Volume 14
Chapter 1: The Floating Red Thread
The moment they entered the Yan family’s reception room, Zhu Qiao let out a cheer and pounced on him like a flying squirrel. But this girl was not An Baili, after all. The formidable weapons swaying on Zhu Qiao’s chest already made Lu Li dizzy. When this girl bumped into him, it almost broke his old back.
“Gege~”
Zhu Xi pinched the back of Zhu Qiao’s neck from behind. “Are you trying to kill him? And, Little Qiao, he’s your fiancé. You can’t call him ‘gege’.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Little Qiao can call me whatever she wants. We’re all family anyway.” Lu Li patted Little Qiao’s back. “Little Qiao, are you still getting used to losing your ability? Has your sister been good to you?”
Zhu Qiao nodded her head. “Mm-hmm, very used to it. It feels like there are so many new and strange things all of a sudden. And, Sister Xi is also very, very, very good to me!” Lu Li quietly breathed a sigh of relief. What he was most afraid of was that Zhu Qiao would feel lost after losing her ability. After all, who wouldn’t want to have an extraordinary power that others didn’t? Fortunately, Little Qiao was truly a pure blank slate. Her isolation from the world had not only isolated her from common sense, but also from the endless comparison and attacks of the secular world.
Zhu Qiao was fragrant and soft all over, and it felt extremely good to hold her. Lu Li subconsciously lowered his head to sniff her neck. Little Qiao’s face turned slightly red, and she obediently lifted her head to make it easier for Lu Li to sniff. Zhu Xi hit both of their heads. “Little Qiao! You can’t just let him do whatever he wants! A girl has to have her own backbone! And you, you scumbag man, you just arrived in the Capital City and you’re already so eager to make a move on Little Qiao?”
Little Qiao was his future wife, so Lu Li naturally had to protect her a little. “Hey, Zhu Xi, you can manage her for a while, but can you manage her for a lifetime? After Little Qiao marries me, can you still chase after her every day to instruct her?”
“Why not?” Zhu Xi’s fine eyebrows lifted slightly. “Little Qiao is my most important relative. Her personality is gentle, she’s kind, and she has little experience. She’s the easiest to be manipulated by a scumbag man like you. Even if she marries you in the future, I’ll still have to teach her a thing or two.”
“What about the wedding night?”
“What?”
“Are you going to teach her on the wedding night?” A certain Mr. Lu had ulterior motives.
Zhu Qiao asked blankly, “What do you have to teach on the wedding night? Isn’t getting married just having a wedding and getting a marriage certificate?”
Zhu Xi bit her lip and shot a fierce glare at Lu Li. “Teach! Of course I’ll teach!”
Lu Li knew that this was Zhu Xi’s competitive spirit acting up, and she just had to argue with him. He feigned disdain. “You’d better not come. It’s my and Little Qiao’s wedding night. What are you coming for? It wouldn’t be good if you make a fool of yourself!”
Zhu Xi bristled like a cat. “You scumbag man, you don’t want me to come, but I will! I’ll even guide Little Qiao the whole time, so you don’t instill any strange ideas in her!”
Zhu Qiao was completely bewildered, not knowing what they were talking about. “Sister Xi, gege, what are you talking about?”
Lu Li chuckled and patted Little Qiao’s waist. “Little Qiao, you go play in your room for a while. Your Sister Xi and I have some business to discuss. I’ll come and keep you company after we’re done.”
“Okay~” Little Qiao answered sweetly. After thinking for a moment, she obediently pecked Lu Li on the cheek.
…
After Little Qiao left, Lu Li looked at Zhu Xi again. “Zhu Xi, why won’t you agree to marry me too? Hmm, let me rephrase. It’s not about marrying me, but about forming a family. Zhu Youcheng has also agreed and offered his support. There shouldn’t be too much resistance.”
“…Of course I won’t marry you.” Zhu Xi shot him a disdainful look. This bad woman always loved to glance at people like this. “Scumbag man, count how many wives you have. How many emotional debts do you have to repay?”
