Chapter 5: Officially Announcing the Marriage
He was already putting on an act?
Zhu Zhixi almost wanted to give him a thumbs-up.
With that face and those acting skills, doing academia was such a waste. He should enter showbiz instead. He could even raise the average education level of the entertainment industry all by himself.
“Oh my, you two really are loving. You look very well-matched too.” The staff member had unknowingly gotten hooked on fake sweetness. “I work here, and I rarely see Alphas and Betas registering for marriage. Most are AO couples. You two must love each other very much to have come together.”
Not at all.
Zhu Zhixi badly wanted to hold back his laughter, but he could hardly suppress it. He had no choice but to turn his face and stare at Fu Rangyi’s icy expression, pressing his lips together so he would not laugh out loud.
Fu Rangyi clearly could not listen anymore either. He smiled and asked, “The procedures are almost done, right?”
“Yes. Next is taking the photo. The room is this way. I’ll take you there.”
The two followed behind, walking side by side with a bit of distance between them. After taking two steps, Zhu Zhixi moved a little closer.
He had a bad habit when walking. He always liked to squeeze up against people. No matter which friend was beside him, he would eventually end up walking shoulder to shoulder with them.
It was the same now. Facing this unfamiliar “fiancé,” he had absolutely no sense of proper distance and leaned in very close, asking in a low voice, “Is your name Rangyi from ‘ji bing rang yi’?”
“A virtuous man takes hardship upon himself and gives ease to others.” To keep the difficulties for oneself and give convenience to others. His parents were really noble-minded, setting such a high moral standard for their newborn child.
When he received no answer, Zhu Zhixi turned to look at him and found that his expression looked extremely awful.
What happened? Did I say something wrong?
“It has nothing to do with you.”
Zhu Zhixi almost rolled his eyes. With that personality, he had gone completely against his parents’ expectations.
He slowed his steps and hid behind Fu Rangyi, silently mimicking him: “It has nothing to do with you~”
“Come, you two newlyweds, please stand here.”
Following the instructions, the two walked into the studio one after the other. The staff member in charge of photography took a test shot and noticed that the atmosphere was a little strange. They were clearly two very well-matched people, but once they stood together, there was always a reluctant, forcibly-pieced-together feeling.
“You two, please stand a little closer. This photo is going on your marriage certificate, after all. Yes, the taller handsome gentleman, move a little to the right.”
Fu Rangyi was still caught in his earlier mood and did not want to cooperate.
“Oh, smile a little sweeter. Don’t be shy!”
Fu Rangyi silently stared at the photographer.
There was really no need to be this passionate about their job.
But very soon, he realized this person was not even the most passionate one in the room.
After hearing the instruction, Zhu Zhixi suddenly stuck himself to Fu Rangyi’s arm with a smack, like a little magnet. He even turned and reached out, tugging at the corners of Fu Rangyi’s mouth.
“Smile a little.”
After saying that, he muttered in an extremely low, gritted voice, “Come on, brother, just smile already. One smile and it’ll be over. Otherwise they’ll keep taking photos forever. There are real couples waiting in line behind us. Delaying someone else’s happy occasion will bring karma…”
So Fu Rangyi curved his lips and, in nearly the same volume, stared at him and said, “There were also real couples waiting at the form-filling area. Someone who can’t even remember his own partner’s name has no right to criticize me.”
Zhu Zhixi smiled back in an extremely low voice. “I remember it now, I remember it. I’ll never forget your honorable name for the rest of my life. Can you smile now?”
Only then did Fu Rangyi curve his lips.
Zhu Zhixi took a deep breath, turned his face, and blinked at the camera.
“Sorry, my husband is just like this. He doesn’t like smiling. His facial nerves aren’t very developed.”
Hearing that form of address, Fu Rangyi nearly choked.
Zhu Zhixi was quite satisfied. Who didn’t know how to learn from the enemy in order to defeat the enemy? And this time, it was the “yi” from Fu Rangyi.
“Haha, that’s more like it. You look so nice when you smile. Come on! Three, two…”
In the past, Zhu Zhixi had never reacted at all to this kind of countdown, but now, for some reason, he felt a little moved.
Yet when the final “one” sounded, he still revealed a smile, even tilted his head slightly toward Fu Rangyi’s shoulder, and even smiled as he called out, “Cheese.”
The flash went off. In a daze, Fu Rangyi had the illusion that they were not in a marriage registration office, but at Disneyland. It all felt like they were only playing a game.
After all, this person had not even been able to write his name completely a few minutes ago.
Somehow, they had bumped into each other in this crowded amusement park, happened to be assigned to the same row of the same roller coaster, and after it ended, the staff had forcibly awarded them two warrior badges to celebrate their brave step into the graveyard of marriage.
