When summer vacation began, Wang Yue took Ruan Wan to his hometown first. As the hottest guy in the whole village, he was naturally the center of attention.
Most of the villagers had heard that Wang Yue was coming home to get married. They'd also heard that his bride was as beautiful as a Heavenly Immortal. Apparently, she was Buyi, and his younger son had looked online and found that Buyi girls were all very pretty.
There were all kinds of rumors. So when Wang Yue brought Ruan Wan back to the village, he found that everyone who could leave their homes had come out and lined the streets, watching them all the way to his house. Some people took pictures, and a great many of them didn't know to turn off their flash. The effect was just like walking down a red carpet.
After walking down the longest "red carpet" in history, the two finally made it inside. Wang Yue's mother took Ruan Wan's hand and wouldn't let go. She chattered away, and it was easy to feel how happy she was. Ruan Wan's cheeks had already turned red on the way down the red carpet, and now they were as red as a ripe Fuji apple.
Wang Yue was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle all this enthusiasm, and was just about to rescue her when the small hand in his big one squeezed his. Looking into Guan Guan's eyes, Wang Yue understood that this clever girl wanted to handle her relationship with her mother-in-law herself.
It was obvious that Wang Yue's mother liked her. She was just a little too enthusiastic. Before long, Ruan Wan and his mother were chatting like a real mother and daughter, making Wang Yue feel a little jealous.
His Guan Guan really was impossible not to love. Well, he'd better call his friends in Jinling later and have them keep an eye on Zhao Shiyong. He just had a feeling that guy wouldn't give up so easily. A girl like Guan Guan was simply too irresistible.
If Zhao Shiyong really dared to ignore his warning, Wang Yue would make him pay.
Wang Yue and Ruan Wan's wedding celebrations were held twice. As Xu Kaiyang put it, the complete wedding had two halves, an upper and a lower.
First, Wang Yue's closest relatives accompanied him to Ruan Wan's hometown for a Buyi wedding ceremony. Then they returned to Changzhou for a traditional Han wedding. They didn't skip a single one of the Three Matchmakers, Six Engagements, Three Letters, and Six Gifts. Wang Yue had wanted to do everything according to Buyi customs, but Ruan Wan wouldn't agree.
The studio members who attended the whole thing all said they wanted their own weddings to be just like this. Zheng Wei's eyes were practically sparkling.
On their wedding night, Wang Yue edited together footage of the wedding. The newlyweds cuddled up and watched it.
During the wedding, he'd been the groom, and had felt both blissful and exhausted. Watching it now as an outsider, he thought the wedding looked magnificent and was something to aspire to.
Ruan Wan turned to look at the man beside her, feeling how much he cherished her. So that night, Guan Guan took the initiative. Wang Yue was caught off guard and a little flustered, but soon turned the tables. The rest is omitted.
After the wedding, Wang Yue and Ruan Wan set off on their honeymoon, vanishing from their friends' sight for over a month. By the time they met again, they were already seniors.
Before they left, though, they went to see the studio members off at the train station. On the way, they heard some news, which Xu Kaiyang couldn't help complaining about.
As it turned out, Ruan Wan had never had to deal with a wicked mother-in-law. Instead, Zheng Wei, who had been waiting at school to attend the wedding, ran into one.
The day after Ruan Wan and Wang Yue left, Chen Xiaozheng's mother came to the school. The reason was rather bizarre: Chen Xiaozheng had given up the chance to compete for a government-funded study-abroad program, and his mother couldn't sit still at home.
And the little vixen who'd made Chen Xiaozheng abandon his dream of studying abroad certainly wasn't going to get so much as a friendly look from her.
By now, Zheng Wei had spent the past two years running around on business with Xu Kaiyang whenever she didn't have class. She was no longer the naïve little girl she'd once been.
Their relationship hadn't been dragged out for that long, either, so it hadn't reached the point where Zheng Wei would give everything up for him.
Besides, the subject of studying abroad hit a nerve with Zheng Wei. Why did he have to go abroad? Why couldn't he build a good career at home? Lin Jing had done it, and now Chen Xiaozheng was doing it too.
She remembered a conversation in the office. At the time, Ruan Wan and Wang Yue weren't together yet. When everyone asked why Wang Yue, with his excellent grades, wasn't trying for a place abroad, he said that East China University of Architecture wasn't one of the country's top universities, and the schools it partnered with for government-funded study abroad probably weren't as good as Tsinghua Peking University. Why go overseas?
Wang Yue had been making it up, really, but he genuinely had no plans to study abroad, especially not in the United States. In the world he came from, he'd seen how terrifying it could be when a country threw away all shame. He had no fondness for that place.
From his tone, Zheng Wei could hear that he had some resentment toward the United States. The two of them had immediately found common cause: one because of a past romance, the other because of the patriotism deep in his bones.
While Zheng Wei was fending off the "wicked mother-in-law" all by herself, feeling completely alone, Zhu Xiaobei and Xu Kaiyang happened to walk by and overheard their conversation. For Zheng Wei's sake, they started arguing with Chen Xiaozheng's mother too.
Zheng Wei was caught between the two sides, which only made Chen Xiaozheng's mother dislike her more. Then, just when things were at their worst, Zeng Yu happened to pass by and tried to mediate. Zheng Wei's already wavering resolve finally snapped, and she gave up on trying to get along with Chen Xiaozheng's mother.
After they left, Zheng Wei could still see Zeng Yu and Chen Xiaozheng's mother from a distance. They seemed much more at ease with each other than she and the older woman had been, and the atmosphere didn't feel nearly as stiff.
Perhaps a mother only acted that way toward someone she thought might affect her son's future.
Zheng Wei felt that she was just born to clash with mothers-in-law. Lin Jing's mother had liked her when she was little, too, but as soon as she was about to start dating Lin Jing, things changed between their families, and his mother no longer wanted to see her.
This time, Chen Xiaozheng acted a little more like a man. When he came back, he asked Zheng Wei why she'd left. She didn't tell him the reason, just said something urgent had come up and she'd had to go.
Chen Xiaozheng was perceptive enough to realize something had happened. Thinking it over, he figured the only possible reason was that he'd given up trying for the study-abroad program.
His mother must have thought he'd done it because of Zheng Wei, though she was only part of the reason. Chen Xiaozheng was a devoted son. He wanted to start working as soon as possible so his mother could live a better life.
Chen Xiaozheng knew how much his mother had suffered for him over the years. She wasn't even fifty, yet she looked nearly as old as someone in her sixties. If he went abroad, with the Pacific Ocean between them, he wouldn't be able to stop worrying about her.
But Chen Xiaozheng's mother wanted desperately for her son to make something of himself. She wanted him to succeed. In today's society, people who'd studied abroad were always favored. If he worked in China for a few years, he'd never be able to climb to the position he could return to after a few years abroad.
That was the truth, and Chen Xiaozheng understood it. So he couldn't persuade his mother, but he also didn't want to give up Zheng Wei for his career, and he couldn't bear the thought of leaving his mother alone in China. For a while, he was caught in a dilemma.
I signed the contract today. Time to celebrate.
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