Chapter 373
After the ceremony, the bride changed her clothes and came down to toast. She was wearing a gold dress, which was similar to the one worn by the girl at the same table, though her dress looked more gorgeous.
Ms. Qiao said to Wang Jiazhi, "It's someone else's wedding, and you're wearing something so flamboyant. Aren't you stealing the bride's limelight?"
Wang Jiazhi nodded.
Ms. Qiao is indeed true. She usually likes to dress up, but today she deliberately put on makeup and dressed more simply.
Wang Jiazhi thought Mrs. Liao's second daughter's wedding dress was likely a bad choice, but she didn't expect the same thing for the toast. What was the point of wearing yellow? At weddings, female guests avoid bright red to avoid looking like the bride. Some prefer brighter outfits and opt for yellow. Today, besides Miss Diamond, there were several others wearing yellow. From a distance, it was hard to tell which was the bride.
Everyone at the same table was praising Miss Diamond's clothes and jewelry, and talking about the quality and price of the various pieces of jewelry she was wearing.
At this time, Wang Jiazhi picked up the cup to drink water, revealing two diamond rings on her hand: one was the pink diamond, and the other was a four-carat kerosene diamond.
Miss Diamond was a little bit unbelievable when she saw the ring on her hand.
The last time we met, she was wearing a four-carat yellow diamond. Today, she was wearing two at once, which surprised the other women in the family.
Mrs. Liang held up her hand and said, "Is this four carats?"
"Yes." Wang Jiazhi said guiltily.
She knew that Mrs. Liang must feel that this ring was familiar.
That's right, it was the ring that Mrs. Yi wanted to buy but he didn't buy her. She didn't know when it appeared, but she found it in the jewelry box when she came back after giving birth. She didn't dare wear it when Mrs. Yi was around. But since she had already bought it, it would be a waste not to wear it. Now that Mrs. Yi is away, she is considering whether to wear it out today. She originally only wanted to wear one of the rings. After changing her clothes in the morning, she asked the little girl which one to wear. The little girl playfully put several rings on her finger. She originally thought she would wear the pink one, but in a moment of panic, she actually put the kerosene diamond on her finger.
Wearing two is a bit ostentatious, but if you don't wear them on your hands, it will be painful if you lose them.
Mrs. Yi knew that Mr. Yi would give a diamond ring to each of his lovers, and she felt very distressed. She thought that if those women were not there, wouldn't all the diamond rings be hers? How wonderful it would be. It seemed as if the fortune teller had said that this blessing would be enjoyed by Wang Jiazhi.
Wang Jiazhi didn't want to do this either. Why buy so many expensive things? But he insisted on doing it, and she didn't want him to get angry. Later, he really got angry, but finally calmed down for a while.
But the wives were already furious. Why was she, a country bumpkin who had never seen the world, now so favored that she wore expensive and unique jewelry every time they met? It was simply outrageous.
The little girl also said that these things were too big and people who didn’t know their stuff would definitely think they were fake.
The discussion about jewelry at the table came to a halt. After a while, the bride and groom came over to toast. After the bride toasted and walked to another table, Ms. Qiao said, "Today's decorations are all red roses, but the bride didn't wear red. It looks weird."
Mrs. Liang said, "The Feng family got married a while ago, and they used white roses. Even though it's a Western style, why does it feel so awkward?"
Wang Jiazhi talked about how her hometown used to use kapok flowers.
A lady at the same table said, "When I was young, I attended a friend's wedding. She used kapok flowers. They looked like stars, and the flowers were particularly large, which was quite interesting."
Wang Jiazhi said, "Yes, when I was a kid, there were a lot of weddings in March and April when the kapok flowers were in bloom. Those flowers were very suitable, festive and beautiful. But later on, I didn't use them much anymore. I preferred the Western style of using roses."
Ms. Qiao asked, "Why do you like to use that kind of flowers in your hometown? Is there any reason for it?"
Wang Jiazhi said, "I heard from my mother that in my hometown that flower symbolizes harmony between husband and wife and a happy marriage."
