After Dreaming That the Top Student in My Grade Was My Wife - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Where This Heart Finds Peace

In the study, the atmosphere froze.

“Where is the bookmark I had inside the book?” Tao Shuran’s expression turned cold instantly.

“Give it back.” Tao Shuran placed her things on the corner of the desk, leaving only the spiral notebook in her hand. She shook the notebook and said, “I never close this notebook. You closed it—isn’t that enough to show you’re trying to hide something?”

“Are you sick? If your stuff is gone, what does that have to do with us?” One of the boys frowned, while the other had already gone back to playing on the computer.

Tao Shuran let out a cold, angry laugh. She took a step forward. As the two boys sat in their computer chairs, she looked down at them with a sharpness they had never seen before. She slammed her hand down on the table so hard her palm turned red, and her voice suddenly rose several decibels: “I’m saying it for the last time. Give it back.”

“Couldn’t it be your parents who closed it? It’s just a bookmark; only a dog would care about it.”

The adults, having heard the noise in the study, pushed the door open and stood at the entrance, clearly at a loss as to what was happening.

Having received a glare, Tao Shuran turned back and looked at them coolly. She remembered the habits of the Tao family very clearly. Only these two families had visited today, and it just happened to be these two “nephews” whose grades were a mess and who were naughty to the death. She took a breath and elongated her voice like she was reciting a textbook: “Because my parents wouldn’t be like some uneducated people who like to mess with other people’s things.”

Hearing this, Tao’s mother was the first to take offense. She walked forward quickly and said angrily, “Tao Shuran, what nonsense are you talking about?” cutting off the relatives’ words.

After understanding the situation, Tao’s mother began to mediate: “Yangyang just wanted to use your studies as a reference, so he looked at the notes you made. He wanted your bookmark to get some good luck, so I gave it to him. How big of a deal is a bookmark? Is it worth getting angry over? You’re acting like a child.”

“No. Give it back to me.” Tao Shuran felt her anger reach its peak after hearing these words. Her hands were clenched into fists and shaking slightly, but her tone was absolute.

Yangyang’s mother, whether trying to mediate or adding fuel to the fire, said, “Yangyang, give the bookmark back to her. When we go back, Mom will buy you hundreds of them. We don’t care for it, okay?”

“Yes, only a dog cares for it,” Tao Shuran quickly added, extending her left hand toward the boy. To her surprise, just as she grasped the bookmark, the boy named Yangyang suddenly gripped the other end tightly with his left hand, and used his right hand to yank the thread sewn into the top of the bookmark.

It was a handmade, sewn bookmark. Under the brute force of the tug, the stitches snapped in less than three seconds. The plastic lamination was sliced open, and the petals inside were crushed into a corner.

Seeing the result, the two boys looked at each other and smiled with satisfaction.

Tao Shuran stood frozen on the spot for two seconds. She felt the blood rush straight to her head. With a “buzz,” her brain went numb. Holding the broken bookmark in both hands, she only knew that from head to toe, she felt ice-cold. She could no longer hear the adults’ polite social chatter. Before the tears of anger and grievance could well up, she rushed back to her room.

Tao Shuran suddenly felt that the words she had spoken in the living room to save face for her mother were incredibly laughable; it turned out they weren’t even on the same side.

Tao Shuran curled up and squatted on her chair. Spread out on the desk was the bookmark with snapped cotton threads and torn cloth. It was hard to recognize through her blurred vision. Her tears surged out uncontrollably, constantly venting the owner’s irrepressible emotions.

She blamed her mother for taking the initiative to give her things away, blamed her nephew for being impolite and malicious, and blamed herself for leaving something so important out in the open.

This was the bookmark Jiang Hanqi gave her.

She still remembered the scene from that day.

It was the first time they had spoken. She had written gracefully in the spiral notebook and then left with a faint smile.

She said, “Here, it’s for you.”

Tao Shuran bit her lip tightly to keep from sobbing aloud, her heart filled with grievance and self-reproach, not knowing what to do.

