Frozen Harbor (8)
The all-night drinking left Tan Guhong waking the next morning with a dry mouth and splitting headache.
But that was not the worst parst. What was worse was that it was only after she got up, washed up, and looked in the mirror that she discovered someone had left quite a few suspicious marks around her neck. Anyone with eyes could tell at a glance what sort of good deed they had gotten up to last night.
The places her clothes could not cover were not even the most obvious. The real disaster area was around the tattoo on her chest. It was practically a sight too horrible to look at.
With a cold expression, Tan Guhong put on her clothes and fastened the buttons, then glared at the person leaning against the doorway, watching her with a smile through the mirror.
“What exactly is wrong with you?”
She admitted that last night, she... coughed, had let herself go after drinking, but he did not need to be this excessive, did he? Whether it was the tattoos on her body or the piercings in her ears, why was he so obsessed with them? What kind of special fetish was this?
Could it be... a lingering side effect from having run with street gangs?
She gave him a suspicious sidelong glance.
Luo Jingming let out a soft laugh and shook his head without answering.
Everything in the world has a crack. That is where the sunlight gets in.
Seeing her like this made him feel that she truly existed in this world.
“Why did you want to get a tattoo?” he asked softly.
At his words, her movements paused slightly. After a moment, she slowly said:
“Why did I get a tattoo? Actually, the reason is the same as why I got my ears pierced.”
“Back when I dropped out of flight school, I had the chance to transfer to ground duty. I didn’t. When I retired from the military, I also had the chance to take a civilian administrative position, but I didn’t.”
“If I can’t have it, there’s no need to force it. I told you, I can’t tolerate even a grain of sand in my eyes. I’d rather the jade be shattered than the whole thing remain intact.”
Her name was the result of a compromise between both her parents when she was born: the surname from the Tan family, the given name from the Liao family. There was nothing wrong with it. But sometimes she could not help wondering whether those two characters had been chosen with a little too much arrogance.
Gu Hong. Gu Hong.
In life, so many things are simply destined to be this way.
……
Contrary to Tan Guhong’s expectations, the few days spent as guests at the Dante family home passed by remarkably easily and pleasantly.
For some reason, she did not dare taste any of the wine at the estate again. But she and Luo Jingming watched the process of making wine and even tried picking quite a few grapes in the vineyard. The grapes of Mediterranean Sicily lived up to their reputation. They were sweet and delicious, naturally excellent for winemaking.
Tan Guhong was also pulled along by Alessandra to help prepare for the wedding. During the days leading up to the wedding, she joined the bridesmaids in stopping Jason from sneaking in to see the bride.
He was a very simple and adorable young Italian man who had tried to imitate the balcony rendezvous of Romeo and Juliet. Instead, he nearly fell off the ladder and broke his leg, only to be chased for several kilometers by Old Dante wielding a hunting rifle. The entire village could hear the roar of his future father-in-law:
“You little brat, you can’t see the bride on the night before the wedding. Can’t you even wait a few more days? Get back to Naples!”
Tan Guhong asked Luo Jingming, “Why Naples?”
Jason was clearly a local.
Luo Jingming replied, “Because historically, the people of Naples and Sicily looked down on each other, and each side used the other as an insult.”
Well, it seemed regional discrimination really did exist everywhere in the world.
Three days later, Alessandra’s wedding took place as scheduled at the winery.
It was a very simple, down-to-earth Sicilian country wedding. There was no grand ceremony or extravagant spectacle, nor were there too many complicated formalities. The neighbors from all around the village gathered together, drinking homemade wine beneath the grapevines, taking photographs with the newlyweds, singing and dancing to the music of a rural band. Even Old Dante was egged on to get up onstage and sing a hopelessly off-key song, sending everyone into fits of laughter. The atmosphere was exceedingly merry.
The only little incident was that there were particularly many unmarried young women in the village. When Alessandra tossed the bouquet, the girls fought over it with extraordinary ferocity. Two of the bridesmaids even got into a full-on fight over it. As a result, the bride’s bouquet slipped right out of her hand and, under everyone’s eyes, flew in a parabola from one side to the other, finally landing by sheer coincidence in the arms of Tan Guhong, who had been sitting on the swing chair beside them, watching the spectacle.
A wave of cheers and teasing broke out around her. The girls who had failed to catch the bouquet were bitterly disappointed. The two bridesmaids who had just been pulling each other’s hair stopped arguing at the same time and turned to glare at one another with a shared sense of indignation.
“Wait, this... this doesn’t count, right...?”
Tan Guhong stared helplessly at the bouquet in her arms.
Nestled against her husband’s chest, Alessandra laughed heartily. “Of course it counts. Tam, looks like your own good fortune is just around the corner!”
Tan Guhong was just about to argue when Luo Jingming, sitting beside her, quietly placed a hand on her shoulder and stopped her.
“If you don’t believe it, then there’s no need to take it so seriously.”
She turned her head, only to see him smile gently.
“Just take it as a beautiful blessing. At least it’s a very pretty bouquet, isn’t it?”
……
After the wedding, Tan Guhong and Luo Jingming hurried back to Palermo without stopping, according to their original plan. From Palermo, they took a plane to Cairo, the capital of Egypt. Then, from Cairo, they drove to Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast. Because transportation in Egypt was inconvenient, although the two cities were not far apart, the journey still took more than ten hours and was quite arduous.
