Chapter 45 None of Them Pester Him

It was noon in early winter, and the weather in the southern region was neither cold nor hot. The midday sun overhead radiated a moderate warmth, making all the guests who had gathered to celebrate this summit feel incomparably warm in both body and mind.

The Xu family was as overjoyed as if they had climbed high to establish kinship with royalty. For this arranged infant betrothal, the Wu family had even sent engagement gifts valued at over five thousand yuan. Needless to say, it would be even more so when their daughter grew up and was eventually married off.

Having received the betrothal gifts, the Xu family naturally wanted to return the courtesy, yet they could not produce anything of substantial value; however, the Wu family did not mind such trivialities.

Feeling somewhat embarrassed, on the eve of the betrothal celebration banquet, Xu Sigui went up the mountain to dig a bamboo basket of lilies and sent them over to the Wu family. "This may not be much of a tribute," he said, "but it carries a wonderful symbolism! Just think, lilies stand for 'a hundred years of harmonious union' [Baihe]. I only wish for your son and my daughter to be harmoniously united for a hundred years."

"Well said!" Madam Ma had originally intended to decline the basket of lilies, but upon hearing Xu Sigui's explanation, she truly felt the auspicious meaning and replied, "We will accept them."

Holding her infant son who could only babble incoherent words, Gong Yawen glanced at the basket of lilies and then, as if ignoring them entirely, walked aside without expressing any opinion. Her current attitude toward this matter was neither to support nor to oppose it, though a sense of vague bewilderment lingered in her heart.

Although no specialized ceremony was held for this infant betrothal between the two families, there were still rather fascinating highlights.

Before the banquet commenced, the Wu family's ancestral hall was a hive of activity, with numerous people crowding around to watch the excitement. At the very center of the ancestral hall, as if a performance was being staged, people were packed three layers deep.

Some stood on tiptoe to watch; the taller ones were able to catch a glimpse of what was going on, while the shorter ones were at a disadvantage, trapped in gaps where they could only listen—though even listening was difficult due to the interference of boisterous and chaotic noises.

This scene lasted for four or five minutes, and those who failed to witness the "performance" eventually learned of its contents from others, while those who could see it applauded and cheered happily one by one.

As it turned out, six chairs had been placed side by side in the middle of the hall. Sitting in the two centermost chairs were two elderly women: Madam Ma and Madam Lei, holding Wu Zhenri and Xu Qi respectively. Both wore kind smiles on their faces as they looked down at their beloved grandchildren.

To the left of Madam Ma sat Wu Xiaofeng, and further to the left sat Gong Yawen; to the right of Madam Lei sat Xu Sigui, and further to the right sat Feng Yueliang.

No sooner had Feng Yueliang taken her seat than she stood up within a few seconds, beckoned to Gong Yawen to stand up, exchanged a few words with her, and instructed Wu Xiaofeng and Xu Sigui—who were currently seated—to immediately cooperate in completing a task directly related to the infant betrothal.

Feng Yueliang took a red cord about a meter long from her upper garment pocket and swapped positions with Gong Yawen.

Holding the right end of the red cord, Gong Yawen gently wound it around Xu Qi's left wrist, while Wu Xiaofeng stood up and walked over to tie a knot in the red cord.

Holding the left end of the red cord, Feng Yueliang gently wound it around Wu Zhenri's right wrist, while Xu Sigui stood up and walked over to tie a knot in the red cord.

This series of continuous actions was carried out simultaneously. Seeing that the red cords had been securely knotted, Feng Yueliang casually rattled off a four-line doggerel verse: "The Matchmaker in the Moon ties the red cord, the infants bind a marital accord; the two elders seated in the hall, bear witness to this union for all."

The assembled guests watched and listened, continuously shouting their approval.

Wu Xiaofeng glanced at the red cord tied around the wrists of the two babies and smiled quietly at Feng Yueliang, implying: "Back then when I accompanied you to the supermarket and you didn't buy anything else except a bundle of red thread, little did I know you were going to twist it into a 'Matchmaker's Red Cord' to bind the marriage of these two children."

Just as these thoughts crossed his mind, sudden wailing broke out from Xu Qi. In Madam Lei's arms, she kept twisting her body, freeing her other little hand to pull desperately at the end of the cord tied around her left wrist. Yet no matter how hard she pulled, she could not loosen it or break free, and thus she began to cry.

