189. I Leave My Brother in Your Hands
When YiHan and JingYuan arrived, the girl manning the cashier smiled and pointed them upstairs. The second floor of the book shop consisted of Zhang Su’s office, the workers’ breakroom and so on. The couple had just reached the top of the stairs when they heard laughter coming from within Zhang Su’s office.
YiHan chuckled. “Looks like everything went well.”
“Mn,” JingYuan responded.
When YiHan knocked on the office door, Pei’s gleeful voice called out, “YiHan, Mr Mu, you’re here! Come in.”
Hui, Zhang Su, Yan and YouRan were in the office as well. Hui languidly sat in one of the couches with his hand stretched out behind his husband, who was sitting next to him. A warm smile occupied Zhang Su’s face. There was also a faint smile hanging off YouRan’s lips. Yan’s eyes gleamed as he relaxed next to YouRan.
“Looks like everything went well last night,” YiHan said as he walked into the room.
Pei moved to sit near YiHan. “It was a huge success. Did you know? My aunt and uncle were so good to YouRan. During dinner, Grandfather even commented that now I’m the only one in the family who’s single.”
“That’s much better than we thought,” YiHan said.
“It’s actually quite normal,” said Hui. “With Su and me as examples, and with how they keep hearing about you and JingYuan, their ability to accept YouRan is much, much higher. Ah, there’s also one other reason.”
Hui snickered. “Yan is too stern and reserved. He had never cared for the other sex since he was a kid. He’d run far away the moment he sees a girl. Our parents were mentally prepared for this. Most importantly, YouRan’s not a bad man. He has a good aura around him. He looks so dependable that they feel safe marrying off Yan.”
Pei burst out laughing at Hui’s words. Zhang Su couldn’t resist laughing as well. Yan’s eyes widened but then YouRan’s hand snuck over to hold his. Yan’s lips closed without a word at his lover’s steady gaze.
YiHan was laughing as well. His shoulders shook and trembled. Beside him, JingYuan smiled as he looked at his lover.
Pei massaged her aching stomach and said to YouRan, “Nan San, I leave my brother in your hands. Take good care of him.”
“I will,” YouRan solemnly replied.
Yan shot a glare at his sister as he covered his face with his free hand.
Hui didn’t plan on letting his brother go that easily. “Brother, from now on, you’ll be forming a new family with YouRan. You must be more aware of your spending and have a better understanding of your finances. Don’t be a spendthrift or YouRan will be under immense stress.”
“It’s fine,” YouRan hurriedly interjected.
“Huh?” said Hui.
“He doesn’t need to control himself,” said YouRan. “I’ll work hard and take care of him.”
Hui reached out and patted YouRan on the shoulder as he mirthfully, and emphatically, said, “With you by his side, I can stop worrying. I leave my brother to you from now on.”
YouRan earnestly nodded.
Yan brazenly smacked Hui’s hand away as he said, “We plan on getting married.”
“We know that,” said YiHan.
“I mean to say,” Yan emphasised, “we plan on getting married soon. It’s cold in the winter so we’ll have it during spring next year. Spring is when everything comes back to life. It has good implications.”
Pei’s eyes went wide. “Whoa! Brother, do you need to be so rushed? Has Nan Shan agreed to it?”
YouRan nodded.
“We talked about it when we went home last night,” said Yan.
“Why the hurry? Won’t it be too soon to get married in spring next year?” asked Hui.
“It’s him for the rest of my life. It doesn’t matter when we get married. The earlier we’re married, the more secure we feel,” replied Yan.
YiHan looked up at JingYuan and smiled. “They think exactly like us.”
“There’s nothing bad about it,” said JingYuan. “Look at how safe we feel in our relationship.”
“True,” YiHan said with a nod.
“How about this? Spring is too soon. It’s better to have more time to prepare when it comes to a wedding. Why don’t you two set the date in summer, just like YiHan and JingYuan? Well?” suggested Hui.
Yan gave the idea a thought but insistently replied, “It’ll be spring.”
Hui sighed, “Why are you so stubborn? Think about it. Marriage is no trivial matter. Do you want to buy a new place? Do you need to renovate it? Does it need redecorating? And then there’s the team involved in making the wedding happen, the wedding’s location, invitation cards, and so on. There’s a whole bunch of stuff and they all require time to plan. Marriage is one of the greatest events in a person’s life. You wouldn’t want it to be flawed, right?
YouRan was shocked. “We’d need to buy a new place? I don’t have enough savings!” He looked at Yan, pleading for help as panic crawled across his face.
Yan gave YouRan’s hands a squeeze. “We don’t need to buy a new place. YouRan’s apartment is just nice.”
Hui sighed again. “The place you’re living in is good but your area isn’t that safe and your apartments aren’t that big. No matter if you plan on adopting a child or finding a surrogate, your duo will become a trio. Your family might even grow bigger than that. Your apartments are too small for that.”
“We’ll connect my apartment to the one next to mine then,” said Yan.
YouRan shook his head. “Your brother’s right. Our area isn’t safe. If we live there for long, it’ll be easy for someone mean-spirited to target us.”
“No worries,” Hui said with a wave of his hand. “I, your brother, will give you a home. Think of it as Yan’s dowry!”
“There’s no need,” Yan disdainfully said. “I’ll buy one myself.”
