DBTHDCAR Chapter 88

Three months later, Xiao Mei’s wedding.

This time it was a proper wedding; she had already registered her marriage in advance.

None of Xiao Mei’s relatives from her countryside home came; the seats for her family were filled entirely by members of the Ning family.

A month earlier, when they went to her family’s village in northern Jiangsu to ask her older brother and sister-in-law for the household registration book to officially register the marriage, her brother and sister-in-law tried to make a fuss, demanding a high price. They argued that her nephew was grown now, that they were planning to renovate the family house for the wedding, and they were short a few tens of thousands of yuan. If they wanted the household book, they could take half of the bride price. But a senior engineer at a major Shanghai state-owned enterprise—would he be short on money?

As for the bride price scammed earlier from the One-Eyed man, not a word was mentioned.

“Brother, sister-in-law, Shanghai weddings don’t really have a bride price,” Xiao Mei explained.

“Don’t give us that. Even if there’s no cash, you still have to give gold and silver jewelry, right? Are you really going to marry a wife without spending a penny?”

Her sister-in-law rolled her eyes with a laugh.

After she returned defeated from Shanghai last time, that ungrateful little girl never sent money back home again. Her man even complained, saying the family’s cash tree had withered, his lips blistered from frustration, constantly grumbling about how ruthless she had been in Shanghai and how that would cause problems in the future.

Future? She had long seen through it. The household registration book was their leverage; as long as Xiao Mei hadn’t married, they could control her.

She wasn’t worried. She’d reclaim it all in time. If Xiao Mei truly married into the city, all the better. Her nephew’s future career and marriage, her role as aunt, she could be involved all the more.

“I’ll tell you straight: without this, don’t even think about getting married.”

She held out her palm.

Xiao Mei, calm and unhurried, smiled and called over the women’s cadre from the village office, along with the three young men behind her.

Besides Ning Xiaobei and Fan Xia, they also brought along Lin Ziying, who hadn’t appeared in a long while.

The guy walked in holding a handheld camera, snapping shots left and right, looking like he wanted to dive straight into the back of the main hall. When Ning Xiaobei stopped him, he turned his curiosity to the old kitchen stove outside the left door.

“Who is this? Why are you here? How can you just barge into someone’s home like this?”

“Oh, he’s a student from Fudan University’s Journalism Department, a junior reporter,” the women’s cadre explained with a smile. “He drove all the way from central Shanghai on the weekend to cover our village.”

“Yeah, mainly to film the new look of rural life.”

“Right—the new look. Especially rural women pursuing love freely, and new-style weddings.”

Lin Ziying put down the camera and gave Xiao Mei’s older brother a simple, honest smile.

No one knew what he’d been through in high school, but his weight had soared from under 110 jin¹55 kgin middle school to over 200 jin²100 kg now. He looked every bit the well-off, pampered son of a landlord.

It was said that during third year of highschool, he’d been under so much pressure that he was losing hair like crazy, almost going bald before his time. His mother had been making medicinal tonics for him every day. His hair survived, but the fat he’d gained seemed impossible to lose.

In a way, it only made him look more like someone of status: a full forehead, a solid jaw, the look of an official.

Unlike Fan Xia, tall, dark, and decked in designer clothes, who even in a rural household looked no different than a farmhand, showing not a trace of official presence.

Xiao Mei’s brother and sister-in-law, intimidated by Lin Ziying’s high-roller aura or perhaps unwilling to resist in front of the village officials, handed over the household registration book. Before leaving, they even took her hand and reminded her to invite them to the wedding feast. “Our whole family will come to Shanghai to back you up,” they said, “so your future mother-in-law won’t dare to bully you.”

Xiao Mei, whose mother-in-law had long since passed, just smiled quietly.

“Children are debts… all debts,” Grandma Ning sat below the stage, constantly dabbing at her tears with a handkerchief.

Earlier, when she was invited onto the stage and Xiao Mei and Mr. Zhou bowed to present her flowers, the old lady had already turned into a complete teary mess, and even now, she hadn’t fully calmed down.

Earlier today, when Mr. Zhou drove his fleet of cars around the neighborhood to pick up the bride, Grandma Ning couldn’t hold back her tears. She and Xiao Mei had lived together for over a decade; not mother and daughter by blood, but closer than any biological pair. Xiao Mei, dressed in a pure white wedding gown with a sacred white veil, leaned lightly on Xiao Su’s arm as she bowed to say goodbye to Grandma.

The moment her knees touched the brocade cushion, the two of them clutched each other and wept in floods of tears. The makeup artists were spinning in circles, panicking.

“Stop crying, stop crying! We’ve been working since six this morning. If you keep crying, we’ll have to redo the makeup. And the fleet will be late!”

“Exactly! Grandma, Mr. Zhou’s place is right in the neighborhood. It’s five minutes on foot. Come on, please stop crying. Xiao Mei, wipe it up. If your makeup gets ruined, we’ll have to redo it.”

