At the beginning of the following month, the renovation of Feiyang Company was essentially complete, and the newly hired employees had all reported for duty.
Zhu Yun and Li Xun registered their marriage in the middle of the month.
Li Xun, the top scholar, had no family to speak of and no one to inform — only Fu Yizhuo. Fu Yizhuo was so moved he would have wept to the heavens. He took three days off from teaching and went to consult a fortune teller for an auspicious date. They ended up with the twentieth of the following month, which felt slightly delayed, but Zhu Yun was busy training new employees at the time anyway, and figured the next month was fine.
Soon, however, her mother discovered that the household registration book had disappeared from the house. One phone call from her was enough to send Zhu Yun racing to the Civil Affairs Bureau with Li Xun in tow. Li Xun had transferred his household registration to the city when he started university, which made it conveniently straightforward for them to “carry out their mission.”
The entire registration process had nothing romantic about it — it could be summed up in a single word: rushed. Zhu Yun turned off all her communication devices, cutting herself off from the outside world, terrified that her mother would somehow swoop in and derail things halfway through.
There were quite a few other couples registering that day. The couple ahead of them were very young; the soon-to-be husband was carefully filming every tile on the floor of the Civil Affairs Bureau with a video camera, while the soon-to-be wife was frantically taking selfies with her phone.
After waiting for ages with no sign of them finishing, Zhu Yun said quietly: “Would you mind — could we switch numbers? You can keep shooting while we go ahead?”
The soon-to-be wife’s false lashes were long enough to be fans, fluttering as she looked at Zhu Yun.
“What’s the rush? A day like this is meant to be savored slowly,” she said, pulling her soon-to-be husband — who was still filming floor tiles — close to her side. “Right, sweetheart?”
The soon-to-be husband, with a look of honeyed adoration: “Of course.”
Zhu Yun: “……”
Li Xun leaned against the wall nearby, laughing. Zhu Yun glanced at him. He said: “Don’t be nervous. Even if your mother comes looking, it’ll take her at least seven or eight hours. She’ll definitely go to the office first — if she does, Dong Siyang will hold her off.”
The soon-to-be wife in front of them heard Li Xun’s voice and leaned over to whisper to Zhu Yun: “Your husband is so handsome.”
Zhu Yun agreed: “He really is.”
The soon-to-be wife: “But why are you two dressed like that?”
It had been a last-minute decision to come register, and neither of them had prepared at all. Zhu Yun was wearing her usual office clothes from the employee training session; Li Xun was even more casual — a grey button-down shirt and black trousers, rumpled and creased.
The soon-to-be wife looked Li Xun over alongside Zhu Yun, then murmured: “He’s still so handsome even dressed like that…”
Indeed, Zhu Yun thought with quiet pride. He’s handsome in anything.
Li Xun caught her eye and gave a subtle smile. Zhu Yun thought: he’s even more handsome in nothing at all.
After dawdling through the entire morning, Zhu Yun and Li Xun finally completed their registration just before the Civil Affairs Bureau broke for lunch. They took photos in front of the tacky red wall. The photographer kept telling them to smile. By the end, Zhu Yun’s mouth had gone stiff from holding the expression. The photographer straightened up and frowned: “Sir, when I said smile, I meant smile — not sneer. Do you have some kind of grievance with me?”
Zhu Yun hastily smoothed things over: “No grievance, none at all — he’s just not used to it.” She nudged Li Xun, and he managed to produce a strained approximation of a smile. The photographer snapped the shot.
The printed photo looked like two fools grinning. Li Xun didn’t even glance at it — he handed it straight to Zhu Yun.
As they left the Civil Affairs Bureau and walked toward the parking garage, the two of them were quiet the whole way. There had been nothing but urgency until now, and it was only as they slowed down that Zhu Yun guessed Li Xun was doing what she was — still letting it all sink in.
In the car, Zhu Yun buckled her seatbelt and said: “Does this count as a whirlwind marriage?”
Li Xun said flatly: “Whirlwind nothing. It’s been ten years.”
Golden autumn, September — the season of new school terms.
Zhu Yun started the car.
Ten years.
When they were almost back to the office, Zhu Yun turned her phone back on. The moment it powered up, messages flooded in all at once. Dong Siyang relayed news from the front lines — her mother had, as expected, turned up at the entrance to Feiyang.
Zhu Yun didn’t want her mother to run into Li Xun — especially not at the office. She didn’t want him to be made uncomfortable in any form.
She said to him: “I’ll take my mother somewhere else. Come back to the office after we’ve gone.” Seeing that Li Xun seemed about to say something, she said gently: “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
Zhu Yun called her mother and brought her to a teahouse in the shopping center across the street.
Her mother had rushed over and traveled all day. She said not a word upon seeing Zhu Yun — she grabbed her by the arm and started pulling her toward the exit.
“I can’t manage you anymore. Come home with me right now. You’re not going anywhere until this is resolved!”
Zhu Yun could tell her mother was truly enraged — otherwise she would never make a scene in public like this. She was stronger than her mother, but she didn’t dare pull too hard. She looked around and said: “Mom. People are watching.”
Those words made her mother rein herself in slightly. Her mother cared about appearances — Zhu Yun knew that.
“Where is the household registration book?”
Zhu Yun held it out, and her mother snatched it back.
Zhu Yun: “Mom, everything else — you can ask me for anything else. But not this.”
Her mother gripped the household registration book with white-knuckled intensity. “You’ve got some nerve, Zhu Yun. Tell me — what did you do with that registration book?”
Zhu Yun: “I got married.”
Her mother was silent for a full half-minute. Then she raised her hand and slapped Zhu Yun across the face.
It was the first time in Zhu Yun’s entire life that her mother had ever struck her.
“Zhu Yun. Our family cannot afford to lose face like this. If you don’t leave him — then don’t bother coming home.”
In the days that followed, Zhu Yun received calls from many relatives, all urging her to come back. Exhausted by the endless back-and-forth, she repeated the same words over and over again.
“It’ll be better soon. Once this passes it’ll be fine. I’ll talk to my mother again once she’s calmed down.”
The new house wasn’t finished renovating yet, and the apartment Zhu Yun had previously rented had already been vacated. She was temporarily staying in a hotel. Li Xun had moved out of Hou Ning’s place and was staying at the hotel with her.
Though they had been enthusiastically discussing “having children,” during that period they did not spend every night in passion. Their pace of life slowed considerably — just as Li Xun himself had said, marriage to him was simply a long, unhurried love affair. They fell into the habit of sleeping in each other’s arms, the warmth of a beloved body drawing out the tenderness in every night.
Jili Company officially listed on the stock market at the end of September.
At the time, Zhu Yun and Li Xun had just finished dinner and were walking back to the hotel. At the intersection, they saw the news on the advertising billboard. In the footage, Fang Zhijing led Jili’s employees in exuberant celebration. Wu Mengxing was visible in the frame, but Gao Jianhong was nowhere to be seen.