Even so, the two of them tacitly set off together on this journey to catch the ship. Because they both knew perfectly well that only after returning to the cruise ship could their journey continue.
The port of Alexandria faces the vast Mediterranean and lies with the rippling waters of Lake Mariout behind it. Named after Alexander the Great of the ancient Greek Macedonian kingdom, it has a long history and was once a center of trade between East and West. Half sea and half desert, it retains many historic sites and scenic landmarks. It is a resort where the ancient and modern coexist, and traditional Islamic culture intertwines with Western civilization. It is known as the “Bride of the Mediterranean.”
Unfortunately, this time Tan Guhong had no time to explore the city any further. They only just managed to reach the port at the very last moment before the ship set sail.
Amid the afterglow of the setting sun, she finally saw the familiar, enormous form of the Queen Anne once again. Tan Guhong sincerely felt a sense of relief wash over her.
Actually, she still had reservations about the ultimate purpose behind Old Dante’s invitation. She always felt that things could not be this simple. Yet until they finally returned safely to the Queen Anne, nothing unexpected happened. Perhaps Old Dante really had no intention of involving himself in the affairs of the underworld anymore. Perhaps, without her knowledge, he and Luo Jingming had reached some kind of deal. In any case, A-Kun did not leave with them when they departed.
“A-Kun went to take care of some work for me. Don’t worry,” Luo Jingming said.
Tan Guhong neither agreed nor disagreed. In any case, whether this fellow was following behind them or not was something she would never have noticed anyway.
After more than ten hours of travel and exhaustion, Tan Guhong was still surprisingly energetic, but the bridal bouquet in her hands was looking somewhat wilted. Lucy promptly found a vase and some fresh water, tended to the bouquet, and arranged it carefully inside, assuring Tan Guhong that it should last for about a week.
Tan Guhong herself did not know why she had gone to such lengths to bring a bouquet like this all the way from Sicily back to the ship. Perhaps because it was the first bridal bouquet she had ever received in her life. Perhaps because it contained such beautiful blessings. Or perhaps, just as Luo Jingming had said, it was simply a very beautiful bouquet of flowers.
It was not a repetitive arrangement of a single type of flower, but several different kinds interspersed in an artful, uneven arrangement and tied together into an unconventional, free-form bouquet. The colors were vivid and varied, with lush green grapevines and grape leaves thoughtfully woven in as accents around it. It was exceptionally beautiful.
As Tan Guhong arranged the flowers, which had regained their vitality in the vase, she suddenly noticed that one of the flowers looked very familiar. Purple flowers with green leaves, double petals and numerous stamens, resembling peonies yet also like lotuses, blooming with brilliant radiance. She had discovered this kind of flower in the vase in her room the first time she came aboard. After that, it had appeared several times among the flowers Luo Jingming sent her.
“What kind of flower is this?”
Luo Jingming wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, rested his chin against her shoulder, and said with a smile, “This is clematis.”
“Clematis?”
She had never heard of such a flower. It must be a particularly obscure variety. Unable to resist teasing him, she said,
“You certainly know a lot about flowers. Looks like you’ve given quite a few to people before.”
He answered unhurriedly, “I’ve given plenty, but they were all out of courtesy. Giving them to you like this is a first.”
“Liar.”
She did not believe him at all, but only gave a soft snort and did not pursue the matter. Instead, she asked,
“Since you know so much about flowers, can you tell me what kinds these are?”
Luo Jingming seemed to know what she was thinking. He let out a soft laugh without offering any further explanation and leisurely identified them for her:
“The yellow ones are Austin roses. The white ones are baby’s breath. As for these little red grasses, they’re red knotweed. Actually, all of these are common varieties used in European bridal bouquets. There’s nothing particularly unusual about them, but their meanings are rather interesting.”
“What meanings?”
“Austin roses mean protecting love. Baby’s breath means purity. As for red knotweed...”
“What is red knotweed?”
She turned around to look at him. His eyes held a smile as the tip of his nose brushed against hers, and he revealed the answer:
“The flower language of red knotweed is, ‘Kiss me, beyond the garden gate.’”
“I don’t believe you...”
Her words disappeared into their kiss. The familiar scent and familiar kiss made it easy for her to lose herself in it.
Without realizing it, she overlooked the fact that there was one other flower he had not mentioned.
✦
Today’s Film Recommendation:
The Big Blue (1988, France)
Location: Greece
Synopsis: Jacques grew up by the sea in Greece. Although he witnessed his father die in a diving accident when he was young, it did nothing to diminish Jacques’s love for the ocean. When Jacques’s friend Enzo finds him and persuades him to take part in the diving championship, Jacques agrees. He performs exceptionally well in the competition, winning the championship and earning the love of Joanna, an American girl. The two fall deeply in love, but Jacques comes to realize that he cannot let go of the sea, nor can he leave it behind...
Recommendation: This is a film about the ocean, with blue as its predominant color throughout. The blue of the Mediterranean is so gentle and beautiful. The male protagonist undoubtedly belongs to the blue sea and blue sky. When worldly love and a transcendent ideal head in opposite directions, how many people can summon the courage to stake everything on one choice? Fortunately, in the story, someone ultimately gives us the fulfillment we long for.
✦
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