wearing, but unfortunately, now, she could only keep her legs bare with her knee wrapped in white gauze.

"It is May 11," he told her.

"What is May 11?" she asked, puzzled.

"Our anniversary. I have chosen one that is homophonic with your name. Very easy to remember, then."

She felt somewhat in a daze, that this could not be real. "Easy to remember? Will you forget it easily?"

"No. I am very mindful of numbers. And plus," he paused briefly and gave a little smile, "there are some important dates that must be remembered."

That night, all she could recall was that she was extremely happy.

Afterward, when she recalled that night, she still could only remember that feeling of happiness. There had not even been any superfluous and flowery words. In her two lifetimes worth of memories combined, the number of happy moments was not many. The ones that were particularly deeply engrained in her memory were riding freely with him through Chang'an city on a horse and this night, when he had said she was his legally recognized wife.

Shi Yi remembered, afterwards, her conversations with him were really not very logical, and she could not seem at all to hold back her happy laughter. Outside the windows, there was flashing lightning, rolling thunder, and pouring rain, but inside the room, it was warm and peaceful. When he finally bid her good night and left the room, she noticed that underneath the chair's fox pelt, there was an old, red sandalwood box with a coiled dragon carved into it.

Carefully, she opened the box and found two rings lying side by side.

An emerald ring and a very simple, yellow gold diamond ring. She surmised that he must have had these already prepared earlier.

On top of the lid, there was a piece of paper pinned to it.

Written in his handwriting was a simple message: The emerald ring is the engagement ring, to respect family tradition. The yellow gold diamond ring is the wedding ring and should be suitable for wearing day to day. Hope you like it.

At the end, he had even scrawled, Happy marriage day[3].

Well, perhaps he was the only man in the world who would use such a method to give the rings to his lawful wife and to also wish her a happy marriage day. She held the box in her hands, contemplated for quite some time, and then placed the yellow gold diamond ring onto her own finger.

She thought to herself, from a man who could calmly relocate his materials after seeing his laboratory explode right in front of him and then walk over to another laboratory to continue his experiments, she really should not have too high of expectations.

His choice of date, May 11 alone, was already sufficient to her.

Fifth month, eleventh day. 511 [pinyin: wu shi yi]. My Shi Yi.[4]

At five o'clock in the morning, she could hear the sounds of him leaving to head out. She dashed over to open the door and asked him whether he would like her to have the morning meal with him. He stood at the top of the stairs and hesitated for a moment before telling her that today was not a good time. Shi Yi understood what he meant by this and was only upset at herself for allowing her happy mood to muddle her brain so that she forgot that right now was still a chaotic period.