Chapter 120 The Wedding [Part Two] [VIP]
Chapter Summary: Why am I awake? Because I'm nervous.
The night before the wedding, Fu Xianyin was pulled by several people to put on a face mask.
While applying a face mask to her face, Zhao Weiru remarked that it felt like she had returned to her university days.
The cool mask covered her cheeks, and Fu Xianyin curled her lips into a smile.
“However,” Zhao Wei smoothed out her face mask and said, “you weren’t nearly as popular back in college as you are now.”
Cheng Zhaozhao, standing to the side, sighed, "The power of love."
Chen Nianke corrected her: "It's the power of love."
It is the power of love.
It is not just about love, but also encompasses the highest form of all the beautiful emotions in the world.
The wind on the island was gentle. Four women lay on deck chairs on the open-air balcony, with the sea as far as the eye could see.
A slightly salty sea breeze brushed against her skin; Fu Xianyin's hair was still damp, with water dripping from the ends.
"How amazing," she murmured in amazement, "I'm getting married tomorrow."
Cheng Zhaozhao said, "Yes, you're actually getting married."
She turned to look at Fu Xianyin: "It feels like we just finished evening self-study together yesterday, and you're getting married tomorrow."
Fu Xianyin smiled and said, "When I was walking home from evening self-study with you guys, I never imagined this day would come."
She thought it was a brief act of mercy from heaven.
But no one expected that such a short time could be extended.
Zhao Wei raised her hand and poked her, asking, "Hey, the bride has to give a speech at the wedding tomorrow, have you prepared your speech yet?"
Fu Xianyin's honesty was startling: "No."
"You didn't prepare?" Cheng Zhaozhao jumped up, shocked. "Such a big thing and you didn't prepare?"
Fu Xianyin said, "Andrew and the others can't understand it, and there are very few people who can understand it."
She sprawled on the recliner, saying lazily, "At your age, can't you even speak properly? Just say whatever comes to mind."
Feeling the coolness of the face mask on her face, Fu Xianyin greeted the three of them, removed the mask, and went back to sleep.
However, after tossing and turning in bed for half an hour, Fu Xianyin realized that she had insomnia.
She seemed to be subconsciously nervous about tomorrow's wedding.
Fu Xianyin was actually a little unsure of what she was nervous about.
She should be at her most at ease right now.
She has a lover, friends, and everything is on the right track; a perfect ending is beckoning her.
Why did she suddenly stop, hesitate in place, look ahead, and then turn her head to look again?
In complete darkness, Fu Xianyin lay on the bed, looking up at the sky and blinking.
It took her a long time to realize what she was nervous about.
It is precisely because everything is too perfect.
That's why she was nervous, afraid that it was just a pipe dream.
Another unknown amount of time has passed.
Fu Xianyin couldn't hold back any longer. She turned over, picked up her phone, and sent a message to Gu Linzhao:
Are you awake?
The reply came almost instantly: [Awake.]
Fu Xian music.
She typed, biting her lip: [Why is President Gu awake too?]
About two or three seconds later, the other party sent a voice message.
Fu Xianyin got out of bed, walked to the window, felt the damp sea breeze blowing on her, and opened the voice message.
The voice message lasted only three seconds, and there wasn't a single word spoken in the first second.
It was just a soft, shallow sigh, followed by:
"Because of nervousness."
Fu Xianyin replied: [I'm nervous too.]
The phone screen flickered a few times, and then Fu Xianyin saw a new message pop up:
[Want to go for a walk?]
Fu Xianyin replied with a laugh: [Didn't we say we couldn't meet the day before the wedding?]
There was a pause of a few seconds, then a phone call came in.
Fu Xianyin answered.
On the other end of the phone was Gu Linzhao's voice, tinged with regret.
He said, "What a pity, it turns out you didn't want to meet."
His voice was very soft, and upon closer inspection, it even carried a hint of pitifulness.
Fu Xianyin couldn't help but laugh: "Why are you pretending to be pitiful?"
Gu Linzhao exclaimed "Ah!" and said, "You recognized it?"
Fu Xianyin said, "President Gu, this is a bit too obvious. It would be really wrong of us not to notice."
Gu Linzhao showed no embarrassment at being exposed.
