Rebirth of Love: Jiang Ciyou's Counterattack Legend

At four in the morning, Paris time, the mist from the Seine River flowed up the Champs-Elysees, smudged the outline of the Arc de Triomphe into an ink painting. Jiang Ciyou stood in the presidential suite of the George V Hotel, his fingertips gently stroking the dew condensed on the window lattice. Outside the French window, the Eiffel Tower was shedding its black robe at night and coating itself with a layer of rose gold in the morning light.

"It's still the same." She muttered to herself, turning to look at the old photo with a pearl frame on the desk. The girl in the photo was wearing a white Bohemian dress, leaning on the bronze railings of the tower base, holding half a melted chocolate ice cream in her hand. The young man standing next to her was wearing a linen shirt with two buttons casually undone, revealing a star-shaped birthmark on his collarbone.

"Grandma, what are you looking at?" A soft childish voice came from behind. Five-year-old grandson Lu Chengyan was holding a teddy bear, stepping on the Persian carpet with bare feet, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

Jiang Ciyou smiled and held him on his lap: "Look at what grandpa and grandma looked like when they were young."

"Wow! Grandpa is so handsome!" The little guy pointed at Lu Jingchen in the photo and exclaimed, "He's even more handsome than he is now!"

"You little brat." A mellow baritone came from the bathroom. Lu Jingchen came out wrapped in a bath towel, with water dripping from the ends of his hair. "Grandpa is not handsome now?"

"Now he's even more handsome!" Cheng Yan said in a baby voice, "Grandpa is the most handsome grandpa in the world!"

Jiang Ciyou was amused and laughed as she watched her husband wipe his hair with a towel. Time had carved fine lines in the corners of his eyes, but it made his amber eyes even deeper. The boy who had recovered her robbed wallet on the streets of Paris thirty years ago was now a business tycoon who could control a multinational group.

"We're going to take a family photo this time," Lu Jingchen walked to the window and tucked his wife's scattered hair behind her ears, "Chengyan should dress more formally. Did you remember to bring the small suit you bought in Tokyo last time?"

“Bring it on!” Cheng Yan danced in his grandmother’s arms, “And the Spider-Man watch that grandpa bought me!”

Jiang Ciyou looked at her husband's back as he bent over to pack his suitcase, and suddenly remembered the rainy night thirty years ago. She was sitting in the police station, soaking wet, wrapped in a borrowed suit jacket, while Lu Jingchen was negotiating with the police in fluent French. At that time, she noticed that the second button of his shirt was always untied.

"What are you thinking about?" Lu Jingchen stood behind her at some point, his warm palm against the back of her slightly cool hand.

"I was thinking," she turned and buried her face in his chest, "We are really old."

"Old?" Lu Jingchen laughed softly, rubbing his chin against the top of her head. "Our story has just begun."

At breakfast time, the hotel housekeeper brought a carved sandalwood box. When Jiang Ciyou opened it, a yellowed piece of letter paper fell out. It was a letter she wrote to her future self thirty years ago, and the handwriting was a little blurred due to the erosion of time:

"Dear Jiang Ciyou:

When you read this letter, you should have been married to Lu Jingchen for thirty years, right? I hope you still love each other as much as you do now, and walk hand in hand along the Seine River late at night. Remember to take photos under the Eiffel Tower every year, and make each decade happier than the previous one. "

Jiang Ciyou's eyes were moist. Lu Jingchen silently handed her a handkerchief embroidered with irises, but he turned his face away quietly. On Christmas Eve thirty years ago, they exchanged wedding rings under the Eiffel Tower, and he said he would take her to see all the towers in the world. From Tokyo's Skytree to Berlin's TV Tower, they really did it.

"Dad said we're going to take golden wedding photos today?" Daughter Lu Zhixia walked into the restaurant holding her little daughter, "Coco is clamoring to wear Princess Elsa's dress."

"Of course," Jiang Ciyou wiped away her tears, "Our Keke is today's little princess."

At ten o'clock in the morning, two black Rolls-Royces stopped at the Ares Square. The photographer team had already set up their equipment, and the branches and leaves of the century-old sycamore trees cast mottled light and shadows in front of the camera. Jiang Ciyou changed into a champagne-colored fishtail dress, and the pearl necklace was a wedding gift from Lu Jingchen thirty years ago.

“Three, two, one—”

As the shutter sounded, the Eiffel Tower glowed with golden light in the background. Cheng Yan suddenly broke free from his parents' arms, ran to the camera and opened his arms: "Grandpa, hug me!"

Lu Jingchen smiled and lifted his grandson over his shoulder. Jiang Ciyou took the opportunity to get close to her husband and whispered in his ear: "Thank you for making every decade of my life full of surprises."

"I should be the one to say thank you," Lu Jingchen turned around and kissed her forehead, "You made me understand that love is not about possession, but about growing together."

As the sunset gilded the Eiffel Tower, three generations of grandparents and grandchildren sat in the Left Bank Cafe. Cheng Yan lay on the table and drew the crooked Eiffel Tower, while Coco smeared strawberry jam all over her face. Jiang Ciyou looked at this warm scene and suddenly remembered the tribe he met when doing charity work in Africa. They used special symbols to record their marriage, and each mark represented a difficulty they had overcome together.

"We should also have a love code." she said suddenly.

"Love code?" Lu Jingchen raised his eyebrows.

"Just like the structure of the Eiffel Tower," Jiang Ciyou pointed out the window, "each piece of steel supports each other to create this miracle."

Lu Jingchen smiled knowingly, took out a pen and drew a simple geometric shape on the napkin: "This is a Möbius strip, representing eternal love."

"It's not enough," Jiang Ciyou added a little star on the ring, "Add our token of love."

"Then add another thirty years." Lu Jingchen drew a smaller ring next to it.

When Cheng Yan held up his graffiti, everyone laughed. Under the crooked iron tower, three little people stood hand in hand in the rainbow, and in the sky floated the words he wrote, "I will always love my grandpa and grandma."

As night fell, Jiang Ciyou came to the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower alone. On Christmas Eve 30 years ago, she lost her wedding ring here, and Lu Jingchen spent three days and three nights mobilizing all his connections to find it. When he found the ring in the sewer of the Champs Elysees, he was stinking but smiling like a child.

"What are you looking for?" A familiar smell enveloped him.

"Looking for the clumsy boy from thirty years ago." She turned and threw herself into her husband's arms.

"He's here," Lu Jingchen tightened his arms, "and he will never leave."

The cruise ship on the Seine River blew its whistle, and the Eiffel Tower was lit up at this moment. Jiang Ciyou looked at the dazzling tower and suddenly realized that true love is not a photo that never fades, but a miracle that continues to grow in the long river of time. Just like the Eiffel Tower in front of him, after a hundred years of wind and rain, it still witnesses the most beautiful emotions in the world with an elegant posture.

(End of this chapter)