CHAPTER 182: CHAPTER 182: HOLLY, YOU ARE DESTINED TO BE MY WIFE

The photo’s background is the familiar old Myrica tree, its branches and leaves lush and dense.

He sat in a wheelchair, wearing a clean white short-sleeved shirt, his small face stern, eyes fixed on the little girl in front of him.

And she sat unceremoniously on the ground in front of his wheelchair, holding a large plate of purplish-red Myrica berries, laughing heartily at the camera.

The handwriting on the back of the photo looked quite fresh, as if he had retraced it later:

[Summer 2001, Port Kallow. Our first and only photo together.]

The heart felt as if pricked by a needle, even breathing was painful.

At this moment, from the last page of the album, a yellowed piece of paper fell out.

The note was small, scribbled in crooked handwriting interspersed with pinyin:

[PrOmiSe Letter

From now on, every year.

YaRRow brother must come to see HoLly, start school.

Guarantor: Holly Crowe

Guarantor: YaRrow brother]

The bottom line was crossed out with a black line, underneath was Blake Sinclair’s newly signed name.

The handwriting was mature.

She remembered that when the Myrica berry season was about to end that year, her mother called her grandmother, telling her she was about to start elementary school.

She lay on Blake Sinclair’s desk, swinging her legs, "Yarrow brother, what is elementary school like? Are there many, many kids? Are the teachers strict? Will there be snacks like in kindergarten?"

The boy in the wheelchair fell silent, his expression momentarily stiff and unnatural.

Later she learned that he, who had grown up in the ancestral hall, received nothing but one-on-one education.

Therefore, he could not answer her questions about communal life.

But at that time, young Holly didn’t understand these things.

She was still immersed in beautiful imaginations about the future, thinking that going to school was a very sacred thing.

So she found paper and pencil, using the few words she had just learned, mixed with pinyin, wrote this childish but solemn "guarantee letter."

After writing, she even signed "Yarrow brother’s" name herself, gave it to him, and asked him to pinky swear and seal it with her.

"Now it’s done! Every time school starts, I’ll be able to see Yarrow brother! You promised me!"

"That’s not my name, it doesn’t count."

"It counts, we pinky swore and hooked, no backtracking."

She thought it was just an inadvertent joke of childhood, never expecting that this ridiculous piece of paper would be kept by him.

In the more than twenty years that followed, during the days she had long forgotten, he quietly fulfilled this promise alone.

"So, this is how it is."

Holly choked up, unable to speak.

She pressed the piece of paper against her heart.

Her heart covered in bitterness.

The seed planted many years ago, in an unseen darkness, had grown into a towering tree.

And it was only at this moment that she caught a glimpse of it.

Holly put the note back in the album and opened the envelope.

The handwriting was neat, it was the writing she knew well.

[Holly:]

When I wrote this letter, the sunset outside the window was vivid.

Please forgive my despicableness, binding your lengthy life with mine for the future.

There were countless times when I had the chance to tell you the truth, to tell you I was once your Yarrow brother.

But I was afraid.

Blake Sinclair is a coward.

I feared you’d remember the past, feared you’d resent my failure to keep the promise, feared you’d know the shameful means I used to get close to you.

So I missed opportunity after opportunity, hid it over and over again, until we were pushed to the brink.

I’m sorry, Holly.

I deceived you once again.

And this deceit began before we even officially met.

The child who grew up in the ancestral hall was used to protecting themselves with indifference and detachment.

In those first few days at Port Kallow, the days were long and tedious.

Until one day, the sound of bells echoed through the alley.

Grandmother, afraid you’d run too far and get lost, always tied small bells to your pigtails.

When you ran, jingling, even the wind seemed to have sound.

There was hope in the day, and it no longer felt long.

Every afternoon, listening to the bell sound at the alley’s entrance, it was my greatest anticipation and joy.

And that afternoon.

The bell didn’t pass by quickly as usual, but stopped downstairs.

The old Myrica tree in the yard had a small figure on it.

