Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
Christmas Eve this year fell on a Thursday. By the time the plane landed, the sky was already dark.
They went to Lu Huaiyan’s apartment on Oxford Street to freshen up before heading to Richmond Park.
“During the seven years you lived in England, did you always spend Christmas at Guan Shaoting’s house?” Jiang Se looked at the snowy scenery outside the window, asking casually.
She had slept three or four hours on the plane. Now she felt completely energized, not the least bit tired from the long journey.
“Mm. Except for sophomore year when I went to Duke Edward’s home, the rest of the time I spent Christmas Eve at Linda’s.” Lu Huaiyan slowly turned the steering wheel and said, “Shaoting and his siblings will all be there tonight. If you don’t like it, we can leave early after dinner.”
Jiang Se withdrew her gaze from the window and glanced at him: “Why wouldn’t I like it? Didn’t I just drink with Guan Shaoting last time in Beicheng? He’s pretty nice.”
The “last time” Jiang Se mentioned was during the National Day Golden Week. She had been unbelievably busy the past half-year, and most of the time it was Lu Huaiyan who went to Tongcheng to see her.
He was actually busy too. Each time he stayed only two or three days before having to leave.
Seeing each other only once every month or two, the few days they had together were basically spent tangled up at home, as if they had to make up for everything they couldn’t do while apart.
During Golden Week, the Guan family happened to visit, and Lu Huaiyan couldn’t leave. So Jiang Se set aside a few days to go to Beicheng.
On the first night she arrived, Lu Huaiyan asked her, “Shaoting wants to meet you. Do you want to see him?”
Jiang Se did know who Guan Shaoting was, but only on a nodding basis. “Why does he want to meet me? Because of you?”
Lu Huaiyan said, “Sort of. When I was studying in England, he was always curious about what kind of girl I’d like.”
Jiang Se didn’t mind: “Then let’s meet.”
That day they had dinner at the Lu family residence, and Guan Shaoting came as well.
After dinner, they went to a bar.
Guan Shaoting was graceful and humorous. He didn’t show even the slightest hostility toward Jiang Se just because his treasured little sister had gone through a heartbreak.
Jiang Se’s impression of him was indeed quite good.
Lu Huaiyan looked at the road ahead and let out a low laugh: “Praising another man right in front of me?”
Jiang Se: “It’s not like you get jealous.”
“Who says I don’t?” Lu Huaiyan said slowly. “Of course I get jealous.”
Jiang Se raised an eyebrow: “So you’re jealous of Guan Shaoting?”
“Not really.” Lu Huaiyan turned the car into the outer lane of Richmond Gardens and said with meaning, “If I ever get jealous, I’ll tell you then.”
“……”
Linda was already waiting at the villa entrance. Besides her, Guan Jiayi, Guan Shaoting, and Guan Shaoli were all there. Among the siblings, only Guan Shaochong was too busy to even spend Christmas at home.
The moment they met, Lu Huaiyan greeted Linda with a cheek-kiss.
The man smiled at the corner of his lips. “I brought her to meet you.”
Linda smiled. “I’ve met Miss Jiang once before.”
As she spoke, she warmly embraced Jiang Se. “Miss Jiang, thank you for coming to London with Ah Yan to see me.”
She wore a silver long dress, her gray hair coiled into a bun. She looked no different from when Jiang Se had met her in the parking lot, elegant and approachable.
“Just call me Sese, Linda.” Jiang Se smiled. “Thank you for inviting me.”
After greeting Linda, she walked toward Guan Jiayi, giving her a light hug. “How’s your foot recovering?”
“Very well. The doctor said I can start training again in half a year.” Guan Jiayi beamed. “It’s just a one-year gap. Back then, Linda couldn’t touch the piano for two years because of her hand injury. When she returned, she won an award not long after. Linda says sometimes God gives us setbacks so we can see more clearly the path we want to take. After my injury, I finally realized how much I love dancing. Next year, you and Ah Yan must come to see me perform at the National Ballet.”
Guan Jiayi had spent the past half-year recovering in England. Once she recovered, she planned to return to the National Ballet.
Jiang Se nodded lightly. “Alright.”
“During Christmas, the Royal Ballet will be performing Romeo and Juliet. If you and Ah Yan want to go, just tell me and I’ll ask my teacher for tickets.”
