In the summer of 1979, a letter from the mainland made Taiwanese writer Tsai Yi suspicious. Cai Yi couldn't believe what was said in the letter, and she took the letter to find her father, hoping to get the truth.
Yes......You read that right, I also have a wife on the mainland. Her father's answer was like a thunderbolt from the blue, which stunned Cai Yi on the spot, and it took a while for her to come to her senses.
Cai Yi looked at his father, his heart was full of doubts and fear: "Father, are you really sure that you still have a wife in the mainland?" So what about my mom? If she knew about it, she would definitely collapse! ”
Cai Guodong lowered his head, clutched a letter in his hand, and his voice was full of helplessness and guilt: "I never thought of ......I thought she was dead......I didn't expect her to wait for me to ......Cai Yi was extremely troubled when she heard this, and she asked, "Then what should we do?" ”
Cai Guodong looked at the letter in his hand, and then at his daughter, his heart was full of hesitation and contradictions. He looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, and finally said with difficulty, "Tell your mother......."She should have the right to know the truth. ”
Since 1948, Cai Guodong has silently hidden this truth in his heart, bearing its bitterness and regret alone. In the winter of 1919, this runaway teenager was born in a wealthy family in Liaocheng County, Shandong, and his father was a wealthy middle-aged man.
In those days of low medical care, every birth was a test of life and death. However, fortunately, the man's wife successfully gave birth with the help of the midwife, and their son Cai Baoguang was also born.
The man gave the newborn this name to signify that he could carry the family forward. As the only boy in the family, Cai Baoguang received meticulous care and education from his parents since he was a child, and he studied all the way to the end of middle school during the turbulent years.
When Cai Baoguang was 15 years old, his parents chose Liu Jin'e, an 18-year-old girl from the same township, as his wife.
There is a saying among the people that "a female junior is holding gold bricks", although the parents' intentions are good, but Cai Baoguang, who has received advanced ideological education, cannot accept this arranged marriage.
He didn't know Liu Jin'e, and he had never met her, so he naturally didn't want to marry her. However, his parents, who were used to him growing up, insisted on forcing him to marry Liu Jin'e. In order to take revenge on his parents, Cai Baoguang did not have sex with Liu Jin'e for three years after marriage, and every time he saw her, he didn't give a good face, so the two failed to give birth to a son and a half daughter.
Liu Jin'e was born in a traditional peasant family and received an education of "three obedience and four virtues" since she was a child. Even though her husband didn't like her, she silently accepted the marriage and did her duty as a daughter-in-law.
She takes care of her in-laws and two young sisters, and is deeply loved and accepted by the Cai family. However, despite being so hardworking and virtuous, she has never been recognized by her husband.
In 1937, when Cai Baoguang was eighteen years old, he completed his high school education, and thinking that he was mature, ran away from home, leaving a letter and saying goodbye to his family.
In the face of the iron hooves of the Japanese invaders, Cai Baoguang expressed his patriotic determination and determination to break with the past by changing his name and joining the army. With the change of the battle situation, he followed ** to Chongqing.
In Chongqing, due to his excellent level of knowledge, he was favored by the Kuomintang superiors, was sent to the National ** University for higher education, and after graduation, he received training from the Kuomintang Air Force and became an Air Force instructor.
Ten years later, he is now a staunch patriot and soldier.
For the past decade, Mr. Cai has never returned to his hometown of Liaocheng, Shandong Province, even though he is now an Air Force instructor and works in Qingdao, Shandong Province. His hometown seems to have been buried by him along with his former name.
In 1948, he fell in love and married a young woman in Qingdao, although the wedding was attended by no man's relatives, he completely forgot that there was a wife in Liaocheng's hometown who was being married by Ming Media.
Or, he didn't forget Liu Jin'e, but he deliberately hid it from his second wife in order to maintain the stability of his second marriage.
In 1949, with the complete victory of the three major battles, the Communist Party was about to liberate all of China, and the Kuomintang reactionaries began to retreat to Taiwan. Cai Guodong, who is an instructor in the Air Force, also fled to Taiwan with **.
