Page 12 of He Is My Bride
“There was more I needed to discuss with you.”
“Ugh, don’t say it in that tone…” Li Ying groaned when he saw Hanjun’s serious face. How could he sour the mood, Li Ying thought, afterthe sweet love they had made just now? Li Ying sat back down.
Hanjun leaned his back against the headboard and looked at Li Ying with a serious face.
“Now you know my intentions towards you,” Hanjun spoke. “If you’re willing to move to Shanghai with me once you graduate, we can be together. But there is something else you should know.”
“I’ll help you hide the body.” Li Ying’s grin died down when Hanjun didn’t seem amused.
“My family is traditional,” Hanjun said. “I’m expected to marry a woman and produce an heir.”
“Okay, well, welcome to the twenty-first century. What is your family, the emperor?”
“No. You have not been to the mainland; you have not been raised with their traditions, but you must understand that things are different over there. My family won’t accept me marrying a man.”
“But you just…!” Li Ying was disappointed to his core. “You just told me you had bought a ring, and now you’re telling me you can’t marry me?!”
Hanjun took the brunt of Li Ying’s disappointment with a heavy heart.
“Explain yourself, Wu Hanjun!”
“Even if I can’t marry you legally or socially, I wanted to show you that I’m still as committed to you as a husband would. That I still love you like a husband loves his…” Hanjun trailed off.
“I wish I could be your wife,” Li Ying whispered, his voice choked up as he held back tears again. Why couldn’t he have been born a woman, Li Ying thought. “Would you love me if I were a woman?”
“Yes.”
Hanjun pulled Li Ying to his arms, and the man clung to him in search of reassurance.
“I am committed to you, Li Ying,” Hanjun spoke, “but our union will have to be a secret between us, and I have to take a wife to…” He paused before saying it, awkwardly, “Child.”
Li Ying stared at Hanjun. “I will not be a...a mistress!That’s so unfair, to both of us!”
Hanjun lowered his gaze, having feared this reaction. There went plan B.
“I’m sorry for having kept things from you all this time,” Hanjun said. “I’ve always known I have to marry a woman eventually, even if I’ve only ever liked men. I was ready to accept that I would never find true love,” he looked back up at Li Ying, “until I met you.”
“Baby…” Li Ying felt for poor Hanjun, but how could he agree to being a side-piece? To imagine Hanjun with someone else made him taste vinegar.
“Now I’m doing what I can so we can be together, but there are some things I simply cannot do, and failing my family is one of them. I have to have a child.”
“I could…” Li Ying’s mind was rushing to find a solution. “We can get a child just fine: surrogacy! I mean, all the rich fucks use surrogates just because they don’t want to sag. I’ve watched reality TV, I’ve seen it! So, why can’t we do it?”
Hanjun was taking mental damage from Li Ying’s crass words.
And Li Ying was not done, either, “Can’t you just, with all due respect, tell your family to fucking get over it?”
Hanjun frowned, but as Li Ying didn’t back down, he said, “I can’t tell them to… ‘fuckingget over it.’ They won’t. And I…” Hanjun paused abruptly, closing his eyes to gather himself. “I’m to inherit my family’s legacy of over three hundred years. I love you, Li Ying, but I can’t so easily throw it all away, because it isn’t just about me. What you have to understand is that it’s never just about you over there; it’s always aboutfamily.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound so alien to me, actually. You know, I might be American-born, but I’ve learned my share of family values.”
“Then you understand I must exhausteveryother option before choosing to get myself disowned!” Hanjun faced Li Ying again. “And I didn’t intend to dismiss your experiences,” he added in a gentler voice.
“But making me a mistress is an option?” Li Ying asked.
“You’re not a ‘mistress.’”
“What’s the other word, for guys? Anyway, are those your terms?”
