When Zhou Zihui was fifty-three years old, her ex-husband's cheating partner smashed her full-length mirror. Her eight-year-old son held her hand in the rain and said, "Mom, I'll stay with you." Twenty years later, she was standing at the stone table in Guyi Garden. Sitting opposite was a sixty-one-year-old man who was so nervous that he turned his teacup.
Xie Mingxuan has been missing his wife for eleven years and his cell phone is always on silent mode. Before her death, her ex-wife Shen Xiaojuan used a share of her property to save the six Xie family's relocated houses, and she has since become a hero worshiped by the whole family. There is always an empty seat at the dinner table, and there is always a memorial tablet on the balcony on the tenth floor. He thought his life would be like this - drawing pictures, growing flowers, and waiting to grow old alone.
Until he met Zhou Zihui.
Two people, each with their own old wounds, lived half their lives under their own roof. She felt the pain of betrayal, and he felt the pain of separation. She grows strawberries and he raises golden thread elms. Two white porcelain cups were placed side by side on the windowsill, one for her and one for him.
But halfway couples are never just a matter of two people. The shadow of his ex-wife, his son's caution, the in-laws' calculations, the property rights of the relocated house, and the blurted out "This is my friend". They each have a house, each have children, and each has a past that they can't let go of. After receiving the certificates, they did not live together. One was in Jinshan and the other was in Jiading. They ran between them for eleven years.
Someone asked: "Are you living a good life?"
Zhou Zihui said: "He has his roof, and I have mine. The rest is all sincerity."
The broken mirror was glued up and placed on the top shelf of the bookshelf. When pieces that have been broken are put back together, they look better than new ones.
We were just in time when the ginkgo trees were falling.
Concept: Our respective roofs are the most decent way to rely on each other in our old age.