Chapter 1: White Moonlight

Before boarding the supply ship from Yangcheng to Yazhou Island, Lin Wei had never thought she would get seasick.

Her home was by the river, and as a child, she often took the boat across with her mother to play on the other side. At first, her mother would buy motion sickness pills just in case before boarding, but they never needed them, so she eventually stopped buying them.

Besides, they had already taken a half-day ferry ride earlier, traveling by river from Shicheng to the provincial capital since it was faster that way. She had been perfectly fine then—she even had the strength to carry a child after disembarking.

Yet, not long after the ship set sail this morning, Lin Wei started throwing up. She had barely eaten anything for lunch and dinner, and now she lay weakly on the bed, completely drained.

Thinking about how they wouldn’t reach land until tomorrow afternoon, Lin Wei couldn’t help but sigh.

“Still feeling unwell?” Zong Shao asked as he entered the room, carrying two meal boxes.

Lin Wei shook her head. “It’s not too bad. Where did you go?”

Zong Shao walked over to the bunk bed where she lay, opened the aluminum meal box, and said, “I saw you barely ate dinner, so I borrowed a pot from the kitchen and made some porridge.”

They were traveling on a military supply ship, where discipline was strict. Unless there were special circumstances, no food was provided outside of the three scheduled meals, and personal cooking was not allowed.

However, Lin Wei was merely a military spouse, and this was her first time at sea. Given how badly she was suffering from seasickness, Zong Shao borrowing a pot to cook for her wasn’t considered special treatment.

Lin Wei was indeed hungry. After throwing up all day, she had nothing left in her stomach but bitter acid. Yet, she had little appetite, and even lifting her gaze to look at him felt sluggish.

Understanding how unwell she felt, Zong Shao lifted the lid and brought the meal box closer, showing her the porridge and pickled cucumber strips inside, hoping to stir her appetite.

The porridge was plain white rice porridge—not particularly thick, but not too watery either. The pickled cucumber strips were a mix of green and yellow, with a few flecks of red chili pepper scattered among them.

“Where did you get pickled cucumber strips?”

People in the Lingnan region generally had mild tastes, and the food on the supply ship followed local preferences. In the past two meals, she hadn’t seen a single trace of chili pepper.

“It’s from the kitchen as well—they usually serve it with porridge in the morning,” Zong Shao said, noticing Lin Wei’s interest. As he spoke, he took a spoon from the nearby table and handed it to her along with the meal box.

Lin Wei didn’t put on airs. She reached out, took the meal box and spoon, and started eating.

The porridge had been left to cool for a while, so it was at just the right temperature—soft and easy to swallow. The pickled cucumber strips were exactly as she had imagined: sour, spicy, and crisp. In two words—perfect with porridge.

While she ate, Zong Shao turned to check on the two little boys sleeping on the other bed.

Despite their young age and the fact that this was their first time on a ship, the brothers had handled the trip far better than their mother. The motion sickness pills prepared for them had gone completely unused—Lin Wei had ended up taking them all instead.

On top of that, the ship was filled with People’s Liberation Army soldiers, which had the boys so excited that they had been in high spirits since boarding. After dinner, they’d gone to sleep without any fuss, requiring no attention at all—truly effortless.

After tucking them in, Zong Shao returned to sit by Lin Wei’s bed, but he didn’t say anything.

They got married in early 1970, and now, four years and three months had passed. It wasn’t a short time, and with two children, they should have had a deep bond by now. But in reality, they barely knew each other.

Theirs was an arranged marriage. Before the wedding, they had only met twice—once for the matchmaking, and the second time for the engagement.

Even after getting married, they hadn’t spent much time together. In four years, he had only returned to Shicheng twice—once when she gave birth to the two boys and once when his mother passed away. Altogether, he hadn’t even stayed at home for a full month.

That was also why Lin Wei had decided to follow the army this time. Though she had no grand expectations for love and was fine with maintaining a respectful but distant relationship with Zong Shao, there was still a difference between being courteous spouses and being complete strangers.

