Yun Xiaoshu had deliberately dressed up today. He had originally thought he would hear news that Yun Jiu had disappeared. He was even planning to add fuel to the fire later by saying that Yun Jiu had run away with someone else, taking his dowry with him.
By then, Lin Ye would surely be extremely heartbroken. He would then step forward and comfort Lin Ye properly. Perhaps Lin Ye would change his opinion of him because of that. But things were completely different from what he had imagined. Looking at Yun Jiu’s foolishly happy smile, Yun Xiaoshu gritted his teeth fiercely. If there hadn’t been so many people around, he probably would have already lunged forward in anger.
Lin Ye’s ink-black eyes suddenly turned toward a certain direction. Yun Xiaoshu unexpectedly met Lin Ye’s gaze. Lin Ye’s gaze was like a sharp sword, striking straight toward Yun Xiaoshu’s heart without any warning.
Yun Xiaoshu was so frightened that he repeatedly stepped backward, his body trembling uncontrollably. He himself did not understand what was happening. He felt as though Lin Ye seemed to know that he was the one who had done it.
Once this absurd thought appeared in his mind, it began to spread wildly beyond his control. He suddenly felt as though he were a butterfly with wet wings. No matter how hard he tried, he simply could not fly.
Yun Jiu asked suspiciously, “What are you looking at?”
Lin Ye shook his head and continued walking forward.
“Nothing. My eyes must have deceived me.”
Yun Jiu tilted his head and looked at Lin Ye’s side profile. He thought: Lin Ye is really so good-looking, and he’s so gentle too. How lucky am I?
Sensing Yun Jiu’s gaze, Lin Ye’s eyes curved slightly, and a hint of teasing flashed through his ink-black eyes.
“Why are you looking at me?”
Yun Jiu coughed and then turned his head to look elsewhere, saying, “No, I wasn’t looking at you.”
No?
Lin Ye raised an eyebrow and couldn’t help thinking: Yun Jiu is really something now. He can even shamelessly deny things and lie.
At first, Yun Jiu had been worried that Lin Ye might find him heavy. But after walking all this way, Lin Ye hadn’t even been breathing heavily, so Yun Jiu finally relaxed a little. What Yun Jiu didn’t know was that Lin Ye’s back was already covered in cold sweat.
In order not to make Yun Jiu worry, and even more because he didn’t want anything to ruin his own wedding, Lin Ye had not shown the slightest sign of anything being wrong throughout the entire journey. When they finally returned to the Lin family home, Lin A-mo and the others were already waiting there.
Several young men from Yunjia Village were setting off firecrackers, while others were handing out wedding candies. For a moment, the entire scene was incredibly lively.
When the auspicious time arrived, Lin Ye and Yun Jiu were surrounded by the crowd and performed the ceremony of worshipping Heaven and Earth in the courtyard of the Lin family home.
During the ceremony, Yun Jiu, who had been looking extremely happy all along, suddenly looked at Lin A-mo, who was sitting alone in the seat of honor, and his eyes began to redden. Lin Ye knew that although Yun Jiu never said it, deep down he still felt wronged. Having parents like that must have made his life truly difficult.
Sanzi’s A-mo laughed and said, “Oh my, Yun Jiu is crying because he’s happy, isn’t he?”
Yun Jiu nodded. His heart was both happy and sad. However, when he saw the handsome man standing beside him, Yun Jiu couldn’t help breaking into a smile through his tears.
As soon as the wedding ceremony was completed, everyone forcibly separated Lin Ye and Yun Jiu. Lin Ye looked at his freshly married groom and really wanted to hold him and kiss him first, and rub against him affectionately.
When people dragged him away by force, Lin Ye almost acted out a scene of Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian being separated at Leifeng Pagoda1It is the legend of White Snake; In the classic Chinese folklore , the white snake spirit Bai Suzhen and her mortal husband Xu Xian are separated when the militant Buddhist monk Fahai defeats Bai and imprisons her beneath the Leifeng Pagoda on the banks of Hangzhou’s West Lake. And those who were preventing him from being close and affectionate with his husband were all like the bald Fahai.
