Page 20 of He Is My Bride
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In the evening, Li Ying sat on the couch at home, listening to the TV and trying to read a medical article while practicing a French-braid bun. Anne had told him to always leave some strands of hair hanging by the sides of his face, to cover his jawline which, while not super defined, wasn’t exactly delicate, either. They had to use every trick in the book to soften Li Ying’s features.
Hanjun came home from the gym and went to take a shower.
Returning with just a towel wrapped around his loins, Li Ying took an appreciative look at his subtly toned abs. The man wasn’t shredded, but he followed his PT program religiously and did qi gong in the nearby park every morning—when Li Ying didn’t keep him in bed, that is—plus no small amount of tennis and golf with co-workers and affiliates. He also ate like a monk, or so Li Ying thought, so he was fairly slender with a healthy amount of bulk.
Li Ying didn’t want to think of himself as superficial, but he couldn’t help feeling like a lucky boy, knowing many girls would be jealous of his man. And many were; Li Ying had snapped a faceless photo of Hanjun’s body one time while he slept, then boasted while showing it off to his girl friends. The girls had hated him for it just a little.
Li Ying made a growling noise at Hanjun, and the man looked at him with his ‘you’re gonna get it’-face.
“You’re working hard,” Hanjun noted, watching Li Ying practice his hairdo. Hanjun found it attractive, the way the man groomed himself lately.
“U-huh.” Li Ying peered at himself from a small table mirror and sorted out his bangs to finish the do. “Hanjun, can we talk?”
It was Hanjun’s turn to worry about his boyfriend wanting to have a talk. “Wait.”
“No, no need to get dressed—hmph.” Li Ying humphed in disappointment, but Hanjun had already gone to the bedroom and soon returned in a bathrobe.
Tying the sash, Hanjun came over and sat down next to Li Ying, waiting for him to speak.
“So, um…” Li Ying chewed on his lower lip. “Anne had bought me some pretty expensive clothes to try on today and said you would be paying for everything. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Is that really necessary? Like, do I reallyneedthose kinds of things for Shanghai?”
“I trust Miss Lü,” Hanjun stated simply.
“I trust her too, but I shouldn’t need designer clothes to convince your family that we should get to marry. That’s not what’s important.”
“Of course it isn’t.” Hanjun wrapped his arm around Li Ying and pulled him close. “But appearances are everything in Shanghai. It’s one thing to convince them you are a woman, and another to convince them you are the right kind of woman.”
“Which is… Rich? Hanjun, I’mnotrich, I’m just some orphan! I got lucky that Uncle Qian raised me middle-class after my mother dumped me, but I never held any illusions that I was born into it. Mrs. Qian made sure of that.”
True, but neither was Li Ying raised poor: Hanjun knew the Qians were well off here in the States with a security tech business, but they were not old money, and indeed Li Ying wasn’t even their own child.
Li Ying had been fostered out of the kindness of Qian Hong, the man whom Li Ying called ‘Uncle.’ Years ago, Qian Hong had been the college sweetheart of a woman named Li Zhihao. She had come frommainland China to the States to study. However, Zhihao had ended up having a child with another man, out of wedlock.
Having ended in such a troublesome situation, Zhihao had not wanted to return to the mainland with a fatherless child.
One might argue that Zhihao may have been entirely selfless in leaving her child behind in the States, knowing that the life of an illegitimate child would be hard in her motherland, but she must have only been saving herself from the shame, at the cost of Li Ying having neither a father nor a mother.
Zhihao had given Li Ying up for adoption when he was no older than four and left the country after completing her studies. It had been her old flame, Qian Hong, who had stepped up out of sympathy for his ex’s child, but by then he had already married another woman: Mrs. Qian.
Mrs. Qian had refused to let her husband properly adopt Li Ying and take his family name, only agreeing to a fostering arrangement.
Hanjun understood it hurt Mrs. Qian’s pride as a woman to have another’s child in her care, but how heartless could one be to make it the child’s fault?
From what Li Ying had told Hanjun, he guessed Mister Qian had done his best to raise Li Ying as equal to his own children, but it must not have been easy for Li Ying to grow up under the wing of a man whose wife pecked at him for being the child of someone else.
Still, with the help of the Qians, and not least of all of his own wits, Li Ying was on his way to make something of himself from these unlikely circumstances.
But it was true that even with an M.D. Li Ying would never be Wu-rich. He would never be Wu-status.Even without the hurdle of convincing his family Li Ying was a woman, Hanjun knew they would have some work to do to assure his uncle he was an eligible marriage prospect.
“Don’t worry,” Hanjun said. “While status is important in Shanghai, and we should do our best to make you fit in the circles, Itrust my uncle will see you for your character and approve of you, regardless of your origins.”
“Your uncle? What about your father? …Your mother?”