Couples who treated each other with mutual respect could generally have a stable marriage, but a marriage between strangers rarely lasted.

What Lin Wei hadn’t expected was that even if they became familiar with each other, their marriage still wouldn’t last—not just because of separation in life, but also because of parting in death.

Three days ago, on the train from the provincial capital to Yangcheng, Lin Wei had a dream.

It was through that dream that she realized—she was actually living inside a novel set in the past.

But she was neither the female lead nor a supporting character. In fact, she didn’t even have a proper appearance in the novel. Still, she wasn’t entirely nameless—because her husband, Zong Shao, was the “White Moonlight” that the female lead longed for but could never have.

And she—

She was the White Moonlight of the White Moonlight.

She and Zong Shao had a marriage arranged by their families and were deeply in love. After her early death, he spent the rest of his life mourning her and never remarried.

That was all the original novel had to say about Lin Wei.

When she had first woken up from the dream, every time she recalled those words, she had the urge to cry. Not out of sentimentality—but out of sheer terror. After all, waking up one day to find out you only had a year left to live wasn’t exactly great news.

But now, three days had passed, and she had calmed down.

For one, though the dream had felt incredibly real, she had no way of knowing whether it was actually true. Besides, she was certain that the novel’s description of her was at least partially inaccurate. Over the next year, she had no idea how deeply she and Zong Shao might fall in love—but in the four years of their marriage so far, she certainly hadn’t felt that they were particularly affectionate.

Secondly, if the dream was real and her fate was truly sealed, Lin Wei felt that since fate had granted her a glimpse of the future, there had to be a way for her to defy it and survive.

Thirdly, whether she spent her days happily or in fear and sorrow, time would pass just the same. If she truly had to die, she at least wanted to leave her children with joyful memories in her final days.

But while she understood all of this rationally, emotionally, it was hard to find any real joy.

Seeing her sigh again in the middle of eating, Zong Shao spoke up. “The food on the ship is limited, but once we get off tomorrow, it’ll be better.”

Lin Wei snapped out of her thoughts and realized he had misunderstood. Shaking her head, she said, “That’s not why I’m sighing.”

“Then what is it?”

Lin Wei wanted to talk to someone about why she had that dream, but she had no idea where to even begin. More than anything, it was simply too bizarre—if she kept sighing over something like this, she’d just look foolish.

So, after swallowing the porridge in her mouth, Lin Wei said, “It’s nothing. Just been on the ship too long, feeling a bit uncomfortable. What time will we arrive tomorrow?”

“Around two or three in the afternoon.”

“How far is it from the dock to where we’ll be living?”

“A ten-minute walk,” Zong Shao paused, thinking about Lin Wei’s walking pace, then added, “but with Mingming and the others, it might take a bit longer—probably over half an hour.”

Thinking about her son’s little legs, Lin Wei nodded. “That’s not far.”

Clearly, she didn’t quite catch Zong Shao’s subtle implication. It wasn’t that she was unaware of her own pace—it was just that she never thought she walked slowly. Though she wasn’t as fast as Zong Shao, she had long legs compared to most people. Back when she was working, she was always the fastest walker among her colleagues.

After taking a couple more bites of porridge, Lin Wei asked, “What’s our house like? Can you see the sea from the yard?”

Zong Shao nodded at first, then said, “It’s just an ordinary brick house, two stories. There are two rooms upstairs, and downstairs is the living room and bathroom. The kitchen and toilet are outside. Oh, and there’s a drying platform above the kitchen—I put up two clotheslines before I left, so we can hang laundry there.”

Lin Wei thought to herself that this house was anything but ordinary.

Her family was from the countryside. Their house wasn’t small, but it didn’t even have a separate kitchen—just a simple stove set up outside. As for the toilet, it was a shared public one, so they had to go outside to use it.

After marrying Zong Shao, she moved in with his mother. The living space was a bit better, but the toilet was still communal, and having a private bathroom was out of the question.

