Nie Wenqing has lived in Tongshu Community for more than ten years and has known Jiang Zhonglin for almost ten years, and they have always gotten along well. Unlike his wife, who has two children, this neighbor, Mr. Jiang, is really alone. For more than ten years, he can only see some of his students come to visit during the Chinese New Year. The rest of the time, his house is deserted and very quiet.
Nie Wenqing knows a little about the family situation of this old friend. He is an only child. Both his parents died early. He had a wife when he was young, but it seems that she died later. He never remarried. At this age, he doesn’t even have a child. Nie Wenqing and his wife are both cheerful and generous. After knowing this situation, they often invite Jiang Zhonglin to their home for dinner and also ask him to go fishing.
As for Jiang Zhonglin’s character, Nie Wenqing has absolute trust. In his words, Mr. Jiang is a gentleman with excellent character who is self-disciplined and lives a decent life and has absolutely no problems with his work style.
Today, what he saw with his own eyes made Nie Wenqing doubt—doubt about his own eyesight. He did not immediately think whether Old Jiang had done something improper but suspected whether his eyesight was not good due to his old age or whether he had some disease, which led to the unrealistic hallucinations.
Old man Nie was silent, and no one in the living room spoke. Yu Yao lowered her head to look at her slippers, then looked at Jiang Zhonglin, who was frozen in place, and asked with a straight face, “I can’t kiss my own husband?”
Jiang Zhonglin was stunned by her kiss, and his glasses were crooked, but he quickly came to his senses, took a step back to adjust his glasses, coughed a little awkwardly, did not answer this sentence, looked at the stunned neighbor Old Nie, and said to Yu Yao slowly, “There is breakfast in the kitchen; it’s still hot. You eat something first.”
Watching Yu Yao walk to the dining room to eat breakfast, Jiang Zhonglin retracted his gaze and walked to sit in front of Nie Wenqing. Old Man Nie had already noticed something was wrong. He rubbed his eyes and found that it was not an illusion. So he asked very seriously, “Old Jiang, what’s wrong with you? Who is this young girl to you?”
Jiang Zhonglin was silent for a while. “She is my... wife.”
“The wife I married forty-one years ago.” He explained the time travel very calmly.
“Ah?!” Old man Nie did not expect the old man Jiang’s old age to unfold like this, despite having already imagined it. He was stunned when he heard it. He thought about it carefully, and it seemed that the name "Yu Yao" mentioned by the little girl sounded a little familiar, and he immediately recalled something.
Old Jiang rarely talked about his former wife. The first time Old Man Nie heard him talk about it was a few years ago when everyone was drinking together. One of Old Jiang’s students won a big prize. He was so happy that he drank two more glasses. Only after he was drunk did he mention the name Yu Yao.
He was crying while talking about it. Such a person, who usually does not frown when encountering any difficulties, can’t help crying when talking about his wife, who died young.
Thinking of this, Nie Wenqing felt emotional and didn’t know what to say. He digested it for a long time, looked at the vague figure in the kitchen, and approached Jiang Zhonglin and whispered, “What should you do now?” He was a little worried about his old friend. Although the two were husband and wife before, the age difference is too big now. How can they not be a match? He knows Lao Jiang. He is not like those old perverts who like young girls. He will be happy just because he got a young and beautiful wife for free.
Jiang Zhonglin, the person involved, did not have the same worries as the old neighbor. He said, “It’s a good thing that she is not dead. Let’s not talk about other things in advance. I need to take good care of her now. She suddenly encountered such a thing and is not familiar with the current world. I am afraid she feels very uncomfortable. I am old and don’t want to think about anything. I can take care of her one day at a time. No matter what she wants in the future, I will arrange it for her... She has no other relatives now.”
Nie Wenqing didn’t know what to say and patted his old friend on the shoulder. “Alas, it’s also God’s will.”
Yu Yao came out after breakfast and found that the strange old man had left. Jiang Zhonglin was cleaning up the teacups on the table.
He saw Yu Yao looking at the place where Old Nie had just sat and took the initiative to say, “That’s my friend, surnamed Nie, who lives in the building next to me. He went back first and said he would invite us to his house for dinner in a few days.”
“Oh.” Yu Yao followed him. “You are going out to get your ID card today, right? What should I wear?”
Jiang Zhonglin put the cup away, went to the laundry room, and took out a set of clothes. “I washed and dried the clothes you wore yesterday, so you should wear this first today.” I will buy you daily necessities after I get your ID card.”
Yu Yao took the clothes and hooked out a pair of purple underwear from it, which was soft and had the fragrance of jasmine laundry detergent. “You washed my underwear for me?”
Jiang Zhonglin: “...”
The old man’s face was normal, and he was as calm as an old god. He was no longer the husband who blushed when he was teased.
Jiang Zhonglin was looking for something in the room, and Yu Yao walked to the door and tried it and found that the door recognized her information and opened with a pull. Yu Yao didn’t know when Jiang Zhonglin set it up, and she walked out.
