Chapter 77: Exposing Contract Marriage in Public? Is it You Who Dares Not, or…
Two voices saying “I do.”
One clear and resonant, one low and deep.
Applause crashed like a wave, instantly resounding through the entire wedding venue. Tan Man’s eyes filled with tears once again.
She raised her hand to quickly wipe away the falling teardrops, a smile of relief and blessing on her face, and handed the items in her hand to the space between the two newlyweds.
Ben Nelson’s eyes revealed loving kindness. His tone was soothing but exceptionally solemn: “Now, put it on for the most beloved person in front of you.”
On the black velvet cloth, two silver rings of different sizes lay quietly in the middle. They weren’t like mainstream diamond rings with huge diamonds like rock sugar.
Because the newlyweds were two men, these rings didn’t have many complicated designs added at the beginning of the design. Solid silver plain bands, with exquisite patterns carved on the surface. At the very top of the rings, two colored gemstones of different colors were set respectively.
The one with the slightly larger band size was a rare fancy vivid orange diamond. Looking closely, one could discover the sun, moon, and stars surrounding it, like guarding the most dazzling sun in the galaxy.
The other silver ring with the smaller band size was set with a fancy vivid purple diamond, equally countable on one hand worldwide. Auspicious cloud patterns floated on the left and right, setting it off to be even more mysterious and luxurious.
Xi Yun’s brows and eyes were gentle, his silver-gray double pupils like the world after ice and snow melted, carrying coolness but harboring hope and vitality.
He picked up the smaller ring, took the youth’s raised left hand with his other hand, and solemnly pushed it to the base of the ring finger.
“I didn’t find a pure silver-gray diamond. With time running out, I chose this purple one that barely counts as similar.”
Le Can’s gaze swept over the appearance of the purple diamond, then quickly turned to those unique silver-gray double pupils.
[Such beautiful eyes… it’s normal not to find one. I forgive you.]
Xi Yun suddenly lowered his eyes and chuckled aloud, still holding the hand of the person in front of him, uncontrollably and gently kneading his knuckles with joy.
“Cloud patterns (Yun), also close to my name (Xi Yun).” Xi Yun paused, looking up with a deep gaze, as if wanting to look into the bottom of his heart.
“Every day in the future, may you and I be constant companions.”
Le Can’s heartbeat missed half a beat. He hurriedly averted his gaze, trying hard to suppress the heat surging from his body to his cheeks.
His gaze touching the remaining ring in the box, he took a deep breath to calm himself, reached out to pick up the small ring that seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and shoved it onto Xi Yun’s left ring finger.
“Not going to ask about this ring on my hand?”
Xi Yun reached out to grab Le Can’s hand attempting to retreat.
Under the light, on the two overlapping hands, whether it was the silver ring bands or the two colored diamonds cut almost identically, the reflected light radiated each other.
“So obvious, what is there to ask?”
Le Can (Can means bright/lustrous), Yaoyao (Yao means dazzle/shine)… whether it was the specially sought orange color or the sun, moon, and stars representing brightness, which one wasn’t explicitly indicating his name?
“Is that so?” Xi Yun stepped forward, shortening the distance between them. “Yaoyao is really smart.”
With half a step distance left, the man in the black suit bent down slightly, resting his forehead against the full forehead of the youth dressed in pure white.
“Then do you have anything to say to me?”
Those words prepared during the rehearsal had long been messed up when Xi Yun ad-libbed freely. Le Can inexplicably couldn’t say that short but most efficient “I love you.”
He held the man’s hand back, raised his head, and advanced the next segment.
When their lips gently touched, a voice containing a warning rang in Xi Yun’s ear: “I want to say… behave yourself!”
Sensing the kissed thin lips hooking up, Le Can parted his lips slightly, caught a small piece of lip flesh, and bit it lightly with his teeth.
Instantly, a burst of heckling laughter came from the guest area. Although noisy, most people harbored good intentions. Only a very few clueless individuals emitted discordant sounds.
“Tch, thought the diamond would be huge? Didn’t expect it to be that tiny; after all that, isn’t it just like a plain band?”
“Yeah, heard the auction follows right after the wedding. I was originally amazed by the cruise ship, but looking now, a small auction house is a small auction house after all…”
Aside, Du Ran, cupping her chin with both hands and pink bubbles in her eyes, instantly put away the auntie smile on her face and rolled a massive eye at the speaker.
“Pui!”
“Thought you were some big shot? Didn’t even recognize the rare fancy vivid diamond, no wonder you couldn’t recognize the meteorite silver used for the main body of the wedding ring.”
And a freaking plain band!
Such pure meteorite silver is rare in the world today. According to Du Ran’s knowledge, the price per gram had already skyrocketed. And the amount to make two rings… the gold exchanged could crush these two foul-mouthed people to death in minutes.
The two refuted people instantly flew into a rage out of humiliation: “You say it’s meteorite silver so it’s meteorite silver? Who are you?!”
Du Ran smiled contemptuously, her gaze slowly looking the speaker up and down with disdain. “This humble girl is untalented, family just has a few mines. Incidentally, my biological uncle used the family mines to practice and became a top international jewelry designer.”
“Oh right,” she casually tossed the hair in front of her to the back, “I don’t change my name or surname, Du Ran. My uncle is Du Mingshen.”
