Page 75 of He Is My Bride

While Li Ying could still pretend they were on their perfect honeymoon and not on the run, from their public shaming and potential criminal charges, he had not forgotten that consequences would catch up with them eventually.

Yet something about Hanjun’s serene demeanor and what he’d said as they fled the altar had begun making Li Ying cautiously optimistic.

Or maybe Hanjun had also chosen the same sweet state of denial.

Perhaps for now, it was best to live in the moment .

“Can you delay the jet’s departure tomorrow?” Li Ying asked Hanjun. “I would like to go buy new clothes. We could both use some new beachwear, and Anne needs to see Harajuku while she’s in Tokyo.”

Hanjun looked at him quietly with soft eyes.

Li Ying blinked. “Unless… we’re in a hurry?”

“No hurry.”

The way he says it, Li Ying thought, i t’s as if…

‘Everything will be alright.’

What did he mean?

This time, when Hanjun had said it, Li Ying had believed it.

—

They flew in and spent two nights together in Honolulu before Anne had to fly home for work.

Their day was filled with beach-side restaurants, fruity cocktails, paddle boarding, and snorkeling—and still avoiding thinking about things too much. Anne was definitely worrying for all three of them, but she respected it when Li Ying said: ‘let’s just enjoy this for now’, and let it be.

On their third day on the run, Li Ying and Hanjun said goodbye to Anne as she left for the airport.

Hanjun had told Li Ying that the two of them would be leaving for Kaua ? i later that day, but when they took the taxi, it didn’t take them to the airport, but to a yacht pier.

“Hanjun, I swear…” Li Ying said as the driver slowed down in front of the row of huge luxury yachts.

Hanjun’s face didn’t budge. He walked Li Ying to one of the docked private yachts, and a crewmember was there to greet them:

“Hey, Mr. Wu, Mr. Li? Welcome aboard your private yacht to Kaua ? i!”

“No you did not?!” Li Ying slid off his beach sandal and gave Hanjun a good whacking.

Hanjun cracked a tiny smile, unbothered by Li Ying’s playful thrashing. “Your last yacht trip was cut short, so I thought I’d give you this.”

“Um, are you guys okay?” asked the crewman, understandably confused—the crew had expected honeymooners, but these guys were already acting like an old couple.

“Yes! Get me on that boat!” Li Ying ran over, eager to board.

Sailing to the sunset, sipping Mai-Tais, and holding hands on the sundeck was somewhat ruined by Hanjun deciding he should finnally check his work emails, but Li Ying couldn’t blame him—Hanjun had ignored everything for a few days.

“So, what’s up in Shanghai?” Li Ying asked while Hanjun scrolled on his laptop.

“I have been put on administrative leave.”

“Crap…” Li Ying sipped his drink and was satisfied with the amount of rum in it. “Think you’ll get fired?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I should call Uncle Yiheng and clarify things.”

“How about you clarify things with me? You know, your—Can I even call myself your wife anymore?”

“…Husband?”

“But Hanrong said our marriage is likely null!”

“We called each other those things even before we visited the municipal office.”

“Yeah, but… Hanjun, what is this? What are we doing? What are we going to do?”

Hanjun looked at Li Ying as if he were being silly. “We are eloping. ”

Li Ying dropped his pineapple wedge into the cocktail, and the drink splashed on his Guccis. He took the oversized sunglasses off .

“Do you know what words mean, Hanjun?” he asked while wiping his lenses dry.

“Why?” Hanjun tilted his head, frowning faintly. “We are ‘running away together to get married ? ’”

Li Ying placed his sunglasses on his forehead, fished up his pineapple from the drink, and took a ponderous bite of it. He was staring at Hanjun, trying to decipher if this was one of those extremely rare cases of him joking.

“How many you’ve had?” Li Ying asked.

Hanjun looked at his drink. “Just one?”

“So, what? We go back to America and get married there? But what will you do? What about your family? What about the company?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What?! You can’t just say it doesn’t matter after everything! Those things are important to you!”

Hanjun shrugged. “You are more important. We will figure everything out.”

“But—”

“There’s no undoing the damage Wang Guosheng has caused,” Hanjun said. “The only way for us to marry in China legally now is for you to get surgery and officially change your sex.”

“Well, that’s true. And it’s what we should say if this becomes a criminal case: that I was due to start that process, but that we didn’t want to wait until then.

That’ll not save you much face, I’m afraid, but it will make it more palatable to the public, to think I was going to become a woman eventually, and possibly save us from more serious legal punishment, who knows.

