A minor clash

Ye Huan and the others could tell that Li Zifei seemed interested in pursuing Chen Xixi now. He kept following her around. None of them meant any harm; they were just watching the fun.

"Whoa, Brother Huan, I only just found your Kuaidou. Is all this scenery from your hometown?" Xiaoshuai asked after stumbling across Ye Huan's videos.

"Yeah, I just post them for fun." Ye Huan nodded. When Lin Li heard, she took Xiaoshuai's phone, checked the name, then searched on her own phone, found the account Mountain Runner Who Returned Home to Farm, and followed it.

Then she started scrolling through the videos. "Brother Huan, is Xiaobai a wolf?" Lin Li suddenly asked.

"Yeah. By a lucky chance, I saved it back then, and its dad ended up foisting it on me to raise. It's been living at my place ever since." Ye Huan nodded, wondering whether he could get Xiaobai a permit or something later.

Back home, nobody cared whether you got permits for dogs, cats, and the like, but he didn't know whether it mattered for wolves or tigers. Ye Huan had never asked. Still, it was probably fine. Who would run all the way to that poor mountain village to check on something like that?

"The surroundings are gorgeous. Brother Huan, once I get some time off, I'm going to visit your place," Lin Li said with a smile.

"Sure, just let me know ahead of time." Ye Huan nodded. If an old classmate came to visit, what else was there to say? He would just have to take good care of her.

"I really want to go too, but I've got no leave left this year. My family's making me go on blind dates over the National Day holiday. My mom said if I don't find a match, she'll introduce me to three a day," Xiaoshuai said with a miserable look.

Ye Huan and Lin Li laughed, but before long, Lin Li couldn't laugh anymore. "I'm not much better off than you. You men are still fine at twenty-six or twenty-seven, but if we girls aren't married at twenty-six, my mom-I've lost count of how many times she's nagged me at home. It's so annoying."

Ye Huan nodded, remembering how his mother had said she would introduce him to someone, scaring him into hiding. Ah, once you reached that age, being pushed to marry was all too common.

When the woman sitting beside Lin Li heard what they were discussing, she leaned over. "It's like that now. You have to marry yourself off early. Otherwise, the more you pick, the more dazzled you get, and you end up wasting your chances," said the former classmate named Wang Hui.

"Exactly. Every weekend now, my mom nags me so much I don't even dare stay home." Lin Li was quite troubled by it too.

"Xiaohui, you're married, right?"

"Yeah, I got married last year. My husband's from our area and works at the subdistrict office. I thought he seemed honest and decent, so I said yes. We met on a blind date too," Wang Hui said with a nod. Getting married in your twenties was perfectly normal for a woman.

"He didn't come?" Ye Huan asked. It was so late-wasn't he worried?

"He did. He's in the car. I told him to grab something to eat in the lobby, but he said not to worry about him and just message him when I was done." Wang Hui smiled. "He drove me here from Jiangning."

"A good man. Call him up to eat with us. What's the problem? Nobody said we couldn't bring family," Ye Huan said with a smile.

"I'll ask. He's probably already eaten." Wang Hui picked up her phone and sent her husband a message.

"Look, he's eaten already. He ordered a bowl of noodles upstairs. Honestly." Wang Hui sounded disapproving, but she was secretly delighted. Ye Huan and the others could tell she was living a happy life, so all they had to do was wish her well.

"We'll meet him when we go down later, haha. You really don't know how to do things properly. Your husband drove you here, and you dumped him in the car," they teased.

By the second half of the gathering, everyone had drunk about enough. They were mostly chatting now, and the group had scattered. A few who were close had even gone out to the restaurant entrance to chat while taking a walk.

Ye Huan and the others had drunk quite a bit too. They all agreed to stop and just sat there shooting the breeze. Their group had grown, with two more people now, one man and two women, all fairly familiar faces.

With a few drinks in them, everyone opened up, so they came over to join the conversation. Both women were married, and the discussion revolved around family, marriage, and children.

Ye Huan discovered that he could actually join in, which was rather amazing.

Then Wang Hui received a message. She picked up her phone and looked at it, her expression changed, and she hurriedly stood up, grabbed her bag, and ran out. Seeing this, Ye Huan said, "Something might have happened to her husband. Let's go take a look."

Then he led the way downstairs after her. Outside the main entrance, the parking lot was on the left. He saw a crowd gathered there and figured that must be it.

He strode over and saw Wang Hui supporting a young man in glasses, arguing with an overbearing couple opposite them.

As he walked into the crowd, he heard Wang Hui say, "You pulled out and hit our car. You could pay a little compensation or go through insurance. Why are you insulting us?"

"So what if I insult you? Country bumpkins, get lost. Watch it, or I'll hit you too," said the obviously drunken man.

A hotel staff member came over to find out what had happened. It turned out the man had drunk too much, and his wife wasn't good at driving, so he had planned to drive the car onto the main road and then let her take over. But while turning, he had hit Wang Hui's husband's car.

It hadn't been much of an issue; a little compensation would have settled it. But the alcohol had gone to the man's head, and he had started hurling insults as soon as he got out. That was how things had ended up like this.

Ye Huan walked over, separated them, and said to Wang Hui, "Call the police. They're drunk driving. There's no getting out of detention."

"You little bastard, what's it got to do with you? Who asked you to come make a spectacle of yourself?" The drunk shoved Ye Huan. Ye Huan wasn't about to indulge him. He caught the man's wrist and twisted it back.

"Try shoving me again."

"Ow, that hurts, it hurts... Let go!" The drunk sobered up in an instant.

"Don't spit on the respect you're given. Call the police and let them handle it." Ye Huan turned back to Wang Hui as he spoke.

The drunk's wife had been about to throw a fit, but when she heard they were calling the police, she didn't dare.

The police arrived quickly. After hearing what had happened, they tested the drunk on the spot. There was no question he had been driving drunk. Then came the problem: whether the alcohol had gone to his head or something else, the drunk suddenly went wild and shoved an officer to the ground. Now things had really blown up.

His wife blocked the police from arresting her husband, but once backup arrived, the woman had her arms pinned behind her back, and the man was subdued with pepper spray.

They introduced themselves to Wang Hui's husband and looked at the damage. A small patch of paint had been scraped off, a matter of two or three hundred yuan. After taking down a phone number, the police took the couple away. There was no escaping detention now.

Using the opportunity to thank Ye Huan, Wang Hui and her husband joined the others downstairs, where they ordered a pot of tea and chatted.

The people upstairs still didn't know what had happened below, but once those returning from their walk told them, everyone knew.

"If there's nothing else, you should head home early," Ye Huan said after they had chatted for a while and he saw Wang Hui yawning.

"Yeah, we'll get going, then. Ye Huan, thank you for today. My husband's not good with words and couldn't outargue them," Wang Hui told Ye Huan.

"It was nothing. Stay safe on the way home. Take it slow behind the wheel, brother-in-law..." They said goodbye to Wang Hui and her husband. Wang Hui also went upstairs to say goodbye to Chen Xixi and the others before leaving.