**Chapter 1 The Distance of Companionship**
The afterglow of the sunset spilled over the high-rises in Taipei, dyeing the glass curtain walls a vivid orange-red.
Chen Zidong and Zhang Yijia walked side by side out of the underground parking lot and took the elevator upstairs. The silence between them felt heavier than usual.
They worked at the same chemical company—Zidong was a senior supervisor in the R&D department, while Yijia was the manager of the procurement department.
Although they were in different departments, for over a decade they had been inseparable during commutes, spending nearly twenty-four hours a day together. Yet this closeness had gradually created a subtle distance.
The moment they stepped through the door, Yijia spun around, her face livid. “Do you have to nag me every time I’m driving?! I told you I saw that motorcycle! It suddenly swerved out from the side—I reacted in time!”
Zidong stood in the entryway, his shoe-removing motion pausing for a moment.
His forty-five-year-old face was sharply defined, his brows always carrying the rigor and fatigue of long hours buried in experimental data.
As a Capricorn, he was never good at verbal arguments. He merely pressed his lips together, his expression equally unpleasant.
After a few seconds of silence, he spoke in a low voice:
“Safety first. Pay more attention next time.”
Yijia’s chest heaved with anger.
At thirty-eight, she was at the most vibrant yet sensitive age for a woman. Her role as procurement manager had her constantly navigating between suppliers and internal departments, honing a glib tongue. Yet facing the husband she had been married to for nearly twenty years, she always felt her passion was being thrown into a bottomless pit.
“Pay attention? Attention to what? You’re always like this—sitting in the passenger seat and immediately analyzing routes, speed, blind spots… I’m not a beginner!” Yijia slammed the shopping bags onto the coffee table with a dull thud.
Zidong didn’t reply. He simply removed his suit jacket and hung it on the rack.
His shoulders were broader than in his youth. Years of leading teams in R&D to tackle project after project had also made him increasingly like a silent rock.
To him, marriage was like a contract he had to see through to the end—he deeply loved Yijia. Ever since she was a night-school university student working as a research assistant at the company during the day, he had silently watched over her safety, her meals, every little detail.
But he never said it aloud, only proving it through actions.
In the living room, their fifteen-year-old daughter Chen Tingxuan was curled up on the sofa, scrolling on her phone.
The girl had inherited her mother’s lively and cheerful nature, with delicate features, long hair casually draped over her shoulders, and earphone wires dangling.
She wore her high-school uniform, skirt hem slightly rolled up, looking utterly fearless.
Zidong walked over, his voice low but concerned: “Tingxuan, have you done your homework?”
Tingxuan didn’t look up, fingers flying across the screen: “In a minute! This video’s almost finished.”
Zidong’s brows furrowed slightly.
His affection for his daughter was well-known, yet he was strict about her studies and routine.
His identity as an R&D supervisor made him accustomed to viewing everything through data and logic, including education.
“Hurry up. You have an exam tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know!” Tingxuan replied impatiently, eyes still glued to her phone.
Hearing this from the kitchen, Yijia let out a cold laugh. She took out the groceries, her movements somewhat rough.
“See? You’re the same with our daughter—always giving orders. Tingxuan’s already in high school and you’re still micromanaging everything.”
Zidong entered the kitchen, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and silently took over washing the vegetables.
His palms were rough, faint traces left from years of handling chemical reagents visible.
“She needs guidance at this age.”
“Guidance? What about me? Do you even know what I need?”
Yijia brought the cleaver down on the cutting board, her voice sharper than the blade.
The air instantly froze.
Zidong’s hands paused under the faucet; the running water rinsed the greens but couldn’t wash away the fatigue rising in his heart.
He turned to look at his wife. That face which once moved him now bore traces of time, yet still shone brightly—only recently that brightness had been laced with discontent.
At the dinner table, each of the three harbored their own thoughts.
Zidong placed a piece of fish in Tingxuan’s bowl and said flatly, “Eat more. It’s good for the brain.”
Tingxuan frowned. “I don’t like it…”
Zidong added, “I already removed the bones.”
Yijia shot Zidong a glare, then deftly scooped the fish out of her daughter’s bowl and smiled at Tingxuan. “I closed a big deal at work today. The supplier even gave me this.” She took out a small gift box from the bag—a piece of jewelry the girl liked.
Tingxuan’s eyes lit up. “Wow, thanks Mom!”
Zidong ate in silence, occasionally glancing up at the mother and daughter.
He recalled twenty years ago, when Yijia was still a night-school student working as an assistant at the company during the day.
She was lively and cheerful, always running over with a smile to ask about experimental data. Her interests were wide-ranging—from novels to photography, hiking to drama series.
Zidong was then an ordinary engineer, dull and introverted, yet he always left an extra light on when she worked overtime and silently walked her home when she forgot her umbrella.
He thought such silent devotion was love.
But now Yijia increasingly complained that he was “too boring,” that he never took the initiative to say sweet words, that he only knew work and home and didn’t understand her romantic fantasies.
After dinner, Tingxuan returned to her room to do homework—actually to keep scrolling on her phone.
Yijia sat on the living-room sofa flipping through a travel magazine, her gaze drifting.
Zidong handled emails nearby, the screen’s blue light illuminating his weary face.
Yijia suddenly spoke, her voice soft yet like a pebble disturbing a calm lake: “Zidong, I want to go to Okinawa for a walk, to clear my head.”
Zidong looked up at his wife, his tone steady: “Whatever you decide.”
Yijia’s hand gripping the magazine tightened slightly.
That brief reply was, as always, clean and efficient—no further discussion, no excited anticipation, let alone any thought of planning together.
She took a deep breath, suppressing the disappointment welling up inside:
“…Mm.”
Night deepened.
Zidong lay in bed; Yijia had her back to him, an invisible chasm between them.
Outside the window, Taipei’s nightscape glowed with lights and traffic. He closed his eyes, and scenes from their youth surfaced in his mind: Yijia smiling as she dragged him to the night market for snacks, him awkwardly following behind her; Yijia excitedly sharing a novel, him not understanding the romantic plot yet listening to her finish telling it.
Back then they were poles apart, yet drawn together by mutual attraction.
Now, middle age had arrived. Life felt like a long chemical reaction; the initial passion had gradually settled into a dull solution.
He began to feel a faint unease… Was the distance in Yijia’s eyes approaching some critical point?
Faint music drifted from their daughter’s room.
Tingxuan turned over; the pop song in her earphones muffled her parents’ occasional low murmurs.
Innocent and lively, she was most sensitive during her rebellious phase to the shifting atmosphere at home.
Her father’s strictness and her mother’s permissive spontaneity were two forces pulling at her, making her both dependent and resistant.
That night, each of the three quietly set the story in motion within their hearts.
A middle-aged marriage, like a bottle of aged chemical reagent—calm on the surface, yet slowly reacting inside, brewing unknown changes.
(End of Chapter 1)
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