Qu Hua first recognized his brother-in-law on the train, but his brother-in-law didn't recognize him.
He had just gotten off another train and boarded this one. Though he and Fang Muyang started from different stations, they were heading to the same destination.
While boarding, a burly man, rushing forward, stepped on a girl's foot. The man showed no intention of apologizing and instead complained that she was moving too slowly and blocking his way. Cursing as he pushed ahead, he used his elbows to keep others at a distance, preventing anyone from getting too close. The girl, likely in pain from being stepped on, lost her desire to push forward and stood there looking aggrieved.
His curses were so foul that even the roughest men found them offensive. Only Fang Mu Jing made way for her.
Just as the burly man was about to succeed in squeezing through, someone from behind hooked his foot, causing him to nearly fall flat on his back. After the man stumbled, Qu Hua expressionlessly boarded the train in order.
The burly man managed to scramble onto the train at the last moment. He knew who had tripped him, but lacking the strength to retaliate, he had no choice but to accept it and vent his anger on the girl he had stepped on. As he cursed, he accidentally knelt before her.
A voice said, "Even if you're admitting your mistake, there's no need to use such old-fashioned gestures. We do things in a new way now—a bow of apology will suffice." Fang Muyang withdrew his foot and sketched an outline of the kneeling man on his drawing pad.
At the previous stop, Fang Muyang had seen a young woman standing in the corner of the carriage, holding a three- or four-year-old girl. Her eyes were half-closed, as if she wanted to sleep but didn't dare. He offered his seat to them and took the corner they had been occupying.
The girl initially thought the burly man's first stumble was mere bad luck, so she only thanked Fang Muyang for standing up for her.
Fang Muyang thought of Fei Ni and decided he should teach her a few self-defense moves to prevent her from being bullied outside.
Qu Hua sat in the last row of the carriage, while Fang Muyang squeezed into a corner to draw.
Two years ago, Qu Hua had seen Fang Muyang's face in a newspaper. That newspaper was given to him by Mu Jing. Recalling it now, it seemed Mu Jing only showed a hint of pride when talking about her brother. The artist had no idea that his marriage to Mu Jing was partly facilitated by him.
Fang Muyang was now sketching an elderly man across from him. Qu Hua looked at the drawing and thought to himself that Mu Jing's praise of her brother wasn't just due to familial bias. When Qu Hua evaluated portraits, his first priority was anatomical accuracy, but Fang Muyang's art made him overlook that concern entirely. Yet his critique still revolved around structure.
Hearing his comments, Fang Muyang laughed and said, "You're a doctor, aren't you?"—particularly knowledgeable about skull structure.
Qu Hua didn't deny it.
Studying his features, Fang Muyang recalled that he resembled someone Fei Ni had described.
"Where are you headed?"
Coincidentally, they shared the same final destination.
In the sleeper car, Old Fang spotted a familiar face—none other than his son-in-law. His son-in-law embodied the Fang family's ethos, working even on the train. He had grown noticeably thinner and rougher since their last meeting.
Seeing that his son-in-law hadn't noticed him, Old Fang coughed softly, waiting for him to greet him. When the first cough went unnoticed, he coughed several more times until he finally caught his son-in-law's attention.When Old Fang saw his son-in-law, he learned that he had been providing counterpart assistance in a nearby city all year, only completing his support mission this week. His daughter’s letters had never mentioned this, and he had always assumed his son-in-law worked in the same city as her. The last time his son-in-law visited during a business trip, he thought he had come from the south. If he had known earlier that his daughter and son-in-law were living apart and that she was staying with her unreasonable in-laws, he would have transferred her over long ago. With his son-in-law by his side, he directly brought up the matter of transferring his job. He guessed his son-in-law would surely agree.
He knew his daughter well—she liked men who would listen to her. Those who didn’t, she wouldn’t keep.
Qu Hua didn’t say whether he wanted the transfer or not, but instead asked what Mu Jing thought.
Old Fang said how close Mu Jing was to them and that she would naturally want to live with them. He brought up his house again, saying he and his wife felt ashamed to live in such a large place, and it would only serve its purpose if their daughter and son-in-law lived with them. He also mentioned how Mu Jing’s younger brother and his wife were looking forward to having her and her husband back. In Old Fang’s words, there was no better daughter than Mu Jing, and no better sister than Mu Jing—they all loved her.
“Mu Jing’s younger brother is also on the train. He really liked the camera you gave him last year and has been taking photos with it.”
Qu Hua didn’t remember giving his brother-in-law a camera, though he had received a pen from him—brought by Mu Jing when she visited him last year.
From last year until now, Qu Hua had not returned home once. This past year, he had been supporting local healthcare at a hospital over twenty hours away by train.
The support mission had come suddenly. His grandmother had recovered well, and there were people at home to take care of her. With no family burdens, he had ample reason to volunteer.
On the day he left for the mission, he went straight from the hospital after surgery to the station—an early train before dawn. He had already said goodbye to his family the day before, except for Mu Jing, who was working overtime at school. Their schedules always clashed—either he was working late at the hospital, or she was pulling all-nighters in the school lab. Even without the distance, it was rare for the couple to see each other.
Neither of them brought up divorce, because filing for divorce would also take time—something neither of them had.
