After Eight Years Away, the Retired Officer’s Long Road to Winning Back His Wife

At twenty-six, Cheng Anni has made a life for herself in Guangzhou: a two-bedroom apartment, an retired German shepherd named Brother Lu, and the title of project manager. Yet late at night, those three text messages from eight years ago still rise up like shadows that won’t fade, a tiny thorn that pricks her heart with the slightest touch. They’ve been out of touch for eight years. I’d long buried this regret, until a new coworker opened the conference room door. It was Lu Xu. The swaggering school bully he’d been as a boy had been replaced by a soldier’s upright bearing. He smiled and said, “I came to Guangzhou for my girlfriend.” I gripped my pen, my fingertips turning white with panic. How dare he disappear for eight years, then suddenly show up with a “girlfriend” as his excuse? He became my coworker, and my neighbor, too. In the end, the eight years of silence couldn’t withstand his tender pursuit after our reunion. I finally let down my guard when he took a knife meant for me and was injured. When he clasped my hand and said, “This time, I’ll never let go again,” I thought that at last, the regret of eight years was about to be put right. Then I stepped into his home in Beijing. A girl in a photograph smiled and said, “The engagement between A Xu and me was arranged by our families.” It hit me like a bolt from the blue. It turned out that his background, which he’d never told me about, hid an “agreement” I’d never known existed... We parted without saying goodbye eight years ago. Now, after finally taking each other’s hands again, we’ve been held back by his family background and an arranged engagement. How many twists and turns will it take before this reunion after eight years can truly end with us “never letting go again”?