At night, Yu Yao rested in the guest room on the second floor. Jiang Zhonglin’s room was on the first floor, right below hers.

Yu Yao lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. She couldn’t tell if it was because the house was too well soundproofed or if Jiang Zhonglin was just too quiet—she couldn’t hear a single sound from below, not even from the cooling system in the room.

The unfamiliar room was sparsely furnished and cold, clearly uninhabited. Though there was no strange smell, Yu Yao still felt uncomfortable. When she was younger, she had a terrible temper, which only slightly improved after she turned twenty. But even then, it was just a little better. So after enduring for a while, she couldn’t take it anymore.

She threw off the covers, jumped out of bed, and started stomping on the floor, creating loud thumping noises. If the person below wasn’t deaf, they’d definitely hear it.

Sure enough, not long after, Jiang Zhonglin came upstairs and knocked on her door.

“What’s wrong? Is there something you need?”

Yu Yao opened the door and let him in, making up a complaint. “It’s too hot in the room; I can’t sleep.”

Jiang Zhonglin was still wearing long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, and it looked like he hadn’t gone to bed yet. Strange, weren’t old people supposed to sleep early?

He checked the room’s temperature display and sighed inwardly before speaking in a calm tone, “The temperature dropped today. It’s set to 28 degrees, which is the most suitable. If it’s any cooler, you might catch a cold.”

“That won’t do. I still feel hot,” Yu Yao insisted.

Yu Yao’s stubbornness was something Jiang Zhonglin hadn’t encountered in a long time, but after forty years, he seemed to handle it well. Without saying much more, he lowered the temperature by one degree. Seeing Yu Yao eyeing the thermostat, Jiang Zhonglin reminded her before leaving, “Don’t lower it any further, and make sure to cover yourself with the thin blanket before you sleep.”

As he spoke, a faint trace of his younger self emerged—a young man who used to be nagging and attentive. After he left, Yu Yao lay back down on the bed.

When Jiang Zhonglin was young, he didn’t pay much attention to these things. But after marrying Yu Yao, he became more mindful of such details, realizing he had a family now and needed to take good care of the wife he loved. Though he was often busy with his research and prone to forgetting things, he would write down what he needed to remember in a notebook, checking it before leaving or coming home.

Yu Yao once curiously flipped through his notebook and found it filled with all sorts of scribbles, mixing work-related notes with everyday reminders like “buy braised duck after work,” “Yu Yao doesn’t eat ginger,” and “buy flowers for the three-month anniversary.” There were also many research-related notes she didn’t understand and didn’t care much about. She just thought it was silly for someone in 2018 to carry around a notebook as a reminder when they could just use their phone. But Jiang Zhonglin said that writing things down by hand helped him remember them better.

As she thought about these things, Yu Yao’s irritation gradually subsided. She lay on her back for a while, staring at the dim ceiling, then pulled the thin blanket over herself and closed her eyes.

“Yu Yao, I hope you don’t force yourself.”

She recalled the look on Jiang Zhonglin’s face when he said that while they were sitting on the sofa in the afternoon. Since seeing her again, he had been extremely calm—so calm it seemed abnormal. Shouldn’t he be a little excited after not seeing his wife for forty years?

Perhaps forty years was long enough to completely forget someone, to the point where there were no feelings left and naturally no excitement. If that were the case, it would make sense. Everything in this world had changed, so people could change too.

Downstairs, Jiang Zhonglin sat silently in a chair by the floor-to-ceiling window. His glasses were placed on a small table beside him, and the eyes of the elderly man no longer held the calm and wisdom that could see through people’s hearts. Instead, they were filled with a sense of bewilderment, as if he couldn’t quite snap out of it.

Just then, the rhythmic thumping sound from upstairs brought him back to reality. He looked up at the ceiling, put on his glasses, and stood up, pressing on the armrest. With a faint smile, he shook his head and sighed, “Being older has its advantages—unlike young people, it’s harder to show your emotions.”

“Younger people can’t see what an old man is thinking.” He chuckled to himself, but his eyes were full of sadness.

He went upstairs and found Yu Yao leaning against the door with her arms crossed.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Yu Yao frowned, “I’m thirsty, but I don’t know where to get water.”

“Oh.” Jiang Zhonglin understood, “I’ll get you some water.”

He turned to head back downstairs, and Yu Yao followed him.

Jiang Zhonglin said, “I’ll get it for you; you should go rest.”

Yu Yao responded, “Okay,” but she didn’t stop following him.

Jiang Zhonglin remained silent.

After Jiang Zhonglin poured her a glass of water in the kitchen, he took Yu Yao around the house, showing her how to use various appliances. With forty years of technological advancements, many products had changed significantly.

When Yu Yao forgot her phone while out shopping for groceries, she saw Jiang Zhonglin activate a large, built-in screen in the living room and explain how to adjust the programs on it. This reminded her of a question she hadn’t thought to ask earlier.

“What do phones look like now?”

Jiang Zhonglin removed a small black button from his watch strap. The tiny button unfolded in his hand, turning into a palm-sized screen.