She pulled out her phone, wanting to call Jiang Hanqi, but didn’t know how to start the conversation.

Was she supposed to say, “Hey, Jiang Hanqi, I broke the gift you gave me”?

After crying for who knows how long, Tao Shuran’s mood still hadn’t settled, but she was exhausted from crying. Her head even started to feel dizzy. She slumped onto the desk and gradually fell asleep.

When she woke up again, everything was pitch black.

Had she slept until the middle of the night?

No, she was lying in bed. Could her parents have carried her there?

Tao Shuran suddenly thought of something and moved her body. Sure enough, she was lying in a soft embrace. The person holding her from behind radiated a faint, delicate fragrance.

It was reassuring.

Tao Shuran didn’t stop to think about what time it was. Regardless of anything, she turned around, wrapped her arms around the other person’s neck, and pressed herself tightly against her.

“Baby?” Jiang Hanqi was clearly woken up by her. Her voice was still slightly misty, but her actions were like a reflex—she tightened her arms around Tao Shuran’s waist and held her close.

Jiang Hanqi sensed something was wrong with her wife’s emotions. At first, she thought it was just a nightmare, so she gently patted Tao Shuran’s back and coaxed her softly. But after a while, she felt a dampness on her shoulder. Jiang Hanqi frowned slightly and held Tao Shuran even tighter.

Tao Shuran heard her ask softly in her ear, her voice full of worry, heartache, and infinite tenderness: “Baby, did something happen? Can you tell me about it?”

That one sentence was like opening a faucet to a celestial lake. Tao Shuran could no longer hold it back. Leaning against Jiang Hanqi, she began to wail.

In front of her mother, she had to be the good daughter who used good grades to save face; in front of relatives, she had to be the generous and yielding older sister. But in front of Jiang Hanqi, she only had to be like a child who never had to grow up, never having to endure any bad emotions, becoming whatever version of herself she wanted to be.

“Jiang… sob Jiang Hanqi, I… I broke the bookmark you gave me.” Tao Shuran sobbed so hard she could barely speak clearly. “I… I didn’t mean to. I wanted to look up some information the night before, so I went to the study to study and took the spiral notebook you gave me. Today I came back from Linjiang Temple, I was originally so happy sob I was so happy to go out with you, but then I found out my mom gave my bookmark to my nephew, and he tore it, hic.”

Jiang Hanqi remained silent for a while, just holding Tao Shuran tightly, gently stroking her back to help her catch her breath.

Seeing that she hadn’t spoken for a while, Tao Shuran turned her head, wanting to look at Jiang Hanqi. The room was dark, and she couldn’t see Jiang Hanqi’s expression. Tao Shuran’s heart suddenly leaped into her throat. She asked cautiously: “Jiang Hanqi, are you angry with me? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Baby,” Jiang Hanqi interrupted her softly, sat up slightly, and asked, “Do you mind if I turn on the light?”

Upon receiving Tao Shuran’s permission, Jiang Hanqi turned on the bedside lamp. The warm yellow light instantly filled the entire room.

Jiang Hanqi sat at the head of the bed, one arm holding Tao Shuran, while the other hand pulled a wet wipe from the nightstand. She gently wiped away Tao Shuran’s tears. Tao Shuran, who had cried herself into a little mess, sat in her embrace, sobbing intermittently. Her tears wouldn’t stop, yet she stubbornly kept her tear-blurred eyes open, staring at Jiang Hanqi.

Jiang Hanqi gazed at her as usual and said in a deep voice: “Baby, I’m not angry. This isn’t your fault. I just didn’t know what to say.”

“As I listened to your description, my heart felt a stinging pain too, because it hurts me to see you forced to endure so much. But I didn’t know how to comfort you.”

“I can’t tell you not to be angry, because it was their fault, and anyone would be angry in such a situation. I can’t tell you not to feel aggrieved, because you endured something you shouldn’t have—it was harm caused by the faults of others. I also can’t tell you not to be sad; I can see how much you cherished that bookmark. No one feels good when a cherished object is damaged.”

