Chapter 22: This was way too dramatic
Jian Ruonan and the others came to take their leave, and the steward immediately went to announce them.
Gao Yang was keeping watch over his mistress, his heart burning with anxiety. When he learned that the chestnut horse had frightened some passersby, he snapped impatiently, "So it frightened them! Just pay them a few taels of silver and stop bothering me! Can't you see Ping'er is at a critical moment?!"
Gao Yang clenched his fists and ground his back teeth with an audible crunch, looking as though Ma Jingtao had possessed him. "I have to stay with Ping'er! I'm not seeing anyone!"
His exaggerated expression and sweeping gestures gave the steward quite a fright. "Sir, the people we frightened are an official's family. The gentleman outside is wearing official robes."
Gao Yang gave a cold snort. "An official?"
However high his rank, could he outrank a duke of the supreme first rank? Gao Yang was the Duke's Mansion's second legitimate son. Ordinary small fry weren't worth his notice.
The capital lacked all sorts of things, but officials were the one thing it never lacked.
Enduring the pain, Ping'er exchanged a deeply loving look with Gao Yang. "Second Master, go attend to your business. Don't worry about me. I can manage alone. Please don't let me delay anything important."
Gao Yang looked constipated. "Ping'er, no! I can't leave you!!! I have to stay by your side!!"
Ping'er said, "Second Master, with you treating me so well, I could die this very moment without a single regret..."
Gao Yang said, "Hmph, Ping'er, I forbid you to mention the word 'die' again! What am I supposed to do if you die?!"
The midwife said, "Madam, stop getting distracted! Push!"
Jian Ruonan: [?? Could this get any more dramatic?!]
At that moment, Jian Ruonan sincerely resolved to save up points to upgrade the system. After all, who wouldn't want to see with their own eyes a woman who could keep putting on a show with a man even during a difficult labor?
Jian Zhang: ??
What did "dramatic" mean?
Did she mean catching that big red horse outside?
That wouldn't do. That horse had been drugged.
[Has the spirit of a drama queen possessed this guy? His acting is so cringe!!! He's like the male lead of some melodramatic prime-time soap opera!]
[This Gao Yang is way too emotionally unstable!!!]
[My sister absolutely cannot marry someone like him!!]
Min: !!
Ruonan was thinking so clearly. He really wasn't someone her daughter could marry.
In the delivery room, once Gao Yang finished his performance, the steward replied, "Sir, then I'll pay them some silver and send them away. But the gentleman outside is wearing purple official robes."
Gao Yang suddenly cried out, "What?! Purple?!"
Only officials of the third rank or higher were entitled to wear purple official robes. A third-rank official was someone he couldn't afford to offend.
"You old servant! Why didn't you explain properly? You have no sense at all!" Gao Yang flicked his sleeve, spent half a second soothing the woman in labor, then glared at the steward. "Well? Lead the way!"
His expression had changed at lightning speed.
"Sir, our master is here." The steward jogged a couple of steps ahead.
Gao Yang strode out with a jaunty, confident gait and immediately spotted Jian Zhang standing with his hands behind his back.
"...Uncle Zhang... You... why is it you?"
Gao Yang shuddered in fright. "I, I... This is my colleague's house... His wife is giving birth today. I'm here to help..."
One moment, he and Ping'er had been so passionately devoted that only when the mountains lost their peaks and heaven joined with earth could they part; the next, she had become his colleague's wife.
Jian Zhang kicked him and spat straight into his face. "Your colleague's wife, and you're personally attending her delivery?!"
"Gao Liangzhi, a man takes responsibility for his own actions! Stand up straight and act like a man!!"
-Liangzhi was Gao Yang's courtesy name.
"I'll send someone to the Duke's Mansion shortly to return your Betrothal Certificate. This marriage arrangement is over!"
Jian Xilu pressed her lips together, turned, and hid behind Min.
Jian Ruonan stepped forward to shield her sister, effectively placing herself on the front lines of the gossip.
Gao Yang's eyes immediately reddened. He dropped to his knees and kowtowed to Jian Zhang. "Uncle Zhang, I was wrong! I, I'm a victim too! This woman found out I was the Duke's Mansion's second young master and deliberately set a trap to deceive me!!"
"Uncle Zhang, I didn't want this either!!! I'm a victim too!!"
"I'll mend my ways!! I sincerely wish to marry Xilu! The sun and moon can bear witness to my feelings for her!!!"
"Uncle Zhang, forgive me this once! I'll definitely change!!!"
Kneeling on the ground, Gao Yang knocked his forehead against it with repeated thuds, looking utterly sincere.
Tears streamed down his face, and his forehead had become red and swollen from all the kowtowing.
He really looked... like quite the drama queen!!
Jian Ruonan sucked in a breath.
[He can act, and he's willing to go this far! That's some talent!!]
A man's knees were worth their weight in gold. Men of Great Xia knelt to heaven, earth, their parents, their sovereign, and their teachers; they did not readily kneel to outsiders.
Gao Yang had dropped to his knees without a word and admitted his wrongdoing the instant he was exposed. That degree of shamelessness was beyond the average person.
Jian Xilu: "..."
[A prodigal's return is worth more than gold. Surely Dad isn't going to soften?]
[After all, Dad's a big pig's trotter himself-a faithless man with several concubines.]
Jian Zhang: "..."
Was her opinion of him really that bad?
"Uncle Zhang, I was set up!!" Gao Yang repented through tears and snot. "Xilu is the only one in my heart! Believe me, Uncle Zhang!! I had no choice!!"
[Pah! The scumbag's lying! Let me see how he met Ping'er!]
Min, Jian Xilu, and Jian Zhang all pricked up their ears.
Jian Zhang, in particular, took a step closer to Jian Ruonan. He wanted to hear just how Gao Yang had supposedly had no choice.
[Ping'er is his colleague's younger sister. His colleague was poor, and Gao Yang often helped him financially, so the two grew close. Gao Yang went to his colleague's house for drinks and took a fancy to Ping'er. Once, he deliberately pretended to be drunk. Ping'er went to tend to him, and he dragged her into bed!!]
[Once Gao Yang tasted the marrow, he couldn't get enough. He went to see Ping'er every day, and for convenience, he simply rented a house and kept her there. He was clearly the one who initiated everything, yet now he's turning around and blaming her.]
[To think such a brazenly shameless person exists in this world!!]
Jian Zhang: Ha! What part of that was having no choice?!
He was simply turning black into white!!!
[He violated his colleague's sister. How did his colleague not beat the bastard to death?! What? So that's how it was...]
How what was? Go on!
Not only Jian Zhang, but even Min was getting impatient.
Not getting the whole juicy story was truly unbearable.
[His colleague was willing too. He deliberately gave his sister to Gao Yang...]
[Doesn't Gao Yang serve in the Golden Guards? Almost everyone who gets into the Golden Guards comes from an aristocratic family. How did a penniless colleague get in?]
[What?! This colleague is actually-]
Jian Zhang: "..."
Could she stop pausing for breath?!
[His colleague is actually one of the Third Prince's men! Ping'er was deliberately planted with Gao Yang on the Third Prince's orders too. The Third Prince did this to gain leverage over the Duke of Ping.]
[Holy mother, digging into gossip actually unearthed an earth-shattering secret!!]
Jian Zhang: "..."
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