However, Taiwan was in disarray at the time, lacking sufficient housing and jobs to house soldiers from the mainland. Although Cai Guodong was an air force instructor, he did not receive special preferential treatment, and like other soldiers from the mainland, he was placed in Dapeng Village, Pingtung County.
Photo source network Dapeng Village, located in Taiwan, is specially designed to provide resettlement for mainland soldiers and their families, and the living conditions are difficult. The houses here are rudimentary, made of bamboo and wooden planks, and are unbearably hot in the summer and not warm in the winter.
During typhoon season, the humble dwellings are even more vulnerable to destruction and are left in shambles. After Cai Guodong and his wife settled, their standard of living dropped significantly. He lost his job as an officer and had to work odd jobs to make ends meet.
With the birth of a pair of children one after another, life is even worse. Fortunately, the villagers support each other, and no matter which family is in trouble, they can get help from their neighbors.
With the help of neighbors, the Cai family barely gained a foothold in the military village.
Cai Guodong's difficult experience of life in Taiwan made him full of deep nostalgia for his hometown Shandong. Whenever he met fellow villagers from Shandong, he would talk with them eagerly and reminisce about his carefree childhood.
His nostalgia was not noticed by his wife, but was unexpectedly seen by his youngest daughter Cai Yi. Cai Yi grew up in a military village since she was a child, and she is as diligent and studious as her father.
Even in a difficult environment, she did not give up her studies, and successfully entered the university through work-study and successfully graduated. After graduating, Cai Yi devoted herself to the literary world and earned a considerable amount of money with several best-selling books.
In 1979, during the period of China's reform and opening up, Cai Yi secretly acted to find relatives of the Cai family in order to relieve her father's worries. Unexpectedly, this search led to a shocking discovery.
It turned out that Cai Yi's father also had a serious wife in his hometown in Shandong. The wanderer who wandered for many years finally returned to his hometown. Maybe it's because of homesickness, or maybe it's because of the discovery of conscience, this time, Cai Guodong didn't choose to hide it anymore, he confessed everything to his wife.
Image source network, in order to realize his desire to return to his hometown, Cai Guodong only wanted to return to his hometown in Liaocheng, Shandong Province, regardless of his wife's illness and his past. Although he has never been able to fulfill this wish, he still looks forward to being able to go home, eat a meal cooked by his mother's own hands, and pick up a pinch of the soil of his hometown.
However, due to restrictions on exchanges between the mainland and Taiwan, he has not been able to realize this wish.
In 1988, relations between the mainland and Taiwan finally normalized, and Cai Guodong finally ushered in the long-awaited opportunity. Without any hesitation or waiting, he immediately boarded the ship back to his hometown with his wife and two children.
When Cai Guodong, who had been away from his hometown for 50 years, set foot on the land of Liaocheng again, the appearance of his family caused a sensation among the locals. The people of the village gathered at the entrance of the village just to meet this old man from Taiwan.
Folks, I'm Cai Baoguang, I'm back. When Cai Guodong introduced himself, the boiling fathers and villagers fell silent.
When Cai Guodong returned to his hometown, an old man asked him if he was a child of the Cai family and did he know if he came back, Cai Guodong was speechless for a while. Then an old lady with gray hair in an old gray coat came out and told him to go home, saying that he would discuss something when he got home.
This old lady is Liu Jin'e, even if she has been abandoned by her husband for 50 years, she still thinks about saving her husband's face first when she reunites. Cai Guodong's wife followed him and suddenly asked him if he wanted to go home with Liu Jin'e.
Tsai's second wife, fearing that he would repeat his mistakes and get his first wife back, insisted on following him when they left Taiwan. She even made an appointment with him for three chapters, and it was no problem to worship her ancestors and meet her parents, but she couldn't get close to Liu Jin'e.