“Don’t stand at the door talking,” Linda waved at the group of young people. “We have the whole evening. Go inside and talk.”
London winters were freezing and damp. The house was heated, naturally far more comfortable than outside.
After entering the foyer, Lu Huaiyan expertly took Sese’s scarf and coat, hung them up, and then held her hand as they walked in.
Guan Jiayi watched the two figures from behind, paused, then linked arms with Linda and said with a bright smile, “Ah Yan and Miss Jiang are really well-matched.”
Linda didn’t speak, but her gaze toward Guan Jiayi was gentle.
Christmas at the Guan household was always lively.
There weren’t many people, but it was lively all the same.
Dinner was prepared personally by Linda, with Lu Huaiyan and Guan Shaoting helping her.
Jiang Se sat in the living room with Guan Jiayi and Guan Shaoli, playing UNO.
The three of them were around the same age. Guan Shaoli was one year older than Guan Jiayi, which meant he was only about half a year older than Jiang Se.
Compared to his two older brothers, his personality was much softer, more lively, and easily got along with others.
After a few rounds of Texas Hold’em, he grew very familiar and said, “Sese, your playing style is quite similar to Brother Yan’s.”
Jiang Se had never played poker with Lu Huaiyan before. Hearing this, she asked, “What kind of style?”
“Very good at digging traps for people, and you’ll never let anyone guess what your hole cards are.” Guan Shaoli covered the cards in front of him and shrugged. “I’m out.”
“Obviously you’re the one with the worst skills, Third Brother.” Guan Jiayi scoffed a few times.
Guan Shaoli gave her a sideways glance. “You almost dug a pit for me too, do you know that?”
Guan Jiayi was completely confused. “When did I ever dig a pit for you?”
Guan Shaoli shook his head, amused.
That time eating at the revolving restaurant, this girl said in front of Lu Huaiyan that she wanted to introduce Jiang Se to him, and even said he would definitely like Jiang Se.
He remembered very clearly that when Brother Yan heard that, he immediately went outside to smoke.
Indeed, whether it was looks, temperament, or personality, Jiang Se did fit his aesthetic. But his brain would have to be waterlogged for him to compete with Lu Huaiyan over a woman.
His eldest and second brother had made it very clear: do not make Lu Huaiyan an enemy.
Competing for a woman was even more impossible.
Fortunately, that night Lu Huaiyan went out to smoke and didn’t hear what he said to Guan Jiayi.
Guan Shaoli never expected that while he was still feeling relieved, his own second brother had already exposed him.
“You don’t know, at the revolving restaurant that day, after Kingston saw Miss Jiang’s photo, he originally wanted Mia to arrange a meeting.” Guan Shaoting, who loved watching drama, let out a low laugh. “Later when he found out Miss Jiang was with you, I even teased him, asked whether he dared compete with you.”
Thinking back on that day again, Guan Shaoting finally understood why Lu Huaiyan suddenly went out to smoke.
“Were you two having a quarrel those few days?”
Lu Huaiyan was opening the red wine. Hearing this, he said calmly, “She wanted to break up with me.”
The fork in Guan Shaoting’s hand fell into the salad bowl with a clatter. He turned to look at the man whose face was utterly composed.
“How did you coax her back then? Diamonds? I remember you flew to the UK once just to bid on a blue diamond.”
Lu Huaiyan lowered his eyes and smiled. “How could it be that easy to coax?”
Guan Shaoting wanted to say more, but Linda extinguished his curiosity at the right moment. “Take the salad out, Watson. Let Mia and the others get dinner ready.”
Once Guan Shaoting left, Linda looked at Lu Huaiyan with a smile. “Do you still remember what you told me on your eighteenth birthday?”
Lu Huaiyan poured the wine into the warmer and nodded with a smile. “I remember. I said I’d probably never meet someone I’d want to spend my life with.”
Linda said, “It wasn’t easy for you to meet her. Of course you have to use all your heart to coax her, to protect her, to give her a love that belongs only to her.”
Lu Huaiyan smiled lightly. “Mm.”
Linda continued to look at him. “I told Watson long ago that if you ever truly loved someone, you’d definitely do better than he does. I still believe that.”
Back in university, Guan Shaoting already had a girlfriend, who was now his fiancée, soon to be his wife.