A colleague here said to Lao Yi, "Do you remember when we were in Guangzhou, there was a girl who liked you? At that time, the kapok flowers were in bloom, and she sent you kapok soup every day. You refused to accept it, but she kept sending it every day, hoping to influence you. I didn't expect you to be so ignorant of romance. You really came to your senses too late. You were so cold and aloof in your youth, and you wasted your natural ability to attract bees and butterflies."
He laughed and said, "Why don't I remember it? It's nothing."
The colleague spoke happily, his voice getting louder. He turned his head and saw that Wang Jiazhi had heard it and was looking over at him, giving him a sharp look.
The colleague continued, "And that time when we were passing through Guangzhou, Jiang Yao said you guys should go enjoy the flowers. A teenage girl called you brother instead of uncle, and even asked you to pick flowers for her. Jiang Yao said you should pick flowers when they are in bloom, and you should cherish them."
"She's just a little girl, and you're saying she has ulterior motives. You're really despicable."
He turned his head again, and Wang Jiazhi looked at him with complicated eyes. What happened again?
Zhao Yuanmei smiled at the wife beside her and said, "Yi Lanjie has come to this day. It's all retribution for what he did when he was young. He hurt so many people's hearts."
Wang Jiazhi felt very bored and quietly walked out. After a while, he also went out. The two of them arrived at the place where no one was usually, and she said, "I don't want to stay here anymore. I want to go home."
Then she moaned and rested her head on his shoulder.
"Then let's go back."
"Are you going back?"
"I have something else to do later, so I'll try to go back early."
She leaned against him for a while before going in, saying goodbye and going home.
As they both left, Mrs. Liang said, "I don't know what Wang Jiazhi is capable of. She sent the principal wife back to the countryside, and now she can do whatever she wants. She's dressed even more extravagantly than the principal wife. It's really disgusting."
A lady at the same table said, "Who said it wasn't true? What kind of skills does this little girl have? She actually caught him."
Another lady said, "I heard that the people in their area are the best at raising foxes. Even if they raise a fox, it will be a yaksha spirit, and it will still be able to bewitch men to the point of bewilderment and make them do whatever they want."
Mrs. Liang said, "There really are such strange things."
The lady said, "A friend of mine is from the same hometown as her. She told me that many people there believe it."
The lady then recounted the specific stories she had heard, and the others were surprisingly about 70% convinced. However, Mrs. Liang and the others felt even more disappointed. After all, they were old, not young girls anymore. Even if they had a fox, would anyone really pamper them like that? It was unrealistic to think about it.
Zhao Yuanmei said to the students at the other table, "I think he looks several years younger than he did two years ago. It really makes a difference to find someone younger."
Fang Zhenhe said: "It's easy to find a young one, but the important thing is to have mutual affection."
Zhao Yuanmei smiled and said, "As for Lan Jie's personality, we all know what he was like when he was young. He just couldn't stand so many good people. As he got older, his personality changed."
Fang Zhenhe smiled and said, "What you women think is good may not be what we men like. This is the difference in what men and women appreciate."
Zhao Yuanmei glared at him fiercely. Fang Zhenhe, however, looked indifferent. She knew that he completely ignored her.
When Wang Jiazhi returned, the kitten was being held by a little girl, watching Dabai playing with the other kittens. Seeing her return, the kitten babbled and opened its arms, asking her to hold it. She held it in her arms, kissing and nuzzling it.
After playing with the child for a while, she went into the study to write something. As soon as she entered, she found a large photo of her in the room, with a light brown wooden frame hanging on the wall above the fireplace.
When was this hung up? She didn't go into the study yesterday, and she definitely didn't go into the study the day before yesterday.
She called the little girl over and asked about it. The little girl smiled and said, "It was delivered at noon. The master said to hang it here before he left this morning. I won't tell you yet."
It was the photo of her wearing the lily of the valley hairpin. She couldn't even remember where she had tucked the negative away, or how he'd found it. As a true leader in his field, there was probably nothing he couldn't find.
Wang Jiazhi stood in front of her large photo. Seeing her photo enlarged and hung up for the first time, she felt very strange, as if the person in the frame was someone else.
She never had any pictures of herself, not even the kind with small frames above her bed. All the family photos were in an album, which they took with them when they left the country. She hadn't realized they were gone then. Perhaps when they got there, seeing her pictures in there would have been unlucky, like they'd seen a ghost, so they probably pulled them all out and threw them away or burned them.
