House (short story) Zhang Baotong 2018.6.30

I'm 28 years old this year, Cui Xiuling is only 26 years old, and we've both experienced a failed marriage, so I don't think we should be so desperate to get married. But men and women have different ideas and requirements. What a man needs is love, and it doesn't matter if he gets married or not. But what a woman wants is marriage, and with marriage, she has a place to belong and can settle down. After several times of her urging, I could not help but agree. If I don't agree, she may feel that I am not sincere, and I also think that she is a very lovely woman, and I will definitely live happily with her. So, I married her.

However, after getting married, my life basically didn't change much. I usually live in the dormitory and go home after work on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I do this because the house is hers, not mine, and I don't want to live in someone else's house all day, and because the couple stays together all day, and after a long time, there is no freshness, no freshness, and no intimacy. Besides, her daughter has been taken care of by her mother, and she herself is in a college for the night, and the family does not have too many troubles all day. Even if there are things, we can put them together and do them together on Sunday.

A year later, the school built a new building, and I was given a two-bedroom house on the sixth floor of the top floor. I want Cui Xiuling to move to the school so that we can stay together every day, and I don't have to take the car to her when I miss her, but she thinks that the floor on my side is too high and far away from the unit where she works, so she doesn't want to come. Because the house was divided, the dormitory of the school could no longer be lived, so I moved to a building and lived alone.

After another year, many of my works began to be published in provincial and municipal newspapers, and I was transferred to the district education bureau as a publicity officer. Cui Xiuling was very kind to me and often encouraged me, saying that I was a great writer in the future. Half a year later, I was transferred to the district party committee office as a propaganda assistant, which was regarded as a department-level cadre. Moreover, the district party committee immediately assigned me a two-bedroom house of more than 90 square meters. However, this house is not a new house, it was built two years ago, but it is similar to a new house. So, Cui Xiuling and I moved to this house together, because the location is relatively good, very close to the city center.

We lived a real couple life, we were together every day, but we loved each other very much. She always praised me for being talented and ambitious, not a worldly person, but a southern talent. She also said that when she first saw me, she was sucked in by my talent. Looking at her beautiful appearance, I said that she is getting younger and more beautiful. Indeed, she always dressed herself up nicely in front of me, and never argued with me. This is completely different from Yu Fengjuan. Yu Fengjuan is stubborn and willful, always reasonable, no matter what she does, she feels that she is right, even if she is wrong, she is right. Therefore, others must listen to her. Moreover, Cui Xiuling's daughter is also very cute, and she is very close to me, as if I am her real father. She came back once a week, and each time I bought her some fairy tales and was very patient in telling her all sorts of stories. So, every time she left, she cried and didn't want to leave. But she went to school at her grandmother's side, and she couldn't go back if she didn't go back.

After leaving Yu Fengjuan, I have been living a fairly happy life, in fact, I am a person who is relatively easy to be satisfied in life, as long as I have three meals a day, let me spend my time on writing every day, I don't care much about other things, let alone what good house I want to live in, as long as I have a house to live in, even if I live in a thatched hut, it doesn't matter. Cui Xiuling is also very happy and happy, as if she has never had anything to worry about. She often told me that watching me sit in front of my computer and concentrate on writing would make her feel a sense of comfort and joy. Because her husband in the past was a person who couldn't sit still, he would run outside whenever he was free, either looking for someone to play mahjong, or looking for someone to drink, or running to a song hall or dance hall to find other women to fool around. She said that if her husband could be like me, they wouldn't get divorced. Therefore, she jokingly said that I don't want to do anything other than writing, even if I am taught to learn badly, I can't learn badly.

Every night when I write, she sits in the living room and watches TV, and turns on the TV very quietly, for fear that it will affect my writing. Whenever I wrote a good piece of prose, she would make a fuss about reading it, and after reading it, she would discuss it with me, pointing out what was good and what needed to be revised. Because she majored in Chinese. Therefore, we are not only husband and wife, but also lovers and bosom friends.

If Xu Kai hadn't come to me and mentioned Yu Fengjuan, I would have almost forgotten her. Yu Fengjuan broke my heart, I really don't want to mention her again. After the divorce, Yu Fengjuan and I had almost no contact for two or three years, and I didn't inquire about any news from her. Presumably she married the son of the chief Duan and started a family, and lived in the other family's building. However, the building is on the side of Ziqiang Road, and it was specially built for the leaders of the railway station. Xu Kai's father was the secretary of the public works section, and he also shared a house there. Xu Kai lived in that building when he got married, and I went there when I attended the wedding. Because this building was built in the 70s, the area is not very large, at most 50 square meters. However, the building I was in at school was more than 60 square meters, and it was newly built. If you compare the house over there with the house I now live in the compound of the district party committee, it will be even more insignificant. This thought is just an occasional flash of vanity in the mind. In fact, I certainly wouldn't hurt her in this way, because she was once my woman and is now the mother of my son.

But I don't think she's going to have a good time with that guy. Because she has her son with her, she regards her son as more important than herself. In this way, it will be easy to have disputes and conflicts with others, and she has a strong personality and a small heart, and she will make a big fuss when she encounters a little thing. When the two are in love, they can tolerate big things, but once the relationship cools down and fades away, a little thing with a big fart will quarrel unrelentingly. But I still hope that she can live well, as long as she lives well, the child can live well.

That afternoon, Xu Kai came to the district party committee office to find me and asked me to help him arrange for his son to go to Huojiaxiang Primary School. I wasn't good at this kind of thing, so I asked Director Liu of the District Party Committee Office for help. Director Liu called the principal over there, and the principal said that there was no problem.