At that moment, I barely hesitated, immediately went downstairs, sat back in that cold wheelchair, and quietly waited under the tree.

Then, sure enough, you fell down and landed in my arms.

Holly, please forgive me.

Our first official meeting began with my little scheme.

I despicably created a "hero saving a damsel" moment for myself.

But, Holly.

The ancestors in the ancestral hall taught me in the harshest way that in this world, there is no such thing as gratuitous goodwill, and anyone approaching might have ulterior motives.

I carried a sense of caution, scrutinizing everything around me, and naturally, that included you, who suddenly barged in.

So initially, I found five-year-old Holly really quite chatty.

Every time you would carry that Myrica basket larger than you to find me, forcibly stuffing those fruits into my mouth, completely ignoring my furrowed brows.

Later, you always volunteered to push my wheelchair, saying you wanted to take me to the alley to see the excitement, but it often ended up with me maneuvering the wheelchair myself while you, tired, would nap on my lap.

When I was writing, you would sneak my pen to draw all kinds of ugly sparrows on my clean notebook.

Faced with your enthusiasm, I repeatedly warned myself:

Blake Sinclair, you are leaving.

You are just a passerby here, and this annoying little girl like a small sun will have no intersection with your life.

You cannot be soft-hearted, cannot get used to it, and even more so, cannot indulge.

I am leaving, I must be leaving.

But, what if after I leave, you get bullied by others?

Later,

when you placed the ceramic sparrow in my palm,

all the defenses I had built up came crashing down.

I didn’t want to leave.

I wanted to stay at Port Kallow.

Stay in the summers with you.

I wanted to always be your Yarrow brother.

Holly, I’m sorry.

I still broke my promise.

I thought, our life paths would henceforth run parallel, never to intersect again.

I silently upheld that promise.

Until we met again at Orbital Park.

When you placed the Lotus Keychain in my hand.

At that moment, eighteen-year-old Blake Sinclair, for the first time, wanted something.

And that was you.

But I didn’t dare approach.

I could only, like a despicable voyeur, watch you grow from a place where you couldn’t see me.

With a seven-hour time difference between China and England, I missed you for thirty-one hours.

I thought of you in the rainy days of London, during brief return flights home, in every dream and reality related to you, hopelessly thinking about you.

When I finally thought I had the qualifications to come to you, returning home with trepidation and anticipation, hoping to tell you everything,

I saw that standing by your side was already someone else.

You held flowers, running joyfully under his umbrella.

My Yarrow, ultimately flew into someone else’s embrace.

At that moment, I heard the sound of my world collapsing again.

Every subsequent yearning was a desecration.

Later, I picked up the laughable three hundred and twenty-one house rules of The Sinclair Family.

I tried to use these constraints to restrain my out-of-control heart, to bind those crazily growing delusions.

I thought, as long as I restrained enough, I could forget.

But I was wrong, so very wrong.

Holly, how can love be bound by rules?

It only burns more fiercely, more desperately on the barren land forcibly suppressed.

So, I used the most despicable means.

I know it’s very selfish, very shameless, totally the act of a villain.

But, Holly, I do not regret.

Even if it meant doing it all over again a thousand times, I would still make the same choice.

Even if it means descending into hell because of it, I accept.

This ten-year-long unseeable secret affection, this patience and watch that stretched almost to despair,

finally in that moment when you, wearing a wedding dress, threw yourself into my arms, heard the most merciful response.

The gods and Buddha also took pity on me.

Holly, look.

You are destined to be my wife.

It’s as if it were predestined.

You are destined to be entangled with me, a person full of sins, using every means, for a lifetime.

I know, now you must hate me.

Hate my every concealment, hate my careful calculations, hate me for being a complete liar.

I do not dare to ask for your forgiveness.

But I still want to tell you,

I love you, Holly.

This love has never, for a moment, changed.

The twilight outside the window is nearly faded, and the letter paper is also filled.

Holly, can you give me a bit more of your love?

Husband,

Blake.