Page 125 of He Is My Bride
He’s not afraid of me, is he?
Not at all: Lin Yong’s eyes lit up, and he turned their way.
No, don’t come here you smug fuck! What are you doing!Li Ying turned away and tugged at Hanjun’s sleeve, and they managed to escape before Lin Yong could take another step.
Hanrong left them to go talk with some friends of his, leaving Hanjun and Li Ying to handle a group of young professionals and their wives.
“I love her,” Li Ying said and gestured at the glamorous jazz woman performing on the small stage, trying to lead a conversation with the ladies while Hanjun was locked in one about Formula One.
“Yes, she and the band are quite good,” said one of the girls in their group. “By the way, who are you wearing?”
Finally someone asked, Li Ying thought. “This is Huang Xiang collaboration with Anne Lü, commissioned especially for the New Year, actually.”
“Huang Xiang… You don’t mean the Shanghai Huang Xiang?”
“Precisely! For now he works exclusively on private orders, but I heard he’s planning on starting a boutique in New York. The mainstream hasn’t gotten a whiff of him yet, but if he’s planning to hit the high street I think he’ll be everywhere soon.” As Li Ying had hoped, he had sparked the interest of the ladies for his friend’s benefit.
“I didn’t know he was a designer,” one lady commented in surprise.
Li Ying chuckled. “He’s a hidden gem. I met him two months ago at a party and he showed me his designs.”
“The Antai alumni party?” One of the husbands turned his attention to Li Ying. “I heard there was a ‘situation’ there?” He looked at Hanjun, and his grin died when he understood the man was not amused, and that it would be wise to drop the subject.
Li Ying didn’t mind addressing said ‘situation,’ “We were playing ‘Two Little Bees’ and things got a bit wild, yeah.” He chuckled. “It was a fun night!”
The men resumed talking about the Grand Prix, and Li Ying tried to join in a conversation about raising kids with some of the young mothers in the group, but frankly their parenting methods terrified him, and he found himself biting his tongue.
Eventually the group dispersed, leaving Li Ying and Hanjun alone.
“Hanjun, I can’t do this,” Li Ying mumbled while sipping the last of his drink.
Hanjun’s heart was uneasy. “Are you okay?”
“How am I supposed to act as the wife of Wu Hanjun of Wu Pharma when I can’t even remember any of these big names, let alone relate to any of them?”
Hanjun tried to sound assertive even as he worried that Li Ying was ready to let their entire plan fold, “Don’t mind them.”
“What? These are your peers! And everyone is talking about everybody else while I can’t even tell one very important person from the next at this point.”
“They are not important.”
“Wow.” Li Ying finished his drink. He was going through so much trouble to impress these people, and now Hanjun said they weren’t important?
Hanjun looked at Li Ying with a frown. “You wanted to come.” Hanjun didn’t mean to sound so accusatory. He wished he could have chosen his words better, but he was afraid that Li Ying would tell him he didn’t want to be ‘the wife of Wu Hanjun of Wu Pharma’ next, and had spoken without thinking.
“Yeah.” Li Ying was annoyed and didn’t bother hiding it. “And now I want a smoke.”
“Have you caved in?”
Hanjun’s frown had deepened and he sounded disappointed. It pissed Li Ying off; who was Hanjun to lecture him?
“Not really. I mean, yes, I may have had one when I was out, but otherwise, not once. I only want to smoke when I party now.” Li Ying knew he was making up excuses, and it pissed him off even more.
“That’s how you fall back into the habit, don’t do it.”
Li Ying glared at him. He could see Hanjun was caught off guard by how frustrated he was. At first Li Ying felt bad for feeling so angry all of a sudden, but then he became even more annoyed: he had come here to have a good time, but right now he was getting stressed out, and all Hanjun did was dismiss and lecture him. Why should Hanjun be surprised that he didn’t much appreciate it, Li Ying thought.
“I’m just gonna have that smoke.” Li Ying walked off, leaving Hanjun standing there, alone anddumbfounded.
