Falling for a Man Twice My Age

The day Su Wan first met Lu Chongshan, it was raining. She worked overtime until nine and ate a bowl of wontons at a stall in an alley. He walked her home, holding his umbrella over her while half his own shoulder was soaked through. The next day, she went to return the umbrella, but his cart was gone, and so was he.

She thought that was the end of it. Who knew she'd make five or six trips before finally cornering him outside the breakfast shop across the street? He saw her, froze for a moment, then smiled.

She was an ordinary twenty-eight-year-old office administrator. He was a fifty-four-year-old divorced man who ran a breakfast shop. They were twenty-six years apart. His children objected, her parents were so angry they ended up in the hospital, relatives took turns trying to talk her out of it, colleagues gossiped behind her back, and her best friend told her to come to her senses. They fought, gave each other the silent treatment, and broke up three times. When he suffered a gastric hemorrhage, she stayed by his side for a week and lost three pounds. When business was slow, he refused to let her support him. Her company laid people off, and she nearly lost her job.

Eventually, his children gradually came around, and her parents said, “Bring him over to meet us.” They registered their marriage, then both families gathered around one table for a meal. On the first morning after the wedding, she woke to find him watching her. He asked if she regretted it. She said, “Regret what? I've eaten hundreds of bowls of wontons by now.”

It all started with a bowl of wontons. Somehow, it became a lifetime together.