Chapter 53: I’ll Send You an Island

The second big argument was much more serious than the first, yet they didn’t engage in the same long-lasting cold war as before. It was as if, as Yin Xian had said, Wang Jiexiang’s one-sided displeasure had sparked the conflict.

And she was exactly the type to forget the pain once the wound healed, someone who thought everything was fine as long as she had a relationship. It was rather lacking.

So, all it took was a little sunshine, and Wang Jiexiang bloomed again.

A few days later, Yin Xian attended an event hosted by his insurance company. Some of the low-value promotional items that clients didn’t want were left over, and he brought them home.

From the pile of leftover junk, Wang Jiexiang picked out a rabbit-shaped keychain.

It was made of metal, with a silver ring attached to a short chain, at the end of which hung a rabbit about the size of a thumb.

The rabbit was painted in a creamy white color, with long ears, a small head, a chubby body, and a round, short tail. It had a carrot pinned to its head. The craftsmanship of the keychain and the paint job looked very poor. The paint on the carrot had chipped off, revealing the metal underneath, and the shape of the rabbit was slightly crooked…

But that didn’t affect Wang Jiexiang’s fondness for it.

Holding the keychain with both hands, she looked at it again and again, touching it repeatedly.

“Rabbit, rabbit, my favorite rabbit.”

She spun around in their rented apartment.

Yin Xian guessed that anything related to rabbits would make her happy, but he hadn’t expected her to be this delighted.

“You’re making my head spin.”

Wang Jiexiang spun over to him, pulled him up from the chair, and spun around with him.

“Yin Xian, Yin Xian!”

Shaking his hand, she said, “When you make money, when you earn big money, let’s get a rabbit, okay?”

Yin Xian smiled and, without thinking, answered, “Okay.”

…

Not long after, Wang Jiexiang found out the reason behind Yin Xian’s sleepless nights.

He was planning to change jobs.

He quit his job at the insurance company and started working for a large private company that made light fixtures.

He had carefully chosen the company after comparing it with others, and Wang Jiexiang thought this job must have some other significance for him.

In the past, selling insurance involved performance targets, but now he earned a fixed salary, which was nearly half less than what he made before.

She didn’t intervene in his decision due to the lower salary. Yin Xian had his reasons for doing things.

Wang Jiexiang had her own things to deal with.

Living in the Urban Village, the hardest times of the year were the rainy season and winter.

In winter, the rented apartment didn’t have heating, and the public bathhouse didn’t have hot water. When it snowed heavily, it would block the road to their house, and once the snow melted, the downhill near their home would freeze, turning into a huge slippery slide.

Before the troublesome winter came, Wang Jiexiang made preparations. She planned to knit a warm sweater for Yin Xian.

She learned how to knit from an older sister at the Seafood Factory. She wasn’t very skilled, and the older sister had gotten tired of teaching her, but Wang Jiexiang still occasionally made mistakes.

She hadn’t inherited knitting skills from her mom.

Wang Jiexiang remembered that her mother was really good at knitting. Her dad’s scarf, her grandmother’s slippers, her hats, gloves, and little coin pouches… all were knitted by her mother.

When she was little, she watched her mom knit sweaters and thought her mom was a magician. The knitting needles wrapped around the yarn, and the yarn spiraled around her mother’s slim fingers. Her mother’s fingers nimbly flicked and pulled, instantly creating beautiful knots that formed a dense, regular web.

She was so skilled. Wang Jiexiang would talk to her mother while she worked, and it never interrupted her knitting.

“Mom, I want a little flower on my sweater.”

Her mom looked up at her and asked with a smile, “How big a flower?”

She stretched out both hands, with her left thumb touching her right thumb, and her index fingers touching each other, making the size.

“A flower that big,” her mom smiled and nodded. “Okay, Jiexiang wants a little flower, I’ll knit you a little flower.”

When Wang Jiexiang grew up and became a beginner at knitting, she realized how difficult it was to add a little flower to a sweater.

She also wanted a little flower on Yin Xian’s sweater!

Because her knitting skills weren’t very good, she often had to undo and redo parts, so she deliberately didn’t knit in front of Yin Xian. She had hoped to finish the sweater before winter, but the project was simply too big.

The city quietly entered winter.

That winter, business at the Seafood Factory was bad, and the orders were pitifully few.

At the end of the month, the boss told them that they wouldn’t be able to pay their salaries on time. Wang Jiexiang, like the other workers, furrowed her brows, deep in thought.

She was thinking about big problems, like whether she might get laid off if things kept going this way, or whether the factory would close down.

She was also thinking about smaller problems, like whether the boss would still provide lunch and dinner at the factory or whether she’d have to bring her own meals.

By the end of the month, Wang Jiexiang and Yin Xian’s wallets were nearly empty, just waiting for the salary to come through.

The situation at the factory had left their home with nothing left to eat.

To save some money, Wang Jiexiang would split one meal into two, which meant she often went to bed hungry.

Lying on the hard wooden bed, the walls of the apartment felt like they were made of paper. The cold wind blew outside, and she trembled in the cold.

Tossing and turning, Wang Jiexiang had trouble falling asleep, cold and hungry.

Yin Xian knew she wasn’t comfortable.

He pulled his blanket over hers, trying to keep her warmer.

“It won’t work. Our blankets are all single-person ones. If I pull your blanket away in the middle of the night, you’ll freeze to death.”

Wang Jiexiang moved inside the bed, refusing to cover herself with his blanket.

Yin Xian shifted toward her, persistently covering her with his blanket.

This back-and-forth of covering and moving, after a few times, it was clear that they’d both catch a cold by the time the night was over.

Wang Jiexiang thought for a moment and then spread out her own blanket, merging it with his single-person blanket.

“Hold me, hold me tight.”

Without giving Yin Xian a chance to refuse, she snuggled into his arms.

She asked him to hold her, but she ended up holding him tightly instead.

Yin Xian didn’t push her away.