Wang Yihong was dressed in rose-red today, her hair freshly curled into big waves, looking like a blooming fortune flower on earth. You would never guess she was a mother of two, with the youngest already in kindergarten.

According to southern customs, weddings are held in the evening. After the bridal fleet departed, it went onto the overpass for a drive, then exited at the Yan’an Elevated Road to shoot wedding photos outdoors at Greenland. Lunch was at a nearby large restaurant booked by the bride’s Ning family. Although not the formal wedding banquet yet, there were fifteen to sixteen tables, all insisted on by Grandma Ning.

Forget about destination weddings or simple weddings with minimalist modern style. For Grandma, Xiao Mei’s marriage had to be grand and glorious. Every bit of the traditional fanfare that a Shanghai girl deserved on her wedding day; nothing could be skipped.

The wedding host knew how to tug at hearts. Every line, every speech—no matter how many times it had been rehearsed, no matter how many weddings it had already been recycled for—still left everyone on stage and in the audience in tears.

Ning Xiaobei and Fan Xia, both dressed in identical white groomsmen suits, sat in the back, moved by the ceremony.

Ning Xiaobei was better, just a little red-eyed.

Fan Xia, on the other hand, was full of emotion; he had already gone through two tissues, his nose sniffing and twitching.

“Feels like you’re the one getting married,” Ning Xiaobei said, tossing a napkin box from the table straight into Fan Xia’s lap.

“I just think… sob, sob, sob… my little sister is going to get married in a decade or so, and I can’t handle it… sob, sob, sob…” Fan Xia cried.

Today, little Fan Nuxia also wore a lace wedding dress with a small flower crown, standing by the side of the stage with Aunt Wang’s son—they were serving as flower children and would soon walk up to present the rings.

“When I married Jianguo’s dad, we just took a wedding photo at the studio, invited family and friends, and set up a few tables in the alley, just enough to say we had a wedding. Back then, we didn’t even have enough bowls and chairs at home; we had to borrow some from neighbors,” Grandma Ning said quietly, dabbing her tears.

She rarely spoke of her husband. Nobody really knew why, back then, Miss Jian didn’t marry into the Ning family, but the groom moved into Jiande Lane where she lived.

“Old Ning was a good man, treated me well… but a woman wants a grand wedding, doesn’t she? In our days, we couldn’t. I just thought that when my son got married, he deserved a proper ceremony…”

She glanced at Ning Jianguo as she spoke. He was clinking glasses with Zhao Jingwen, already in high spirits, having drunk plenty before the official start of the banquet; tonight he was definitely going to end in a big drunk.

“Enough, let’s not talk about it,” Grandma Ning sighed lightly. “Even if Xiao Mei’s taste isn’t perfect… at least she fulfilled this old lady’s dream. That’s why daughters are the best; they’re their mother’s little cotton-padded jacket. Don’t think raising a son guarantees luck; sometimes it just benefits someone else…”

Her voice trailed off, too soft for anyone to hear.

The wedding reached its climax. Mr. Zhou bent down, taking the engagement ring from the flower basket, and shouted to Xiao Mei, “Xiao Mei, I love you. Marry me!”

Xiao Mei covered her mouth with her lace-gloved hands, tears of joy streaming down again.

Under the hotel’s rainbow-colored lights and the deft touch of the makeup artists, Mr. Zhou looked exceptionally young today, seemingly around thirty. Of course, it could also be the effect of happiness shining through, facing his radiant new bride.

Watching Mr. Zhou lift Xiao Mei’s wedding veil and kiss her, Fan Xia gently pinched Ning Xiaobei’s palm.

“Sorry, Xiaobei,” he said softly.

“I can’t give you a wedding like this.”

There was nothing to be done. Love that the world doesn’t allow is always destined to be this way.

To have understanding and blessings from children, like Ning Jianguo and Zhao Jingwen did, is already a dream for many; to have a wedding like this is even more unimaginable.

Ning Jianguo and Zhao Jingwen, holding their glasses, quietly watched the couple embracing together on stage. They saw gold, silver, red, and green confetti fall over their heads, watched the fireworks shoot out colorful ribbons onto the red carpet at their feet, hands tightly clasped, silently.

Taking advantage of everyone’s attention being on the couple, Ning Xiaobei quickly leaned close to Fan Xia’s ear and whispered something that made Fan Xia scream in excitement on the spot:

“We booked twenty tables of banquet tonight, so the hotel gave the newlyweds a honeymoon suite for the wedding night, but my grandma insisted that the first night must be spent in the official new room—sleeping somewhere else would be unlucky. Besides, all of Mr. Zhou’s colleagues are too old to make a fuss. So the free suite would just go unused… Grandma said I could crash there for free tonight.”

“You coming?”

Fan Xia’s eyes went red.