He calmly replied, "Then practice more in the future, and it won't be so obvious."
"So," he steered the conversation back on track, asking, "would you like to meet?"
Fu Xianyin said, "Yes."
“Then open the door,” Gu Linzhao said. “I’m at the door.”
Still wearing her thin, see-through pajamas, Fu Xianyin was too lazy to change, so she just put on a long coat and went out to open the door.
As soon as she opened the door, she saw Gu Linzhao standing outside. He was leaning against the wall by the door, looking down at her.
He naturally took her hand, his fingers still holding the wedding ring on her ring finger, and gently turned it a few times.
This is a little gesture that Gu Linzhao really likes to make.
Fu Xianyin could sense that he seemed to particularly like the diamond ring on her finger, and would intentionally or unintentionally rub it a few times every time he held her hand.
Even when doing intimate things, he likes to leave soft, tender kisses there.
Fu Xianyin felt the slight tingling sensation of the ring face brushing against her knuckles and said, "I'll have to get another one tomorrow."
The wedding ring and the engagement ring are different; Fu Xianyin only learned this when she was preparing for the wedding.
When Gu Linzhao told her to go pick out a wedding ring, her first reaction was:
"Didn't we already buy it?"
Her tone was so natural that Gu Linzhao was momentarily stunned by what she said.
Gu Linzhao looked at the person sprawled out on the sofa in his office, narrowed his eyes, and asked, "Who did you go to buy it with?"
Fu Xianyin looked completely bewildered: "I bought it myself," she said, even raising her hand to show it. The diamond on the ring sparkled under the light.
With her fingers resting on the back of the sofa, Fu Xianyin's eyes were momentarily dazzled by the diamond before she suddenly realized, "So the engagement ring and the wedding ring aren't the same."
While marveling at how complicated marriage truly was, she was also excitedly preparing to go pick out rings with Gu Linzhao again.
The engagement ring was a diamond ring. At the time, Fu Xianyin didn't know that the wedding rings usually worn were actually a separate pair of relatively understated styles, and she thought this pair would be the wedding rings. So when she bought them, she specifically chose a simpler style.
But she has a discerning eye and insists that the ring must have a diamond, feeling that otherwise it wouldn't be recognized as a wedding ring. So, after much deliberation, the design was never exactly understated.
Normally, she has to take off her jewelry in the lab, and Fu Xianyin doesn't usually wear jewelry. It took her a long time to get used to that ring when she first put it on. For the first month, the ring almost rubbed the skin off the base of her finger.
But she insisted on wearing it anyway.
She's stubborn to the core; once she's made up her mind, nothing anyone says can change it.
She wanted to tie Gu Linzhao to her, and marriage was the best way to do that, with a ring being the perfect symbol of marriage.
Therefore, for this reason, Fu Xianyin refused to take off the ring no matter what.
Even though its design is actually a little inconvenient.
But she still wore it every day.
The newly purchased wedding ring is almost a plain band, with only a ring of diamonds set around the edge.
Fu Xianyin twirled the one in her hand.
The soft skin at the base of her fingers had developed a slightly rough callus from the edge of the ring. Her hand wandered to the area of Gu Linzhao's skin where the ring was worn, and she felt a similar, barely noticeable callus.
She added, "We'll have another one tomorrow."
Gu Linzhao turned his head and looked at her with a smile: "Should we add one or replace one?"
Fu Xianyin stuck out her tongue and said, "Change it."
They walked downstairs, where the island had been decorated for the wedding. Not far away, they could see Cheng Zhaozhao pulling Zhao Weiru along, asking her all sorts of questions.
Chen Nianke, who was lying on the recliner next to him, didn't move for a long time, and it seemed that she had fallen asleep long ago.
Fu Xianyin sighed, "I thought they were asleep."
Gu Linzhao said, "You weren't asleep either, were you?"
Fu Xianyin said, "I was just nervous."
Gu Linzhao asked, "What's there to be nervous about?"
He had barely finished speaking, and before Fu Xianyin could say anything, Cheng Zhaozhao exclaimed in an extremely exaggerated manner, "Oh! Really?!"
Zhao Wei, matching her volume, said, "Of course it's true."