He always prided himself on being romantic and devoted.
During those years in university, he’d often tease Lu Huaiyan for being so oblivious, saying so many people liked him yet he never dated anyone, even claiming he would teach him how to fall in love.
Once, Linda overheard this and told Guan Shaoting that if Ah Yan ever truly fell in love, he would definitely do better than him.
Guan Shaoting refused to accept that, feeling sour. “Who’s your actual grandson? You have this little confidence in your own grandson?”
He didn’t even bother hiding his jealousy from Lu Huaiyan. Lu Huaiyan naturally remembered this, smiled faintly, and said nothing.
He certainly would do better than Guan Shaoting.
Linda smiled gently. “Let’s go out.”
Christmas Eve in the UK was like New Year’s Eve, filling everywhere with festive atmosphere.
A loop of fitting Christmas songs played in the house. Flames burned in the living-room fireplace, and the Christmas tree covered in lights and ornaments sparkled with glittering brilliance.
The laughter and chatter at the dinner table never stopped.
After eating and drinking their fill, they began exchanging Christmas gifts, wishing each other “Merry Christmas.”
The Cen family didn’t celebrate Christmas. This was Jiang Se’s first time formally spending Christmas Eve, and also her first time formally exchanging Christmas gifts like this.
She carried four Christmas gifts back to the apartment. After showering, she began to open them.
The first gift was from Guan Jiayi, a thick photo album.
Seeing the album at first glance, she froze for a moment.
Opening it, the first photo was of Lu Huaiyan and Guan Shaoting wearing tailcoats while attending Eton.
Back then, Lu Huaiyan had only been thirteen, just a half-grown boy, his brows cold and stern, the curve of his lips so slight it was almost invisible, forming a stark contrast with the elegantly smiling Guan Shaoting beside him.
The photos must have been developed that year, yellowed paper, heavy with the feeling of time.
The Lu Huaiyan inside was one Jiang Se had never seen before.
Lu Huaiyan saw her taking forever to open a single gift, so he carried a glass of whisky from the bar back to the living room.
His gaze passed over the album in her hands, and his eyes paused. “Is that Linda’s gift?”
“No, it’s from Guan Jiayi.” Jiang Se slowly flipped through the album. “These were all taken the year you first arrived in the UK?”
Lu Huaiyan hummed. “Mm. Shaoting and I lived on the same floor. When I went to Eton for orientation, I happened to run into him and Linda. We were all Chinese, and Linda and Shaoting were warm and friendly. As time passed, we got to know each other. Linda took these photos.”
These photos must have been collected from Linda by Guan Jiayi, gathered into such a thick album to show her the Lu Huaiyan from ages thirteen to nineteen. It was truly thoughtful.
The boy in the album gradually grew up. His temperament grew more mature, the coldness in his eyes faded somewhat, yet there was always a faint sense of loneliness lingering around him.
This kind of loneliness always seemed a bit out of place among the boisterous Guan family.
The last two years’ photos included a few taken in secret. One showed Lu Huaiyan wearing a polo uniform, standing under a hawthorn tree, talking on the phone.
It was clearly a very blurry side profile, yet Jiang Se stared at the photo for a long time.
“You were calling Grandpa Lu or Auntie Han then?”
Lu Huaiyan lowered his eyes to look at the photo at her fingertip: “Grandfather called me. That day was Lu Huaixuan’s birthday. Grandfather was celebrating for him at the old residence and wanted me to say a few words to Lu Huaixuan.”
Back then, Lu Xingqiu was set on giving Lu Corporation to Lu Jinzhong. He favored his older grandson, but he loved the younger one too. Naturally, he hoped Lu Huaiyan and Lu Huaixuan could set aside the elders’ grievances and be good brothers.
Jiang Se didn’t respond.
Lu Huaiyan sat down beside her, lifted her chin, and asked with a smile: “Feeling sorry for me?”
Jiang Se asked him: “Lu Huaiyan, did you spend all seven of your birthdays alone while you were in England?”
“Not that pitiful.” Lu Huaiyan pinched her chin and said, “In the early years Linda would organize something for me. In later years, more people spent my birthday with me. Not just Linda and Shaoting, but also classmates I got along with.”
