Page 28 of He Is My Bride

Anne hadn’t been idle, and when she heard of Grandmother Linming’s dinner, she had made a plan for Li Ying’s outfit.

“What happened to all the ‘sexy?’” Li Ying wondered aloud before the mirror after Anne had dressed him. “I look like, I don’t know, a fifties housewife meets a Victorian child?”

“Do you want to be ‘sexy’ for the aunties?” Anne said. “Besides, the dress is Miu Miu, and it’s cute.”

It was a knee-length, straight-hem dress with a pink-brown checkered pattern and short sleeves, and a white, flat collar with a small black bow.

For shoes, Li Ying wore black bunny ballerinas by Minna Parikka, which he absolutely adored with their little rabbit ears on the front.

They were comfortable, too—no heels. Underneath, he wore thin, sheer stockings, just for that extra bit of modesty.

His hair was done in a high bun with small French braids running up along the sides of his head. His bangs were left framing his face, as usual, to soften his features. Nude makeup with light pink lip gloss.

Li Ying thought he looked adorable. It wasn’t sexy -sexy, but Li Ying still squirmed before the mirror while thinking about Hanjun seeing him like this, looking all cute and innocent while Hanjun knew Li Ying was anything but.

Hanjun, what would you do to me like this? …No, stop it! Li Ying’s imagination was running wild again, but he figured he’d better calm down, because he’d just tucked.

With everything ready, Li Ying called Yiyi and asked him to come pick him up. Yiyi would join them later when he was done at work, along with Cousin Hanrong.

Yiyi drove Li Ying to a peaceful, green residential district in the Shanghai suburbs, where Grandmother Linming lived with Wu Yiheng in her son’s house.

“Is Auntie Wang very scary, like her nephew?” Yiyi asked, meaning, of course, Wang Guosheng.

“Wu Yiheng is scarier.”

“Yeah, he’s scary. But isn’t he going to be your, uh, uncle-in-law?”

“Yep, but he doesn’t know it yet.”

Yiyi glanced at the diamond on Li Ying’s finger. “Will you tell him today?”

Li Ying nodded, winking at Yiyi and flashing him the ring. “He’s got eyes in his head, doesn’t he?”

Yiyi was bewildered by Li Ying’s irreverence towards the chairman. Yiyi knew, since Big Sister Li had shown up in Shanghai, that everything would change for the Wus.

Yiyi drove up to a manned gate and rolled down his window to state their business and handed the guard their passports. Of course, the head of Wu Pharma would live in a gated community like this, Li Ying thought. Only after a brief security clearance were they let through.

The area was full of French colonial-style stone mansions with vast gardens and swimming pools, and the streets and boulevards between were verdantly, if artificially, landscaped. It was peaceful, but void of the liveliness of the city outside .

Yiyi drove into the yard of one such large colonial mansion. The yard boasted a traditional Chinese garden, complete with a pond and a small pavilion. It seemed far more inviting than some of the sterile lawns they had passed, but it was still daunting in its scale.

Li Ying had visited such a house once when Uncle Qian had taken him and his siblings along to a barbecue at a business partner’s home, but other than as a guest, Li Ying had known he had no business in residences like that.

Could I live somewhere like this with Hanjun? Li Ying thought.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter to him if their house was big or small, as long as they lived in it together. Although Li Ying wouldn’t want to live behind a gate.

Looking at these big, lonely houses, he felt homesick for the cozy urban grunge of downtown New York.

Where was the local friendly hobo? The street food stands with questionable food hygiene but unbeatable flavor?

The ever-changing gallery of graffiti? The buskers?

For a few years now, that had been Li Ying’s home.

Although Li Ying would prefer to live in a place where people had time to greet each other, and had begun dreaming of a life outside the city.

A cottage in a small town in the country would be the dream, Li Ying thought. Wow, I’m getting old! But I think I’m ready to settle down. With a family…

Li Ying opened the car door and prepared himself to fight for that dream.

“Good luck, big sister, and thanks again for the driving tips!” Yiyi said.

“No problem! See you later, say hi to A-Yu if you see him in the office!”

“Will do!”

Li Ying made for the grand entrance. He rang the doorbell and soon heard high-pitched barking from inside. A maid opened the door.

“Welcome, miss. Please—”

From behind her barreled forth two Maltese dogs, like barking snowballs, wagging their tails wildly at the guest. Li Ying watched the dogs tip-tap to him across the tiled veranda, and wasn’t sure what to do when they started jumping against his legs.

One of their little claws snagged on his stockings and pulled a tear in the thin hosiery.