Cheng Zhaozhao asked, "That man invited Yinyin to..."
The sounds behind seemed to have been dispersed by the wind, or perhaps Cheng Zhaozhao had lowered her voice, making them somewhat difficult to hear.
Fu Xianyin only saw Gu Linzhao looking at her with a half-smile, a slight upturn at the corners of his lips, and saying with a look of sudden realization:
"Ah, so that's what you were nervous about."
Fu Xianyin: ...
She sighed, "This is all nonsense."
Gu Linzhao insisted on getting to the bottom of it: "So, what did that man invite you to do?"
Fu Xianyin said, "How could I remember? I don't even know which matter Zhao Weiru was referring to."
Gu Linzhao chuckled: "So you invited too many people and couldn't match them up at all?"
Fu Xianyin: ...
She said helplessly, "Why are you being so jealous?"
Zhao Wei and Cheng Zhaozhao have long been close friends, and the two are now happily sharing past events that they didn't know about each other.
For some unknown reason, Gu Linzhao grabbed Fu Xianyin's hand and started to walk there.
Fu Xianyin said, "I'm not going."
Gu Linzhao raised an eyebrow and asked, "Aren't you going?"
Fu Xianyin shook her head firmly: "I'm not going."
Everyone knows what happened in high school, but Zhao Weiru is a ticking time bomb.
Who knows what kind of unexpected surprise Zhao Wei might make?
Fu Xianyin stood rooted to the spot.
However, the next second, her feet left the ground, and she was suddenly picked up horizontally by Gu Linzhao.
The sudden lift made Fu Xianyin's heart float in the air. She couldn't help but gasp for a moment. However, the distance was not far. Cheng Zhaozhao and Zhao Weiru in front of her heard the noise and looked over at the same time.
Fu Xianyin quickly covered her mouth.
Fortunately, the place where the two were standing was sheltered by vegetation. There were many birds on the island, so Zhao Weiru and Cheng Zhaozhao didn't think too much about it and just assumed it was a bird, so they turned their heads back.
The two continued their conversation.
Fu Xianyin clung to Gu Linzhao's neck and glared at him.
The latter, however, curled his lips into a smile. Not only was he not afraid of being discovered, but he also took two more steps forward while holding her.
Fu Xianyin was almost stunned.
She grabbed Gu Linzhao's ear, leaned on his shoulder, and said, "Are you crazy?"
Gu Linzhao's arms were incredibly steady as he held her. He glanced down at her and said, "I want to hear it."
Fu Xianyin lowered her voice and scolded him: "No, what's so good about that? Are you getting married tomorrow and you have to find some excitement today?"
Still not satisfied, she hooked her arm around Gu Linzhao's neck and bit his earlobe.
"hiss"
Gu Linzhao couldn't help but gasp softly.
She bit down hard, and a ring of teeth marks immediately appeared on Gu Linzhao's earlobe.
He nonchalantly replied, "Get to the point: we're getting married tomorrow, and everyone will be able to see it."
Fu Xianyin frowned: "Are you threatening me?"
"How could I dare?" Gu Linzhao's tone was pleading, but his words revealed not a trace of "daring not".
Fu Xianyin is a typical person who responds better to gentle persuasion than force.
She turned her head and bit the wrist of Gu Linzhao that was holding her again.
He wasn't angry when he was bitten; he just muttered, "Like a puppy."
“You’re the little dog,” Fu Xianyin said, “You little dog.”
Cheng Zhaozhao was incredibly curious about that part of the old story she didn't know.
She asked, "So how did you become acquainted with Yinyin back then?"
Zhao Wei said, "Is there even a question?"
She proudly raised her chin: "Of course, it was my initiative."
Cheng Zhaozhao said knowingly, "I guessed so too."
Zhao Wei said, "I asked Yinyin for the answers to all my homework for a semester. Before the exam, I even pestered her to help me review and asked her for notes to highlight the key points. I was thinking, this girl looks so pretty and easy to talk to, and her grades are so good, but she looks so silly. I have to protect her."
Recalling the past, she said, "So, back then, I would often ask her out, take her to the Chinese supermarket to buy food, and cook delicious meals for her. When those guys who were obsessed with her wanted to ask her out for drinks, I was afraid she would be too embarrassed to refuse, so I would stand in front of her and directly ask the guy if he wanted to consider his own worth."