Holding these two bright red “badges,” Fu Rangyi felt no emotional ripple. Zhu Zhixi clearly felt the same. He was now sitting at a table outside a convenience store, his entire heart occupied only by the oden he had just ordered.
“Do you want some? The daikon is especially good. I can split half for you with my chopsticks.”
“No. It’s full of additives.”
“Eating a little won’t kill you,” Zhu Zhixi muttered softly.
“It will make you die earlier.”
Fu Rangyi had thought that, given how sharp-tongued Zhu Zhixi was, he would continue arguing back. Unexpectedly, Zhu Zhixi merely bit into the daikon, shrugged, and said indistinctly, “Oh. Small problem.”
Fu Rangyi did not continue interfering with his unhealthy diet. He opened the marriage certificate and glanced at the photo.
“When we get divorced later, it’ll be here too, right?” Zhu Zhixi suddenly asked.
Hearing this, Fu Rangyi looked at him. Zhu Zhixi’s expression carried a touch of innocence, confirming Fu Rangyi’s earlier thought.
This person truly did not care at all.
Back when Fu Rangyi proposed the fake marriage, he had thought he would be refused. After all, this was definitely not a normal thing.
Yet Zhu Zhixi had agreed immediately, nodding like a chick pecking at rice, as if he also badly needed this false marriage relationship. Was he afraid of being pressured by his family to marry? Or was he, like Fu Rangyi, trying to escape something?
Fu Rangyi was too lazy to dig deeper. After all, he did not plan to have any relationship with this young master beyond being cooperative partners.
“Mm. On the divorce certificate, you’ll be the only one in the photo. No one will care even if you smile like an idiot.”
“Don’t worry.” Zhu Zhixi lifted the marriage certificate and held the couple photo beside his face. “I’ll definitely smile even happier than in this one.”
Fu Rangyi stared at him quietly.
He discovered that Zhu Zhixi had an especially striking face. Over the years, he had seen many people, many sets of features, each with their own kind of plainness, like drawings made with a finger on a snow-covered car window. The traces were shallow, disappearing with a single wipe of warmth.
But this person was different. Every detail of his face was alive.
“Why are you staring at me?” Zhu Zhixi wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Did I get food on my face?”
“No. I just zoned out.” After Fu Rangyi finished speaking, he took the certificate from Zhu Zhixi’s hand, placed it together with his own, then took out his phone, planning to take a photo.
“Are you posting it on WeChat Moments?” Zhu Zhixi leaned over to look.
This person really seemed to need a married status very badly. He looked like he wished he could announce it to the whole world in the newspaper: he was married. Was he that desperate to get married?
Fu Rangyi did not answer. He casually took a photo, did not even check it, and directly opened WeChat to edit a Moments post.
“No, this photo looks too fake. Nobody announces their marriage like this.” Zhu Zhixi took the certificates, then reached out to ask Fu Rangyi for his phone.
Fu Rangyi wanted to know what kind of trouble he could stir up, so he simply handed it over. “Then how should it be announced?”
“If you don’t want to show your faces, then at least show two hands.”
Zhu Zhixi moved the oden aside, placed the two marriage certificates neatly on the table, and said, “I’ve seen other people post it before. They usually stack two hands here, and sometimes they even add their cat or dog’s little paw. It’s super cute. But we don’t need that. I’m not raising a pet with you…”
“Don’t you get tired from talking this much every day?” Fu Rangyi could not help interrupting.
“No. My qi and blood are very abundant.” Zhu Zhixi blinked at him, wanting to ask, Are you very weak?
Fu Rangyi was speechless.
“Mm… Anyway, we need two hands.” After Zhu Zhixi finished speaking, he immediately added, “I know you don’t want to hold hands. Don’t worry. I can stack my left hand over my right hand. First I’ll roll up the sleeve on my right hand, and then like this… See? Doesn’t it look like two different people? Hurry and take the picture. Hold the phone a little higher. Don’t capture my arm.”
Fu Rangyi stared at his twisted, somewhat funny posture, then glanced at the phone screen’s viewfinder.
Zhu Zhixi was working very hard to use visual misdirection to make his two hands look a little different, to the point that it was getting tiring.
“Have you taken it yet?”
If not, he might have to change poses.
Just as he was thinking this, in the next second, he heard Fu Rangyi ask softly, “Can I hold your hand?”
“Huh?” Zhu Zhixi froze and looked up at him.
Why was he suddenly being so polite…
“Your hands are too small. It looks fake.”
“Are they?” Zhu Zhixi craned his neck to look at the phone’s viewfinder, then looked up at him. “Then what do you want to do?”
In the next second, his wrist was gently held. The hand he had placed on top to pretend was moved away.
