Page 149 of He Is My Bride

Hanjun had been worried when Li Ying had dismissed it earlier as something for ‘Wu Yiheng and his planner to worry about,’ thinking Li Ying was having second thoughts.

With Wu Yiheng having made it all sound so unromantic, maybe Li Ying had just felt excluded from his own wedding plans.

“This is about us,” Hanjun said, “we can do whatever we want.”

“Are you sure?” Li Ying asked. “Your uncle seemed to have an opinion on how we should be wed.”

“It’s not his wedding.”

“Okay, then I want a white dress, but there will be a staged fight in the middle of the ceremony where someone will throw fake blood on me so that the dress turns red.”

“That is…” The wedding planner had been taught to never say ‘no’ to a client. “What does the groom think of that?”

There was a hint of a smile on Hanjun’s lips, as if he were secretly enjoying this.

“Whatever his bride wants.”

“I was joking, silly melon!” Li Ying gently pinched Hanjun’s ear. He then realized Hanjun probably knew that and was just playing ‘Shanghai husband.’

“But I want to say the vows, and I definitely want a cake.Hugecake.”

“Those can absolutely be arranged!” The planner said in relief and wrote it all down in her notes.

“Actually, should I pop out of the cake?”

This is my toughest gig yet,the planner thought.

—

So, before the couple could beweddedthey needed to bemarried.

Li Ying and Hanjun had most of the paperwork ready, what was left was the premarital medical examination.

The one thing that could have ruined it all, to a disastrous effect, if the doctor found out Li Ying was a man. However, if they couldn’t produce the certificate issued by a doctor, they had no way of getting their marriage papers—no way of getting married.

Hanjun was driving them to the appointed doctor’s office. Li Ying was a nervous wreck.

“Don’t worry, I have arranged everything,” Hanjun said. “There will be a doctor who will only ask you questions. He will also takesome blood, you will be asked to give a urine sample, and your height, weight, and blood pressure will be taken. He won’t touch you besides that. If he tries, refuse, and leave.”

Li Ying had read about the contents of the examination: normally the woman would also receive a pelvic examination, and that’s where he would have been screwed.

“What did you do? Did you really bribe the doctor? Threaten him with pig heads?”

Hanjun nodded.

“What, which one?!”

“I gave him a generous sum and told him that Li Ying is an American woman, for whom to be examined in an intimate manner against her will is inappropriate. I warned him that I’m very concerned with your comfort and won’t tolerate your privacy being breached. And that I’m a very jealous man.”

The way Hanjun said that last one made Li Ying shiver. He could imagine the poor doctor shivering too, less pleasantly.

They arrived at a small clinic downtown.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Hanjun asked. He had already gotten his checkup done days earlier.

“No need. It’s just in and out, right?”

Hanjun nodded. “It shouldn’t take too long. I’ll wait in the car then. Don’t worry.”