However, Cai Guodong couldn't extricate himself when he saw Liu Jin'e, which made his second wife unacceptable. Cai Guodong was also very angry, and asked rhetorically: "That is my home, is there anything wrong with me going back to my own home?" ”
He followed Liu Jin'e back to Cai's house without looking back, and Cai Yi followed closely with his younger brother and mother.
Liu Jin'e finally returned to her long-lost home, but to her surprise, Cai Guodong's parents had already passed away, and his two sisters and sister had also died of illness a few years ago, leaving only his youngest sister and his wife Liu Jin'e, whom he had abandoned for 50 years.
After 50 years of ups and downs, the Cai family has changed from a wealthy family to the most ordinary farmers, and his parents have also been plagued by illness and have been unable to get out of bed for a long time. However, Liu Jin'e never wanted to leave this home, she always stayed here, and did her best to take care of Cai Guodong's parents until they passed away peacefully.
In fact, as early as 50 years ago, when Cai Guodong never returned, Cai Guodong's parents had already considered finding a better home for Liu Jin'e.
Liu Jin'e resolutely refused to take a photo with Cai Guodong, and she wanted to wait for her husband Cai Guodong's return, but this wait lasted for 50 years. When Cai Guodong knew all this, his expression became even more bitter.
His feelings for Liu Jin'e are very complicated, although he has never had love for Liu Jin'e, but the fifty-year wait is in front of his eyes, which makes him full of guilt for Liu Jin'e.
Under the gaze of the Cai family's sisters and brothers and fellow villagers, Cai Guodong took Liu Jin'e's hand and walked into the house. Everyone in the room thought they were going to have a long conversation, after all, this was a couple they hadn't seen in fifty years, and one was a bad man and the other was a loyal wife.
However, contrary to everyone's expectations, the dialogue between Cai Guodong and Liu Jin'e did not last long.
The development of the picture source network exceeded the expectations of the masses, and Cai Guodong only took an hour to come out of the house. Facing his curious daughter, his expression was a little complicated, and he said softly: "When I really face her, I don't know what to say to her, it's because I'm sorry for her." ”
When he walked out of Cai's house, he only brought with him an old porcelain bowl, which he used to eat when he was a child, which was preserved in its entirety until fifty years later. After Liu Jin'e took out the bowl, Cai Guodong apologized to her.
My mother has been looking forward to your return, and every New Year's holiday, she will take out this bowl and put it on the table full of rice. I just thought that you would suddenly appear at the door, but she didn't wait for you to come back until she died, you should go and worship her, as for me, let him pass the past, I have nothing to tell you. ”
Fifty years have passed, Liu Jin'e has no feelings for her husband, she has been loved by Cai Guodong's parents in the Cai family, and the fifty years of waiting and waiting are not for her husband, but to repay the two old men.
After leaving Cai's house, Cai Guodong came to his parents' tombstones. He held the porcelain bowl, knelt on the dry yellow earth, raised his head, and his eyes were already hazy with tears. "Father, mother, Cai Baoguang, my descendant, kowtow to you. ”
After paying homage to his parents, Tsai Guodong left his hometown where he had been adrift for 50 years and returned to Taiwan. However, there was no place to place his soul here, and this place no longer belonged to him.
Time flies, nearly 20 years have passed, and Cai Guodong's life is coming to an end when he returned to Taiwan. However, on his deathbed, he developed Alzheimer's disease, and all memories have faded.
His second wife had died before him and was said to have left due to depression. In 2007, Cai Yi and her younger brother returned to their hometown in Liaocheng, Shandong Province from Taiwan.
When she worships at her grandparents' graves, she discovers that there is a new grave next to them. As soon as she inquired, she knew that it was Liu Jin'e's grave.
Liu Jin'e has been dead for ten years, and she has won the respect and love of the younger generations of the Cai family with her hard work and dedication. After her death, the younger generations chose to bury her next to the grave of Cai Guodong's parents to express their deep respect for her.
Although her life was full of waiting and desolation, she still used her actions to protect the entire Cai family.