Fu Rangyi then reached out his right hand and loosely covered the back of the remaining hand, leaving a slight distance between them. It was a pose that looked very close, yet did not actually press together or touch.
After setting the pose, he very quickly took the photo.
“It’s done.”
“Ah, okay.”
Zhu Zhixi came back to himself, looked at his own hand that had just been criticized for being too small, and rubbed his fingers together.
Please. With one hand, I can grab two emu eggs. I’ve caught baby crocodiles barehanded. I can pitch tents, start fires, rock climb… These are a pair of very powerful hands!
After looking for a while, he suddenly remembered something and opened his palm.
The countdown had actually stopped again.
Strange. It stops even without skin contact?
The effect is this good?
“Done.” In the blink of an eye, Fu Rangyi had already posted on Moments.
Zhu Zhixi had not had time to look. He leaned over, wanting to sneak a glance. “What? I haven’t even guided you on the caption yet. Let me see.”
“It’s already posted. Go look yourself.”
Zhu Zhixi paused for a second, then stretched out his index finger and poked Fu Rangyi twice on the shoulder. “But we’re not even WeChat friends yet, husband.”
Fu Rangyi’s expression changed. “Can you stop calling me random things?”
“What’s wrong? You don’t like it? I thought all you Alphas liked being called husband.” Zhu Zhixi had no fear of death and was even enjoying teasing him a little. “Then you come up with one. The two of us are married now. No matter what, we should have some kind of pet name, or it’ll look too fake. How about you call me husband and I call you old—”
“No need.” Fu Rangyi frowned. “Please call me by my full name. Hearing titles I shouldn’t hear affects my mood.”
Teacher Fu, has your mood ever been good?
Did someone get jealous because you publish too many papers and secretly swap your Xiaoyao Pills for chocolate beans? How vicious.
But on the surface, he was extremely obedient. “Mm-hm, Fu Rangyi, please add Zhu Zhixi on WeChat and send over Fu Rangyi and Zhu Zhixi’s official marriage announcement photo, okay?”
How could there be someone like this? The moment Fu Rangyi thought about having to cooperate with him for six months, his already gloomy life seemed to darken a few shades further.
Zhu Zhixi, however, was still rather pleased. After receiving the photo, he zoomed in, zoomed out, zoomed in, zoomed out, carefully examining it back and forth. Suddenly, his hand paused, and he looked up.
“Ah, I found a bug.”
Fu Rangyi looked over. “What?”
“There are no wedding rings!” He raised the photo. “Two bare hands. Whose official marriage announcement photo has no wedding rings?”
In truth, he had not noticed it at first either. He had only been looking at Fu Rangyi’s hand.
His hand was very good-looking, long and slender, with distinct knuckles. Very quickly, Zhu Zhixi noticed a scar on Fu Rangyi’s ring finger. The scar was actually very small and shallow, but against his overly pale skin, it appeared somewhat obvious.
Immediately afterward, Zhu Zhixi finally realized what was wrong.
Both of their ring fingers were completely empty.
“Then we’ll go buy them now,” Fu Rangyi said directly.
Good heavens. What a great leap in social class. I’ve directly become the queen of the Kingdom of Hurry-Hurry.
Zhu Zhixi waved his hand. “There’s no need to rush that much, right? It’s fine. It’s both our first time getting married. It’s normal not to have experience. We’ll know next time.”
Fu Rangyi frowned again.
He did not respond to that remark and lowered his head to search for nearby branded jewelry stores on his own, quickly skimming through a few.
Fu Rangyi knew absolutely nothing about jewelry like rings and necklaces. On the other hand, he knew very clearly which brands of suppressor bracelets and collars were useful, had complete functions, and strong blocking performance.
After thinking it over, Fu Rangyi planned to ask the playboy Li Qiao for help. This person had plenty of dating experience and was also fond of giving gifts. But before he could finish editing the WeChat message, a phone call came in first.
The caller was labeled: Father.
He silently took a deep breath, removed his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and answered the call with a dark expression.
“Hello?”
Just as he expected, once the other party saw the Moments post, he would definitely contact him. He simply had not expected it to be this fast.
A dense string of questions poured into his ear like rain.
Fu Rangyi leaned against the back of the chair, his hand resting on the table. The tabletop still had a little water stain left from the condensation of the hot steam from the oden paper cup. His fingertips gently circled over the droplets. He remained silent until the other party finished asking, then responded.
“It’s not ‘casually finding someone to marry.’ This person is the marriage partner you wanted. My mentor introduced him. Weren’t you very satisfied at the time? Have you already forgotten?”
He did not say the name, but his gaze unconsciously moved in that person’s direction.
At some point, Zhu Zhixi had left the table.
