Our family
album.

Our little boy was growing happily every day, and we were settling into our new roles as parents. Life felt different, and we were enjoying the changes together.

We celebrated Spring Festival with Yifei’s parents on 21 February. Two days later, we visited our friends Tian Cen and Taoyue Zhang to celebrate Taoyue’s pregnancy and my birthday. In March, we joined Sissie’s first birthday party. In May, we visited Tian and Taoyue to celebrate the birth of their daughter, Xinyue. On 1 June, we took a family trip to Wuxi and stayed at Hotel Nikko Wuxi.

Our story continues.

Our son, Zhiyi Wang, was born on 20 July 2014 at 10:55 am. The delivery was challenging and emotional, especially for Yifei. I stayed beside her in the delivery room and witnessed the whole experience. When our baby finally arrived, we were both close to tears.

Our families joined us to celebrate his early milestones. We marked his 60-day celebration on 20 September, followed by his 100-day celebration on 26 October, surrounded by grandparents and great-grandparents.

We held our wedding ceremony on 11 June 2013. In the months beforehand, we visited wedding exhibitions in Shanghai to choose a venue and arrange the details. It was a busy but happy time. On 31 March, we took wedding photos at our old high school, where we first met, and in a studio.

After the wedding, we spent almost 11 days in Japan on our honeymoon in August and September. We enjoyed travelling together and trying delicious food, and several of the hotels sent us their congratulations.

Then, one morning in November, Yifei came into the bedroom just as I was waking up. Trying to sound calm, she said, ‘You’re going to be a father. We’re having a baby!’ From that day until June 2014, I kept taking photos to record her growing bump.

We officially began dating on 22 March 2012. After almost ten years of playful back-and-forth, Yifei finally accepted my invitation to go on a date. Like any other couple, we watched films, had dinner together and travelled. Our relationship developed naturally and quickly because we had already known each other for nearly 12 years.

We met each other’s parents, bought our own flat and began renovating it. On 23 August 2012, the Qixi Festival, I proposed, and Yifei said yes. That September, we took our first trip as a couple to Thailand with our friend Chengmin Li and his wife.

On 5 December 2012, we registered our marriage at the Civil Affairs Bureau in Shanghai’s Changning District. We were officially husband and wife.

After graduating from university, I returned to Shanghai and reconnected with many of my high school classmates, including Yifei. Along with our classmates Tian Cen and Jing Li, we became a close group of four friends.

We often went to the cinema, had dinner together and sang at karaoke venues. We talked about people, life and the future, sometimes staying up until dawn without feeling tired. In June 2007, I shared a short story with Yifei that I had written about the small moments we remembered from high school.

My wife, Yifei Tang, and I, Rongyuan Wang, met on the first day of high school in September 2000, when we were both 15. We were classmates and spent our school days in the same classroom. I still remember our first conversation at a school sports meeting. It was simple and innocent, and I was drawn to her.

I was too shy to tell her how I felt, so I wrote her a letter. We attended a boarding school, and one evening, after our study session ended at around 9 pm, I ran up to her on the way to the dormitory. I handed her the letter without even making eye contact. I was nervous, but her response was encouraging: we began writing to each other.

We never became a couple during high school. After graduation, I went to university in Nanjing, while Yifei stayed in Shanghai for her studies. We gradually lost touch.