“No wonder you like Linda so much.” Jiang Se curved her lips slightly. “Guan Shaoli said his second brother is always jealous of you.”
When Lu Huaiyan first came to England, he was still young, and he had just gone through his father’s betrayal and his mother’s suicide.
Luckily, he met Linda and Guan Shaoting here.
Guan Shaoting had said more than once that Linda was biased. Lu Huaiyan knew it too, and had even heard it with his own ears.
That was just how the Guan family’s atmosphere was.
Family members joked at each other and teased each other, but they never truly quarreled or held grudges overnight.
“In my second year in England, my mother’s condition improved a lot. She could call me. Knowing the Guan family took good care of me, she asked me what kind of family they were. I told her then that the Guan family was a very normal family.”
Normal parents, normal parent-child relationships, normal sibling affection.
Such a family relationship was something both Lu Huaiyan and Jiang Se had never experienced.
And because of that, when Lu Huaiyan said the word “normal,” Jiang Se could feel the loneliness behind it.
Lu Huaiyan pulled the album from her hands. “Look at the photos later. Can you fall asleep now? Do you want to watch a movie?”
Jiang Se had slept a few hours on the plane today. She wasn’t the slightest bit sleepy now, so she nodded: “I want to watch a movie.”
Lu Huaiyan set down his wine glass and went to choose a DVD for her.
Jiang Se looked at his back and suddenly asked: “Lu Huaiyan, how do you want to spend your twenty-ninth birthday?”
There was not long to go before his twenty-ninth birthday, less than a month.
Jiang Se had spent her twenty-fourth birthday on Liyuan Street. Back then, Lu Huaiyan accompanied her for many days and even set off a very tacky firework display for her by the Fuchun River.
After selecting a film, Lu Huaiyan put the disc into the old-style player, pulled the curtains shut, gathered Jiang Se into his arms, and said with a soft laugh: “Same as last year. Just have Miss Se accompany old Master Yan for a bowl of longevity noodles.”
Jiang Se found a comfortable position in his arms.
The DVD player was an old-fashioned one, clearly from years ago.
In the pitch-dark living room, only the TV screen was bright. The movie began with a pair of siblings returning to the home they had lived in as children, listening to a lawyer read their mother’s will.
The lawyer said their mother wished to have her remains cremated and her ashes scattered in a nearby bridge.
The movie was a film from the nineties. Even the opening felt very familiar.
Jiang Se didn’t recall which movie it was until she saw the male lead and female lead asking for directions. Then she vaguely remembered she had seen it before. A literature professor had played it in her sophomore year.
She grabbed a pillow, kept her eyes on the TV, and asked: “The Bridges of Madison County?”
Lu Huaiyan gave a soft “mm,” glanced at her sideways: “You’ve seen it? Want to switch to another one?”
Jiang Se shook her head and said no.
Seeing her gradually absorbed, Lu Huaiyan stopped speaking and shifted his gaze back to the television.
The film’s pacing was slow, but the cinematography was delicate. Every frame and movement felt so detailed it seemed one could sense the surging and struggling emotions between the leads.
The movie had a very well-known Chinese title: Langqiao Yimeng.
The story took place in the summer of 1965. After sending her husband and children away, the female lead finally had four days to herself.
Within those four days, she met the photographer male lead, who had come to the small town to photograph its bridges.
One was a repressed, lonely housewife. The other, a photographer who followed freedom.
Unsurprisingly, they fell in love, at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
Meeting a soulmate-level love in middle age, the story was cliché, and because of the affair element, carried an extra tone of taboo. But the emotions were undeniably moving, tinged with sorrow.
When the male lead said tenderly to the female lead: “This kind of certainty comes just once in a lifetime.”
Jiang Se suddenly pressed pause, turned to look at Lu Huaiyan, and said: “Was it this line?”
He had told her he watched a romance film at eighteen, Linda’s favorite, and on New Year’s Eve he remembered a line from that movie. He had told her to guess in the future which line it was.
Lu Huaiyan’s lips lifted slightly: “How did you know it was this movie?”
“Today, when playing cards with Mia and Kingston, they said there was a movie Linda watched every year.” Jiang Se rested her head on his shoulder. “They guessed Linda must have had a bittersweet, unforgettable love before she married their grandfather.”