After arriving at the new hospital, he sent Mu Jing a short letter, asking her to seriously reconsider their relationship. The choice was hers, and whatever she decided, he would respect it.
If she had brought up divorce during her difficult times, he would never have agreed; but now things were different. Mu Jing didn’t need his help, and the reasons they had started were too fragile to dwell on. His going on this mission had made it harder for Mu Jing to divorce him, given the distance, though he hadn’t intended it that way. If she wasn’t even willing to make the trip to see him for a divorce, it meant she had no real determination to end things.
Mu Jing didn’t reply to his letter this time.
Qu Hua saw Mu Jing again after last year’s Mid-Autumn Festival. She had come to visit her parents and took the train to see him. When Mu Jing arrived, he had just entered the operating room. The surgery lasted over five hours, and when he came out, someone told him his wife was waiting in his dorm. Perhaps exhausted from the long surgery, his steps slowed as he walked toward the dorm—he thought she had come to ask for a divorce.Approaching the dormitory, Qu Hua’s pace unexpectedly quickened.
Pushing the door open, he saw Mu Jing sitting at the desk, pen in hand, calculating something.
She was still working at this hour.
Hearing the door, Mu Jing stood up and turned around. Their eyes met, and neither looked away. Mu Jing told Qu Hua that she had visited her parents during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and they wanted her to transfer back.
Qu Hua had just washed his hands after surgery, the scent of soap still lingering. He picked up the thermos and poured Mu Jing a glass of water. As he handed it to her, their hands brushed. Mu Jing took the glass and asked Qu Hua what he thought.
“You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” Qu Hua didn’t answer her question. Instead, he told her a new restaurant had opened nearby and the food was quite good. He picked up Mu Jing’s coat from the back of the chair and draped it over her shoulders.
As for his thoughts, he had already said it before—he respected her opinion. Once spoken, words could not be taken back. That letter was the final version; before that, he had written much longer ones, but in the end, he burned them all with a lighter, leaving only a pile of ashes. Eventually, even the ashes disappeared.
“Let’s eat here. I brought mooncakes.” Mu Jing took a package of mooncakes from her luggage bag—the kind with hometown flavors she had bought at a shop before leaving. She untied the hemp rope binding them and used her own small knife to cut two mooncakes in half, giving Qu Hua one half.
They sat facing each other, slowly eating the mooncakes. Seeing Qu Hua finish his portion, Mu Jing handed him another half.
Old Fang’s voice interrupted Qu Hua’s reminiscence. He first mentioned that his son had won an award at an art exhibition, then added that his son didn’t care much about awards. Even when he used to chase his son around to discipline him, he never spoke ill of him outside. After discussing his son’s career, he moved on to his son’s thoughtfulness toward his daughter-in-law. When his daughter-in-law took a plane, his son rode in a hard seat on the train. When his wife flew, he took the train. The Fang family had a tradition of respecting women, and this was something he wanted his son-in-law to know. He could have also mentioned his son’s filial piety—buying himself a sleeper berth but choosing to sit in a hard seat instead. But he didn’t want his son-in-law to be too obedient to his own father, so he skipped that part.
From his father-in-law’s words, Qu Hua gathered one piece of information: Mu Jing’s parents and younger brother had all come.
A patient’s family member Qu Hua had helped in the train car came over to thank him. Qu Hua nodded, offered a few words of advice, then glanced at his watch and said he should return to his original carriage. Old Fang asked which carriage he was in. After hearing Qu Hua’s reply, he exclaimed how coincidental it was—his son was in the same carriage. Old Fang followed his son-in-law to find his son, but when they arrived, he couldn’t locate him. A girl, noticing Old Fang’s resemblance to the description Fang Muyang had given, handed him a note, saying it was from the person he was looking for. Reading the note, Old Fang learned that his restless, rebellious son had gotten off at the previous station and climbed onto the roof of the train. The note said they would meet again at the final stop. At that moment, Fang Muyang was sitting on the train roof, watching the clouds in the sky, thinking that Fei Ni had probably arrived by now.
With Fang Muyang absent, Old Fang had no choice but to share stories about his daughter with his only audience—his son-in-law. When Mu Jing was born, his joy was no less than when he became a father for the first time. He had prepared gifts for all the doctors and nurses. On his daughter’s first-month celebration, he specifically published an article in the newspaper about his feelings as a father. Old Fang had an excellent memory and could still recall that article. He recited it to his son-in-law…Fei Ni and Teacher Mu arrived first, with Mu Jing going to pick them up. The car had been arranged by Old Qu, originally intending to take them directly to the Qu family for lunch. Teacher Mu declined with a smile, insisting on going to the guesthouse first and visiting the in-laws another day.
Teacher Mu mentioned Old Fang helping them transfer jobs. Mu Jing knew that if her mother disagreed, her father would never succeed, even though he always believed every decision he made was entirely his own will—his will was actually filtered through her mother. Clearly, her mother wanted her to transfer back.
Fei Ni sensed that her mother-in-law and second sister had things to discuss. Upon arriving at the guesthouse, she excused herself to her room to finish translating an incomplete manuscript, leaving her mother-in-law and second sister to talk in one room. Once this book was translated, the fee would be enough to treat Fang Muyang to a plane ride—a small luxury.
"I don’t plan to transfer for now."
"Is it because of Qu Hua? Your father has also found a receiving unit for him."
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