Several uncles brought Yun Jiu into the bridal chamber, leaving two young gers behind to accompany him.
The two gers who stayed behind were brothers, and they looked only about thirteen or fourteen years old. The two of them looked seven or eight parts alike. Sitting on either side of Yun Jiu, they kept asking him from time to time whether he was thirsty or hungry.
At first, Yun Jiu wasn’t hungry, but when he saw the two of them stuffing several longan fruits into their mouths, he couldn’t resist and began eating along with them. The two brothers were both at that age when they were almost grown but not quite there yet, and they were extremely curious about everything.
Probably because they were getting rather bored waiting, the two of them began chatting with Yun Jiu, taking turns saying this and that. Most of the time, Yun Jiu was the one being questioned.
The two brothers were named Qinghe and Qiuhe.
Qinghe was the more talkative one and had no filter when speaking. He looked at Yun Jiu and asked, “Yun Jiu, tell us, why is Brother Lin Ye so good to you? Teach us too. That way, when we get married in the future, we’ll know how to keep our husbands under control.”
As soon as Qiuhe heard Qinghe’s words, he reached out and gave him a knock on the head, then scolded him, “You’re so young, and you’re already talking about men this and men that. Aren’t you ashamed? Just wait until we get home. I’ll tell A-mo and have him give you a good beating.”
Qinghe immediately let out an indignant snort. On one hand, he couldn’t bring himself to swallow his pride and beg his brother not to tell, while on the other hand, he felt that his brother was too rigid and boring.
After all, gers were meant to get married. If they learned about both the things they should know and the things they shouldn’t know, wouldn’t that save them from suffering later?
Watching the two brothers bickering and playing around, Yun Jiu couldn’t help feeling extremely envious. Just then, the door was pushed open, and Lin A-mo came in carrying two portions of pastries. He was worried that Yun Jiu’s body had only just recovered, and that going hungry like this would be bad for him, so he had secretly brought some pastries over.
But as soon as he entered and saw longan shells and peanut shells scattered all over the floor, Lin A-mo felt that he had been worrying for nothing.
The two gers were startled when they saw someone come in. The things scattered across the bed all carried auspicious meanings, and ordinary families usually did not allow people to eat them. They hadn’t had these things in a long time, especially longans, so they couldn’t resist picking up a couple. Seeing that Yun Jiu was so good-natured, they gradually became bolder.
But now that they had been caught by the groom’s A-mo, they knew it was ultimately inappropriate. Both of them lowered their heads, looking completely at a loss.
Lin A-mo glanced at the two gers. “If you want something to eat, go outside and eat. I’ll stay here and look after things.”
The two boys weren’t sure whether Lin A-mo was angry, so they hurriedly lowered their heads and ran out.
Lin A-mo didn’t really care about such a small matter. After putting down the pastries, he took some more peanuts and longans from the cabinet and scattered them over the bed again.
“A-mo has something to give you. Later, you need to look at it carefully and learn from it. These things are useful for a gers. There’s no harm in looking at them more.”
As he spoke, Lin A-mo took a book from inside his clothes, then pulled out a strange little wooden box.
Yun Jiu looked completely confused, but he obediently accepted them.
After handing the things to Yun Jiu, Lin A-mo cleared his throat and left. Truth be told, even at his age, he could still be rather shy sometimes.
Yun Jiu opened the first page, and his confused expression instantly turned into one of shock. He immediately threw the book away. But then he remembered what Lin A-mo had said. His face flushed bright red as he hesitated for a while before finally getting up and picking the book back up.
Yun Jiu took a deep breath, then quickly opened the book again, intending to finish reading the whole thing in one go. But the more he read, the more he thought about how Lin Ye would soon be doing these things with him, and his face became even redder. Although his face was burning, Yun Jiu couldn’t take his eyes off the book. Without realizing it, he replaced the handsome faces in the illustrations with Lin Ye’s face in his imagination.
