Subordinate Doting - Chap 73
He Zhuo’s heart was gently scratched by the kitten’s claws.
”Don’t be afraid, I will treat you gently in the future.”
-
They still slept together tonight.
Ji Tingyu was too drunk to move, so He Zhuo helped him take a bath.
I run the water, rub the back, and massage the hands, feet, and joints all by myself. The cat is then responsible for resting its face on the edge of the bathtub, looking drowsy, with a towel wrapped in the shape of a bun on its head.
After taking a shower, He Zhuo took him out and put him on the bed, then went back to take a shower himself.
Ji Tingyu wanted to turn back into a kitten and crawl into his sleeping bag to sleep, but the differentiation period had passed, and he was embarrassed to turn back into that soft appearance, so he maintained his human form and lay on the head of the bed waiting for He Zhuo.
When I got bored of waiting, I took out a pebble from my pocket and started carving it for fun. The carving knife made a “tapping” sound on the stone.
He Zhuo came out with his hair gathered up and sat next to him. “What are you carving?”
The pebble in Ji Tingyu’s hand was polished to a translucent finish, and two lines of elegant small characters were engraved on the relatively flat side.
——In the spring of 2018, Neville’s windbreak was attacked by battlefield hunters. After a narrow escape, he met He Zhuo.
He is a little wolf with blue eyes.
He Zhuo’s pupils shocked and he was stunned.
”What is this?” he asked, grabbing Ji Tingyu’s hand.
”What else could it be? Stone.”
”I know it’s stone, but, but why did you carve words on the stone? Do you have words carved on all your stones?”
”Those?” Ji Tingyu was surprised. “How do you know I have a lot of stones? Did you see my cabinet?”
He didn’t care and opened the door of the bedside table and took out a fat glass bottle filled with various pebbles.
Ji Tingyu originally wanted to put the piece he had just carved in there, but He Zhuo “grabbed” the bottle before him and poured all the stones onto the bed with a “crash”.
”Be careful!” Ji Tingyu was afraid that he would break it.
He Zhuo turned a deaf ear to him. With shaking hands, he picked up stones one by one and examined them anxiously and chaotically. There was an expression of loss of control as if order had collapsed on his face, and his eyes were wide open as if they were about to pop out.
The first stone is inscribed with:
Winter of 2011, Kanoman, fighting for half a month, 792 casualties, 55 rescued, Nara gift.
The second piece.
In the summer of 2012, Evian, after a week of fighting, 135 casualties, 0 rescued, and self-repaired.
The third piece.
In the spring of 2014, there was an earthquake in Yosek, with 73 deaths and injuries, 25 rescued, and Dana donated it.
The fourth piece.
In the autumn of 1917, the Browntree Bridge collapsed, killing 44 people and injuring 14 people. The people who were rescued had to pick up the pieces themselves.
The fifth piece, the sixth piece…
Until the last piece that Ji Tingyu had just carved.
There were twenty-five stones in the jar.
It records all the major battles he had covered, the countless lives he had saved, the adventures he had endured, and the honors and praise he had received.
It’s like a bottle of merit book filled with stones.
The moment this thought took shape in his mind, He Zhuo’s heart began to spasm violently, as if an old illness had relapsed, and his whole body was shaking from the inside out.
”What the hell are these? Are you recording anything with them?”
Ji Tingyu was confused and said, “Just some numbers.”
”Xiao Yu!” He Zhuo suddenly roared, then moved his lips and squeezed out a few words stiffly: “Xiao Yu, tell me, tell me clearly, what do they mean to you…”
Ji Tingyu blinked, lowered his head, and his shoulders slumped.
”Maybe…it’s evidence that I existed.”
His tone was unusually serious, as if he was solemnly declaring:
”I once thought that if I didn’t leave any achievements in my life, or if everything I did was erased, how would I write my epitaph a hundred years later to tell others about my lofty ideals and humble contributions?”
“And then there were these.”
“Even if no one remembers, my footsteps will help me remember that I have gone deep into the wounds of the earth countless times and exposed the scars left by war.”
He Zhuo’s heart stopped suddenly, and all the blood in his body seemed to freeze.
He raised his eyes stiffly and saw the shyness on Ji Tingyu’s face that young people often have when they talk about their lofty ideals. He smiled shyly:
“These are the seven years I’m most proud of.”
At that moment, He Zhuo’s heart seemed to have been dug out by life, and the bloody wound was filled with rotten maggots bred by time.
Because Ji Tingyu’s prediction was correct.
Everything he had done in his previous life was wiped out.
After Ji Tingyu left the press department at the age of 27, all the video footage of him was replaced by another face. The reports he wrote with the first-hand information he had obtained with his life were signed with a meaningless code name. The three words Ji Tingyu did not appear in the list of war correspondents in the entire Allied country.
Even on the Nivel Snowfield where he had been stationed for seven years, no one dared to mention Ji Tingyu’s name anymore.
His ideals, his ambitions, all the contributions he made, and the hundreds of lives he saved, all disappeared into the archives along with him.
How did Ji Tingyu, who was suffering both physically and mentally from the serious illness, fight against all this?
He made himself a small coffin, only as big as a shoe box, with two small holes dug inside, just enough to fit a cat and a glass bottle.
He told his brother Ji Tinglan: After I die, put my body and this bottle full of stones in a coffin and bury it on the highest snow-capped mountain in Nivea.
He Zhuo didn’t know the meaning of these stones. Even after three years of marriage, he didn’t know that they belonged to Ji Tingyu.
It was only after Ji Tingyu’s death that he learned from Ji Tinglan that the cat wanted to be buried with these stones.
But he couldn’t understand: Why use a pile of stones as burial objects?
Now I understand that this is the only remaining evidence of Ji Tingyu’s short life, and it is a relic he prepared for himself.