“It wasn’t before she married. It was after.” Lu Huaiyan tightened his arm around her and said, “The man was also a pianist. British. He passed away young. Linda met him by chance in an upscale restaurant. They had both been drinking. Both wanted to touch the restaurant’s piano. That man intended to let Linda play first, but Linda invited him to improvise a four-hand duet together.”
At that time neither of them knew the other; both were newly emerging pianists.
They never expected to meet again a few days later at the piano competition.
Lu Huaiyan curled his fingers around Jiang Se’s: “Their four-hand performance in the restaurant was probably the same as our two-hand performance.” There was a kind of tacit understanding that was hard to put into words.
“And afterwards?” Jiang Se asked.
“During the days of the competition, they were like good friends who had known each other for a long time, eating together and watching Brussels’ night scenery together. That year, both of them won awards. After the competition ended, they went their separate ways, and the occasional contact was only polite holiday greetings. Two years later, not long after Linda gave birth to her daughter, she received a call from a lawyer, saying that the man had had an accident, and in his will he left her a villa and the piano inside the villa.”
“Is it the villa we went to today?”
“Mm. Linda only moved there after her husband passed away. Even Shaoting didn’t know that house was something a man had left behind for Linda.”
Jiang Se looked at the male lead on the television: “Was that man married? Did he have a wife and children?”
“No.”
“Was the will written in advance?”
“Mm.”
Leaving the house he lived in and the piano he loved most to someone he had only spent a few days with, Jiang Se suddenly understood why Linda had to watch The Bridges of Madison County once every year.
The piano was probably the “bridge” between Linda and that pianist.
She turned her head slightly and looked at Lu Huaiyan.
The man’s lenses reflected a face filled with fervor and pain, the expression of the male lead when he said that line to the female lead.
Jiang Se turned around and sat on Lu Huaiyan’s lap, and the lenses were immediately covered in shadow; the male lead’s face disappeared from them.
“On New Year’s Eve, why did you think of that line?”
Lu Huaiyan lifted his chin and smiled at her: “What else could it be?”
His head rested against the sofa back, his posture lazy, but his tone serious: “I once thought that in this lifetime I would never feel moved by anyone, would never experience that kind of extremely certain love that comes only once in a lifetime, until that night. I admit that at that time it couldn’t yet be called love for you, but that kind of emotional stirring was indeed the first time in twenty-eight years, and in this lifetime there will only be that one time.”
Lu Huaiyan had planned out his life very early on.
When he turned thirty, he would find someone who didn’t love him to marry; before thirty-five, he would have the heir to the Lu family. After that, if the other party wanted a divorce, then they would divorce. If she didn’t, then they would live out their years respectfully as husband and wife.
He could not give love, but he would give the loyalty a husband was supposed to have.
He thought that would be his whole life.
And so, when he realized he had feelings for Jiang Se, he pursued her without the slightest hesitation.
He made it clear to her what he felt, made her know that he wanted her.
Even if she wanted to use him, it didn’t matter, as long as he could keep her by his side.
Jiang Se listened quietly.
The man’s eyes were hidden behind the lenses, yet in such dim and silent space, she could still see the things in his eyes.
Her fingertips curled. She raised her hand to touch the arm of Lu Huaiyan’s glasses and said, “Last night when we had dinner with Grandpa Lu, he said that once you get married, these glasses can be taken off, and you won’t have to wear them anymore.”
The hostility in him had already faded greatly compared to before.
These glasses were already symbolic; whether he wore them or not didn’t matter.
Lu Huaiyan looked at Jiang Se’s eyes: “You don’t want me to take them off?”
“Mm.”
Lu Huaiyan laughed lightly: “Do you like me wearing glasses? Or do you like it when I put them on and then take them off?”
His tone carried teasing.
Before they got intimate, the first step was almost always taking off his glasses, to the point that now whenever he took off his glasses, Jiang Se would have a very subtle reaction.
It was a memory from the body.
Jiang Se’s fingers brushed over the thin metal, her voice light: “I like when you take your glasses off in front of me.”
Clearly her fingers were touching the arm of the glasses, and her tone was cool, yet Lu Huaiyan was still set on fire by her.
The man grabbed her waist, flipped her over, and pressed her into the sofa cushions. He tilted his face toward the hand that touched his glasses and said, “Help me take them off.”