This gave people a rather inauspicious feeling, as if she were expressing disapproval of her parents' decision to arrange this infant betrothal. However, being merely an infant, she possessed no adult awareness of agreement or disagreement.

Observing this coincidental infant behavior, Gong Yawen thought with a certain grim satisfaction: "What kind of infant betrothal is this? I've always been against it, and now the baby is crying too. Isn't this inauspicious? It's a complete farce. I wonder which of Wu Zhenri's father's nerves misfired to come up with this."

At that moment, she cast a peculiar smile toward the somewhat wooden-standing Wu Xiaofeng. A sense of schadenfreude washed over Wu Xiaofeng, but he chose to ignore it, turning instead to observe Feng Yueliang's expression.

With a composed and steady expression, Feng Yueliang smiled and said, "Crying is a good thing! Crying for marriage, crying for kinship—in the future when she marries into the Wu family and leaves the Xu family, not only will she be reluctant to part with us and cry, but we will also cry because we are reluctant to part with her!"

"Well said! Well said!" Madam Lei praised approvingly, and proceeded to untie the knot of the red cord from Xu Qi's wrist.

Madam Ma also nodded, untied the knot from Gong Zhenri's wrist, and handing the section of red cord to Wu Xiaofeng, said, "This 'Matchmaker's Red Cord' is the physical evidence of our two families' infant betrothal. Keep it safe."

At that moment, festive firecrackers burst into sound outside the venue, crackling noisily as if striving to heighten the lively atmosphere of the two families' betrothal.

Twenty years passed. Wu Zhenri and Xu Qi had both grown up, transforming into handsome, striking, and passionate youths, while their parents had all passed the age of sixty, entering the ranks of the elderly. Placing all their responsibilities and expectations upon the younger generation, they arranged for Wu Zhenri and Xu Qi to be married in the second year after the two returned to the south following their graduation from Northwest University.

This young couple, betrothed since infancy and hailing from the same patch of earth, found neither rapport nor happiness in each other's company.

Considering himself the son of a construction tycoon and a wealthy second-generation heir, Wu Zhenri possessed both money and power, yet his lifestyle was utterly unprincipled, and his trifling with women reached an unbridled extreme.

Initially, Xu Qi had been admitted to Northwest University. He had taken the college entrance examination alongside her, but fell short of the total score by two points, naturally resulting in failure.

However, his family spent a large sum of money pulling strings to secure his admission to Northwest University alongside Xu Qi, the underlying purpose being to let Xu Qi take care of him while there.

Since Wu Zhenri's family was well-off, and given their lifelong infant betrothal, they completely covered Xu Qi's tuition, miscellaneous fees, and living expenses in one lump sum.

Out of a sense of gratitude, Xu Qi helped Wu Zhenri wash his laundry every weekend and attended to other chores, making his life much easier.

Instead of appreciation, he felt that Xu Qi was merely supposed to serve him, holding her in rather low regard.

Sometimes, right when the school weekend holiday arrived, he would invite the campus belle and other female classmates to off-campus restaurants to drink to the point of complete intoxication, yet he never once asked Xu Qi to accompany them.

Even in the height of drunken excitement, flushed with enthusiasm, he would grab a female classmate's hand and blurt out his true thoughts: "I originally wanted to invite just you to come with me, but since you brought her, and her along as well—you are all gorgeous, and I like every single one of you."

Wu Zhenri would release the hand of the female classmate he was holding, gesturing lecherously left and right while the surrounding girls giggled merrily.

They knew Wu Zhenri harbored romantic intentions toward any and all of them, yet they all looked down upon him, feeling that aside from spending his parents' money to create a facade of wealth, he was utterly worthless in every other respect.

First of all, his academic performance was abysmal, consistently landing him in the bottom one or two spots on every exam. Later on, he paid fellow classmates to help him muddle through exams when opportunities arose, thereby barely maintaining a passing grade to avoid public humiliation each time.

Yet all the students were well aware of this situation, knowing that he bought everything with money and was an absolute coward.

Eventually, the campus belles discovered that he had been betrothed since childhood to Xu Qi, a female classmate in the same class, and mocking him as a handsome man already spoken for, none of them bothered to entangle themselves with him.

Nor did he wish to continue spending money wining and dining them; since his goal of exclusively pursuing a campus belle proved unattainable and no one took the bait, he simply gave up.

However, opportunities always existed, and romantic encounters were never entirely absent.

During the summer of their senior year internship, which lasted a mere two months, he managed to stir up two separate romantic escapades.