The night that changed everything [✔]

Chapter 4

"Where have you been?" is his father’s only greeting when they meet. Yunlan sighs. "I'm fine thanks, what about you?"

His father frowns looking severely at him. "When will you stop wasting your life and start being responsible?"

"I'm not wasting my life dad, I'm living my life, there's a difference."

"I guess to you ‘living your life’ means spending my money and wasting time with those good-for-nothings of your friends, but not to me. I'm tired of watching you ruining yourself."

"What have I done this time? I haven't seen my friends in days."

"Since the last time you went to a club with them?"

Yunlan's heart stops for a moment, or at least that's how he feels.

"What... how do you know about that?" he asks but it's a stupid question and he knows it. Somehow his father always learns about everything he does, and even if he would never admit it to his father that is exactly why he does it.

"It's not important how I know about it! You are getting engaged and that behaviour is not acceptable anymore."

Yunlan wonders how much he knows about that night, but doesn't dare to ask.
"Dad, I don't want to get married..."

"You're getting engaged tonight, and the two of you will get married as soon as possible!"

His father raises his voice, that's not a good sign so Yunlan shuts up.

When the guests arrive, he sees Zhu Hong for the second time in his life. She still has that obedient aura about her, and Yunlan despairs, fearing she won't be of much help to him.

At dinner she joins him in an obstinate silence, ‘yes father’ or ‘no father’ the only words that get out of her mouth, while the two old men remember their days in the military.

After they finish eating, it is decided that the young couple should spend some alone time to get to know each other, so the fathers retreat to another room.

Yunlan doesn't like silence, so he turns to her and asks, "So, what do you do?"

She raises her eyes and sees that her father is walking away, but he's still close enough to hear her answer, so she says, "I stay home and obey my father as a good daughter should do," and even if she can't see it, she's sure that he's smiling proudly and will probably spend some time bragging to his friend about her.

Once the door finally closes and they are really alone, she continues, "Which unfortunately will probably mean that I'll have to marry you."

"You don't want to?" His voice is a little shocked, it's like he forgot that he had hoped for exactly that from her.

"Of course not, I don't even know you! And you're not my type at all!"

"Why? You into girls?"

She rolls her eyes. "Since I don't like you that means that I don't like men, is this what you're saying? You're like my father, he probably thinks the same since I never brought anybody home. Well, let me tell you that I do like men over women, just not ALL men."

Yunlan chuckles. "So, what is your type?"

"I like educated men, not thugs."

"Ehi, I'm not a thug!"

She rolls her eyes. "I like sophisticated men then, better?"

Yunlan ignores the little voice inside his head saying, "Me too." Instead, he laughs and says "I like you. Doesn't mean that I want to marry you, no offence, but you're ok."

She smiles for the first time since she arrived. "Thanks. No offence taken. Maybe we can be friends after all."

"I'd like that, as long as I don't have to marry you."

She laughs and brings her hand forward. "Allies, then?"

He looks at her questioningly. "Allies?"

"In getting out of this alive."

He laughs again and shakes her hand. "Allies it is!"

Mr Zhao and Mr Zhu are quite satisfied when they come back and see that Yunlan and Hong are chatting amiably.

Mr Zhao thinks that she'll have a good influence on him, his son really needs a responsible person at his side, this is sort of his last resource, he really doesn't know what else to try to make that kid grow up, honestly every time he looks at him he misses his wife even more.

He loved her deeply and losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to him. Yunlan was too young to realise what was happening, that was the only blessing, but Mr Zhao went through it all, the discovery of the sickness, the battles against it, the weakness and the pain; he had to be strong, not as a soldier but as a husband and a father, he had to be strong for all of them.

He always thought he had done his best, and every time she smiled at him he felt the pride of being able to give her some strength, but also the terrible pain of knowing that he would lose that smile, would never see it again.

He used to tell her that it would be alright, he lied to her and to himself, he had to, it was the only way to go on day after day, but they both knew that her end was near.

ButYunlan didn't. He was a child, he wanted his mother to play with him and didn't understand why his father would send him out of her room when she felt too sick or why he had hired a nanny to make him breakfast and take care of him. His mother used to do that, then one day she stopped.

And then, one day his father took her to the hospital and she never came back.

That was the day that Mr Zhao started feeling a failure. He had lost his wife, but at least she had known how much he loved her. With his son it had been different. Yunlan wouldn't listen to him, he called for his mother, told him to bring her back to him, and he reacted in the only way he knew, like a soldier. He tried to give him discipline and education, but deep down he knew that it wasn't enough.

He had wished so many times, all those days and nights alone, seeing that his son was unhappy, knowing that he hated him, he had cursed this unfair life and thought, "I'm a soldier, she was a housewife. I'm here, alive and useless. She's dead, when she would have known what to say to him, how to console her son, how to make him feel loved and not alone."

He had cried, alone in their room at night, silently, when nobody could hear him.

He knows that he has failed his son in every way, so now he's trying one last thing. Yunlan hates him for it, but Mr Zhao knows that if he becomes part of the Zhu family, he'll never want for anything, he'll have a good girl and a strong, just man on his side.

Mr Zhu, on the other hand, thinks that his daughter isn't living like a young girl should, and wanted to encourage her to meet a good man and get married, afraid she might be too alone, but because of his upbringing, everything he says sounds like an order.