“I… I can only say that I am very happy and moved that you valued what I gave you so highly. I’m also glad that you were willing to tell me about this today. You’ve shown me that you love me as much as I love you.”

“I’m not good at comforting people. But I want you to know that in these years and in the rest of our lives, we will create countless things that are happier and more beautiful than that. I will hold your hand and experience all of it together, from the sprout to the fruit.”

“I wasn’t there when this happened, and I didn’t know. But I promise you, I will never let you endure such sadness again. I will do everything in my power, with all my strength.”

“Even if something does happen, it must be my fault. I hope you won’t be sad, but must blame me instead, because those are all my failings—the sins I should atone for.”

Jiang Hanqi’s originally cold voice turned into a pool of spring water under the rising sun—warm, soft, and rich, carrying a coolness that could soothe the anxiety in one’s heart. At the same time, it was firm, powerful, and deeply affectionate, like a devout believer with one hand on the Bible, offering a passionate prayer to the God she holds in supreme reverence.

Tao Shuran’s tears had long since stopped. She rested her little head on Jiang Hanqi’s shoulder, calming her breathing and sniffing occasionally. From her position, she could hear Jiang Hanqi’s accelerated heartbeat. She felt that everything around them was silent and still.

After a long moment of tenderness, Tao Shuran raised her head and asked weakly: “Then, what should I do about my bookmark?”

“Hmm?” Jiang Hanqi gave her nose a little flick. “Didn’t you sew it back together? You did a beautiful job.”

Tao Shuran suddenly realized that the timeline in the dreams seemed to have a connection to reality. If she suddenly started crying today because of something that happened a long time ago, wouldn’t Jiang Hanqi find it suspicious? She paused and asked somewhat stutteringly: “Then, you… did you… did you already know about this?”

“You told me once. You only said it was broken and then repaired by you; you didn’t tell me anything else,” Jiang Hanqi replied.

“Oh, oh, I… I forgot…” Tao Shuran was about to ask where the bookmark was when the scene flashed. She was back at the study desk. The headache that had been thumping before she fell asleep was still throbbing, reminding her of what reality was like.

Tao’s mother stood by her side, her expression somewhat unpleasant. Tao Shuran rubbed her bleary eyes and looked at her mother, only to hear her say: “Fine, stop crying. It’s just a bookmark.”

Tao’s mother truly took “not being good at comforting people” to the extreme. She was used to a commanding tone with her subordinates; when she tried to speak softly, it always came out sounding stiff.

Seeing that Tao Shuran lowered her head and didn’t speak, she sat on the chair next to her, tapped the table with one hand, and continued: “You also have to understand your mother. They came for New Year greetings. It’s the Lunar New Year—they wanted a little bookmark, and I couldn’t really refuse. It would make our family look so stingy.”

“Besides, you were the one who put it in the study in the first place. How many times have I told you to put your things away properly? If you had brought it back to your room after you finished yesterday, none of this would have happened, right?”

“Mother didn’t let them into your room; mother already respects you very much.”

Tao Shuran’s eyelids flickered slightly. The emotions that had just settled were about to surge again. She interrupted her mother: “Mom, is there a sewing kit in the house? Let me borrow it for a bit.”

It was “let me borrow it,” not “I want to use it”—words that revealed an estrangement neither mother nor daughter had noticed.

After getting the needle and thread, Tao Shuran picked out five colors of fine thread: camel, light blue, purple, brown, and white. She threaded the needle and was about to start. When she touched the bookmark, she suddenly found that the hard object inside could be moved.

So, she simply picked out all the threads closing the opening, and the contents fell out easily.

It was a protective talisman and a slip of paper.

On the front of the talisman were the traditional characters for “All Heart’s Desires Fulfilled.”

The handwriting on the paper was somewhat familiar, yet different from usual; she had never seen her write in regular script before.

The signature only had a date and a line of words. The date was November 13th—her birthday.

Tao Shuran’s heart skipped a beat.

And that line of words, written from top to bottom, consisted of seven characters. Each stroke was distinct, sharp, and neat:

“Where this heart finds peace is my home.”

Support