Acts of love in a marriage

Every day, before the city awakens, the man quietly gets up to prepare breakfast in the kitchen.

The rice has been washed the night before. He adds some hawthorn, jujubes, and white sugar before putting it on the stove.

While the porridge is cooking, he quickly goes to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. By the time he returns to the kitchen, the porridge is boiling. He turns the heat down to let it simmer slowly until the aroma fills the entire house.

Next, he skillfully fries eggs. Once one side is done, with a gentle flick of his wrist, the golden egg flips beautifully and lands perfectly back in the pan.

With the eggs ready, he starts cutting pickles and scallions, placing them on small plates, and drizzling a bit of chili oil over them—his wife likes spicy food. He does all this after carefully closing the kitchen door, making sure to move quietly.

When everything is ready, he walks into the bedroom and gently wakes his still-sleeping wife, saying, “It’s time to get up, breakfast is ready.” By then, it has been exactly 15 minutes since he got up.

He then returns to the kitchen, serves the porridge, and brings the prepared eggs and pickles to the table.

Five minutes later, he and his wife quietly eat breakfast while watching the morning news on TV. They keep the volume low so as not to disturb their friendly neighbors. By this time, the city is just starting to wake up.

After breakfast, his wife heads off to work. The man watches her leave from the balcony, then tidies up the dishes and goes back to bed for a nap. Perhaps because he has no more worries, he quickly falls into a deep sleep, sometimes even snoring gently.

Fifty minutes later, the alarm clock wakes him up, and he gets up again. By now, it’s broad daylight. He rushes out to the bus stop to catch a specific bus. He could take the next one and sleep a bit longer, but he prefers this one because his wife is the driver.

Every time he sees his wife’s bus approaching from a distance, he smiles with happiness. To him, cooking for her every day, seeing her off from the balcony, taking her bus to work, and exchanging smiles in the bus’s rearview mirror are the happiest things in the world.

For many years, regardless of whether his wife had to work or not, he would get up 15 minutes earlier than her. Miraculously, he didn’t need an alarm for this first wake-up; no matter how late he slept the night before, he always woke up at the same time the next day, ready to repeat his year-round “job”: tying on his apron, frying eggs, simmering porridge, cutting pickles, drizzling chili oil, then waking his wife, washing up, eating breakfast together, and watching the morning news. On workdays, his wife would then go to work, and he would meet her on the bus about 50 minutes later; on rest days, his wife would start doing housework while he read a book on the sofa, occasionally helping her.

Just like that, 20xx years flew by. Time passed, and their appearances aged day by day. But what remained unchanged was the smile they shared in the bus’s rearview mirror—a smile through which they understood everything about each other: love, care, tenderness, and unwavering companionship.

Finally, they reached retirement. His wife’s hair had turned gray, and his face was lined with wrinkles.

That night, his wife made a few small dishes. During dinner, she said to him, “Every day for 15 minutes, over 20xx years, that’s 130,000 minutes.”

Without looking up, he asked, “Is it that much?”

“I just calculated it, it can’t be wrong,” she replied.

He smiled but remained silent. To him, this was just his duty as a husband.

His wife continued, “For 20xx years, you’ve lost 130,000 minutes of sleep.” He kept smiling, still saying nothing.

“Starting tomorrow morning, you can finally sleep in. I’ll get up 15 minutes earlier every day to make breakfast for you,” she said.

The next day, he woke up at the exact same time as always. Out of habit, he tied on his apron and walked into the kitchen.

As he watched the pale blue flames leap up, he suddenly remembered that his wife had retired and he no longer needed to get up early to make breakfast.

He chuckled at himself, turned off the stove, and started back to the bedroom, only to find his wife quietly standing behind him, tears streaming down her face…

Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “