If only he had pretended to work hard, that would have been enough.

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On the third day of being together, we sat on a stone bench chatting idly.

"What do you want to do in the future?" I asked him.

"I want to open a hardware store." He answered without a moment's hesitation.

But this answer was hardly what one would call a dream. At that time, the sum of our class rankings was exactly equal to the number of students in our class. Just playing around, I smiled and praised it as a truly unique goal.

But things always take unexpected turns. Before I knew it, I had started imagining a future with him.

"Can you at least try a little harder for our future? At least don't let it be a hardware store." I shouted, grabbing his hand, then broke free and ran into the rain.

"What hardware store?" he shouted from behind, his words filled with confusion.

Come to think of it, I really was furious at his slacker attitude, but he still bought me flowers to apologize, saying the hardware store dream was just something he made up on the spot because his name contained the character for 'gold' (jin), so he just blurted it out.

I accepted his flowers and his apology. But perhaps it wasn't the hardware store that bothered me.

Even if, even if he had just pretended to work hard, that would have been enough.

He was romantic, he was gentle, and he would remember all my preferences. He would talk about poetry, songs, and the interesting things he encountered today, but he would never talk to me about the future.

Later on, we stopped talking about poetry and songs, too. Days passed, and he tried his best to pretend every day.

He would force a smile on his face and ask me to watch a movie together, waiting for me to say, "Forget it, you should rest." Then he would log into his game.

He asked me where the happiness had gone. I also thought it was my materialism and my desire to pull him into my future that had changed the story. Later, he cried and broke up with me, crying that he still loved me, and I smiled and agreed.

I think, perhaps both he and I were too selfish. Each of us held onto the future we wanted and wouldn't let go. I was clear about the future he expected, which was not what I wanted. But was he willing to come into my future? Did I really understand the future he was looking forward to?

In any case, we parted ways, each to find our own happiness.

From then on, perhaps we wouldn't meet more than five times in this lifetime.

While I was in graduate school, I occasionally heard about how he was doing. A friend described him as working very hard now, as if he were risking his life. He would specifically pick the jobs others didn't want to do, like a robot that didn't need to rest. What is this, the time difference between Beijing and Seattle?

I have always believed that there is a cost-effectiveness to hard work. It's not that I despise consistent effort, I just feel that this doesn't seem like his clever self. If it were him, he should be lying flat, listening to the sound of the wind through the trees.

But perhaps I didn't know him as well as I imagined, just as I had always wanted to prove to him that I wasn't the person he thought I was.

By the time I was working on my PhD, I didn't hear much news about him. The last thing I heard from a friend was that he had quit his job, gone home, and gotten married. What is this? The person who walked through the alleys with me talking about the Southern Song and Northern Wei dynasties, how did he end up with such a small-town ending?

It seemed the five chances hadn't been used up, and life continued on its scheduled path.

Just before graduation, I happened to meet a senior student. It wasn't exactly love. But it is rare to find someone who won't disturb you after you've clearly stated that your experiments are busy. Our similar experiences also made us understand each other.

There were no flowers when he apologized, but he was a great cook.

The atmosphere of the two of us reading quietly in the study was quite comfortable; we respected each other like guests, and we kept our boundaries clear. "Let's get married after graduation," I guessed he was thinking the same.

I slowly realized that scientific research is also a very low-cost-effectiveness endeavor. Current basic theoretical research seems to be at a dead end. Although I had made a name for myself in the circle after several research reports, I chose to stay at the university rather than join a company. Being a beautiful physics teacher isn't bad either, occasionally letting a few brats fail their exams. My husband, however, has a soft spot for scientific research, unlike my half-hearted choice.

During a general exchange invited by a university in his hometown, I saw him again while walking down the street. He was sitting on the curb, chatting with a truck driver whose hands were covered in grease, with the hardware store he had once described behind him.

A little girl in a white dress suddenly ran over and hugged him. He was startled and quickly pushed her away with his hands, accidentally leaving two black handprints on the girl's dress. He was balding a bit, had a bit of a beer belly, and was scratching his head while looking at the girl's dress. Then he took the child's hand and walked into the store. The child was still skipping along, and finally disappeared into the store.

When my husband's family came to discuss the wedding, my mother insisted on a specific bride price and wouldn't budge. I couldn't stand the situation, so I ran to the balcony alone to get some air. I found my grandfather standing there smoking.

"I think he's a pretty good person," my grandfather said, looking into the distance. "He might look a bit dull, but often it's these kinds of people who can accomplish great things. But child, do you like him?"

At this point, I could list a hundred reasons for marrying my husband; more than liking, it's about suitability. Seeing that I didn't answer, my grandfather put out his cigarette and continued. "When I married your grandmother, we had nothing. Even when she was pregnant with your mother, I couldn't even afford to feed her well. But we still made it through this life. Marriage isn't about marrying a house, nor is it about marrying a car or his money; those things will eventually come. People are the ones who stay with you for a lifetime."

I couldn't hear the voices through the balcony door, but my mother's gestures were commanding. I felt as if I had returned to a long, long time ago, when a boy said to me, "I want to open a hardware store in the future, and you will be the owner's wife."

"What man could refuse more than 80 sizes of wrenches arranged from largest to smallest?" His hand gestured from the left side of the bench all the way to the right, and such a long bench couldn't even hold them all.