Cheng Zhaozhao couldn't stop laughing.
Zhao Wei sighed, "There was nothing I could do. I was really afraid that Yinyin was a naive child. I felt she was so easy to manipulate, really. Every time I asked her a question, she would explain it to me. Do you know how stupid I am when it comes to math? I'm so stupid that I don't seem like a college student. I don't even know the simplest calculus."
"And that's how she told me."
Cheng Zhaozhao said, "That's because Yinyin is willing to talk to you. If she doesn't want to, she won't even bother with her."
She said, "Let me tell you, back when I was in high school, there were people who spread rumors about Yinyin. The girls were scolded by Yinyin, and the boys were dragged off campus and beaten up by Yinyin."
"A tall guy, almost 1.8 meters tall, strong and muscular, was beaten so badly by Yinyin that he was kneeling on the ground and couldn't even get up."
Cheng Zhaozhao pursed her lips and said, "Really, that's an exaggeration."
Zhao Wei sighed, "But I didn't know that back then. I was afraid she would be bullied. You know, there are those guys who are lazy and irresponsible, with terrible character. They'll take any pretty girl they see and try to drag her out for drinks. Once she's drunk, they can easily get handsy and do whatever they want to her."
"Especially freshman girls, who have just arrived, are suddenly so far from home, in an unfamiliar environment where they don't know anyone or anything. It's a disaster area."
Zhao Wei attended an American high school, so she knew pretty much everything about those messy, shady things. She also loved to have fun, enjoy drinking and partying, and knew a wide and diverse range of people, which made her particularly good at distinguishing between the good and the bad in a crowd.
She said, "But I always thought Yinyin didn't like going to noisy places. But then one time when I told her I was going out for drinks with friends, she actually offered to go."
It was an ordinary Friday. Zhao Weiru didn't drive to school that day; Fu Xianyin brought her back from school.
She said she was going clubbing that night and casually asked Fu Xianyin if she wanted to go. She expected another no, but to her surprise, Fu Xianyin turned the steering wheel, nodded, and said crisply:
"go."
Zhao Weiru was stunned for a moment, then overjoyed: "Then come straight to my house, I'll do your makeup, and we'll go clubbing!"
Fu Xianyin said, "Okay."
She was a bit taller than Zhao Weiru. Zhao Weiru's clubbing dresses were already short, and on Fu Xianyin they were so short that Fu Xianyin couldn't even leave the house.
Fu Xianyin ended up wearing a pair of Zhao Weiru's trousers and a tank top. The tank top was cropped, revealing a section of her slender waist. The jeans were so long they almost dragged on the ground. Zhao Weiru usually had to wear a safety pin with these trousers. Fu Xianyin was taller, so although the trousers were still long, they weren't long enough to block a broom.
Zhao Wei did Fu Xianyin's makeup like dressing up a doll, sticking a few rhinestones on the corners of her eyes, then curling her hair, and finally pinching her chin, saying with satisfaction, "Okay, all done!"
The two took a taxi to the venue.
It was called a clubbing event, but it was more like a music festival. In the open air, the wind was chilly. Fu Xianyin wore Zhao Weiru's jacket to keep warm, while Zhao Weiru herself wore short sleeves and shorts and didn't seem to be afraid of the cold at all.
I wasn't very familiar with the singer on stage, Fu Xianyin, but I had heard quite a few of her songs.
The atmosphere around them was incredibly lively. Zhao Weiru became completely excited, put her arm around Fu Xianyin's shoulder, and asked loudly:
"How was it, baby? Was it fun?"
Fu Xianyin smiled with her eyes narrowed and replied loudly, "It's quite fun!"
Zhao Weiru also invited other friends. She was dancing with great joy, swaying her body to the music, holding a bottle of wine in her hand, with a few drops of wine occasionally splashing onto her arm.
She and her friends were singing loudly and dancing energetically when she was suddenly stopped by her friends during a break.
The boy nudged Zhao Weiru's arm and asked, "That little sister, did you bring her here?"
