A Couple's Rebirth to 1977 Before Marriage

Mrs. Zhou, whom Mr. Zhou had guided to a nearby stone bench, looked at her husband’s confused expression and burst into tears. "No, it’s not that," she cried. "I’m just so scared!"

Seeing his wife crying so hard, Mr. Zhou said gently, "Don’t cry. Tell me slowly. What are you afraid of?"

Mrs. Zhou roughly wiped her tears with her sleeve and grabbed Mr. Zhou’s arm. "Husband, you’ve seen it these past few months. Our daughter has been spoiled rotten. She’s already thirty, but she’s as naive as a little girl who’s never seen the world. Our son-in-law has money and connections now. What if... what if one day his heart changes? What will our daughter do? She’s so simple and honest. I’m afraid she won’t be able to handle it!"

"Why would you think that? Wait... back when we were still in our old hometown, you sometimes couldn’t sleep at night. When I asked, you’d just say you were missing our second daughter. Were you already worried about this back then?" Mr. Zhou asked, looking at his wife in confusion.

Mrs. Zhou nodded and said softly, "At first, when our daughter got married, I was so happy to see how much our son-in-law doted on her. But slowly, something started to feel wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Every time I asked our daughter, she’d reassure me, and I’d feel better for a while. But whenever I thought about it again, I’d feel uneasy. We have three sons and five daughters, and we love them all the same. But our second girl was weak and sickly since she was little; we almost lost her. You and I have always unconsciously favored her a bit. Seeing our son-in-law cherish her makes me happy, but I can’t shake this feeling of dread. It’s just a feeling... I can’t explain it!"

"Is it our daughter you don’t trust, or our son-in-law?"

"I... I don’t know," Mrs. Zhou said, her face a mask of confusion. "Watching them together always makes my heart pound. I’m just so afraid that one day, he’ll have a change of heart. Our daughter is so single-minded. I’m afraid she wouldn’t be able to get over it!"

Mr. Zhou sighed and gently patted her hand. "My dear, you’re overthinking this. Just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Our son-in-law isn’t that kind of person. Haven’t you ever looked closely at the way he looks at our daughter? He treasures her. The kind of thing you’re imagining won’t happen. Besides, you underestimate our daughter. We didn’t really see it before she got married, but out of all our eight children, our second daughter is the smartest and the most ruthless. You always think she’s simple and honest, but how have you not seen her true nature!"

"See what?"

"That our son-in-law’s life is in our daughter’s hands. Him having a change of heart? Forget this lifetime, it’s not possible even in the next! You think that because he’s handsome, earns a lot, and has connections with powerful people, our daughter can’t keep him in line? But why haven’t you noticed how he adamantly refuses to pursue a career in politics? That’s a surefire path to the top!"

Seeing his wife’s shocked expression, Mr. Zhou continued slowly, "His master from his hometown was no ordinary person, and our son-in-law is preternaturally intelligent. Do you think he doesn’t understand that a political career would be a meteoric rise for him? He’s doing it for our daughter. No, not just for her... it’s more that Li Xiu simply can’t live without her. That boy is naturally domineering and stubborn to the core. I don’t know why he’s so obsessed with our daughter, but I’m telling you, she is his life. He would give up everything—disregard everything, including his own two children—for her. Our daughter is his very reason for living!"

"I think our daughter mentioned something like that to me before, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. That’s why I’m so scared. What if this obsession disappears one day? What would our daughter do then?" Mrs. Zhou asked, her brow furrowed with worry.

Seeing his wife still hadn’t grasped it, Mr. Zhou said patiently, "How could the obsession just disappear? It won’t, unless his life itself disappears! Otherwise, I’m afraid that obsession of his is here to stay."

"My dear," Mr. Zhou said calmly, "Our son-in-law has a lot of medical books here, even some lost, fragmented scrolls. He... isn’t entirely normal. I’ve looked into it repeatedly, and I’ve even spoken with our daughter’s grandmaster about it. He studied psychology. How should I put this... Simply put, our son-in-law has an incomplete personality. He’s different from us, from normal people. It probably has to do with his childhood. Just think about his parents... Ai, it’s hard to explain. In short, our daughter is his life. He can’t live without her. Do you understand?"

"An incomplete personality? Different from normal people? What do we do about that?" Mrs. Zhou asked anxiously.

"There’s nothing to be done. But our daughter’s grandmaster said it’s not a big deal. For people with this kind of personality, as long as their core condition is met, they’re no different from anyone else. Our son-in-law’s one and only obsession is our daughter. As long as she stays just as she is now, everything will be fine. You don’t need to worry. I’ve been watching him closely. The reason he cares for our daughter so much, spoils her so much, is twofold. First, he genuinely treasures her. Second, he’s afraid. He’s terrified that if he doesn’t do a good enough job, she’ll leave him!"

Glancing at his anxious wife, Mr. Zhou continued, "You should stop worrying about our son-in-law and start worrying about our daughter instead. As long as she stays just as she is, I guarantee you, she will be happy for the rest of her life."

Mrs. Zhou was silent for a long time, slowly digesting his words. She thought about things her daughter had said and done in the past, and about what her husband had just told her. In summary, her son-in-law had a psychological flaw, but that flaw was her daughter. As long as the two of them remained as they were now, deeply in love, nothing would go wrong. It wasn’t about her son-in-law’s heart changing; it was that as long as her *daughter’s* heart never changed, everything would be for the best.

When Li Xiu came looking for them, he saw that his mother-in-law’s eyes were red and swollen. He was startled and hurriedly asked, "Mother-in-law, what’s wrong? Did someone upset you?"

Mr. Zhou glanced at his slightly flustered wife, then at his anxious son-in-law. He sighed and said, "Your mother-in-law has been worrying about what would happen if, one day in the future, you were to have a change of heart."

Li Xiu’s eyes shifted, and he instantly understood what his in-laws were talking about. Looking at his mother-in-law’s swollen eyes, he knelt before Mrs. Zhou, took her hands in his, and said patiently, "Mother-in-law, I could say a million pretty things right now, but you might not believe me. You know what my childhood was like. It’s not that I was mistreated, but I never knew what it felt like to be loved by a mother and father. My grandma, my uncles, my aunts... they were all good to me, but no matter how good they were, they weren’t my parents. If I hadn’t followed my master and learned to read and study other things, if I had just been an ordinary farm boy from the village, maybe I wouldn’t have turned out this way."

"Mother-in-law, you know there’s a world of difference between being literate and illiterate. My master taught me so much, which made me think and overthink everything. I was just a kid then, and when you think too much at that age, you can get stuck on things. My master didn’t have children of his own, so he never noticed how I was changing. Back then, I used to think, ’It doesn’t matter if my parents don’t care about me. It doesn’t matter if my siblings don’t care either. One day, I’ll have my own home, my own wife, and my own children.’ But children grow up and leave. The only one who is truly my own, mine and mine alone, is my wife—the one I will share my life and my grave with. It probably started when I was just a few years old. As I grew up, that obsession became buried in my very bones."