Lu Li actually began to count on his fingers. “I definitely have to marry Yameng. I can’t leave out Baili and Hupo either. Jingyi is a lady from a good family, so she must also have a title. I also promised Chen Jianing I would go to her house to propose, so she also has to be married. Plus Little Qiao… that’s six in total.”
“Six!” Zhu Xi pronounced these two words very heavily. “Things are precious when they are rare. Is the weight of six wives the same as one wife? Scumbag man, you should know me. I don’t like to be just one among many. You will have six women, but only one superior. All your current status comes from the royal family and the Yan family, so I am your one and only, undisputed superior. Do you think I’m so stupid as to give up my advantageous position to go to your courtyard and raise children for you?”
This bad woman’s train of thought is really different from others. Lu Li didn’t argue; he knew Zhu Xi’s personality was just like this.
Lu Li thought with ill intent, sooner or later, I’ll make this bad woman come to me on her own initiative to raise the children.
…
After finishing their private talk, the two of them sat opposite each other. Zhu Xi poured him a cup of tea. “The meeting in three days, are you confident? Chu Xiaodong is not sincere. He set the location at the Chu family mansion just to take advantage of the home ground and pressure people with his power.”
“My view is the opposite. He is, on the contrary, sincere about cooperating. He could have completely refused to meet and not get himself into trouble. And, setting the meeting at the Chu family mansion has more of a private meeting flavor, more humane, and also more important.” Lu Li felt that Zhu Xi still hadn’t emerged from the influence of the Yan Matriarch and was always treating everyone else as an imaginary enemy. “Since he wants to cooperate, then the confidence rises to fifty percent. Next, we just have to see if the Yan family’s plate, after being screened, is to his liking.”
Zhu Xi huffed. “If he doesn’t cooperate, we’ll just turn around and find someone else.”
Lu Li didn’t speak. Someone else? Who else had the ability to take on this mess of the Yan family? The Yan family’s commercial power was indeed strong, but for the aristocratic families, it was not irreplaceable. Scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants—there was a reason why merchants were ranked last.
“Have you read the report from the Inspection Committee?”
Lu Li nodded. “I read it on the way here.”
“And?”
“The procedure was executed well, but the content was not satisfactory,” Lu Li’s evaluation was very conservative. “I’d like to have a separate talk with the heads of each section from the report later, one by one, to ensure there are no problems with the meeting in three days. Especially in terms of public opinion response, I feel they have some shortcomings. Did you know? The day I returned to Chuanhai, I took a bus, and the next day there were articles online about me pretending to be poor to play the sympathy card.” He was starting to understand the feeling of being a big shot. No wonder those officials he had met before all spoke in a hesitant and vague manner. Their every word and action were being watched by who knows how many people. The more you say, the more you’re wrong; the more you do, the more you’re wrong. So they were all so cautious they wished they could wear an invisibility cloak. He had just taken the bus home out of old habit, and people were saying he had no respect for the government, that he didn’t accept the government’s reception, that he was acting, that he was faking benevolence and righteousness to gain sympathy.
Zhu Xi giggled twice. “You have to get used to it. After you become a public figure, there will be all sorts of voices. Some people, after reaching this stage, on the contrary, begin to despise the common people, feeling they are difficult to communicate with, have a low level of education, are hard to deal with, and are always focusing on trifles every day. What do you think?”
Lu Li knew Zhu Xi was talking about the mentality of most of the people in the Yan family. She was asking for Lu Li’s direction.
“Zhu Xi, I’m resigning after I’m done with this. I can’t be bothered with these things you’re talking about.”
Zhu Xi raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “Okay, you resign then.”
As she spoke, this woman straddled Lu Li’s lap, her eyes full of seduction. “If you resign, I’ll arrange another job for you. Anyway, you’ll have to work under me for the rest of your life…”
