How is Qi Taiguo doing?
At this time, he had just returned from another company commander’s home, reeking of alcohol. It was Old Zhou’s birthday tonight, and Sister-in-law Zhou had personally prepared a table full of dishes, inviting familiar comrades-in-arms and their families to celebrate.
Qi Taiguo and Old Zhou were close, so naturally, he also attended the feast.
Upon opening the door to his home, darkness enveloped the room. Qi Taiguo entered just as before, taking off his shoes—it all seemed the same as before, yet he felt that something was different.
Next door, at Liang Shurong’s place, his wife Chunhua was nagging him for drinking too much and kept insisting he drink honey water to sober up.
Wan Dahe’s household was no different, with Guihua loudly calling for Dahe to take a bath and come down in fresh clothes so she could wash the dirty ones.
But what about himself?
Qi Taiguo shut the door, blocking out the nagging voices, suddenly understanding what was different. He too was a married man, but when he returned home after social drinking, there was no wife to tend to his needs or to nag him, and he was still a lonesome soul.
There was no one to say he drank too much or to offer him a hangover cure. No one cared whether or not he bathed; there was no one to hurry him.
Qi Taiguo saw a basin full of dirty clothes in the bathroom and frowned—there was also no one to wash his clothes.
Suddenly, he felt a bit lonely and a faint sense of injustice.
Everyone else was a family man, so why was he still living the life of a bachelor, simply because his wife wasn’t by his side?
Thinking about how Cheng Su had indifferently seen him off, so cheerful about it, Qi Taiguo snorted, stripped off his clothes, and turned on the cold shower.
At the banquet earlier, Old Zhou had also asked him how it was that his wife didn’t come back with him. It didn’t make sense for newlyweds to live apart.
He explained that he’d let her stay with her parents to show filial piety—how could he say she didn’t want to come?
Thinking of Sister-in-law Zhou’s tender care and understanding of Old Zhou, weren’t those things also achieved through years of companionship?
"Who cares whether she comes or not, hmph!" Qi Taiguo doused himself with several buckets of cold water, extinguishing the fire in his heart, before he slipped into a pair of underpants and returned to his room.
Having turned off the lights, he found himself unable to fall asleep. In the deep silence of the night, some sounds became especially clear.
The sound insulation in these dormitories was not the best; with the rooms so close together and the windows made of simple stained glass, any louder sound could be clearly heard.
Just like at this moment, that sporadic but fervent noise made Qi Taiguo’s heart seethe with restlessness, bile rising in his throat.
Was he the only one without a wife?
Qi Taiguo felt irritated but couldn’t help recalling the wedding night, the body he had seen, the ecstasy he had tasted.
The alcohol went to his head, and combined with his frustration, a certain part of him became restless, eager to move. Qi Taiguo’s heart itched unbearably, and something inside wanted to be immediately released.
He couldn’t help but reach into his crotch, close his eyes, and his thoughts drifted back to that unfinished wedding night, that person...
In a moment, the light snapped on, and Qi Taiguo grabbed the lavender-colored roll paper from the wooden table, cleaned his hands and that area, then lay back down, staring blankly at the canopy of his bed.
Though he had relieved himself, why did he feel even emptier? There was a hollow feeling in his heart, yearning to be filled.
He turned his head and his brows furrowed as he looked at the other side of the bed.
Normally, he didn’t think much of it, but today, why did the bed seem too large?
Tomorrow, he’d go sleep on the bivouac in the next room—it was only meant for one.