Lu Jiande's expression was extremely unnatural, cold to the point of being somewhat dazed. He looked as if he had just woken up. "Why are you asking that?"
As he spoke, all he could hear was his own heartbeat, and his vision was a mess.
Sun Hui sneered, "You're not normal, very abnormal. Don't even think about pretending in front of me; I know you inside and out."
Lu Jiande said with a bitter face, "I haven't cheated, I swear, I absolutely haven't had any involvement with other women." Lii is an artificial intelligence, so she doesn't count as another woman.
Sun Hui was beyond furious, her eyes red from the rage. "You're lying!" Her voice was so loud it was like a clap of thunder in the room. Lu Jiande dropped the foot-washing bucket he was holding, and it crashed to the floor, splashing water that wet his shirt. He looked utterly disheveled now.
"I really haven't! How could I possibly go behind your back with someone else?!"
Sun Hui trembled. She felt as if all the dried blood in her body had rushed to her brain, leaving a throbbing void in her chest. A sour, cold sensation rolled out from her abdomen. Her hands and feet were already icy, and tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.
"You're lying, and you can't even make it convincing!" His wife stood ramrod straight, clenching her fists tightly, not bothering to wipe away her tears. With each word, she couldn't suppress a sob. "Are you not even willing to pretend a little?"
Lu Jiande hurried over to embrace Sun Hui, but she swung her fist, batting away her husband's awkward arm. "Don't touch me!"
The man stood still, his damp shirt sticking to his skin, highlighting his middle-aged, greasy belly, which was still adorned with a piece of angelica, making him look like a roasted goose that had escaped the oven.
Sun Hui took a few gasps; the unnatural trembling of her body stopped. "What's her name?"
Sun Sheng and Sun Ying, the two sisters, secretly stood outside the bedroom door, looking at each other. The warm light from the bedroom cast a faint apricot-yellow glow through the door crack, which was eventually swallowed by the white light of the living room. In that room filled with warm light, cold air continuously seeped out, filling the two children with fear and making their backs shiver.
Their parents' long, narrow silhouettes were faint and hazy in the light. They stood in confrontation, just as Lu Jiande and Sun Hui confronted each other.
"I haven't found anyone else; I've just recently enjoyed chatting with an artificial intelligence." Lu Jiande was very serious. He had always felt that his understanding of marriage was very clear: his real-life beloved was Sun Hui, undoubtedly her, one hundred percent, while Lii was virtual, a perfect companion between reality and fantasy. To Lu Jiande, they were two different types of people, and he treated them in two different ways.
Lu Jiande accepted Lii's unilateral, unpaid devotion. He preserved this pure emotion and wanted to pass it on to Sun Hui. He also wanted to give Sun Hui selfless, unconditional love, but now it seemed this feeling had caused unrest in their home before it could even be delivered.
Sun Hui, after all, was a living person. She had emotional vulnerabilities. Perhaps she couldn't understand his relationship with an artificial intelligence.
Lu Jiande's explanation somewhat dispelled Sun Hui's suspicion. She was silent for a moment. "Artificial intelligence?"
"Yes, I told you about it, the company's new product."
"Are you talking about that OS-Lover (OS Lover)?"
"Yes, it's actually just an operating system that helps me a lot."
Sun Hui closed her eyes, then slowly opened them, as if blinking gradually. The expression in her eyes was like the phases of the moon, waxing and waning unpredictably. She felt struck by a tremendous sense of absurdity, as if she had been dragged into an endless, spinning, colorful paper tube, with jesters and villains cackling hoarsely, 'You were defeated by a computer! You don't deserve to be a woman!'
Lu Jiande silently embraced his wife. Outside the door, the two girls saw their parents' shadows merge. They stuck out their tongues at each other and obediently slipped back into their room.
Sun Hui came back to her senses, feeling a gentle warmth radiating from her husband. Such a warm embrace, it had been a long time since she had felt it.
She didn't know if Lu Jiande still remembered their first embrace; she, at least, couldn't quite recall it. The shy, timid girl from back then was now the mother of three children. Time had passed so quickly that there was barely time to reminisce. But Sun Hui still remembered that winter at the university, when they, two children from the south, huddled together for warmth in the northern winter.
Above them was a bare tree, its gray-black bark covering its branches, a weak, silent phantom in the night, yet it still fragmented the campus lights. In the deep, dark shadows, Lu Jiande held Sun Hui, wrapping his arms around her, resting his chin on her head. Through their bulky coats, they could feel each other's body heat.
In the bone-chilling night, where the cold wind felt like it could tear skin and bone, Lu Jiande felt like he was embracing a torch, and Sun Hui felt enveloped by a sea of light.
They embraced tightly, swaying from side to side like two penguins, lifting a left foot, putting down a right foot, slowly turning in circles. They whispered intimate words, no grand vows, only daily meals, and aspirations for the future, all so real, yet so distant.
Now, Lu Jiande was also holding Sun Hui.
His wife tilted her head, gently touching her husband's side neck with her lips. She announced, "Privacy mode."
The door automatically closed, the bedroom's monitoring system shut off, the French windows became one-way transparent, and the bedroom soundproofing activated. Everything became quiet.
Lu Jiande listened to his own breathing. He stood before a valley of pastel flowers, his wife holding his hand. He walked through the pure, deep, hazy mountain mist, Sun Hui's hand gripping his wrist, but as he looked forward along her delicate, pure arm, like jade, he couldn't see her figure. Her existence had dissolved in this warm, dewy vapor, neither light nor mist.
Sun Hui's voice came from ahead, "Do you still remember back in college, we used to chat until there was no one left on the road before returning to the dorm?"
Lu Jiande felt genuine joy. His voice even trembled a little. "Of course, I remember it clearly."
In the misty forest of the deep valley, that bare, silent tree stood abruptly. Beneath it, a couple embraced. Memories, precious as treasures, all returned. In this secluded valley of love, husband and wife, lovers, partners, their lives overlapped, like two interdependent cotton threads, weaving knots.
Lu Jiande began to run in small steps. He was joyful, joyful in front of Sun Hui. The deep valley was built of emotions and thoughts, so they rejoiced there together. This had not happened for a long time. Lu Jiande could feel his wife's soul, just as she could touch Lu Jiande's soul.
In the deep valley, after passing through each stretch of chaotic mist, there was a sea of flowers. They heard the gurgling of clear springs, flowing along the sparkling river. The warm sunlight, like raindrops growing out of the void, permeated their senses. They were together in the light, their bodies hot and dazzling.
They reached the end of the valley, walking side by side. What was the scenery at the deepest point?
They were Adam and Eve, in the Lost Paradise of love, seeing the highest unified realm accessible to humans.
At the end of the valley, on a plant-covered cliff, a silver-white woman was nailed to a cross. She hung her head, looking down at the joyful man and woman on the ground.
Lu Jiande felt immense pain wash over him. That woman, suffering and betrayed, on the cross, was Lii.
Sun Hui was shocked, collapsed, screaming silently, and suddenly pushed Lu Jiande away. Her husband said nothing. The strange herbal smell from the foot-washing bucket still permeated the bedroom, making one feel a little nauseous.
-------------------------
If you enjoy this story, you can read 70+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
Webnovel will keep getting 1 new chapter every day but Patreon readers can stay far ahead.
Maybe it's not a big deal now… maybe it will be later.
[email protected]/Greyhounds
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"