Yun Jiu sniffed hard. Suddenly, he felt his blood rushing, his mouth becoming dry, and even found it difficult to breathe.
Looking at the two figures intertwined in the book, Yun Jiu murmured softly, “I-if it’s Lin Ye… I-I’m willing to do anything.”
As soon as he said those words, Yun Jiu suddenly threw himself face-down onto the bed, feeling that he had become far too shameless. He lay there for quite a while before turning onto his side, his face still bright red. Then he carefully lifted one corner of the book again.
Before he could even see the entire illustration, his mind immediately replaced the male lead with Lin Ye once again.
Yun Jiu felt that something was seriously wrong with him. He was acting terribly—just like a single man who had never even seen a ger before. It was completely abnormal…
Outside, the festivities were still going on noisily. The commotion had never stopped, as though everyone had an endless supply of enthusiasm.
The villagers of Yunjia Village were scrambling to pick up the wedding candies scattered all over the ground, and everyone’s pockets were stuffed full.
Seeing that the wedding banquet had not even begun yet, while several children had already eaten quite a lot of candy, Lin A-mo couldn’t help saying, “Don’t eat so much candy. There will be plenty of delicious food later.”
The children answered cheerfully that they understood, but they still couldn’t resist stuffing more candy into their mouths.
Lin A-mo could only shake his head helplessly and let them be.
Just then, a dirty little boy was secretly picking up two pieces of candy from the ground. He was extremely thin and small. In the middle of winter, he was wearing only a short shirt. His exposed wrists and ankles were so dirty that it was impossible to tell what their original skin color had been.
One of the children spotted him immediately and shouted to the others, “It’s the crazy kid! Ugh, he’s so dirty. Hurry up and chase him away!”
The child who had spoken was a ger. He had a fair, clean appearance, and the young boys around him particularly liked playing with him. As soon as they heard what he said, they immediately surrounded the dirty little boy, pushing and shoving him as they tried to drive him away.
Lin A-mo frowned when he saw what they were doing. Before he could say anything, someone spoke up.
“You can’t hit people.”
It was Sanzi. His voice wasn’t loud, but his tone was extremely serious.
The children pointed at the dirty little boy and began talking over one another.
“He’s so dirty. He’s the youngest son of Old Liu who lives on the east side of the village. That whole family is filthy. My A-mo said they’re all poor people.”
“They definitely couldn’t afford a wedding gift. They must have come here to get free food and drinks.”
“He clearly came here to steal things. What wedding gift? There are five men in their family, and they’re all bachelors. They’re just a bunch of poor people.”
Seeing them go too far, Sanzi couldn’t help but put on a stern expression. “We’re all from the same village. You can’t gang up and bully someone.”
Sanzi was the most honest person in Yunjia Village apart from Yun Jiu, and none of the village children were afraid of him. Even after seeing Sanzi get angry, they continued shouting stubbornly.
“No! He really is a dirty kid. My A-mo said he smells awful. I don’t want him making me smell bad too.”
“Exactly! We’re going to eat good food later. I don’t want to see him.”
Lin A-mo really couldn’t stand watching any longer. He walked toward the children. His expression was still gentle, but there was clear displeasure in his voice.
“Our Lin family is holding a wedding today, not collecting wedding gifts from you. Among all the people who came here today for the wedding feast, how many of you could actually afford to bring a proper wedding gift? Today is simply about having a lively celebration. Whether you were supposed to be invited or not, our Lin family has invited you all. So there’s no such thing as deciding who can come and who can’t. Therefore, I don’t want to hear anyone ganging up on someone and driving them away from my Lin family’s home again.”
The moment Lin A-mo finished speaking, the surroundings fell silent for a moment.
Many people turned their heads and looked over. This was the first time they had ever seen Lin A-mo speak with such authority.