Wang Jiazhi thought about it. She had taken a few photos in college in this life. In her previous life, it was her youth. She didn't leave behind anything. The only decent photo she had was the one she took in Hong Kong. There were a few photos of her acting in a drama. Kuang Yumin kept them and never gave her any. But her appearance was so rustic and ugly. Especially what happened later, which made her very resistant to everything in the small group, especially that drama. If she hadn't acted, she might not have been targeted by them. Another thing was that after returning to school, she took a one-inch photo for her student ID card. Thinking about it, it was really a pity that she didn't leave behind a single decent photo until she died. But what would have made her look good in the photo? She was wearing tattered clothes and looked skinny and sallow. Only the beautiful youth is worth recording. There is no need to leave traces of that kind of youth.
It's a common scene in novels and movies: a girl will print out multiple copies of a beautiful photo and give them to friends and family, especially the boy she likes. If a boy truly loves her, he'll treasure the photo and look at it often. If they need to be apart for a while, he'll keep the photo with him.
She wanted to leave him a photo, but she never had the chance to do so until she died. She didn't want the photo to be a fake Mrs. Mai, but she couldn't leave him her true self either.
When someone dies and you don't even have a photo of her, how can you remember her as time passes by? In the end, even her appearance becomes blurry. Although she knows that in the end, maybe he doesn't want to remember her either.
What if it's like now, with my photo hanging in the house, even if I die, if he is willing to come to this house, will he think of me when he looks at the photo?
She never dared to imagine that her photos could be enlarged and hung in the house, because during the days of wandering and living in other people's homes, she never dared to imagine that one day she would have her own house and could hang her own large photos in the house.
When he came back at night, she lay in bed hugging the child. After taking a bath, she nestled in his arms and said, "Where did you find the negative? I can't find it."
"You got it stuck in an old book. How careless."
"How can I be careless? I don't think I can develop photos anyway."
"That photo is beautiful. Why don't you think of printing a few more copies?"
"Who would I give so many photos to? I didn't intend to take them in the first place, but the owner of the photo studio insisted that I use them as a sign, so I took them."
"Oh, your photo is hanging in a photo studio in Hong Kong."
"Who knows if that photo studio is still there?"
She leaned her head on his shoulder and said, "What did the people around you say today?"
"Nothing. What did you hear?"
"Nothing." She said thoughtfully.
He suddenly remembered something and said, "When I first arrived in your hometown, a classmate who was a local insisted on treating us to a meal. At that time, there was a dish that I thought was fish, but when I took a bite, it didn't taste like fish. It tasted like chicken, and the bones didn't look like fish bones. And then..."
She spoke first, "And then people tell you it's snake meat. It's fried king cobra."
He laughed and said, "I've only eaten snake meat once in my life, and it scared me to death."
Wang Jiazhi said, "If it were me, I would be scared to death too."
"You don't eat snakes either?"
"Not everyone in my hometown eats snakes. My mom is from Shanghai, and she doesn't dare eat them. She also says that snakes are spiritual and can't be eaten. My dad is the only one in our family who eats snakes. But he only eats them when he's out to eat and there are snakes. He doesn't eat them on purpose at other times. Sometimes when we go out to a banquet and there's snake meat on the table, I get scared. It must be Xiao Xu playing a trick on you."
"Huh? How do you know Xiao Xu?"
Wang Jiazhi blurted out that there really was a person named Xiao Xu, just like in her dream.
"I dreamt it." She knew it was unrealistic and he would definitely not believe it.
He said sourly, "Why did you dream about him?"
"I dreamed that you were with your classmates, and he was among them."
This person is really the same as when he was young. She remembered that she called him Xiaohua in her dream, and he told her not to call him by Xu Xuhua's nickname.
"Yeah."
He was quiet for a long time. Xiao Xu was already dead. When they were young, he always reminded him to be more careful. Now that he was old, he was still so careless, and that's how he lost his life.
The two of them huddled together, with the child lying on her lap.
"Dad~"
“Hmm~Hmm!!!”
It took them a few seconds to realize that she was starting to speak.
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