It rained heavily yesterday, but the weather was good today. The sun had come out, the grass outside was still wet, and water droplets hung on the flowers and trees in the yard. Compared with the colorful flowers in the yards on both sides, this yard looked much more monotonous. The plants were not trimmed, and there were no brightly colored flowers. There was only one jasmine tree with a few small white buds. Obviously, the owner here didn’t take care of the yard.
“Let’s go.” Jiang Zhonglin came out. The two walked under the shade of the trees and came to the entrance of the community. There was also a bus stop there. Just like yesterday, they called a car, and Jiang Zhonglin took Yu Yao to a building. The big words "Serve the People" in front of the building were bright red and sparkled in the sun. The big sign at the door read Hai City Public Security Bureau General Administration.
The administrative staff coming and going in the door were all in uniforms, and no one looked at them twice. Yu Yao saw many people doing something on the machines on one wall, like the self-service of banks in the past. Jiang Zhonglin did not go there. He went directly to the service counter. Soon someone came out of a door next to them and took them to another office.
“Ms. Yu’s situation is special. Mr. Jiang already discussed the legal provisions for this special situation with us last night. According to previous cases, Ms. Yu should have a one-year observation period and social assistance period. However, considering that Mr. Jiang has a high citizen credit rating and you two are husband and wife, this observation period will be changed from one year to six months.”
“Here are some files for you two to take a look at.” The serious middle-aged man handed over two files.
Yu Yao flipped through them. There were a lot of terms, including various obligations and benefits, and signatures were required at the back.
“Mr. Jiang has applied for information protection, so our media will not expose any information about Ms. Yu. If someone illegally spreads Ms. Yu’s information and causes trouble in Ms. Yu’s life, we will also help to clean it up. Please rest assured that we respect and protect the legal rights and interests of every citizen...”
The middle-aged police officer said a lot and finally finished the work. When Yu Yao walked out of the Public Security Bureau, he figured out one thing: “What he meant just now was that no one will come to interview me and put my photos on the Internet, and there won’t be a bunch of strangers watching me, right?”
Jiang Zhonglin nodded: “Yes.”
Yu Yao: “...If it were forty years ago, my situation would have been treated as a rare animal and watched by people.”
Jiang Zhonglin: “Because in the first case of time travel, that is, the old man, he was watched to death by too many people, and then a special protection law was introduced.”
Yu Yao: “In this case, aren’t you very embarrassed?”
Jiang Zhonglin showed a puzzled expression, not knowing what she was talking about.
Yu Yao explained, “Look, if you know that I am the fifth person who traveled through time, people you know will ask you about it out of curiosity. You will be annoyed to death. But if you don’t tell others, they will think you are having an affair when they see that you suddenly have a wife. It will be embarrassing if they misunderstand you.”
Jiang Zhonglin didn’t seem to care about this. “Let it be.” He clicked to search for nearby large shopping malls and prepared to take Yu Yao to buy things.
Yu Yao stood at the entrance of the huge shopping mall and thought that after forty years, physical shopping malls have not been replaced by online stores. However, there were fewer grocery stores along the way.
This shopping mall was very huge, and it was hard to describe. In short, Yu Yao had never seen such a large shopping mall before. There were all kinds of goods, more than forty sections, and twelve elevators leading to different sections. Yu Yao didn’t like shopping in shopping malls before, and he almost felt dizzy as he followed Jiang Zhonglin.
He went to buy a mobile phone first. Nowadays, the official name of mobile phones is actually "personal terminals"—it is simply a product of the fantasy future novels of the past. Yu Yao was still interested in choosing this one and walked around the store twice.
The girl in charge of sales was no different from the teller who sold mobile phones forty years ago. No matter which model Yu Yao looked at, she could introduce it to him with great enthusiasm. “Look, this level 4 is the favorite of young people nowadays. It has the latest 8.0 processor, 128T memory, and eight different specifications...”
Yu Yao listened for a long time and asked Jiang Zhonglin, who was waiting quietly with his hands behind his back, “Do you have money?”
Jiang Zhonglin: “Yes, buy it if you like it.”
Yu Yao: “I don’t know about these; just choose one for me.”
Jiang Zhonglin: “Old people don’t know about this either. Mine was given to me by a student, and it’s a model from five years ago.”
The couple looked at each other for a while, and Yu Yao shrugged: “Okay, I’ll choose it myself.”
After choosing a personal terminal, she implanted the identity certificate chip she had previously applied for at the Public Security Bureau. As a way of carrying, Yu Yao chose the same watch model as Jiang Zhonglin. While fiddling with the new terminal, she walked out with her head down. In order to prevent her from bumping into people without looking at the road, Jiang Zhonglin had to hold her arm and lead her out away from the crowd.
After a while, Yu Yao stopped and pointed to a game store in the mall: “I want to buy some games.”
Jiang Zhonglin sighed, as if he was not surprised at all, and said, like an open-minded parent, “Okay, but you have to play games in moderation. Don’t play too late at night. Combine work and rest...”
Before he could finish, Yu Yao raised her hand and pulled him into the game store.
*****
What should I do if my lover became an old man after traveling to fourty years later? Chapter List:
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