Zhao Wei rolled her eyes at him: "Bring her here to play, so keep your bad intentions to yourself. I'll take her home after we're done dancing."
"No... I'm not that kind of beast, what are you thinking?"
The boy was a bit speechless: "I mean, do you want to go check on her? She seems a bit... bored being all alone..."
He went through many words in his mouth, and finally chose the one he felt was the most appropriate to say:
"He seems a little lonely."
Zhao Wei looked in that direction.
Fu Xianyin was still holding a beer bottle in her hand. Her long hair was a little messy, probably from jumping around earlier.
During the intermission, many people either sat down on the spot, chatted with their companions, or quickly took photos to soak up the atmosphere.
But Fu Xianyin just stood there.
My arm was touched.
The boy asked her, "Why don't you go and chat with her?"
Zhao Weiru looked at Fu Xianyin for a while, then blurted out, "No, let her stay by herself for a while."
It wasn't that she didn't want to pull Fu Xianyin out of that lonely atmosphere that felt so out of place here.
But she suddenly realized that Fu Xianyin's loneliness couldn't be alleviated simply by talking to her.
It was as if she were etched into his bones and melted into his flesh.
It was as if she had lost someone very important.
From then on, she couldn't help but think of him during every important moment.
Zhao Wei suddenly remembered that one night, after the two of them had become more familiar, she had a bug in the data of one of her projects, so she had no choice but to knock on Fu Xianyin's door in the middle of the night for help.
Fu Xianyin happened to be free that night, so she helped Zhao Weiru modify the code.
That was the first time Zhao Weiru had entered Fu Xianyin's room after she moved into the apartment.
She had assumed that Fu Xianyin's room would be extremely clean and tidy, like her dorm room during her freshman year of college.
However, it didn't happen.
Her room was actually a bit messy, but what caught people's attention the most were the wine bottles on the coffee table in the living room.
That night, after Fu Xianyin helped her modify the code, the two of them somehow ended up sitting on the living room carpet, each with a glass of wine, drinking and chatting.
This was the first time Zhao Wei had gotten close to Fu Xianyin in the year since she had known her.
They talked a lot.
Zhao Wei seemed to have heard some of Fu Xianyin's past.
She had always thought that Fu Xianyin was an extremely standard, traditionally good student.
However, after that day, Zhao Weiru realized that things were not quite as they seemed.
Fu Xianyin doesn't do those seemingly unruly things, not because she is a rule-abiding person, but because she has no interest in them.
She has no interest in anything.
She told Fu Xianyin about her damn ex-boyfriend, the annoying men she met at parties, and some arrogant and unreasonable male classmates at school.
In the end, Zhao Wei was quite drunk.
She kept pestering Fu Xianyin to ask if she had an ex-boyfriend.
In her hazy, alcohol-induced memory, Zhao Wei seemed to recall Fu Xianyin holding a wine glass and nodding slightly.
She asked Fu Xianyin how the two broke up.
Fu Xianyin put down her wine glass, pointed to herself, and said:
"Because I abandoned him."
Then there are scattered fragments of memory.
Zhao Weiru remembered that Fu Xianyin had taken her back to her room, changed her into pajamas, and put her to sleep in bed.
When she woke up the next day, she found that Fu Xianyin had left her a message saying that she had gone out to class and that the spare key was on the cabinet by the door.
Someone poked my arm again.
Zhao Wei asked impatiently, "What?"
The boy said, "I saw your friend drink that was her third bottle, right? She doesn't seem like she can drink much. Are you sure you don't need to...?"
Zhao Weiru looked at the wine in Fu Xianyin's hand and said, "She can hold her liquor much better than I can."
Before the boy could say anything more, Zhao Wei interrupted him: "Hey, are you done yet? Don't hold back any thoughts I've had. What's wrong with wanting a drink? It's the weekend, no classes tomorrow, why are you so nosy?"
The boy shut up reluctantly and pulled her along to go buy more alcohol.
Before leaving, Zhao Weiru glanced at Fu Xianyin one last time.
Suddenly, she remembered what Fu Xianyin had said before, about her ex-boyfriend.
Fu Xianyin said, "I abandoned him."
But Zhao Wei suddenly felt...
It was clearly Fu Xianyin who was the one who was abandoned.
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