………………

Two hearts like fish in water, neck intertwined like mandarin ducks, a night of youthful celebration, oblivious to the approaching dawn.

The next day was Sunday. This week, Ning Xiaobei’s German class was canceled because the teacher went abroad for research, so the whole day was free.

After crashing the free honeymoon suite and having a free buffet breakfast at the hotel, the two sweet young people still didn’t want to go home. They hailed a taxi and headed to the affiliated high school to see their teacher.

It had been a long time since they’d seen Brother Kai, and they missed him terribly, especially his dog and BBQ grill.

Once in the car, Fan Xia’s hands still wouldn’t stay put, creeping toward Ning Xiaobei’s waist. Experiencing this for the first time, he was naturally greedy for more, wanting to glue his eyes and heart to Ning Xiaobei and constantly giggling like a lovesick fool.

Ning Xiaobei was excited too, but his mental age got the better of him. He had no choice but to restrain himself, repeatedly prying Fan Xia’s arms off his waist.

The driver, a seasoned man, kept his face stoic and refused to look back, pretending he was deaf and blind.

“Yesterday at the banquet, I nearly died when I saw Zhou… Zhou Yunjun,” Fan Xia said.

Several sharp tugs on his thigh from Ning Xiaobei brought him back to something resembling normal.

Still, the tips of his ears were pink, and the laughter in his eyes couldn’t be hidden.

“Mm…”

Ning Xiaobei nodded, still shaken.

No one had expected that Zhou Yunjun, whom they had met only twice, was actually Mr. Zhou’s daughter. Yesterday, she had appeared at the Ning family gate in a lotus-colored dress as part of the wedding escort, and Ning Xiaobei and Fan Xia, standing as the main force of the bride’s group, were both startled. Before they could recover, Mr. Zhou and his middle-aged colleagues had barged in, breaking through the first line of defense and instantly costing them at least twenty red envelopes in bribes.

“Luckily, we didn’t keep in touch after the mixer that day. Otherwise, it would have been unbearably awkward,” Fan Xia said, still uneasy.

In fact, the atmosphere had frozen completely after the game that night. Tang Xin had no choice but to abruptly declare the mixer over, leaving everyone to exchange contact info only if they liked each other.

The guy who had done that good deed wa eager to go up to Zhou Yunjun and ask for her number. But unfortunately, in her eyes, he was nothing more than a background extra. Instead, she walked over to Fan Xia with easy confidence. Her reason for asking for his contact was perfectly legitimate—she needed to return his jacket later.

Only after everyone stood up did Ning Xiaobei notice the cola stain on Zhou Yunjun’s dress and realize he might have wrongly blamed Fan Xia again. But at the time, he was still angry and unwilling to swallow his pride. Without even waiting for Tang Xin to finish speaking, he had already turned his back and left.

In the end, the jacket made its way back to Fan Xia after quite a detour. Zhou Yunjun passed it to Tang Xin, Tang Xin handed it to Ning Xiaobei during a later lecture, and Ning Xiaobei finally returned it to Fan Xia. The whole process took over a week.

After her initial surprise yesterday, Zhou Yunjun quickly regained her composure. When she heard that Ning Xiaobei was the bride’s god-nephew, she found the coincidence quite remarkable.

As she spoke, she kept glancing toward Fan Xia, but it was like throwing flirtatious looks at a blind man; completely wasted effort.

It was said that after they left that night, Zhuo Yuhang tried to invite Miss Zhou out for a late-night snack, but was ultimately turned down. The boss was a little heartbroken. He had come all the way from University of Finance and Economics to the university district, crossing half of Shanghai, gone through the shock of a gay bar incident, and still failed to win the lady’s heart. In his pride, he declared he would never attend another mixer again.

Ning Xiaobei didn’t believe a word of that. In the real world, Zhuo Yuhang would later meet his Shanghai wife at one of these mixers, something everyone in the company knew.

Now that Aunt Xiao Mei had become Zhou Yunjun’s stepmother, if this were one of those wildly popular Korean dramas from recent years, Zhou Yunjun would definitely end up in a dramatic love story with either Fan Xia or Ning Xiaobei—complete with leukemia, car accidents, amnesia, and all the usual over-the-top plot twists.

Unfortunately, no one in the Ning family liked watching Korean dramas. Grandma Ning said those stories were like foot-binding cloth, long and tiresome, and she was afraid she wouldn’t even make it to the final episode before passing on herself. So Miss Zhou’s romantic hopes could only remain just a longing.

“Teacher Gu? Oh, Teacher Gu doesn’t teach here anymore.”

When they arrived at the affiliated high school, the old gatekeeper still recognized them as recent graduates and greeted them warmly.

Who would have thought that before they even stepped into the academic building, they would hear such news?

“He left not long after you graduated,” the old man said, spreading his hands.

……………… 

Author’s Note:

Beep beep, swipe card.

If not for… that, I could’ve written three thousand more words!

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