So just from Zong Shao’s description, Lin Wei already felt that this house was quite nice, and she couldn’t help but look forward to it.

But then she remembered that Zong Shao had mentioned the kitchen and toilet were later additions, so she smiled and said, “You must have put a lot of effort into building the house?”

The Sanlin military base had been established in the early 1950s. Back then, the population was small, and there weren’t many military families living there.

Now, twenty years later, not only had the number of fleet soldiers doubled, but the number of officers eligible to bring their families had also multiplied several times. This had led to continuous expansion of the family housing area.

Currently, the houses in the family quarters were mainly divided into three types.

The first type was the old houses built in the early 1950s. These houses were mostly located at the back of the family area, making access somewhat inconvenient. However, they were by the sea, standalone units, and came with their own yards.

The second type was the row houses built in the late 1950s. These houses shared a courtyard with two to four families, but they were well-planned, with indoor kitchens and outdoor toilets. They were also more conveniently located within the family area.

The third type, also built in the late 1950s, consisted of standalone houses. These were spacious, had private yards, and were mostly located by the sea with great views. However, they were reserved for higher-ranking officers and required a certain level of seniority to qualify for residence.

For someone like Zong Shao, who had only just met the rank requirement to bring his family along, the available housing options were limited to the first two types.

Between these two, the row houses were more desirable since they were newer and more comfortable to live in. However, by the time Zong Shao applied for housing, all the row houses were already occupied, leaving him with only the old houses as an option.

Of course, for officers assigned to the old houses, the military did provide some compensation. Once they received their housing, they were given a subsidy to be used for repairs and maintenance.

After all, these houses had been around for a long time. If the previous occupants had taken good care of them, they were still livable, but if not, the condition of the house could be a real issue.

However, most officers living in these old houses either anticipated future job transfers or planned to move into a row house when one became available. As a result, few were willing to spend much money on renovations. At most, they would repaint the main house, fix broken windows, and do just enough to make the place livable.

But Zong Shao believed that if they were going to live there, it should at least be comfortable for his family. So, he repainted the entire house, converted the original kitchen into a bathroom, and built a new kitchen and toilet in the yard.

Because of these renovations, it took him two extra months to return and bring Lin Wei after his request for family relocation was approved.

Still, Zong Shao wasn’t the type to boast about his efforts. He simply responded in a neutral tone, “It wasn’t much.”

Lin Wei acknowledged with a casual “Oh” and then asked offhandedly, “How much did you spend on the renovations? I’ll record it in our accounts after we disembark.” This was an important matter.

When Lin Wei first married Zong Shao, he was already a deputy company commander. Since the navy provided additional allowances for deployments at sea, his total monthly income added up to about sixty yuan.

Over the past four years, he had been promoted from deputy company commander to deputy battalion commander, and his salary had increased from around sixty yuan to about one hundred.

Since he had little personal expense in the military, he sent most of his salary back home, while the remainder was saved as his private stash of money—something both of them had an unspoken understanding about.

Although Lin Wei had always supported her mother’s strict ban on her father keeping private savings, after getting married, she realized that this matter needed to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Zong Shao, for all his other qualities, was at least reliable in terms of character. He wasn’t the type to be reckless with money, so she never felt the need to control his private savings too strictly.

…She would never admit that her leniency was partly because his salary was high, partly because they lived apart and his finances weren’t entirely transparent to her, and partly because she was afraid that being too strict might backfire, causing unnecessary tension.

As it turned out, Zong Shao truly was dependable. He hadn’t squandered his savings, and apart from the military housing subsidy, all the money spent on renovations had come from his private savings.

But even though the money didn’t come from Lin Wei, keeping track of it in the household account was still necessary—at least so she had a clear idea of their finances.

Zong Shao had no intention of hiding anything and told her the total amount.

Lin Wei was stunned. “That’s the total?”

Zong Shao: “The amount spent after deducting the subsidy.”

Lin Wei: “…”

Her mother was right, men shouldn’t be allowed to have private savings! 🙂