The Fifth Year of Marriage

What is love?

Five years into their marriage, their WeChat chats no longer had any unnecessary greetings. At mealtimes, Zhao Xiaomeng liked watching dramas, while her wife, Meng Xuan, preferred the news.

Zhao Xiaomeng raised cats, Meng Xuan raised fish. They lived in two different worlds, yet slept in the same bed.

On her thirtieth birthday, Zhao Xiaomeng was stood up by her wife once again. The heavy rain in Rongcheng soaked her carefully chosen outfit and extinguished the last bit of hope she had for their marriage.

When she got home, the lock still wouldn't open, and the same uneventful days stretched endlessly ahead. At last, she said, "Let's get divorced."

*

In Meng Xuan's eyes, her wife was a child.

As long as Meng Xuan did a little more where her wife couldn't see, that was enough.

Meng Xuan cared about her pride and rarely spoke. Having struggled from a small county town to make a living in the big city, she was used to bearing everything herself.

She never meant to ruin her wife's thirtieth birthday. She had booked a restaurant and prepared something romantic. After being unable to reach her all day, she came home soaked from head to toe, only to find her wife waiting at the door.

This time, her wife didn't blame her. She only said coldly, "Let's get divorced."

*

What is love?

Is it wild romance and all-consuming passion?

Or is it the bedside lamp someone always leaves on for you through the petty routines of everyday life?

What is love?

Is it that, through ordinary days whose end you can see from the start,

she stays by your side, loving you as purely as a child did at the beginning?

Or is it the handful of greens she rinses for you while you're cooking?

Written for my wife...

Theme: Simple, peaceful lives are what matter most.