Without his glasses, his vision was not that clear. Everything was blurred like a watercolor painting. The winter sun disappeared too quickly. At the end of the street, the sky was dyed blue-purple, and the pink dusk was sinking. The warm, sweet scent of butter drifted over from the bakery at the street corner. Along both sides of the road, lights gradually came on in the buildings. Outside the convenience store, the string lights wrapped around the giant Christmas tree had also been switched on, flashing continuously to the rhythm of a Christmas song.
Zhu Zhixi was crouching beside the tree, holding a cat treat from who knew where, teasing an orange cat.
The specks of light from the tree fell on his fluffy white down jacket, like broken stars dancing across a vast snowy field.
Facing his father’s slightly doubtful question, which he could not help asking out of surprise, Fu Rangyi answered with a question of his own.
“If I didn’t like him, why would I marry him?”
A rhetorical question seemed to be insufficient, so he casually told another lie.
“I liked him the first time we met. He has a nice personality, he’s pretty, and we get along very well.”
When people lie, in order to make the lie more believable, they always add a tiny bit of truth into it, like the quarter piece of fresh strawberry decorating a slice of cake full of additives and vegetable cream.
Just after he said this, he saw that big fat cat bite onto the already emptied cat treat wrapper. Zhu Zhixi seemed afraid it would accidentally eat the plastic and pulled hard at it.
He could not even win a tug-of-war against a cat.
Fu Rangyi found it funny, so he truly laughed out loud and became distracted.
Because of this, when the person on the other end of the phone suggested that the two families have dinner together, he did not hear clearly at all and agreed perfunctorily.
By the time he regretted it afterward, it was already too late. His parents had already bypassed him and made arrangements with his “in-laws.”
“You didn’t say we had to have dinner too!”
When they arrived downstairs at the restaurant, Zhu Zhixi was still very confused. He turned his head to look at Fu Rangyi. “So sudden? Is there a fast-forward button hidden in your palm that I can’t see?”
Just like the countdown in my palm that you can’t see.
Fu Rangyi did not want to admit this was caused by his own mistake and stubbornly said, “Is it sudden? Whose parents don’t meet after a marriage? Our order of events is already wrong.”
It was not as if they were some love-brained young couple who secretly stole their household registration book behind their parents’ backs and got married.
Zhu Zhixi had nothing to say.
The order had been wrong a long time ago.
Was it only starting to go wrong now?
He knew his dad was very satisfied with Fu Rangyi, but his brother was no easy target. Since childhood, not a single lie he had told had ever escaped this human lie detector.
He really did not want to be mocked by Zhu Zeran in front of so many people.
He also could not possibly tell them about the countdown. If there had been no solution at all, then fine, he could say it. Everyone could start preparing his funeral early and throw an earth-shattering farewell party.
The key was that things had taken a turn for the better now. If those two found out, wouldn’t one of them laugh at him for having a mental illness, while the other secretly wiped tears behind his back?
“I’m a little unprepared… Can we make another appointment with uncle and auntie next time?”
He was about to grease the soles of his feet and run, but suddenly, the collar at the back of his neck was grabbed and he was dragged back.
Such strength! Zhu Zhixi tidied his coat.
“My parents, my younger brother, your dad, and your older brother are all here. Are you sure you want to stand them up at a time like this?”
With such a powerful enemy lineup, it seemed he could only bravely march to his death.
After coming out of the elevator and arriving at the private room door, Zhu Zhixi took a deep breath.
Even through the door, he could hear the sound of conversation inside. The atmosphere was especially lively, as if they were not two brainless little spouses who had privately decided on a lifelong commitment after meeting only once, but a pair of childhood sweethearts who had finally achieved the proper result under their families’ encouragement.
Hardening his heart, he was just about to grit his teeth and push the door open when Fu Rangyi called out to him.
“Wait.”
“Mm?”
When Zhu Zhixi turned his head, Fu Rangyi gently held his elbow, lowered his head, and leaned close to his ear. His voice was very low.
“Not uncle and auntie. Mom and Dad.”
Author’s Note:
They’ve already met the parents. Can living together still be far off?
This book isn’t about the common honest, ordinary beta shou. Well, it might be a little late to remind everyone only in this chapter, hahaha. I believe everyone can already tell that Xiao Zhu is not honest at all, hahaha. In my view, beta is a gender, not a personality. It is also the gender with the largest population, so they really shouldn’t all be the same type. There must also be clever, quirky ones like Xiao Zhu. But the basic setup of an AB romance is still there: for example, betas are not controlled by pheromones, they don’t have heat periods, they can’t be marked, and so on. That means a certain someone will become very frantic later on. After all, the one in his family is not only a beta, but also a very lovable little beta.