YouRan let out a defeated sigh.
Yan was surprised, confused.
“YouRan,” said Zhang Su, “did you forget everything YiHan and I told you? A family is made up of two people. You don’t have to do everything yourself. Yan is part of the family. He should be putting in his share of the work when it comes to your futures.”
“I know,” said YouRan. “I just feel so useless.”
“How could you be useless?” Yan hurriedly said. “My life is only filled with colours because I have you. It’s because of you that I have this urgent impulse to start a family. To me, you are the most important.”
JingYuan and Hui simultaneously nodded in understanding. The three men glanced at each other in the eyes.
Yan Pei, the only single “dog” in the room: “…” Look at how freely you scatter your acts of love. Don’t you think it’s unfair to me? /(ToT)/~~
***
Qi MingYang wasn’t a man who was called narrow-hearted for nothing. The Qi family kept targeting the Chu family but it never once dealt a decisive blow. It was as if the Qi family was a cat toying with a mouse. It stressed out Chu FangMing so much that he broke down and sought to plead with Qi Jie. However, the woman wouldn’t even let him see her. She didn’t even answer his calls. Their two daughters were under strict protection by their mother so he didn’t even have a chance to come in contact with them. It was obvious the two girls were much closer to their mother. They were also only a few years younger than YouRan. When they were told of the entire story, they were furious. They wholeheartedly supported their mother. Their father’s betrayal could not be forgiven. They weren’t willing to look at Chu FangMing. The man had no choice. He repeatedly tried to visit YouRan but Yan foiled all of his plans. There was no way Chu FangMing could speak to YouRan in person. At his wits’ end, he began to tell everyone about how YouRan cruelly refused to acknowledge his biological father.
This matter between the Qi and Chu families was no longer a secret among their social circles. Everyone knew the cause of the issue was Chu FangMing’s bastard son. That boy popped out of nowhere and was very close to the Little Master Bai and the Yan family siblings. Chu FangMing planed on publicly welcoming the bastard back into the Chu family. Unexpectedly, the son refused and the man’s wife was so enraged that she moved back in with her birth family. Chu FangMing was disliked by both parties. Not only was he hated by everyone, but he had also been beaten into a pile of mess by the Qi family. He had turned into a joke among the high society.
Frankly speaking, children born out of wedlock were nothing new to those who frequent these social circles. Giving up on love for the sake of a political marriage was nothing new either. Nevertheless, when someone has caused harm to another, that person would usually compensate the other. It didn’t matter if the other party accepted it or not. It was at least a show of respect. Putting aside the matter of compensation, the person who abandoned the other party had no right to ask them to do anything. Furthermore, Chu FangMing was only involved in the bastard son’s birth and not in raising the kid. What made him think he could ask the kid to fulfil his filial obligations? The kid didn’t even want to use his father’s surname. It was clear what the kid thought. Furthermore, he had the support of the Bai and Yan families. Who would dare say anything? Putting aside the Yan family, if anyone upset Bai YiHan, they wouldn’t even have time to wait for the Bai family to kick up a fuss. Mu JingYuan would be the first to move. The Little Master Bai didn’t exactly have the best tempers. While the young man had grown much more mature over the past six months, who would dare test the waters just because of a single sentence spoken out of boredom?
Under the current circumstances, Chu FangMing’s attempts to slander Xu YouRan turned into laughable scenes where the speaker had the guts to speak but no one dared to listen to him. The moment Chu FangMing got started, everyone began to conjure up all sorts of excuses to leave. How they wished they had doors over their ears so they could shut out every word.
What surprised the public was that the first to speak up on behalf of Xu YouRan wasn’t Bai YiHan. It was the Yan family, specifically the old Mr Yan himself. He announced Xu YouRan’s relationship with the Yan family’s second son, Yan Yan, and that there was going to be an engagement party.
A single stone can cause thousands of ripples. The announcement sent a shockwave roaring through the high society that had just been through the engagement of the Bai and Mu families. People everywhere nervously wiped away the sweat off their brows. Thank goodness none of them were mean enough to gossip about Xu YouRan. Otherwise, they would’ve died due to unknown causes. Being close to someone was very different to being engaged to them! Got it?
Not only that, but it was also the old Mr Yan who spoke up. That gave the announcement so much more weight. The old Mr Yan was clearly showing his support for Xu YouRan, raising the young man’s worth. In an instant, the outside world was flooded with praises of Xu YouRan. While no one knew just what the man marrying Yan Yan looked like nor did they know what kind of person he was, it didn’t affect his surge in status. The bastard son of the Chu family? What is a bastard son? Can you eat it?
Everyone sane could see that Chu FangMing was stubbornly clinging onto the son he’d been ignoring for years because that son was going to be married to Yan Yan. As if the man would bother acknowledging the son if the young man was penniless. Too many people knew the whole story. Now, there was nothing left to hide Chu FangMing’s humiliation. The man has now turned into an absolute joke. Companies with ties to his did all they could to cut those ties, even if it’d hurt them. No one thought it a joke. That man had offended three of the Great Five in one fell swoop. Among them was Qi MingYang. If you plucked a strand of his hair, he would chase you down three blocks just to cut you up. He wouldn’t stop until you were dead. Who would want to continue their partnership with Chu FangMing? Did they want to die?
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