As for what we’ll do if it becomes apparent you bribed the doctor, how much trouble do you think you’ll be in? ”

“…I should call Uncle Yiheng.”

Li Ying sighed. He lowered the sunglasses back on. “I’m getting another drink. ”

He left to ask the crew for another Mai-Tai while Hanjun dialed his uncle.

“Hanjun?!” Wu Yiheng immediately answered the phone.

“Hello, Uncle.”

“Thank heavens… Where are you?!”

“Hawai?i.” Hanjun sipped his Mai-Tai and fixed the blue-tinted Police sunglasses on his nose, leaning back on his sun lounger.

“Enjoying your ‘honeymoon?!’” Wu Yiheng didn’t sound exactly pleased.

“Mm. I saw that I’m on administrative leave?”

“We made the decision two days ago, to be effective while the investigations are going on.”

“How are things going?”

“Our lawyer said it’s unlikely to be deemed criminal on your part, if Li Ying is… What is Li Ying?”

“Li Ying is a man.”

“What were you thinking, Hanjun?!”

“Uncle, did you tell the lawyer what I told you before, that I bribed the clinic’s chief physician to give the order to forgo Li Ying’s pelvic examination, in order to conceal his sex?”

“No, I didn’t disclose everything initially, and for the better: the man came to me the next day, and I bought him off again.

Both us and him now have doubly the reason to keep that part under wraps.

He would also face charges, since he accepted your bribe and essentially blackmailed me. He won’t talk.”

“There’s more that I wanted to tell you. As you know, Wang Yan confessed it to me personally that Wang Guosheng had her come to the clinic on his orders, to gather evidence of Li Ying’s sex.”

“What about it?”

“I believe she wouldn’t have exposed us willingly.

She would have been loyal to me, if Wang Guosheng hadn’t threatened to hurt her partner.

She revealed this at the wedding. If you get Wang Yan to come clean, it might get Wang Guosheng in some trouble.

There’s a risk involved that her confession will reveal my bribery, but I don’t believe she would willingly hurt our case. ”

“Wang Yan has already told everything,” Wu Yiheng revealed. “She also told our lawyers that her statement on Li Ying’s health certificate was her own moral decision, that she was not bribed or coerced to write Li Ying off as a woman, although she knew.”

“I see.” She’s still protecting us , Hanjun realized.

“Wang Guosheng is about to face problems of his own because of her confession,” Wu Yiheng continued. “Coercive extortion by threat of violence is a serious accusation, but it’s left to be seen how that ends for him. I doubt he’s out for good.”

“Will Wang Yan be safe?”

“She has witness protection. Although she did write a false medical statement, so I expect her to face fines and possibly lose her license. However, thanks to Wang Yan’s courage to speak against her family head, the Wangs are in disarray and in a considerably less powerful position, so I will consider lending her a hand.

I’ll make sure she can pay off any fines and make a living, in case she has to wait to get her license back. ”

“I think we should help Wang Yan,” Hanjun said. “She’s actively protecting me with her statement. Sh e’s on our side.”

“Noted.”

“Furthermore,” Hanjun went on, “Li Ying did not falsify any documents. His passport states he’s a woman, and that change was legally made in the States in order for us to marry.

You could tell the lawyer he was due to start the process to officially change his sex, to mitigate the damage.

We would support that statement, though false. ”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you ignored the law and sought to pass an unlawful marriage as lawful! That could be labeled as a sham.”

“We sought no financial gain. ”

“Hopefully an attenuating circumstance. Things would have been different if Li Ying had already gone through the whole… process, and had the paperwork to show for it.”

“But Li Ying is a man. Or at least not a—”

Li Ying had returned with his new drink. He lifted up his sunglasses and looked at Hanjun.

“It doesn’t matter what Li Ying is.” Hanjun said into the phone. “Li Ying shouldn’t be forced to be anything to marry who he loves.”

Li Ying held the railing surrounding the sundeck, standing there in his tiny speedos, tilting his hips and sipping his cocktail. He smiled at Hanjun.

“So na?ve,” Wu Yiheng said, but Hanjun was already losing interest in the conversation.

“It doesn’t matter to me or Li Ying if there will be charges against either of us: I will move to the States with Li Ying and marry him there.”

“ What?! ” Wu Yiheng exclaimed in shock. “What about your family? What about the company?!”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Yiheng—”

“Hanjun!” Beyond his anger, Wu Yiheng sounded desperate.

“—but this is my choice.”

“Your father—”