“Oh dear!” the maid exclaimed in horror, but before the poor girl would freak out, Li Ying smiled at her reassuringly:

“It’s okay, it’s okay! They just got excited about getting guests, huh?” Damn rats…

“I’m very sorry about that, miss!” The maid grabbed the dogs by their bejeweled collars and pulled them away.

“Don’t let the dogs out!” exclaimed a deep female voice Li Ying didn’t recognize. He looked past the struggling maid and saw a robust madam, who had appeared in the hallway. The madam reached down to pick up one of the dogs.

“Excuse the loud welcome!” the madam said, the dog wriggling in her hold.

“It’s alright!” Li Ying brushed it off. Except for the minor wardrobe malfunction. Now I have to meet the super posh aunties in raggedy-ass stockings. Li Ying hoped his frustration was not obvious on his face.

“Come on in, come on in!” the madam beckoned Li Ying.

Li Ying entered the hall while the madam pushed the dog to the maid and told her to put them in some room to calm down. She then turned her attention to Li Ying:

“So, you are Miss Li?” The madam had a strong, loud voice befitting her grand stature. “My name is Mo Qiongju, but you may call me Madam Wang.”

Madam Wang: the mother of Wang Guosheng, Li Ying figured. The widow of Hanjun’s grandmother’s brother, the great-uncle Wang who had invested his family’s wealth in Wu Pharma during the tumultuous times of the previous century.

“Nice to meet you, Madam Wang!” I didn’t expect the great-aunt to be here already.

Li Ying had to get his head in the game.

While this madam seemed good-humored, Li Ying didn’t know whose side she was really on in the company politics, and how that would affect her position regarding Li Ying’s and Hanjun’s marriage.

Madam Wang’s eyes locked on the large diamond on Li Ying’s ring finger. “So the rumors were true.”

Li Ying blinked. What rumors? He and Hanjun hadn’t told anyone of their engagement yet, except Anne and the interns.

Had Xinyu gossiped to his family? Then it dawned on Li Ying: a group of girls had been acting strange at the café yesterday, when Li Ying had been showing off his ring.

They must have recognized him as Wu Hanjun’s ‘mystery woman’ and gone to the press.

This meeting is looking to start more and more awkwardly.

It was bad form if the family should find out about something like an engagement from the tabloids, rather than the couple themselves.

Li Ying, you have been too careless!

“We actually haven’t told anyone yet,” Li Ying said, trying to salvage the situation. “This is a rather new development.”

“Is that so?” Madam Wang smiled smugly. “Then we must go and tell Big Sister Linming at once! Come, come.”

Madam Wang led Li Ying from the entrance hall to the living room, although the term ‘parlor’ seemed more apt: the ceiling was high, and the paneled windows arched, set with elegant, heavy curtains.

There was a grand chandelier and a modern art piece over the mantle of the marbled fireplace, flanked by a pair of large Ming porcelain vases.

In the center of this opulence, seated on a tufted couch, were two other elderly dames: thin and elegant Grandmother Linming, and a small old lady, who Li Ying could tell had been a real jade beauty in her youth, but who seemed rather frail now.

“Those dogs of yours, they shouldn’t be barking at guests,” Grandmother Linming said, disapproving.

“They’re good puppies!” Madam Wang insisted. “They just get excited when they see pretty girls.” She winked at Li Ying. Madam Wang returned to her place on the left side of Grandmother Linming, the hostess.

Now, sitting side by side, the three family matriarchs regarded Li Ying like a talent show jury, each sipping their tea.

Li Ying hadn’t been told to sit yet, so he just stood there, hyper-aware of his torn hosiery, his wide shoulders, and his idle hands, and he brought them behind his back just to put them somewhere to not start fidgeting.

Grandmother Linming’s eyes had happened on Li Ying’s legs, but before another delicate frown could settle on her brows, they shot right back up to her hairline as she noticed the ring—before it disappeared behind Li Ying’s back. Grandmother Linming then looked back up at Li Ying’s face.

“You poor thing, did the dogs ruin your stockings?”

“It’s alright, it wasn’t their fault,” Li Ying assured, though he was frustrated that Anne had gone through so much trouble to make his appearance flawless, only to be ruined at the last minute by some pedigree rats.

Grandmother Linming mercifully dropped the subject and proceeded to introduce the other two ladies by her side. They were indeed Hanjun’s great-aunts from either side of the family.

“Yes, we already met,” Madam Wang said, chuckling—she was quite the boisterous woman. “So, this is Wu Hanjun’s fiancée ? ”

“Ah, my old eyes did not deceive me,” said Grandmother Linming, smiling at Li Ying. “May we see the ring?”