Page 84 of He Is My Bride

“Thanks! I think I love you.”

“Aww honey! I love you too!” She hugged him.

This girl is so wasted.Li Ying hugged her back while checking in with his own wellbeing: the floor wasn’t entirely steady, but he would manage. Maybe.No more for Li Ying!

He let the girl go and went to check himself in the mirror, making sure he wasn’t in any call-Anne-immediately-kind of situation, but he only needed to touch up his lip gloss—Hanjun had eaten it all up.

Meanwhile back at their table, Hanjun was still out and Wang Hao thought he had something clever to say about it:

“Tch, even his woman could hold liquor better than him. Pathetic.”

“In his defense: that Li Ying seemed like she would have drunk any one of us under the table,” said Huang Xiang.

“Including you,” supplemented Lin Yong and leered at Wang Hao.

“What about you then?” Wang Hao confronted Lin Yong. “You were too cowardly to even play!”

“Striving so hard to make a fool out of yourself is hardly courage.”

“Hah! Like how Wu Hanjun made a fool out of himself?”

“Hmh.” Lin Yong didn’t deny, and since he didn’t step up to defend Hanjun, Wang Hao got emboldened:

“Wu Hanjun turns out to be a typical ‘little Shanghai man’ after all: whipped and henpecked.”

“But aren’tyouShanghai-born?” someone asked.

“Do I sound like a little Shanghai man to you? Who even are you?”

The man, not from the mainland, shrunk before Wang Hao, and as Wang Hao mistook everybody else’s awkward silence for respect, he went on:

“My family is from the part of the country where the men lead and women follow. And speak like men! All you Shanghainese talk like girls, and the Wus really are the biggest culprits of that effeminate accent. It’s really obvious just listening to you all that I’m the only one who has studied in Beijing.”

“It is obvious, isn’t it?” Lin Yong said lazily, twirling his glass. Some of his fellow Shanghainese dared laugh.

Hanrong didn’t laugh or comment. He sat still and serene as a cold pond.

Huang Xiang blinked as if he were confused. “Doesn’t speaking ‘the tender speechiv’ only mean these families have a long history in this area?”

“Indeed,” Lin Yong said, still eyeing Wang Hao with disdain. “Unlike some migrant workerswho had to come here toscrape the bottom after losing all their lands.” Yet Lin Yong’s words dug too deep into the tragedy of the Wangs:

“You dare?!” Wang Hao closed his fists.

“Just ignore him, sweetie, what does it matter!” said Xiuxiu, who had come to cling herself to Wang Hao’s arm.

“Me?And what ofyou?” Lin Yong realized he’d already gone too far, but proud as he was, he wouldn’t back off either. “Didn’t your grandfather himself go to the Wus to pledge himself and what little he had left to their service, just for a chance to cling to a fraction of his crumbling status? And now his grandson has the face to insult the Wu family? Have you no shame?”

Many murmured in agreement.

“What are you saying?!” Wang Hao raged. “It was the Wangs who saved the Wus from falling to ruin back then, yet they’re always posturing as if they’re better than us!”

“And while you insist on separating your lineage from the Shanghai lineages, your speech from ours, remember whose land you are on, Wang Hao!” Lin Yong lashed.

“Ours! Wang land!” Wang Hao yelled, “Half of you pay my father rent!”

“Enough, please,” said Hanrong, not raising his voice but commanding everyone’s attention regardless. “The Wu family will not consider what has been said tonight of any significance, if only this ends now.”

“There you go again, acting all high and mighty, thinking you can give orders to others when you finally bother speaking in their presence!” Wang Hao kept attacking, not aware that everyone was done with him.