Realizing Du Ran’s identity, the two instantly shut their mouths, then slunk away from their seats.
Du Ran scoffed lightly with satisfaction and turned her head. Unexpectedly, her eyes met Gu Xinxue’s gloomy gaze. Instantly stiffened.JPG
As the “former love rival” who had provoked Le Can to his face, this young owner of Gu Hui Jewelry received the wedding invitation the other party had promised to send back then.
At that time, Gu Xinxue, who was told that Le Can was attracting bees and butterflies outside, had just excitedly found a private detective thinking he could snap evidence of Le Can cheating, imagining he still had a chance.
The result was a stack of cold photos slapping him in the face “smack,” and the person delivering the invitation also brought a message: “No return on the blue water jade!”
The photos weren’t ambiguous photos of the private detective tracking Le Can. Instead, they were some unspeakable clips of Gu Xinxue privately from some time ago.
Like photos of him picking his feet when bored, running out to buy midnight snacks in the middle of the night and being chased by a dog, crying snot and tears while watching dramas in his own apartment…
The person taking these photos didn’t intend to just make him die of social embarrassment. Gu Xinxue knew the other party primarily wanted him to empathize and experience the time Le Can felt having absolutely no privacy…
As for who that person was, damn it, besides Xi Yun, who else could it be?!
Since then, Gu Xinxue had completely given up on Xi Yun. But the invitation was delivered by his closest bodyguard, and Gu Xinxue was too cowardly not to come.
Coincidentally, the invitation her uncle received had other plus-ones, and Du Ran didn’t want to mix in the Du family team to be asked this and that by a bunch of elders, so she came along with Gu Xinxue’s invitation.
Du Ran, whose momentum was shorter by a cut, struck first: “What, don’t tell me your thief’s heart isn’t dead yet?!”
Gu Xinxue rolled his eyes even harder than Du Ran just did. “Who says my thief’s heart isn’t dead?”
The past was unbearable to look back on; he could only be stubborn to save face: “After losing the stone gambling back then, I didn’t think about it much anymore, okay!”
After all, the proud Young Master Gu still wanted face. Although resentful and unwilling, a loss was a loss, and he hadn’t appeared in front of these two for a long time.
“Then how come your brain wasn’t clear again later?” Du Ran obviously didn’t believe it, because she later learned about the candid photo incident too.
Even immediately, she not only didn’t comfort him but laughed loudly to his face at every photo of her unlucky and pathetic friend.
Speaking of this matter, a layer of doubt also floated on Gu Xinxue’s face: “At that time, it seemed like someone kept muttering about Le Can in my ear, and then I just…”
Du Ran frowned abruptly: “Do you remember who said those things?”
Thinking and thinking, Gu Xinxue suddenly shut his mouth, his face looking a bit bad. “No one said it explicitly, they just…”
Mentioned it faintly!
Just as both felt something was wrong and reflexively looked up at Le Can and Xi Yun standing on the stage, in the guest area across the long aisle, a person suddenly stood up!
Among the seated crowd, someone suddenly stood straight up, took out a small amplifying device from his pocket, put it to his mouth, and cleared his throat.
The eyes of the crowd below focused on the stage were instantly attracted to look at him. Le Can and Xi Yun, leaning intimately on stage, also slowly separated, turning to look at the stranger who came with ill intent.
“First, I hereby congratulate President Xi and Madam on tying the knot.”
Le Can, who hadn’t heard the title “Madam” for a long time, looked at the other party with eyes where all emotions receded like a tide, leaving only cold scrutiny.
Or perhaps even Le Can didn’t notice that the current him highly overlapped with Xi Yun when facing outsiders, mysteriously appearing to have a husband-husband resemblance.
“Oh is that so? Xi Yun and I can’t afford such congratulations.”
The ridiculed person’s face distorted for a moment, then he raised a kind smile: “Isn’t it because seeing Mr. Le’s skill in husband-taming, I’m really curious and can’t wait to learn from you properly.”
“Wondering how you, who were tormented by relatives and showed a submissive face for more than ten years, met your current husband and made him favor you?”
Hearing this, Le Can covered his face and bent over laughing. Hoarse, unbridled laughter flowed from the gaps between his fingers, instantly covering the strange atmosphere around.
“What? You can’t answer?”
Watching several teams of bodyguards rushing toward him from all directions, the questioner interrogated even louder: “Is it that this marriage is just a scam, and the so-called Madam Xi is just a role anyone who signs a contract can play?!”
Le Can reached out to hold the man beside him whose jaw was tight, slowly straightened his body, and waved his other hand at Xiong Anguo, who led the bodyguard team.
“Who sent you to ask these questions?”
Gazing faintly at the person whose panic flashed across his face, the youth’s calm voice resounded through the entire deck. “What? You can’t answer either?”
“You said I have skills in husband-taming, then asked how I made Xi Yun obsessed with me? And suspect I’m just a tool Xi Yun found casually by the roadside just to get the inheritance?”
“Xi Yun is standing right beside me, not hiding his head and tail like the person behind you. Why do you only ask me and not him?”
A series of questions left the entire wedding scene silent.
And the youth seemed to feel nothing.
He raised his chin, his half-lowered long narrow peach-blossom eyes full of irony and contempt:
“Is it you who dares not, or they (ta) who dare not?”
Author’s Note: Meteorite silver, I made it up [Glasses].
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